The flight was from Seattle to Istanbul. The pilot lost consciousness somewhere over Nunavut (a northern Canadian territory). It was decided to fly the four hours to New York, rather than land at Iqaluit (possibly less than an hour away) - a Nunavut community of 7500 which is a designated emergency landing site for polar flights. It has an 8000-foot runway and emergency services.
Why not land in Iqaluit? If the pilot had any chance of survival, he could have been treated there. Negatives - (1) it’s unlikely that there would have been an equivalent plane available there if it was necessary to fly the passengers on another plane. (2) the terminal building would be uncomfortably full with the 300+ passengers, and the close to freezing weather. (3) what about customs/immigration? Probably no problem if the passengers remained on board or in a “sterile” area in the terminal building. (4) It was 2 am in the morning - would the airport have been operational? One positive - the plane probably had plenty of meals that they hadn’t served yet.
The nearest source for a replacement plane would probably be Montreal - a 3-hour flight away. Even landing there would have cut 3 hours into the pilot’s survival time if he was still alive.
Advantages about a JFK landing would have been: (1) Airport would have been fully operational at 6 am. (2) A US airport - no customs or immigration. (3) Replacement plane probably available if needed.
Assuming that the pilot was declared dead with zero chance of revival on board - why not just continue to Istanbul? But how do you store a body for several more hours (than the four to JFK)? Are there procedures for what to do with a passenger who dies suddenly on board, or must they land at the nearest reasonable-sized airport?
Airlines don’t just use spare planes. TK is only going to fly a TK plane, and they likely don’t have spare planes anywhere but IST. What they need in this case is a new crew, not a new plane. I don’t know if they have a crew base at JFK, but it’s still easier to deadhead a crew from IST to JFK as opposed to having to ferry them to Iqaluit.
Flying from SEA to IST requires 2 full crews so that they get sufficient rest. If they are down a pilot, they could not make the flight all the way to IST.
The company doctors would have made the call about an emergency landing. Either they thought he could make it to JFK, or he was already gone.
An airplane flying Seattle to Istanbul would carry 3 or 4 pilots who work in shifts, resting when not working. The loss of one pilot would make continuing non-stop to Istanbul difficult and marginally safe from a practical standpoint. And arguably illegal from a regulatory POV. And would be a PR disaster when they got there. But if they’d made the silly decision to continue to IST they’d have end up operating with two people in the cockpit and one (or zero) resting, and one resting in peace.
There are of course procedures for storing obviously dead bodies until landing, be they crew or passenger. There’s no thought of an immediate diversion for an obviously dead person. At that point you’re working out what’s the least disruptive solution for the rest of the passengers and the rest of the company schedule. For a company like Turkish, dropping into JFK is the simplest most logical solution to that set of tradeoffs.
For living people in medical distress, diverting to someplace close(ish) is always a consideration. If they’re having a problem that is likely to get worse, and needs prompt attention, and the resources on the plane are obviously inadequate to the needs. Recognizing that it’s still ~45 minutes minimum to an hospital emergency department even if we’re directly overhead a major metropolitan area when the problem strikes. So diversions come into play when a) the patient is expected to survive an hour with our limited care, but not survive 3 hours. Which is a narrow window of opportunity medically speaking. Bottom line: We divert when it’s unavoidable, not just when it’s doable. IME we have about 15 medical “emergencies” on board for each one that results in a diversion.
There are divert airports in the remote areas of the world that lack medical facilities. They’re a tolerable choice for taking a malfunctioning airplane, but of no use for a person in serious medical distress. I’ve been retired a year now, but my former employer’s diversion documentation as of then lists Iqualuit as having some medical care facilities. I do not recall what the threshold care capability is to check that box, but it isn’t much. I do know they have an actual hospital, not a mere clinic.
Also, since the plane took off from an airport in the USA, landing in Canada would potentially cause immigration issues for some of passengers. At JFK I assume the flight could simply be handled as if it were a domestic flight and the passengers could get off the plane without going through immigration since they were all presumably already in the US legally when the plane took off.
And Turkish has 4 flights a day from JFK versus 1 a day from Montreal versus 0 from Iqualuit. So at JFK it would be easier to rebook passengers on other flights.
Even if an airline changes the model of a plane from within its fleet, they might have issues with varying seat arrangements. Say fewer first class seats or a difference in the number of aisle seats.
They do, but it would be very unusual. They might do a “dry lease” where they rent a plane or a “wet lease” which comes with pilots and possibly cabin crew. Usually this is done on a seasonal basis or a fleet grounding (like the 737 Max).
Not as a matter of quick response. Your crews are trained on your models. And have FAA (or whichever national authority) authorization to operate only those specific planes by registraton number.
An airline can get different planes from different sources, but that’s the work of months not hours.
If for whatever reason they’d dropped into Iqaluit and the jet broke hard, I would expect Turkish to dispatch a rescue plane from JFK or LAX or wherever to go to Iqaluit, transfer all the passengers and baggage, then fly them on to JFK for eventual rebooking to wherever. But that’ll still take hours to get that replacement jet to Iqaluit.
For a much smaller carrier lacking Turkish’s worldwide reach, they might well charter a jet and full crew from some major airline. But now we’re talking a day or more to set that up, not mere hours.
FYI Turkish is a remarkably big airline with a remarkable worldwide reach. They’re mostly not on American’s radar, but if you’re thinking of them as some small operator flying to/from some distant Podunk country’s capital city, that’s not them. Not at all.
When we went to Belize in 2016 we flew from Chicago to Belize City, non-stop.
But then we flew from Belize City to Hopkins on a single engine plane with one, VERY obese sweaty pilot. The entire hour flight I was watching if he grabbed his chest at all. It was one of the most stressful hours of my life!
I want my planes to have at least 2 engines and at least 2 pilots!
The crew would also be understandably distressed by the death of their colleague who would have to be stored in the cockpit unless they were going to carry him through the cabin and put him in a seat wearing sunglasses Weekend at Bernie’s style.
The article said medical intervention on the plane was “ineffective.” I’m sure CPR was given, and possibly the plane was equipped with a defibrillator. I doubt there was any chance he could have been revived at Iqualuit.
Also, we don’t know if the copilot had started to divert and when the captain failed to respond anyway, the decision was made to go directly to New York. The airport’s website says it is available 24/7 but is only staffed part-time.
Here is the website for Qikiktani General Hospital. The site says they have 35 beds. Reading through the rest of the site, I’d say the term hospital might have a bit of a different meaning than in the provinces or in the United States. In other words: it’s a mighty small hospital.
Although you do have to carry a dead guy (probably wrapped in a blanket) from the cockpit halfway down the length of the airplane to get them to the crew rest space entrance.
Theyve been standard equipment on US aircraft for a few years now. I can’t say for sure about Turkish, but it’s a darn good be they had them available. For all the trivial good a defib does statistically speaking.