zippinbye

Does anyone else think about the surface condition of the departure runway when you taxi out into the darkness at an airport where the tower is closed and no aircraft have operated for sometime? Even if there's been a departure ahead of you, there's no assurance that A/C didn't leave a "present" behind (think AF 4590). I didn't think of this via learning from a sage old captain nor any company policy, but a few decades ago I routinely did a crack-of-dawn departure at my regional out of a then-uncontrolled joint use airfield in TX, where big long runways might have T-38s running a tarffic pattern, but the smaller civie runway was greatly unused durng the night hours. I decided that going the long way to back taxi on a runway clearing pass was a prudent action. One morning it paid off; near the centerline at a point close to where we would normally rotate we discovered a separated retread from a realatively large aircraft, probably a C-130 if I had to guesss. Had we just taken the shortest path to the departure runway, pushed up the throttles and rolled, it would have been a factor. I was able to raise a USAF ground operations vehicle on guard and they came out to remove the FOD.

I was recently presented with a similar situation; late night, dark, with the tower closed something like two hours earlier. I started relating the above to my F/O when we got to threats on the briefing, and as my thoughts evolved I said "we'll back taxi to make sure everything is good." His response was "are you serious? Do you know how long that's going to take?" I indcated yes, and that it was an investment I was willing to make and one that Delta would support. I was somewhat taken aback that my rationale was met with resistence, so I laid out an alternative for him; pleaseget on CTAF or Guard and find some ground guys or ARFF to see if they'd do a sweep for us. He said "I don't think that's a "thing." To which I picked up the mic and called on CTAF "any airport operations vehicle on frequency, this is Delta xxx." Got an immediate and wiling response to my request - coordinated the timing to be just prior to our push. We got an all-clear and were on our way. The somewhat surprising cockpit dynamics with the F/O are a topic for another day. It was leg 2 of 2, and we seemed to have a good rapport - he was on the final lap before going to IQ for upgrade and seemed to be testing the authority waters early, so to speak. Plus, there was a commuter flight on his mind. Obviously using external resources to clear the runway is more practical and less expensive, but as pointed out by my F/O, it's not really an established, routine procedure.

It was all civil, but a bit strange to me. Am I out in left field for thinking a FOD scan is in order?

crazyjaydawg

I think it’s fair to consider the threat, and you may not be all the way in left field, but not in the infield either.

FAR Part 139 is a hefty read that outlines everything airports need to do to maintain an operating certificate in order to allow for operations of 30+ seat aircraft in 135 or 121 operations.

Those airport ops guys that you raised on frequency are required to do FOD checks on certain intervals (I didn’t feel like looking up the exact matrices), but the basic idea is that based on risk management, the number of operations, and frequency of operations, the runway is getting inspected on set intervals no matter if tower is open or not.

So yeah, the FO has a valid reason to be skeptical; however I think the way you handled was the best possible outcome. A back taxi is likely an over-use of resources, but having airport ops do it is exactly why they’re there (and required to be there per Part 139).

Just food for thought, but I’m guessing a busy airport such as ATL likely gets many more operations between inspections than the airports that go non-towered at night. There’s no way tower sees most FOD in the dark and hundreds of takeoffs/landings can happen with someone getting eyes on pavement.

m3113n1a1

I would expect the FO to question you. What you're suggesting is highly abnormal and not a Delta procedure. The threat of FOD at night on an uncontrolled airport is probably much lower than the threat of a fully loaded airliner tooling around on an active runway for 10+ minutes squinting out the window looking for "FOD." GA aircraft operate in and out of those airports without making a single radio call.

When in doubt follow the FOM/AOM which says nothing about taxiing up and down the runway at night looking for FOD.

In my opinion, by making up procedures like that you're introducing MORE threats into the operation.

Planetrain

Airports that have part 121 ops have an Airport Certification Manual that outline what the FSDO and the operator have agreed upon for surface inspections. It will be different for different sized airports. Here’s an AC that outlines what those inspections might look like:

https://www.faa.gov/documentLibrary/...ection_rev.pdf

4-1-1 talks about schedule.
The last few pages show sample logs of what they check.

Just because tower is closed doesn’t mean airport ops hasn’t already done a surface inspection. Happens all the time eg in winter ops and you can see it in the airport remarks on your flight plan with runway condition codes and remarks.

I think the Concorde was taken out by a metal strip 12”x2”. What are the chances you notice this from the cockpit at 5:50 am in dimly lit/dark conditions?

jaxsurf

I’m on the FOs side. This is bizarre and I would feel INCREDIBLY uncomfortable being on an uncontrolled active runway for that length of time.

Seems like a far riskier proposition than the possibility of there being FOD on the runway.

TNDeltaFlyboy

While I respect your thoughts on safety, we don't have runways swept or inspected before every departure. That's completely irrational. No one saw or reported the part that fell off the Continental jet in broad daylight that doomed the Concorde. I agree with the other poster that doing your own sweep at night at an non-towered airport also presents a major risk that most likely would be greater than not checking the runway for FOD. Again, I understand where your head was at but I also understand why the FO reacted the way he did.

Podrick

Respectfully, you’re both out in left field for not being aware of runway inspections and pt 139, so I’d just take it as a learning experience. When the towers closed, runways are still getting inspected and the airport authority and ARFF are supposed be on the ctaf.

I know it’s easy to jump on FO’s, especially ones that are about to upgrade, so I’ll offer this counter point. Do you think you might’ve come across in the cockpit as paranoid?

Reason I ask is as an FO, only times I’ve ever really pushed back against something was when the captain wanted to do something out of the norm and their reasoning wasn’t totally making sense, paired with their demeanor being kinda paranoid or not confident.

I’m all for being safe, but depending on the delivery, you might be sending the wrong message, and can kind of put blood in the water so to speak with CRM.

game

While it might prevent an accident and unnecessary deaths, the FOM doesn't direct me to make FOD sweeps with the plane pre-departure. Anyways, it seems silly to drive around in pre-dawn light with a fully loaded airplane doing someone elses job.

zippinbye

Okay, fair enough. I'm clearly influenced by the one "find" of my career .... that's pretty much how human learning occurs. Glad I asked the question. Anyhow, greater consideration to be afforded to utilization of outside resources before considering doing a safety check in person at $xx-hundreds per minute of aircraft direct operating costs.

On the topic of aircraft operational costs, does anybody know of a way to ballpark what it is for a particular fleet? This conversation comes up from time to time, especially while waiting for ramp agents to saunter into position for marshalling. I'm usually flying a 321NEO and I could probably have been heard saying (either in my head or just on the interphone) something along the lines of "don't hurry on our account, this is only costing $150 per minute," which of course works out to $9000 per hour. Big time WAG! I rented a 737-200 in 1991 for $3000 per hour, wet with qualified crew/instructors to get my type rating, which I assume was profitable to the operator. That's gotta be triple in cost by now, especially considering the captital value of the machinery, even though relatively frugal on (more expensive) jet fuel. I'd guess our company would not provide such numebrs, but my curiousity seeks a figure to work with. Thoughts?

FangsF15

Yes, you are out in left field. If you have a specific, credible reason to believe it is necessary, there are other ways to mitigate that threat, as illuminated already. I don't think I would go so far as to say it's never okay, but as a default action I suspect Flight Ops would probably have some major issues with it.

Such an action introduces additional, unnecessary, and higher threats - can you imagine the outrage if, while taxiing down the runway counter to traffic flow at 20 knots, another aircraft lands or god forbid, hits you? I shudder to think.


*edit* Sorry, didn't mean to pile on. Got distracted while typing and didn't see your response before hitting submit.