This incident reminds me of NWA Detroit 10 years ago. I guess nobody learned from that incident. NWA was sued. Although they had a hand in the blame, they were not the only ones and certainly not the major culprit. Detroit (Wayne County) ended spending millions in new snow removal equipment. It, FAA, and NWA revised their procedures to the extent everyone went into panic mode with the first sign of weather... In the final review, the causes and blame were spread far and wide. I will say this: it wasn't the crew's fault. First off, the forecast didn't predict the level of snow that eventually hit. NWA ramp mgt could have alleviated some of the problem by pulling empty planes off gates so arriving planes could deplane and get towed. That would have worked for a little bit, but when the rate of snowfall became excessive, the county was no longer able to clear the taxi ways. Not only did they lack the necessary equipment to handle that much snow, the equipment operators that were called in (late) couldn't get in to DTW because the roads closed. To make matters worse, ATC didn't catch on until it was way too late. A massive breakdown in communication between ramp, ground, tower, approach and center. This breakdown had planes continuing to land with nowhere to taxi, never mind deplane. For a long time they continued to allow incoming traffic to depart for DTW.
Of course, everyone blamed NWA...
The truth of the matter is that we operate in a system that has difficulty keeping up when things are normal. We see it every day. Yes, it's the airline execs, but it's also the feds. Due to typical gov't inefficiency and dinosaur mentality, we have a system that is still operating under 1970s technology. Not only do we burn obscene amounts of fuel routing all over creation, we still depend on voice comminication that barely keeps up in GOOD weather. Essentially we stuff 50 potatoes into a 10 potato bag every day.
Bottom line, when weather of this magnitude hits, flights must get cancelled. Period. So, ...knowing what we know, why doesn't this happen? Follow the money: with the tight budgets and often erroneous forecasts, heads roll when flights are cancelled (monday quarterbacking). Look at the losses incurred by United this year due to wx. That's the airline exec portion of it. The gov't portion involves the closing of airports. They too are judged and are expected to 'push it'. Most of the time, we roll the dice and things work out. This time it didn't. People were inconvenienced and it sucked...but no one was hurt. If we cancelled flights and 'played it safe' to avoid this admittedly severe occasional inconvenience, it would wreak havoc in our business. And the public would complain about that too...
Bottom line, it could have been handled better...but severe weather happens folks. Yes, it sucked, the lawyers are salivating...and we should try to avoid this in the future--but nobody was hurt. Look at us: we live in such an instant gratification/ victim/ blame society...and we operate what is widely considered a public commodity for which people want to pay pennies. This drives the budget, forcing tight margins and risk...then they complain about the service. How far we've come from the covered wagon...in so many ways.
In the end, the class-action suits will lay the blame. Like NWA, however, rest assured the captains won't be found accountable: there was nothing they could do. Enough with 'blowing the slides' and other ridiculous arm-chair heroics. We have enough scrutinizing by management, flight doc, flying public, Federales, market place,...weather, maintenance concerns, etc. We don't need to be attacking and second guessing each other.
Enough already.
D1
