Air Canada Rouge blows a tire in Gatwick

[Gilles Hudicourt]

http://www.torontosun.com/2017/07/17/ai ... ck-airport

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2017/07/17 ... _23034023/

https://www.flightradar24.com/data/flig ... 25#e1f948d

According to Flightdardar24, ROU1925 took off from LGW at 1207Z, climbed to a maximum altitude of 7000 feet, was radar vectored South of LGW for close to an hour, declared an emergency around 1300Z and landed back in LGW at 1320.

It was in the air 1 hour and 13 minutes.

Gatwicks single runway was closed a first time for inspection from 1216 to 1245 and then for a second time for a very long time after ROU1925 came back to land and stayed on the runway. This created major disruptions for other airlines.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... elled.html

All flights were still not back to normal this morning.....

Alpha taxiway, parallel to LGW's single 08/26 runway, can be used as backup runway, but I do do think this could be done as long as the Air Canada Rouge 767 was parked on the regular runway. So it was likely of little relief during the time the 767 was occupying the main runway and the airport was essentillay shut down during this time.

From Wikipedia:

Gatwick Airport (also known as London Gatwick (IATA: LGW, ICAO: EGKK) is a major international airport in south-east England, 29.5 miles (47.5 km) south of Central London and 2.7 nautical miles (5.0 km; 3.1 mi) north of Crawley. It is the second-busiest airport by total passenger traffic in the United Kingdom, after London Heathrow. Gatwick is the eighth-busiest airport in Europe. Until 2016, it was the busiest single-use runway airport in the world before being overtaken by Mumbai's Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport.

[Jean-Pierre]

Weird they wouldn't just go to some other airport with multiple runways instead of shutting down Gatwick.

[fish4life]

Weird they wouldn't just go to some other airport with multiple runways instead of shutting down Gatwick.

perhaps its where they took off from so much easier to re-accom the pax? Personally for something that isn't a safety issue eg an item that doesn't require us to get on the ground immediately I will talk to company and ask them where they would like us to go.

[photofly]

Why wouldn't they continue to their destination? Is an immediate landing any safer than one when the fuel load is lighter? And there would be hours to build in runway unavailability into ATC routings and arrival rates.

Potential problems raising the undercarriage? What are the issues? Educate me, someone.

[PositiveRate27]

I'm not a 767 expert, or an expert on widebody flying in the slightest, but I imagine the middle of the Atlantic Ocean isn't the best place to find out there are associated issues that are more serious. I have no idea what those issues might be, but imagine the media/regulatory sh!t storm that would follow in that scenario. Another thing to consider is I'm sure a tire that size lets go with quite a physical bang. Kinda hard to tell pax to sit tight, the potential gear collapse won't be for 9 more hours.

"I'd rather be on the ground, wishing I was up there than up there wishing I was on the ground."

[goingnowherefast]

Blowing tiers can can cause damage to the aircraft. Think Concorde as an extreme example. Don't want to fly across the ocean with a potential dent in the bottom of the wing and unknown ramifications.

As to why they returned to Gatwick, better ask AC dispatch. I'm sure they asked that question too.

[bobcaygeon]

I doubt LHR would willingly take them regardless of how many more runways they have.