Quote:
Originally Posted by ilikeredheads
YVR had to temporarily suspend all arrivals last night because there were too many planes waiting on the taxiways for an empty gate. A lot of outbound planes couldn't takeoff because they were waiting to get de-iced. Apparently ground crews couldn't de-ice the planes due to new regulations from Transport Canada that prevent them from de-icing operations if visibility is lower than 1 mile. Hence, the traffic jam.
|
Any source on this? That can’t be right. Seems to me I’ve seen ground crew de-ice in shit vis before. When there is a snowstorm, the vis usually drops below 1sm. If this is true, it will paralyse all de-icing ops at the majors during a snowstorm. There must be a mistake.
As far as aircrew are concerned, visibility is not a limiting factor in deciding to de-ice or not. Outside air temp and type of precipitation are the limiting factors. Maybe one of these two was the reason why planes weren’t de-icing.
Quote:
Originally Posted by nname
Maybe they were banking on having various windows throughout the night where the snow let up just enough to allow for departure? Instead, the snow was moderate to heavy for 10 straight hours. I guess the forecast for the snow was right, just that the amount and intensity was way off, as usual (forecast 10-20cm with airport probably on the low side, actual 25-35cm airport 28cm).
After all, it's the start of the vacation for most people, maybe they don't want to ruin everyone's vacation by just cancelling everything preemptively?
This is just my guess.. I have no idea what their plan was. If they shut the airport down at 10pm when the snow intensity increased, then those late night departures can move away from the gate to allow passengers to disembark. But I guess it's easy to say this now after we already know the result...
|
Even with 30 cm of snow, it shouldn’t be a shit show like this. Seems to me YVR needs some lessons on how YYZ/YUL deal with 30+cm of snow. Ppl waiting on planes for 10 hours with only 30 cm of snow is unacceptable anywhere in Canada, as far as I’m concerned.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Calfan12
True & on Tuesday December 20 morning China Airlines 31 Vancouver YVR - Taipei TPE, Taiwan was the 1st passenger/cargo airline to depart YVR during the heavy snow on the Airbus A350-900 plane. They departed around 4:12am YVR time.
The pilots of CA 31 even let YVR Airport tower know “they needed depart at by at least 4:24” if I’m not mistaken, it was pretty interesting conversation they had with YVR Tower.
Also the other 1 that made out was, China Eastern Airlines 7598 carrying cargo from YVR -Shanghai PVG,China & on Airbus A350-900, departed several minutes after the CA 31.
Those 2 were that only ones to depart YVR before 5am Tuesday.
|
It’s called holdover times.
https://www.faa.gov/other_visit/aviation...ety/media/FAA_2021-22_HoldoverTables.pdf
Scroll down to page 10 and beyond. Look at the graphs. De-icing fluid is effective only a set amount of time from when it is applied. Past that time, if the aircraft isn’t airborne, it needs to de-ice again.
That time, referred to as holdover time, is dependant on several things. Type of fluid being applied, type of surface it is applied on, Temperature and type of precipitation.
If the holdover times are less than ~15 minutes for small planes or 30 minutes for widebodies, in general, planes won’t even bother to de-ice, as they know they won’t have enough time to takeoff. And btw, the timing starts when the de-icing company starts spraying, not when the spraying is done.
I’ll Give you an example. There was a snowstorm in YUL last Friday. 30+cm of snow. In the morning, when the snow started, a lot of planes refused to de-ice. Holdover times weren’t adequate, due to temp and type of precip.
Spoke to an A330 pilot. He said his calculation of the holdover time was 38 minutes. That might seem like a lot, but when you consider that it can take almost 30 minutes to properly de-ice an A333, the pilot knew it would be a tight window for departure so didn’t even bother. It was a waiting game for an hour or two. Eventually, as the snow weakened, de-icing was possible again.
And no, no one waited on a plane for 10 hours. Airport authorities need to be ahead of the game, and as soon as a situation like this happens, ground stops or flow measures need to be put in place. YVR was late to the game it seems.
Prev
Linear Mode
