Mother Nature Strikes Again.
 

December 21st 2006, Heathrow the worlds busyiest air terminal has ground to a halt, leaving thousands of people from all over the globe stranded. The reason FOG, one would have thought some form of modern day navigation equiptment would have been designed to alleviate this problem, these poor souls face a bleak christmas sleeping on airport floors, praying for more clement wheather.

Re: Mother Nature Strikes Again.
 

Re: Mother Nature Strikes Again.
 

Fog in winter, leaves falling in Autumn, floods cuased by April showers, and a heatwave in summer.

Whatever next?:D

Re: Mother Nature Strikes Again.
 

Strikes in between.

Re: Mother Nature Strikes Again.
 

I did feel sorry for the people I saw on the news. I spent years fighting my way to get home for Christmas. It's bad enough normally, and this looked like disorganised bedlam.

Re: Mother Nature Strikes Again.
 

It's strange isn’t it, It’ll turn out to be their own emissions that’ll be responsible for the foul weather. It’s a long time since we had fog this bad though, I don’t think it’s the lack of technology that’s causing the problem; I think there maybe some concern over the risk of losing an aircraft, over the mainland Britain, so their concentrating on getting the international flights away and letting the locals risk life and limb on the Rail Network and over burdened Motorway System. Lets just hope that we and they have a good trouble free Season.

Re: Mother Nature Strikes Again.
 

It said on the news it isn't actually flying or taking off or landing that is dangerous in fog, it's the taxing to the stands, which is done manually and needs good visibility.

Re: Mother Nature Strikes Again.
 

Very true.......I wouldn't want to park one of them buggers, I had enough trouble with parking my Chipmunk on a Sunny day at Woodvale.

Re: Mother Nature Strikes Again.
 

Give em a set of sensors like you get for reversing cars.

Re: Mother Nature Strikes Again.
 

Is that the reason then garinda? was listenting to radio at lunch yesterday and they were going to explain why aeroplanes could fly in the dark and not fog.. had to go though. so never heard the answer .. thanks for that.

It is sad, I know, when you are held up in a journey, but as Ian's title, Mother Nature, eh ? Can't stop that. Just a pity lots of these travellers don't make more of an effort to see their families the rest of the year other than Christmas.

Re: Mother Nature Strikes Again.
 

well to be honest it hasnt ground to a halt...

what they did is said to all the airlines we need to cut the ground traffic - planes that have actually landed by 33% or sommet - so all the carriers obliged

BA who is the largest user of heathrow decided that for its 33% quota it wud halt domestic and some short haul flights as these have the least compensation where as long haul are their most profitable flights.

whilst flying or landin its not a prob - the systems are advanced enough and the pilots generally do be very experienced to figure out what they need to do - its whilst drivin aroun on the floor they need the space

Re: Mother Nature Strikes Again.
 

22nd December 2006, Nature still cripples air traffic have the powers that be no answer?

Re: Mother Nature Strikes Again.
 

It is weird.

We can fly to outer space, yet still can't taxi an aircraft to let the passengers off when it's foggy.

Re: Mother Nature Strikes Again.
 

What would you rather have rindy - be safe and still on the ground or because of the fog and if the pilots cant see where to go maybe an accident either taking off or taxiing to the disembarking area. Was looking on the bbc website and there was one accident the plane taking off crashed into another and 118 people died.

Re: Mother Nature Strikes Again.
 

No I'm not suggesting they put passengers safety at risk at all, just pointing out that we have the technology to send satellites to Mars yet can't invent something that allows an aircraft to taxi in fog.