Air France having a not-so-good day

flyingcheesehead

flyingcheesehead

Touchdown! Greaser!
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iMooniac
Air France 137, that is...

I was out at the airport (KUES) and saw an airliner in... Well, the wrong place. Looked like it could have taken off from KMKE, but it was really low and still had the gear and a notch of flaps down. It went over us, and then turned around. Pulled out FlightRadar24 and saw that it was AF137, an A330 from O'Hare to Paris. We're not under the route to Paris to begin with! They've continued doing what looks like large holding patterns in the area (though I think it may be vectors, since it keeps changing), with gear and partial flaps down at 6000 feet, burning off fuel.

https://flightaware.com/live/flight/AFR137
https://www.liveatc.net/play/kmke_app.pls
 
I’m impressed with the accuracy of the holds.
 
Unit74 said:
I’m impressed with the accuracy of the holds.
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Was up at home drone one night clearing runway of deer for a friend coming in soon and we were sitting at hangar just chilling trying to pick out which light would be incoming plane. So can see off in the distance this light then another and another staked on top of themselves. Looked on flightaware and could see it was three jets holding on top of each other. Heading to Newark I think. I forget if it was weather or something else that had them locked up. But it was pretty cool to see the light turn towards us. Then away stacked on top of each other. The holds were precise, likely autopilot... lol. I saw mine one day after practicing. Was hilarious.
 
Looks like they just took off again? Or maybe never landed, go around?
 
Not too bad - An hour on the ground and then out again. I wonder if they had to switch crews too?
 
Gear pin(s) would do it, very likely if they took off an hour later. If it was a ‘real’ mechanical problem it would of taken longer, or flight scrubbed.
 
I'm guessing that they spent two hours burning off fuel to get to their MGLW. Do planes have the ability to dump fuel these days? Or do they have the capability but are not allowed to do so if they are over land?
 
donjohnston said:
I'm guessing that they spent two hours burning off fuel to get to their MGLW. Do planes have the ability to dump fuel these days? Or do they have the capability but are not allowed to do so if they are over land?
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Some do, some don't. No idea about the A330, but even if it could dump fuel, I think they have to be at a certain altitude so that it vaporizes. How high can an A330 climb with its gear down, and how high would it have to be to dump fuel?

What are gear pins used for in practice, and wouldn't that be an item someone is responsible for checking/pulling? I bet that a large portion of said person's salary was burned up in Jet-A last night...
 
flyingcheesehead said:
@Radar Contact or any of the other C90 folks here, any word on what happened? It looks like they're headed back to land at ORD.
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Sorry I missed this. Been a way for a little bit. We have so many emergencies on a semi-regular basis it’s hard to remember. Gear failing to retract and then burning/dumping fuel is pretty common.
 
circling an ex girlfriends house?
 
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