# Another Airplane Story



## oldman (Jun 6, 2021)

This story may be interesting to our frequent flyers. 

Occasionally, I enjoy reading through my journals and I did that the other evening sitting here in my home alone because my wife is having a girl’s night out. (I wrote this last evening, but wasn’t sure if it should be posted.) I came across one story that I had forgot about the night we were flying back from LA and heading to New York. We were just under 100 miles from the airport and were preparing for our final approach into Kennedy. 

We received a weather advisory from ACARS that the airport was under a severe snowstorm warning. Heavy snow was expected to start falling within the next hour. We were about a 30-40 minutes from touchdown. Whatever was going to happen, we knew the airport would still be open when we got there, but would the runways be open, especially our’s?

I kept in touch with the tower because I wanted to know if 31R would be available. This is Kennedy’s longest runway at 14,500 feet in length. We were flying a B-767, which is a fairly large plane, loaded to full GTOW minus maybe 500 pounds. So, we needed a long runway because we would probably be touching down at around 165-180 mph and with any snow at all on the runway, we wanted some cushion to be able to slowly slow the plane before turning onto the taxiway. Jamming on the brakes was not an option. 

I decided that I would land the plane and the F/O, who had been flying the plane, quickly agreed. We had the plane configured for landing and advised the F/A’s to prepare the cabin for arrival. I then advised the passengers that we may be landing on a partially snow covered runway, so we may need to travel a little further down the runway that some of them may not be used to, so please don’t worry, we are doing what we are trained to do to keep everyone safe.

By now, we were in short final. The tower did advise us that there was some light snow on our runway and that we could either switch runways or divert. We decided to continue on with our planned landing. Just as the plane touched down, I felt the nose wheel wanting to go hard right. It kind of shook me for a few seconds. I had to apply a little more pressure on the brakes than what I wanted, so as to keep the plane straight. The plane responded as I hoped. We were able to stop well before the threshold lines on the runway and turn onto a taxiway. All was good.

Once the plane stopped at the gate, I bowed my head and gave thanks to the Lord. It wasn’t a critical or dangerous situation, but it could have been.

Thanks for reading.


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## Ruth n Jersey (Jun 6, 2021)

@oldman your stories are always interesting. Thanks for sharing this one. I would have been the passenger under the seat after realizing you were landing on a snow covered runway. 
Sometimes I think you pilots need nerves of steel.


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## JonDouglas (Jun 6, 2021)

Always appreciate those kind of stories, even though I am no longer a frequent flyer.  Like others, I eventually  got so tired of airports, queues, delayed flights, etc. that I vowed to never get on an airliner again and I haven't.  I do, though, appreciate good flying stories and would love a little stick time in a Champ.


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## fmdog44 (Jun 6, 2021)

I was in Toronto when a major winter blast hit and shut down 100% of all flights. About a half hour later an announcement came over the P>A. that my flight to Houston is back on. Why only my flight? Anyhow I boarded and had a window seat by the right wing. The ground crew was applying a massive amount of what I assumed was glycol or something similar on the wings so the flaps would not freeze. Needless to say I was a little concerned. Anyhow we took off and landed in Houston. I still wonder why my flight was the only one that flew that night.


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## 911 (Jun 7, 2021)

I remember that Air Florida flight back in the early 80's that crashed into the Potomac right after takeoff due to icing on the wings. I had a friend on that plane that drowned in those icy waters. To this day, his last words to me still haunts me. We were talking about his trip the next day when he said he hoped that it wouldn't snow before he took off. He told me that he is always kind of nervous on winter takeoffs. Well, it happened.


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## Gaer (Jun 7, 2021)

Old Man:  You have the most exciting experiences!  Wow!


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## Chet (Jun 7, 2021)

My only flying/snow story is that our flight to LA for work was postponed because of a snow storm and we left the next day. After our work was done and we were back at home, I got a phone call from LA police that I had a parking ticket. Since the rental car was signed out to me for pickup on the day we should have arrived, the snow day, someone took it that day and they were the one's who parked in a no parking zone. I explained and the police accepted the explanation.  Not a very exciting story.


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## oldman (Jun 7, 2021)

911 said:


> I remember that Air Florida flight back in the early 80's that crashed into the Potomac right after takeoff due to icing on the wings. I had a friend on that plane that drowned in those icy waters. To this day, his last words to me still haunts me. We were talking about his trip the next day when he said he hoped that it wouldn't snow before he took off. He told me that he is always kind of nervous on winter takeoffs. Well, it happened.


Yes, I remember when this happened. I am sorry about your friend. Maybe he had a premonition about his flight. We’ll never know. What we do know is that pilot error brought the plane down. The pilots were in a hurry to takeoff and after waiting for the snow to subside they failed to return for de-icing or to use their wing de-icers. Instead, the Captain got behind a larger jet and thought he could use the exhaust to melt the snow. It didn’t work, the plane took off and never gained lift. 

I also flew on that day. The Air Florida flight went out of Washington National. I flew out of Dulles heading to Dallas. It had started snowing early that day. Dulles did not close, but they did shut runways down for plowing and spreading de-icing materials. We were about an hour late leaving.


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## oldman (Jun 7, 2021)

Gaer said:


> Old Man:  You have the most exciting experiences!  Wow!


Here’s another one. We had just left Las Vegas and going to Philadelphia. We were climbing out, but it was slow. The air was very heavy that day, so as we climbed, I extended the flaps by one notch going from flaps 5 to 10. Probably doesn’t mean much to anyone, but good information. As we climbed above 25,000 feet, I retracted the flaps back to flaps 5, but the right flap did not retract. We decided to continue the climb to our cruising altitude of 37,000 feet.  

We have trained for this in the simulator. I never experienced this happening and I thought we would get more pitch trim than necessary, but we only got a minimal trim amount. However, it does require the pilots to hand fly the plane, meaning not using the autopilot. Having one flap extended kind of made me wonder if I was going to be able to extend the flaps as we descended. 

Again, I had to inform the passengers in the cabin of the situation. If the flap extends, we are in great shape, but if that flap doesn’t move, we will be landing very fast. The nose is going to want to pull down and could put us in a stall warning situation and a pilot never wants that to happen. As we entered Philadelphia airspace, I contacted the tower and apprised them of our situation. The ATC asked if we would need emergency services on the tarmac. I told them no, but have them standing by.

When we got down to 15,000 feet. I extended the left flap to 10 to align with the right flap. After a few minutes, we were down to 10,000 feet and time to extend both flaps, so here we go. Let’s see what’s going to happen. I called for flaps 15 and YES, both flaps extended. Soon, we are at 7000 feet and we go another notch and at 2000 feet, we extend to full flaps.

Upon landing, it’s SOP for the pilots to fully retract the flaps. Wouldn’t you know it. The flaps fully retracted. At the gate, I notified  maintenance of the problem and then I went to the office and filed my paperwork.


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