8.9 earthquake hits 373km/231mi off of Japan

[A Guy Called Tyketto]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1


It's all over the major outlets. CNN, BBC, NHK, The Age, SMH,
you name it. They felt it in Tokyo, which was also hit by a tsunami.
Both RJAA/NRT and RJTT/HND are closed, as they are completely flooded
out. How this will affect current flights coming in is a good question.
Most/all local flights are cancelled or diverted to Kansai (RJBB/KIX),
which is filling up enough as is.

Tsunami watches are already in effect for Guam, Indonesia,
Taiwan, N. Mariana Islands, the Philippines (already up to level 2),
Russia, and Hawaii.

Incredible stuff..

BL.
- --
Brad Littlejohn | Email: ***@sbcglobal.net
Unix Systems Administrator, | ***@ozemail.com.au
Web + NewsMaster, BOFH.. Smeghead! :) | http://www.wizard.com/~tyketto
PGP: 1024D/E319F0BF 6980 AAD6 7329 E9E6 D569 F620 C819 199A E319 F0BF

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.11 (GNU/Linux)

iD8DBQFNeeAWyBkZmuMZ8L8RAihYAKCzCb0o+rN3tjeDu4oJ+jzU/dAL4gCg3mLX
w+UFXI6S+cN3S6bfq7V4ARs=
=8TzW
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
--
misc.travel.air-industry is a moderated newsgroup. Please mail messages to
***@airinfo.aero, and see http://mtai.airinfo.aero for the FAQ and policies.

[JF Mezei]

Post by A Guy Called Tyketto
It's all over the major outlets.

Thanks for the heads up.

BBC is showing footage of water flowing onto airport tarmac with it
rising until the jetways are near water level. Looks like this is quite
serious.

I assume that many aircraft at airports that were flooded will be in for
some heavy duty maintenance to get salt water damage out. (or are they
total write offs due to sale water corrosion ?

It is an 8.9 earthquake.
--
misc.travel.air-industry is a moderated newsgroup. Please mail messages to
***@airinfo.aero, and see http://mtai.airinfo.aero for the FAQ and policies.

[Roland Perry]

Post by JF Mezei
BBC is showing footage of water flowing onto airport tarmac with it
rising until the jetways are near water level. Looks like this is quite
serious.

That's at Sendai. The airport is on the coast. Google Maps has the
runway at 1m above sea level.

http://goo.gl/maps/fBKu

Post by JF Mezei
I assume that many aircraft at airports that were flooded will be in for
some heavy duty maintenance to get salt water damage out. (or are they
total write offs due to sale water corrosion ?

No aircraft in sight - is just a not very busy airport, or have they
been washed away? The tsunami depth has been reported as up to 30ft.

[JF Mezei]

Post by Roland Perry
That's at Sendai. The airport is on the coast. Google Maps has the
runway at 1m above sea level.

There were people on teh rooftop of some of the airport buildings. This
might indicate they had at least a few minutes of warning before the
waters arrived.

Post by Roland Perry
No aircraft in sight - is just a not very busy airport, or have they
been washed away? The tsunami depth has been reported as up to 30ft.

Yep, later saw an aeral shot and there were no planes in sight,

Say there is an earthquake, and you have a plane at a jetway. Forgetting
FAA regulations etc, how quickly could an aircraft get off te ground to
escape an incoming tsunami ? (just to save the aircraft and pilot)

Could pilot start engine at jetway, go in reverse and use nosewheel
steering to move away from jetway ?

Obvously, without much warning only planes with enough fuel in thir tnks
could even think of this.
--
misc.travel.air-industry is a moderated newsgroup. Please mail messages to
***@airinfo.aero, and see http://mtai.airinfo.aero for the FAQ and policies.

[Roland Perry]

Post by JF Mezei
Say there is an earthquake, and you have a plane at a jetway. Forgetting
FAA regulations etc, how quickly could an aircraft get off te ground to
escape an incoming tsunami ? (just to save the aircraft and pilot)

I think getting away from a jetway, if it involved reversing, would need
quite some time (maybe ten minutes to takeoff), but if you were parked
on the apron and someone could remove the steps quickly, you could halve
that. For a bigger airport than that, longer times.

Are aircraft allowed to take off without ATC approval in circumstances
like this?

[A Guy Called Tyketto]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Post by Roland Perry

Post by JF Mezei
Say there is an earthquake, and you have a plane at a jetway. Forgetting
FAA regulations etc, how quickly could an aircraft get off te ground to
escape an incoming tsunami ? (just to save the aircraft and pilot)

I think getting away from a jetway, if it involved reversing, would need
quite some time (maybe ten minutes to takeoff), but if you were parked
on the apron and someone could remove the steps quickly, you could halve
that. For a bigger airport than that, longer times.

Also take into account aircraft type and class. If the same
aircraft class you could do it in fairly successive fashion with visual
separation keeping them 3 miles apart. this obviously gets time added
on if a smaller aircraft is following a larger one (wake turbulence,
etc.). You definitely wouldn't want a BE50 following a B752 on its way
out, ignore wake turbulence advisories, and have another incident that
killed the founder of In-n-Out.

But if you staggered them well enough, keeping in mind most
airports have a standing rule of a speed no faster than 25kts for taxi,
you could get a fair number of them out without having to use LUAW/TIPH.

Post by Roland Perry
Are aircraft allowed to take off without ATC approval in circumstances
like this?

If we're talking the USA, yes, and no. ATC can tell you that
you can't take off, but as PIC, you have the final say in regards to
the safety of your aircraft. So granted you could take off on your own,
you'd have some tough questions to answer when you get to safety.

BL.
- --
Brad Littlejohn | Email: ***@sbcglobal.net
Unix Systems Administrator, | ***@ozemail.com.au
Web + NewsMaster, BOFH.. Smeghead! :) | http://www.wizard.com/~tyketto
PGP: 1024D/E319F0BF 6980 AAD6 7329 E9E6 D569 F620 C819 199A E319 F0BF

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.11 (GNU/Linux)

iD8DBQFNeyPcyBkZmuMZ8L8RAvgxAKDSunRQ1lrRjOymwOi92haBwTGatQCg4h71
cG/sOnH0wW/jQsp5c4UtRow=
=JFbT
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
--
misc.travel.air-industry is a moderated newsgroup. Please mail messages to
***@airinfo.aero, and see http://mtai.airinfo.aero for the FAQ and policies.

[Roland Perry]

So granted you could take off on your own, you'd have some tough
questions to answer when you get to safety.

Questions like "why didn't you remain on the runway with a significant
possibility of being swept out to sea"?

It seems that a Bullet train running on a coastal track a few miles
north of the Sendai airport is "missing", and people are assuming it was
struck by the 30ft tsunami.

[JF Mezei]

I know that declaring an emergency gives an aircraft more flexibility to
land at an airport. Could declaring an emergency give it more
flexibility to take off ?


Looking at the issue though, it would liekly take a lot luck to be able
to do that. Pilot in cockpit during eartquake, and crew stay long ejough
on tarmac to close cargo doors etc, pilot then starts engines, uses
thrust reversers to get out, and makes a dash to the runway, assuming it
is still usable.

So perhaps the schedules were such that there were no aircraft at Sendai
during the earthquake ?
--
misc.travel.air-industry is a moderated newsgroup. Please mail messages to
***@airinfo.aero, and see http://mtai.airinfo.aero for the FAQ and policies.

[John Clear]

Post by JF Mezei
I know that declaring an emergency gives an aircraft more flexibility to
land at an airport. Could declaring an emergency give it more
flexibility to take off ?

Declaring an emergency gives the pilot authority to do what ever is
needed to safely end the emergency situation. It doesn't give the
pilot a pass on violating regulations. If the authorities determine
the pilot needlessly violated regulations, or the pilot's actions
were the cause of the emergency, the pilot can face sanctions.

In the scenario at hand, as long as no one was endangered by taking
off without a clearance, the authorities have much bigger things
to worry about.

John

[Roland Perry]

Post by JF Mezei
So perhaps the schedules were such that there were no aircraft at Sendai
during the earthquake ?

I've looked at the schedules and it was a quiet time, with aircraft
generally turning round in half an hour. If I've got my timings right,
there was a departure scheduled ten minutes before the quake, and an
arrival ten minutes after (which would have to divert, I expect).

[JF Mezei]

Post by Roland Perry
I've looked at the schedules and it was a quiet time, with aircraft
generally turning round in half an hour. If I've got my timings right,
there was a departure scheduled ten minutes before the quake, and an
arrival ten minutes after (which would have to divert, I expect).

I guess they got lucky then.

Imagine if a 737/320 had been full and swept by the wave. I probably
would have floated nicely over open fields around the airporrt but once
it would have hit obstruction, I suspect the fuselage would have broken
up quickly.

Based on the footage I saw, this would have been some extreme white
water rafting. Could people have survived if they had used the
inflatable rafts ? Or would they have been better off to use the wings
as a glorified surfboard (but hard to get a firm grip on a smooth surface).
--
misc.travel.air-industry is a moderated newsgroup. Please mail messages to
***@airinfo.aero, and see http://mtai.airinfo.aero for the FAQ and policies.