Yesterday was a first for a few of us on UA907 from MUC to ORD. The First officer had his first international diversion in 19 years, and it was my first as well, so we're both (un)lucky. We held in a racetrack pattern for about 40 minutes and the pilot, Capt. Miller (who turned on Channel 9 at my request!!) declared bingo fuel, while traffic control allowed a guinea pig (a LH flight) to try the approach through the thunderstorms (it failed to get in and had to divert to DTW)-- and we wound up in Indianapolis.
The ground crew had to empty the lavs, bring us water, and operations had to keep us on the plane due to customs regulations, but after three hours we made it out after taking on 80,000 pounds of fuel. Those storms continued to affect traffic for the next 14 hours. We were lucky to make it in when we did. An AA 777 also diverted (not sure of the flight number-- maybe 289 from Shanghai)-- they got fuel first even though we landed 20 minutes earlier-- not sure why, but maybe the fact they had an additional 100 passengers or so?
Cheers to operations in Chicago, Indianapolis, and to the entire crew of UA907 for getting things right from head to toe. Everyone was cool and collect and very creative in observing the 4 hour limit for being on the ground, the crew timeouts, and customs regulations... quite fun to watch as an observer.
The ground crew had to empty the lavs, bring us water, and operations had to keep us on the plane due to customs regulations, but after three hours we made it out after taking on 80,000 pounds of fuel. Those storms continued to affect traffic for the next 14 hours. We were lucky to make it in when we did. An AA 777 also diverted (not sure of the flight number-- maybe 289 from Shanghai)-- they got fuel first even though we landed 20 minutes earlier-- not sure why, but maybe the fact they had an additional 100 passengers or so?
Cheers to operations in Chicago, Indianapolis, and to the entire crew of UA907 for getting things right from head to toe. Everyone was cool and collect and very creative in observing the 4 hour limit for being on the ground, the crew timeouts, and customs regulations... quite fun to watch as an observer.