Originally Posted by
JetFlyer06
Saw UAL 803 (a 777 going Dulles-Narita) dumping fuel and I believe returning to Dulles yesterday over upstate NY. I looked on UAL's site and it said the flight was delayed until the next morning to due crew (rest?) issues. Anyone know what happened? That's a pretty big mistake if they took off and had to dump 1,000s of pounds of fuel due to someone timing out enroute, etc. Just curious if anyone had the scoop. Thanks in advance.
Mechanical issue and a return to field. The UA 777 has a 180,000 pound difference between max T/O and max LDG. They were probably at max T/O wt for a IAD to NRT flight. It was re-crewed due to operating crew not being legal to t/o, fly around dumping fuel, then taking off for another 13+ flight. This is one of many issue affecting long haul flying.
You indicate that you are "Delta North", I would think you would be abreast of the issues affecting long haul operations from your own services. It is not like the crew is doing a CLE turn. The flight is very long and the duty day butts up to the maximum if flown on schedule. .
L