disturbing call from spiffytoo

[spiffyone]

OK, so Duncan is in Ohio at a conference. He flew this AM on Continental - one regional jet flight from PVD to Cleveland (Chatauqua) and one Dash-8 flight from Cleveland to Columbus. His tale of woe is that when he got to PVD, the pilot explained that because of a mechanical problem, the plane could not carry a full weight load and would have to fly more slowly than usual (adding about an hour to flight time). At this point several people got off the plane (I would have). He said, as an aside, that the explanation was not helped by the fact that the pilot, who was quite young, resembled Spiccoli from Fast Times at Ridgemont High ("Like, the plane can fly and everything, you know, but, like, we'll have to go slow, dude.") I tracked the flight and it flew a very roundabout way - kind of an S shape over upstate NY, then way south over WV, then north again to Cleveland.
By the time they got there he had missed the connection, and Continental gave him a $288 taxi voucher and put him in a cab for Columbus (2 hour drive). He's taking a nap in his hotel now.
I have to say I'm not loving the idea that he has to fly Chatauqua again on Sunday. I'm actually searching the internet for one-way flights on the big airlines to see what's available, but it's mostly pretty expensive.
Anyone had anything like this happen? Can you think of a mechanical problem that would cause that scenario?

[Passenger Mark]

I haven't had anything like that happen before!

What mechanical issue would require the plane to be lightened, fly slower, and still be safe to fly within the requirements?

Maybe post this over on Captain Hutch's or Royd's forum to see what they come up with.

[tusphotog]

I've flew on RJs a lot when I lived in Portland and I've never heard of this happening before.

My guess is there was a MEL issue--but I'm not familiar with the JungleJet to give much of a guess. I'd suspect a pressurization issue. If the plane has to fly lower, it burns more gas (air is more dense), which causes it to run out of gas faster. Therefore, they have to slow down and fly lower. The "strange" flight path that you describe could be one of two things: the best wind path at a lower altitude or might have to do with traffic restrictions in the BOS/NY/CLE airspace.

I'm not sure what's more depressing though: being in Columbus or having to take a taxi from CLE to CMH. :lol:

You can always check Southwest CMH-MDW-PVD. I wouldn't worry about Chatauqua though.


OK, so Duncan is in Ohio at a conference. He flew this AM on Continental - one regional jet flight from PVD to Cleveland (Chatauqua) and one Dash-8 flight from Cleveland to Columbus. His tale of woe is that when he got to PVD, the pilot explained that because of a mechanical problem, the plane could not carry a full weight load and would have to fly more slowly than usual (adding about an hour to flight time). At this point several people got off the plane (I would have). He said, as an aside, that the explanation was not helped by the fact that the pilot, who was quite young, resembled Spiccoli from Fast Times at Ridgemont High ("Like, the plane can fly and everything, you know, but, like, we'll have to go slow, dude.") I tracked the flight and it flew a very roundabout way - kind of an S shape over upstate NY, then way south over WV, then north again to Cleveland.
By the time they got there he had missed the connection, and Continental gave him a $288 taxi voucher and put him in a cab for Columbus (2 hour drive). He's taking a nap in his hotel now.
I have to say I'm not loving the idea that he has to fly Chatauqua again on Sunday. I'm actually searching the internet for one-way flights on the big airlines to see what's available, but it's mostly pretty expensive.
Anyone had anything like this happen? Can you think of a mechanical problem that would cause that scenario?

[spiffyone]

Yup, SWA has a flight for $200, and there are a couple of AA and United flights which are also on regional carriers, I think. My husband also mentioned that the Continental guy who gave him the cab voucher (who seemed very organized, he said), told him that another Chatauqua flight had been 2 hours late that day because the flight attendant quit her job on the spot and they had to call someone to come in from home.
:eek:
I seem to remember hearing about some kind of power issue that might affect the ability to fly at certain altitudes...maybe because it had to do with pressurization...?
I wanted to post this in both forums (pilots too) but didn't know how...can someone bop it over there?

[Passenger Mark]

I wanted to post this in both forums (pilots too) but didn't know how...can someone bop it over there?

Consider it officially "bopped"!

[spiffytoo]

I just got off the phone booking a return flight home on Southwest. SWA isn't my favorite airline, but at least they usually run on time and the planes seem to be in good condition.

I'll be curious to hear what the pilots and flight attendants think about this.

The plane was an ERJ-145 (Embraer regional jet), scheduled to leave at 6:00 am from Providence to Cleveland.

30 minutes before departure, we began boarding, and the agents said that they needed a few volunteers to take other flights, since the flight was overbooked, and the plane would not be able to fly with all seats full. I have heard of weather conditions sometimes dictating empty seats, so I wasn't alarmed.

We boarded the plane and took our seats. Again the stewardess asked for volunteers, offering a $250 voucher, but no one took her up. I reflected that back in grad school I used to get vouchers this way all the time, but I wanted to get to my conference and didn't take her up on it.

Then, the pilot gets on, and in a very droll and roundabout way, informs us that our flight will be arriving in Cleveland an hour late, because we can't fly at normal cruising speed. He then proceeds to give us a verbose description - "too much information," as the teenagers say - as to exactly what was wrong with the plane. I believe that the pilot said that a "service bay door" was missing. He tried to reassure us that the plane was perfectly safe nonetheless - though using the tone of voice of Spicoli from Fast Times at Ridgemont High didn't bring about the desired effect. :rolleyes:

The right thing to do would have been to announce this back at 5:30, when we could have chosen to go through Newark instead. That way there would be no missed connections.

Instead, you can imagine what happened. We all look at our itineraries and see we won't make our connections, and now suddenly several people want off the plane. The door is still open, but the baggage hold has been sealed. So the baggage crew has to be called back to take their bags off the plane. :sigh:

Now there are several seats, and the stewardess and the pilots are loudly talking about which seats are empty. Unfortunately, I am in seat 2A, so I hear all of this clearly, including the moment when one of the 20-something pilots exclaims, "We don't get this at all." :mg: Now I'm feeling REAL confident.

So we finally push off, taxi to the end of the runway, and stop. Engines rev and stop, lots of beeps, but no announcement at all what is going on. :fuming: Finally the pilot sheepishly admits that we lost our departure slot and that we would finally depart at 6:38 am, 38 minutes late.

We take off and head to Cleveland. I would guess that we never climbed above 15,000 feet or so, but I don't think we were flying unpressurized. I know most of the landmarks along this route, and we wound up taking a wide arc around Cleveland and landing from the west around 8:40 am. Funny enough, this is only about 20 minutes more flight time than scheduled, which makes me wonder if the pilot actually stuck to that speed limit. Maybe the forecast headwinds didn't materialize. (Pilots: are small planes more affected by head or tail winds?)

The crew claimed that they had called ahead to give us reservations if we had missed connections, and that we would not have to visit the customer service counter. That was a lie. :fuming:

The one saving grace was that when I got to customer service, there was an extremely helpful agent who, without blinking an eye, printed out a voucher for $288 and booked a van to take me and another passenger to Columbus. We made that cabbie's day. He said under his breath, "I don't know what their problem is in Providence," and he rolled his eyes as he talked about Chautauqua Airlines. He convinced me to consider mainline Continental flights in the future. :tiphat:

In the meantime, goodbye Continental, hello Southwest! :wave:

[spiffyone]

Not to bash continental - I had a great time flying them in March last year, although, you know, we were late too, and many people missed their connecting flights (it was a direct flight for me). But pilots were great, good flight, etc.
The scenario he described would have driven me right over the edge though. It's funny, I am comfortable with things like de-icing, turbulence, etc. But I haven't had a real flying "challenge" yet - like an aborted takeoff, or a go-around, or what Duncan described. I think that would have had me curled up on the floor wailing and clutching my bunny (I fly with this little stuffed bunny...yes, I'm 38).
Glad he's safely tucked in at his hotel tonight. I have 2 kitties to try to keep me warm. :kitty::kitty:

[tusphotog]

But I haven't had a real flying "challenge" yet - like an aborted takeoff, or a go-around, or what Duncan described. I think that would have had me curled up on the floor wailing and clutching my bunny (I fly with this little stuffed bunny...yes, I'm 38).


Don't worry about go-arounds at all. I had a series of three different trips at three different airports last year that resulted in a missed approach. One was because of very nasty low level windshear, one was because ATC put is in too close to someone else, and the last was the pilot (or ATC) left us way too high and we couldn't make the runway. I was beginning to think I was cursed on the third one, which almost made me miss a connection.

The Chatauqua flight sounds very, very bizarre. It looks like everything was normal cruise wise your trip: http://flightaware.com/live/flight/CHQ5851/history/20071025/1038Z/KPVD/KCLE

I'm totally stumped. :confused: I've never heard of a door being a MEL item. Those seem kind of...important. I've got a friend who's a CRJ driver. I'll see what he says.

By the way, Southwest isn't immune to strange things happening. I had a flight a couple months back where the window plug fell into my lap. Then, on our connecting flight, the cockpit window blew a seal and the captain said "we're probably ok to fly, but I really don't need to be picking bugs out of my teeth. My wife wouldn't like that."

[scottr0829]

I would guess that we never climbed above 15,000 feet or so, but I don't think we were flying unpressurized. I know most of the landmarks along this route, and we wound up taking a wide arc around Cleveland and landing from the west around 8:40 am. Funny enough, this is only about 20 minutes more flight time than scheduled, which makes me wonder if the pilot actually stuck to that speed limit. Maybe the forecast headwinds didn't materialize. (Pilots: are small planes more affected by head or tail winds?)


I find it interesting about how your perception of a 'normal flight' changes when you hear/think something is wrong (a very human thing).

If you look at the flightaware track, you will see that you were at 30,000 ft and 355 knts at cruise, yet you thought something may be wrong and your body told you that you seemed to be lower and going slower.

In the end, I don't think they would have taken off if they could only 'cruise' at 15,000 and go slower - that would mean there was something seriously wrong with the plane (I think) and they would use way to much fuel that low. It would be cheaper for them to just cancel the flight I think.

[spiffytoo]

What is the usual cruise speed for an ERJ?

[WillFlyToDisney]

According to airliners.net -

Performance
http://cdn-www.airliners.net/graphics/clear.gif
High speed cruising speed 833km/h (450kt). Service ceiling 37,000ft.
ERJ-145ER - Range with 50 passengers at long range cruising speed 2445km (1320nm).
ERJ-145LR - Range with 50 passengers at long range cruising speed 2870km (1550nm).

I've been on ERJs and CRJs that have had to fly without full passenger capacity due to weight issues but that is just weird, spiffytoo.

[Falcon]

My vote is faulty windsheild heating. The aircraft has to slow down in case of bird strike and the S route to avoid icing conditions. They could have explained it better to passengers but you never know how customers will react.

[Falcon]

My answers in bold.

I just got off the phone booking a return flight home on Southwest. SWA isn't my favorite airline, but at least they usually run on time and the planes seem to be in good condition.

I'll be curious to hear what the pilots and flight attendants think about this.

The plane was an ERJ-145 (Embraer regional jet), scheduled to leave at 6:00 am from Providence to Cleveland.

30 minutes before departure, we began boarding, and the agents said that they needed a few volunteers to take other flights, since the flight was overbooked, and the plane would not be able to fly with all seats full. I have heard of weather conditions sometimes dictating empty seats, so I wasn't alarmed.

Aircraft could be over weight, conditions at destination runway could do this.

We boarded the plane and took our seats. Again the stewardess asked for volunteers, offering a $250 voucher, but no one took her up. I reflected that back in grad school I used to get vouchers this way all the time, but I wanted to get to my conference and didn't take her up on it.

Then, the pilot gets on, and in a very droll and roundabout way, informs us that our flight will be arriving in Cleveland an hour late, because we can't fly at normal cruising speed. He then proceeds to give us a verbose description - "too much information," as the teenagers say - as to exactly what was wrong with the plane. I believe that the pilot said that a "service bay door" was missing. He tried to reassure us that the plane was perfectly safe nonetheless - though using the tone of voice of Spicoli from Fast Times at Ridgemont High didn't bring about the desired effect. :rolleyes:

Not familiar with this aircraft. While applauding the crews honesty the words "door missing" are unlikely to inspire confidence

The right thing to do would have been to announce this back at 5:30, when we could have chosen to go through Newark instead. That way there would be no missed connections.

Instead, you can imagine what happened. We all look at our itineraries and see we won't make our connections, and now suddenly several people want off the plane. The door is still open, but the baggage hold has been sealed. So the baggage crew has to be called back to take their bags off the plane. :sigh:

Now there are several seats, and the stewardess and the pilots are loudly talking about which seats are empty. Unfortunately, I am in seat 2A, so I hear all of this clearly, including the moment when one of the 20-something pilots exclaims, "We don't get this at all." :mg: Now I'm feeling REAL confident.

So we finally push off, taxi to the end of the runway, and stop. Engines rev and stop, lots of beeps, but no announcement at all what is going on. :fuming: Finally the pilot sheepishly admits that we lost our departure slot and that we would finally depart at 6:38 am, 38 minutes late.

We take off and head to Cleveland. I would guess that we never climbed above 15,000 feet or so, but I don't think we were flying unpressurized. I know most of the landmarks along this route, and we wound up taking a wide arc around Cleveland and landing from the west around 8:40 am. Funny enough, this is only about 20 minutes more flight time than scheduled, which makes me wonder if the pilot actually stuck to that speed limit. Maybe the forecast headwinds didn't materialize. (Pilots: are small planes more affected by head or tail winds?)

Yes because they are slower.

The crew claimed that they had called ahead to give us reservations if we had missed connections, and that we would not have to visit the customer service counter. That was a lie. :fuming:

Not cool always under promise and over deliver.

The one saving grace was that when I got to customer service, there was an extremely helpful agent who, without blinking an eye, printed out a voucher for $288 and booked a van to take me and another passenger to Columbus. We made that cabbie's day. He said under his breath, "I don't know what their problem is in Providence," and he rolled his eyes as he talked about Chautauqua Airlines. He convinced me to consider mainline Continental flights in the future. :tiphat:
Not fair to the airline, no problem to a cabbie could be major hastle to a plane.
In the meantime, goodbye Continental, hello Southwest! :wave:

[spiffyone]

Very interesting!
In my conversations with S2 the words "missing door" never came up. That's probably good. He didn't want to deal with my shrieking.
This is an interesting case of husband non FOF-wife with FOF communication, also. :tongue:
I have been talking all year about how my next thing is going to be a regional jet flight. This story is not making me feel fab about it (totally not logical, I'm sure the problem could strike on any kind of plane, and I have heard great things about RJs on this forum, but it's interesting how the last story you hear is the one that stays with you).
Also interesting. I was far happier with the idea of S2 being driven on a 2 hour cab ride than flying when I heard the story. Clearly, of course, statistically, the cab is far more dangerous.
Appreciate the input! It reminds me of "Car Talk" - but in our case people call/write in with stories about planes, and the pilots guess what was wrong via retrospect.:thumbsup:

[spiffytoo]

Sorry, I was not clear about one thing in my account. It was the helpful Continental agent in Cleveland who rolled his eyes about Chautauqua and admitted they had problems in Providence. It wasn't the cabbie.

[spiffyone]

S2 is back. He flew SWA from Columbus to BWI and BWI to Manchester without a hitch.
For those in New England, if you haven't been to the Manchester airport yet, I would check it out...it looks very quiet and easy to get in and out - and parking is cheap! We usually fly out of TF Green but now I'm wanting to give Manchester a try. The pick-up was super easy.
The postscript to the story (I think this is funny)...S2 was explaining the missing door issue to me and said, "Oh, I'm sure it wasn't REALLY a DOOR...it was probably some highly technical pilot thing that they just CALL a door." This reminded me of when one of my patients described how her husband had had a head laceration stapled at the ER (right before I removed the staples): "Oh, they're not really STAPLES...the doctors just use that word so that we'll understand the concept...but I'm sure it's much more high tech than that." I was laughing so hard I had tears in my eyes when I removed the staple remover from its package and proceeded to remove 18 staples - you know, metal staples, like from Office Max - from this guy's head.:rotflmao:
So I think it was really a door. Interesting story.

[Falcon]

Sorry a door is a door, unless there is some wierd American slang I am not familiar with.

[Captain Hutch]

I am guessing that this is a very small door that when opened only exposes some connectors, maybe like for connecting external power while the airplane is on the ground. Not having a door like this in place would only disrupt the airstream ever so slightly over the smooth surface of the fuselage. Since safety of flight was not affected, but the aircraft is "altered" (albeit miniscule-ly) from the exact configuration that it normally flies in, the FAA mandates that the aircraft can fly but with a logbook entry that shows the effect that this deviation from the norm will have, i.e. a slightly higher fuel flow usually, maybe an altitude restriction with other items. This is the MEL, or Minimum Equipment List issue that Tus mentioned above, and I explained in another post somewhere.

I don't know this airplane so I wouldn't attempt to guess any of the details. Hopefully this greenhorn pilot (somehow I missed that stage) will learn the pointlessness of going into much detail with the pax on an issue like this. Better something like, "Due to wind and weight restrictions we will not be able to accommodate our entire complement of passengers and some of you lucky ones will get a free ticket for the next available flight."

Hutch :magic:

[Captain Hutch]

okay I am not sure if it is this website that is the catalyst for this, but not a couple of days after discussing this door business I had a missing aft lav service door on an MEL (see above). The door covers the valve that the ground service guys connect to to service the lavatory. Naturally the valve is closed at all times whether the door is there or not, and it certainly doesn't affect the weight of the airplane. The door is about one foot square. Why the door wasn't there wasn't my problem, but that was the situation when arriving at the aircraft. It would be like not having the outside gas-cap door on your car missing. The total weight penalty assigned to this MEL was 400 lbs of fuel, so on this particular flight our max takeoff weight was 114,800 pounds when it could have been 115,200 lbs if the door was there. If it so happened that our actual weight was equal to the max weight, then there might have been 2 people that would not have been able to get on the airplane since we use 195 lbs per passenger (I believe this is the latest figure for winter flight--includes carry-on bag).

If someone came up to me and specifically asked me that question then I would have told them that, but I figure the "little old lady" in seat 5B wouldn't have cared so I would have said that our flight is "weight restricted".

Hutch :tiphat:

[Barb-SAN]

Very interesting. This seems like a good example of something that could cause alarm for the passengers (the plane is "broken"), but once you understand the problem, you can see that it doesn't affect the safety of the flight. I'm assuming that having that particular little door missing doesn't increase the chances for a "discharge" from the plane once airborne...:rolleyes:

[Captain Hutch]

no, not at all!!:happyguy:

[CAflyer]

What is the point of this spam?? weird.

[aerobat]

What is the point of this spam?? weird.

Spammer was banned, all posts deleted. One o' them gmail accounts...:rolleyes: