Jungle flying continued...

So we push back from the gate about 2 and a half hours after our original push time. Turns out, this will be a good thing and a bad thing. The line of storms I had mentioned earlier had really started started forming into a solid line. There were a few gaps between MSP and DSM, but they were closing by the minute. The good thing about pushing so late is that the later DSM flight actually left about 5 minutes before we did. We ended up following them in their attempt to find a gap to fly thru. With out having them as guinea pigs, I would have been pioneering my way through rough territory solo. Not that its a bad thing, but having someone lead the way, really helps. So with the help of our on board radar and the other DSM flight leading the way, we picked our way thru the line of storms. It was a rough ride, but nothing too bad. As we broke out of the clouds around 8,000 ft, we could see the airport which was about 25 miles away. At this point it was going to be a race to the field between us and the thunderstorm. This was also the point where I had a discussion with the check airman about what are we going to do if we cant land in DSM. We did not have an alternate filed because the ceilings and visibilities did not call for one, so I needed to think quickly to give ourselves an out in case we didn't beat the storm. I am semi familiar with the layout of Iowa and the airports we fly to. I knew approximately where the storm was and what airports where ahead of the weather. I quickly picked Cedar Rapids as our "go to" airport in case we didn't make DSM.

As we were preparing for the approach into DSM, the winds dramatically shifted. We were expecting to land on runway 23, but the winds were now favoring 31. While we were busy preparing for the runway change in the cockpit, the controllers were now busy trying to vector traffic for the new runway. We were approaching from the southwest, while another regional jet was approaching from the northeast. We were given a right turn to a heading of 270 to swing us around for the new runway. At the same time the other regional jet was given a heading to join the final from the northeast. The next thing I hear on the radio is "Company callsign, 5789 make an IMMEDIATE left turn to heading 200 for traffic!!" That's all I needed to hear, I clicked the auto pilot off and made a freight dog style turn to the new heading. It wasn't a hard turn, just a little too quick for the check airman's taste. He had his head down while he was preparing the FMS, so he wasn't prepared for the abrupt turn. It spooked him. (later, after all the dust settled for the day we asked the flight attendant if the passengers got scared when I made the turn. She said nobody really noticed. They were already getting beat up from the turbulence and vectors, so when I made the hard turn, nobody really cared.) So now we need to do a 360 to let the other jet do their approach first. All the while the storm is approaching the field. As we make our turn inbound, we could see the storm sitting only a few miles north of the airport. The tower cleared us to land and gave us the updated winds, 290-330 at 30 gusting to 45, nice. Right after we dropped the gear and put in our final notch of flaps, tower came on and gave us a windshear warning. The checkairman and I exchanged looks and I said we were going to continue because it is still acceptable according to our manuals. Somehow the aircraft in front of us landed, so we thought we could make it as well. Wrong! As we were passing through 500 feet above the ground, we got the windshear warning on our display screens. This means we are obligated to go around. So I call "go around, go around thrust, flaps 8" and I proceed to go around. At this point its all asses and elbows in the cockpit. We are extremely busy flying the plane, re-configuring, making radio calls, re-setting up the FMS and telling atc that we are outta there. There was no way I was going to try another approach. I decided to head right to Cedar Rapids, so we did.

So now we are on our way to CID. It is only 80 miles or so away, so now we are extremely busy getting ready to go to a new airport. We need to notify dispatch we are diverting and get a new release, notify the flight attendant and passengers, check our fuel status, get out the new approach plates, get the weather at CID, prepare the aircraft for another approach, call station ops at CID and let them know we are coming and fly the plane. Busy, busy, busy. That 80 miles goes by quickly in a jet. In all, I think it took less than 20 minutes to go from go-around to landing in CID. As we landed in CID, we did not have a gate to park at. There was another plane at the gate, so we sat for an hour on the ramp until the gate opened up. Our dispatcher wanted us to gas'n'go. I was going to have none of that nonsense. If we were going to try and go back to DSM, I wanted to look at the radar and get the big picture. I was not about to go trouncing thru that line of weather again with out seeing what is really going on. So as we pulled to the gate and I started making my way up the jetbridge, a ramp agent asked me when we were leaving again. I said I didn't know yet and I'd get back to them. They then made a remark that the flight was cancelled and we needed to move the plane a.s.a.p for another inbound flight. As politely as I could, I told them to settle down, I'd talk to the company and find out what is happening. I got on a computer at the gate and took a look at the radar, there was no way I was going to head back thru that line of storms. It was now in between CID and DSM and making its way to our location.
When I got on the phone with our dispatcher, the first words out of his mouth were "well we can just gas you up and send you back out". To which I replied "O.K, but we are going to have to sit here for a few hours until that line of weather clears. These passengers have been through enough today, I don't think heading back into those thunderstorms is a good idea." He quickly relented and asked to speak with the station manager. They then cancelled the flight, but here is the kicker, they wanted to cancel the flight and blame it on weather so that they didn't have to reimburse any of the passengers. At this point the check airman had enough. He got on the phone and took over. He made absolutely sure that the passengers were taken care of. Weather may have been a contributing factor as to why we were in CID, but ultimately it was our dispatchers fault for telling the gate agent in MSP an erroneous cargo weight, compounded with a mechanical problem that led to an aircraft swap. Had we left on time, weather would not have been an issue.

After getting the passenger situation handled (we had to take our case all the way up the chain of command to a big company regional manager), we were then told to ferry the aircraft to MEM to continue on our trip in the morning. Fine, but by the time we got our new release, fuel and got the plane ready to go, the storms were approaching the airport quick. We fired up the engines and started to make our way to the runway. Tower advised us that the storm was sitting off the departure end of the runway. We could see it out the windows and it was close. As soon as we were cleared for take off and made the turn on to the runway, we realised we couldn't make it. We would have departed right into it. So we had to taxi back to the ramp where we sat in the plane for the next hour and a half waiting for the storms to pass. By this time, we had timed out. We were limited to a 14 hour duty day while conducting I.O.E. So we were now going to overnight in CID. Only problem with that....a serious lack of hotels. Due to all the flooding and our stranded passengers, there was not a hotel to be found for 40 miles. By the time we found one, it was approaching 10:00pm and we had been on duty since 7:30am. Even though the hotel we found was 40 miles away, it wasn't all that bad. It was a casino resort and the rooms were fantastic. It was a nice ending to a day from hell.

Although this was a really hard day, I wouldn't have traded it for anything. On one of my training sheets, there is a whole checklist of things that need to be covered. Many of the things on this list you just talk about. In this one day, we checked off about 50% of the things we needed to cover because we actually did them. I'm also glad this was with a check airman, I was glad to have his help and experience sitting in the right seat.

Welcome to the Jungle!

Sitting in the right seat, you really don't have all that much responsibility. The typical F.O duties are to do the walk around, get the clearance, set up the FMS, V-speeds and read checklists. When the proverbial shit hits the fan, the Captain shoulders 100% of the responsibility and is accountable for everything that pertains to that flight. My first day of Captain O.E gave me more experience in that department than anything I have ever experienced before.



Day one was to be a 5 leg day. MSP-DLH-MSP-DSM-MEM-CHA was our scheduled trip. Due to some extreme circumstances, we flew 3 legs and didn't even make it to DSM. Our first out and back went very well. It felt weird to sit in the left seat and taxi the plane, but it was still a rush. Leg 3 is where "it" hit the fan.



Our planned flight was MSP-DSM. That's Minneapolis to Des Moine, IA. Its not a long flight and should have been a cake walk, but it was not to be. The first sign things were going to go bad was when we showed up to the gate. A quick glance at our release showed the plane had a deferred pack. A pack is an air conditioning unit that cools the cabin. We have 2 on board, but when one is not working, the plane doesn't cool very well. The weather in MSP was hot. 86 degrees F and sunny. This meant the plane was going to be hot and hard to cool down. The second sign things were trending downwards was we were going to have a full plane with a jumpseater up front with us. On short flights, we are usually weight restricted due to the aircraft being naturally nose heavy and a relatively high max landing weight. We overheard the gate agent talking to our dispatcher about weight and balance, we heard our dispatcher tell the gate agent that the magic number for getting the jumpseater on was 1600 in cargo. So when the cargo slip was handed up to us and saw 1680, we thought we were good to go. We closed the door, pushed back and began our long taxi to the other side of the airport. As soon as we began our taxi, we noticed the cabin temp rapidly climbing. All three of us sitting in the cockpit were sweating, I can only imagine how badly we'd have been sweating if we were in back with the Pax. The cabin temp reached over 95 degrees F. With only 1 pack operating, it was impossible to keep the cabin cool. We got all the way over to the far side of the airport and got a dreaded call from operations. We were nose heavy and needed to return to the gate for ballast or needed to kick the jumpseater off. We had already been taxiing for 15 min and another 15 back to the gate was not welcome news. ATC was not all the pleased either, because now we had to go against traffic to get back to the terminal. As we were crossing at the aiport on our way back to the ramp, we get a call from the flight attendant. There was a passenger on board that has a medical condition that is being aggravated by the cramped quarters and heat. I haven't had a medical problem on board before, so this was new to me. We quickly got on the radio with station operations and told them we would be returning to a gate and we needed one immediately. We told them we had a passenger on board that was having difficulty and we needed to get to a gate. We called back to the flight attendant and asked if the passenger would need medical assistance. Apparently the condition was worsening and she requested the paramedics meet us at the gate. Thankfully Ops. was on the ball and found us a gate, ramp crew and paramedics on short order. As soon as the engines spooled down, we dropped the door and the passenger was able to get the medical attention she needed.

So while we attended to the passenger in the jetway, we had another 50 pax sitting in a hot aluminium tube that is not getting any cooler. As soon as we could, we de-planed the pax. It was unfair to them to have to sit in that aircraft. So now I had to make my first captain decision. Do I re-board the pax on to this hot plane and put them through this ordeal again? Or do I try and find another plane to use. I chose option 2. There was no way I was going to take that plane again unless it cooled down. Even with the ground air hooked up, all window shades down and Gasper's open, the plane did not cool down. So, we politely told dispatch we were not going to take this aircraft unless it cooled down. Thankfully, there was another plane sitting at the gate right next door that we could take. Now its time for an aircraft swap ballet.

While the pax were switching gates and getting ready to board the new plane, the check airman left me in charge of the release and getting us fuel. I had known from the previous attempted flight that there was a line of thunderstorms popping up across our route of flight. When I checked the radar for the previous flight it was a line of popcorn cells. By now, it was developing into a fairly solid line. I took a look at our routing and saw that this line of storms would be smack dab right in the middle of our route and pushing their way towards our destination of DSM. You could see from the radar loop that the storms were building into a pretty massive line of activity. The line extended south west from the U.P of Michigan all the way to Nebraska. So now I'm thinking I need all the fuel I can get in case we need to fly around a bit until we find a hole to poke through, only problem is, dispatch doesn't want to give it to me. He seems to think we'll be O.K with only 500lbs of "C" fuel. (C fuel is contingency fuel. Just in case gas.) I, on the other hand, think 1500 lbs (about 40 minutes worth) is better. He tried to push me into accepting only 500 lbs, because he said the storms we not supposed to hit DSM for another few hours, but I wasn't buying it. I may be a new captain, but I've been around enough to know when asking for a little more gas is the smart thing to do. So finally after a 15min phone call to get the extra gas, he relents, he gives us 1400lbs. Not quite what I wanted, but its the best we could do and still take all 50 pax.

We load up all the pax, take care of the paperwork, get the plane all ready to fly and head off for attempt number 2 at getting to DSM. I'll finish the flight in another post......there's plenty more to come.