rokgpsman

I think the NOTAM in question was FAR 07/020. They are supposed to be archived on this FAA website below but it appears that particular one has been removed, maybe due to the incident or to its unclarity??

https://pilotweb.nas.faa.gov/PilotWeb/

(enter FAR in location field on left side of screen under "NOTAM Retrieval", then click VIEW NOTAMS to display all recent NOTAMS in the database for FAR airport)


Google has the below listed as a cached webpage, and it shows FAR 07/020 was available for viewing at one time on the website. You can see that the cached webpage shows FAR 07/020 and info that mentions scheduled carriers. Don't know why they would take it down from the website. Maybe I am just missing it when I do the search. Anyone know if the TFRs and NOTAMS both get archived here? Maybe dispatch read it as the closed airport was open for regular scheduled carriers and all they had to do was contact ATC upon arrival, circle a few minutes until they got the rehearsals moved out of the way and the airliner could land? Could ATC have interpreted the NOTAM as a hard closure, not aware of the exception for scheduled carriers?

http://webcache.googleusercontent.co...&ct=clnk&gl=us

"!FAR 07/020 FAR AD AIRPORT CLSD EXC SCHEDULED AIR CARRIERS DLY 1700-2200 1507231700-1507242200"

Packrat

Do you really think the Las Vegas media would publish ANYTHING negative about the "hometown" airline? This place isn't Seattle.

Uncle Wurmy

I think that NOTAM is from 3 days before.

rokgpsman

Well, I guess maybe it was published on the 20th based on the NOTAM number, but it lists the closing date & time as "1507231700-1507242200" which is for July 23 and 24. The incident was on July 23rd. ???

Bobby

I think this is the one you're looking for. No mention of exemptions for Air Carrier Ops.

Sliceback

The article says they held for 18 minutes while trying to get the station to call someone to get authorization to land. And then eventually had to declare an emergency and landed with 42 minutes of fuel.

So they had enough gas to divert, just like the plane ahead of them, but hung around and eventually had to declare an emergency due to low fuel if they had to divert.

You can't hold and force an emergency when you have options earlier in the event.

BTW, who investigated this? The safety office? Of the flight department? Any problems with that process?

rokgpsman

Actually that's the TFR for Fargo, not the NOTAM. (notice that it says "Temporary Flight Restriction in the first line, TFR). The TFR just deals with the airspace above and around the airport, but not the airport itself. The TFR did close the airspace to all aircraft and required permission from ATC to enter. The NOTAM allowed for scheduled carriers to enter the airspace but they should contact ATC before entering.

The NOTAM deals with the actual airport and its operations. It is the NOTAM that mentioned the exception allowing scheduled carrier flights to land in Fargo during the time it was closed. Presumably this would be done by contacting ATC upon arrival and they would make a runway available shortly. It appears from reading the Fargo NOTAM that the closing of Fargo during the rehearsal on July 23rd was not a hard closure, it was open to regularly scheduled carriers, just closed to private and corporate (business) aircraft. It would have been better if both the TFR and the NOTAM were more clear about this and they should have cross-referenced each other so someone reading one would know to read the other notice.

"A Temporary Flight Restriction (TFR) is a type of Notices to Airmen (NOTAM). A TFR defines an area restricted to air travel due to a hazardous condition, a special event, or a general warning for the entire FAA airspace."

rokgpsman

Found it, here's the NOTAM (FAR 07/020) that covered the Fargo airport on July 23 and 24. In plain talk it says "NOTAM: FAR 07/020 Aerodrome AIRPORT Closed Except SCHEDULED AIR CARRIERS Daily NOON-5:00pm LOCAL TIME JULY 23, 24 2015."

FAR 07_020 NOTAM z3.JPG

deltajuliet

The plot thickens. The FO is a sharp guy, I thought there might be more to this.

IQuitEagle

This does nothing to alleviate what is clearly ****-poor judgement by the flight crew. Arguing with ATC, and loitering while trying to coordinate with company to try and get in (regardless of whether they should have been permitted to or not), while having no extra fuel to do so, instead of heading the 70 miles away and landing with a safe amount of gas, is inexcusable.