That explains why an AirCalin A330 is on the ground in Canberra then. It’s bright tail livery is certainly brightening up a grey old day down here, can see from many kilometres away through a sea of buildings!

Did anything else come down here?

Cheers

M

Tower operational again.

Not good enough!
 

Surely the old tower, or a mobile facility, should be available in an emergency for any CAT III airport. Is there no requirement under CAT III for a backup plan?

I think it’s presence was coincidental in the first instance , however , as the situation unfolded it acted as a radio relay on frequency 125.8 , advising to air traffic the unfolding scenario . It’s callsign was Trojan 55 .

Dave C

I’m not sure whether there is a requirement for a back up , but surely in this day and age , a “ commonsense approach “ should prevail . There should be contingency plans , but at the age I am having seen lots of water flowing under the bridge sadly nothing surprises me any more .

Dave C

A backup plan may not be enacted if the delay to services is thought to be low risk and manageable.

ie: If the incident is not a peak time and is under a pre-determined time (say 1hr) then a backup plan may not be activated.

The delay was being reported to holding aircraft as “ indefinite and no idea “ , that’s why some of the inbounds decided to divert . I wasn’t there , but thankfully it was all sorted out eventually .

Dave C

There are contingency plans and they were put in place, the C130 acting as a hi-top relay is likely an example of that. Lets not forget Melbourne had a similar issue in January. Its not possible to have an alternate tower even if there is one there, the stop bars, SSR and other aids all terminate only in the new tower. The cost of replication vs the probablity of them being needed just does not add up to a worthwhile expense.

I though tI heard an alarm start as I was leaving the beach carpark today - looks like I did!

Stop bars can be turned off in short time and a Notam put out to reflect the change with immediate effect.
I understand the old Tower is still equipped with radios (not sure how many frequencies they can handle at once..), but not much else. Capacity would obviously be reduced without all the fandangled equipment and electronic aids that the new tower has. Rwy 16L/34R would probably be taken out of action.