American Airlines 'flew wrong plane' to Hawaii

The Telegraph ^ | 9/13/15 | Bonnie Malkin

[BatGuano]

“Overwater” does not mean the same as ETOPS. In addition to paperwork, the carrier must maintain the aircraft to an even higher standard and the MEL or Minimum Equipment List is different. For example, a flight from Denver to Dallas could be dispatched with a generator inop. Not so if flying from LAX to HNL.

[BerryDingle]

This is a big deal because it took a lot of people all screwing up in their jobs for this to happen.

Equal Opportunity, White House style.

[PAR35]

I wouldn’t expect this story to get big play in the Dallas News. Now, if it was about Delta, it would make at least a section front in that paper.

[Rome2000]

I’ll still take these guys over the clowns at Spirit Airlines.

I was on one their flights and the guy (some kind of Pakistani) called a missed approach in perfect weather at noon on a sunny day.

With all the antics I see the pilots and flight attendants up to I worry about the maintenance guys.

[bgill]

Not much would get me on a plane these days………if I can’t drive there, I don’t go there……...

Same here. About half the time I've flown, there was some incident the passengers knew about. It's guaranteed the other half we weren't told about. No thanks. I'll drive or better yet stay home.

[Squawk 8888]

called a missed approach in perfect weather at noon on a sunny day

Weather is the least of the reasons for calling a missed approach. A colleague of mine was on a flight where the captain called a missed approach because someone drove a truck onto the runway.

[cynwoody]

Well, what else could they do at that point?

Order it to land at the nearest airport?

youtube.com/watch?v=JpUehrZP4ic

[cynwoody]

Instead, they continued on to Hawaii, crossing something like 1200 miles over ocean that they were not certified to cross. And then they made a return trip to California, crossing 2400 miles over ocean that they were not certified to cross.

1200 miles? or 3600 miles?

Big difference.

The return flight was empty except for the crew.

Passenger welfare was maximized. They made it to Hawaii approximately on time while experiencing approximately the same amount of non-reg over-water risk as they would have, had the airline returned them to the mainland to catch a later, regulation-compliant flight.

Moreover, had they been returned to the mainland, they would have then needed to experience an additional 2400 unnecessary miles of regulation-compliant risk. That's an additional lossage, especially considering that there probably isn't much difference in the two levels of risk.

[Rome2000]

I’ve experienced three

Once the runway wasn’t clear. Pilot said there was a plane that took a little too much time to take off as he was landing, the other time due a ridiculously low ceiling in foggy conditions at MSY.

Not sure why this one happened, pilot just apolgized for the missed approach, hard landing too.

[Tzfat]

I am intimately acquainted with this particular aircraft configuration. At AA there are 4 levels of overwater A320 series, ETOPS being the most restrictive - and in some cases you can’t easily determine which variant in the flight deck.

[Tzfat]

AA does not use that marking on the nose.

[BatGuano]

Maybe they should....that is still no excuse for not knowing in what category your aircraft is certified to operate. Our log books were marked on the covers “ETOPS.”

[Tzfat]

ETOPS is listed on the flight release as Special Equipment.

That means that it may not have even been the flight crew that messed up. It might have been as simple as the special equipment list being incorrectly registered in the database for ETOPS. That would explain how Aircraft Routing, Dispatch, Maintenance, and Flight Ops all missed the fact that that nose number was not certified.

All AA’s A321s are configured the same in systems. Even those that are not certified ETOPS must maintain ETOPS APU checks etc. It is only a paperwork differentiation.

[JoeFromSidney]

Apparently someone one wanted tape one foot wide because they had holed a plane with a fork lift.

They'd need to ferry the aircraft to a repair center. The hole would need to be covered up for the ferry flight.

[meatloaf]

Thanks for the info. I wondered about that.

[BatGuano]

In the end AA gets fined and, hopefully, we all learn from the mistake. I retired 15 years ago and flew ETOPS from the early 90’s to 2000. Mostly to and from Europe. Before entering the North Atlantic tracks, we had to send an “E OK” message to dispatch. All involved knew what animal we had strapped on.
Flew the B-777 shortly after it came out and it was certified for 180 minutes “off the shelf.” No ETOPS to Hawaii yet back then. I flew the 737 back when we thought that Knoxville to New York was too long!

[Tzfat]

A320 series’s myself. There are often times we have to dig deeper to find if the a/c is limited 50, 161, or 406 over water because it is not clear. My guess is they have a set of nose numbers they are moving to ETOPS and some one jumped the gun in entering this particular tail number into the system. No doubt a fine is coming, and new procedures for identifying in the flight deck so a paperwork snafu does not happen again.

[Tzfat]

BTW, it looks like it was an H model, which is ETOPS, but that particular H had not been actually cleared for ETOPS. The crew will likely be cleared.

[BatGuano]

In the final analysis a lesson is learned and that is good.
Were the passengers in danger? No, was the airplane capable of flying the trip? Yes. The Ferry flight to return was a bit overboard...fix the paper work, debrief all involved, and brief all who will fly ETOPS and then board the pax and go home. My son is flying the A320 and A321. They are different animals, for sure.
Cheers.