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DELTA'S DISSERVICE TO PASSENGERS & RELATIVES
Delta Flight 1143 was originally scheduled to land at Reno at 9:54 PM on 11 Dec. 2009. Due to a delay in its flight from the East (Philadelphia) it was rescheduled to land at 10:30 PM.
Since I had a partner and her friends returning from a week in Branson, MO via St. Louis, they opted to stop in Salt Lake City and fly from there to Reno on flight 1143 rather than to LA and then fly back to Reno as originally scheduled because it appeared that a storm was coming into California. In either case their arrival time in Reno was about the same.
I watched the status of flight 1143 on my computer at home and it showed the boarding process was on going beginning at 8:50 PM Pacific Time and terminated at 9:00 PM indicating the plane was airborne.
I have flown directly between Reno and Salt Lake City and the flight time is most always 1 hour 34 minutes gate to gate. Since I intended to meet my partner as close to the gate as you can get these days of paranoiac fear, I scheduled myself to be timely in the area above the south escalators which is the B terminal Gate greeting area.
Wishing to be there just a little before arrival time, I parked the car in the covered short term garage and proceeded to the arrival greeting area.
The TV monitors showed flight 1143 was delayed to 10:30 which was expected.
Now in all fairness, Reno had been under a blanket of snow and ice for the previous five days. Main roads were clear and the airport runways were cleared and kept cleared. Unfortunately about two hours before arrival time it began to snow so that there was three inches of snow on the roads and runways at the time delayed flight 1143 was to land at Reno-Tahoe International.
The architects of the terminal building had wisely designed large windows in the cross over hallway (bridge) area above the concessions which connected terminal A Gate areas with terminal B gate areas thus one can stand at one of those windows and observe the goings on in the area between the two terminal wings.
Flight 1143 was scheduled to dock at gate B-8 and that was in clear view from where I stood. At 10:30 the open end of the gate walkway tunnel was lighted and you could see there was no flight 1143 attached to it.
Shortly after positioning myself at a window I could see that snowfall had ceased and there was activity of snow plows removing the 3 inches of snow on the runways and in the U shaped area between the two gate terminals.
Occasionally I could see an aircraft landing which indicated the airport was functional in spite of the snowplowing activity.
The time began to pass from 10:30 to 11:00. While that was not too big of a problem such as head winds, etc. I then began to check the TV monitor and it still indicated flight 1143 was delayed only until 10:30. Obviously they had not updated the information.
The same situation existed every fifteen minutes thereafter until 11:55 PM. Many people began to assemble in that area in anticipation of the delayed flight arriving. As the time drew on, simple math indicated that something wrong had happened to that flight. Yet there was no news or update about it. The monitors still clung to the outdated info.
I observed that stress was beginning to appear on the faces of those friends and relatives who were waiting to greet their loved ones. One woman in perhaps her late fifties had tears streaming down her face as she stood with her face glued to a window hoping the plane had not crashed.
Oddly, several aircraft were seen landing during that overdue time for flight 1143, one a passenger plane, was seen to taxi to the left and out of site around terminal A. Of course between those arrivals the flashing lights of several snow plows could be seen clearing runways.
At 11:15 I descended the escalator and attempted to find some source of authority for an explanation of why the delay of flight 1143. The newly remodeled ticket counter area of the Grand Entrance Hall looked about a quarter of a mile long and was as desolate as the first row of church pews on a Sunday Morning.
Nowhere else could I find a body with a look of understanding explanation.
Returning to the waiting area above the escalators, I heard the joy and exclamation from the lips of the saddened woman, "That's three!" as a plane was seen arriving down the darkened runway. Still no sight of flight 1143.
About fifteen minutes later a snow plow began working the area of tarmac under the open end of Gate B-8 covered walkway. Within a few minutes the flashing lights on an otherwise dark but large shadow of a Boeing 737-800 passenger plane came gliding south down the runway. Shortly after wards it was seen taxing to the cleared tarmac under Gate 8-B. There was a great sigh of relief on the part of those many dozens of waiting people. Soon a procession of passengers began to emerge from the exit line of the otherwise empty TSA boarding area. And yes my partner and her girlfriends appeared to my joy and relief.
In these days of corporate greed there is an incessant need to protect the bottom line for shareholders and officer's compensation and it shows up in many ways. One is when people flying coach are herded to automated self check-in kiosks instead of having a friendly human helper as is offered to those who travel first class. Another is the disregard for the families and friends of air travelers such as the lack of sensitivity to those anxiously awaiting the arrival of an overdue flight.
MEANWHILE IN THE AIR OVER RENO
After Passengers had settled into their seats buckled up in the plane on the tarmac at Salt Lake City and prior to continuation of flight of 1143, the captain emerged from the cockpit and walked down the center aisle to row 17 which is over the wings of the 737-800. He bent over and first looked out the window to the right side of the plane then turned and looked out the opposite window. Whether he was looking for ice buildup on the wings or to make certain the plane still had wings is unknown at this time, but indeed it was a precursor to the events that happened for the next three hours aboard flight 1143. Indeed that act caused a gentleman passenger, a frequent flier, to comment, "That doesn't give one a comforting feeling"!
The aircraft rotated leaving the tarmac at SLC airport beginning its flight to Reno at about 10 PM Mountain Standard Time or 9PM Reno time. From all known facts flight 1143 appeared at RNO at approximately 10:30 PM Reno time and began a descent for landing all according to schedule.
Having earned a private pilot license to visual flight rules (VFR) some 40 years ago, I am compelled by what was later explained to me to think that the captain of flight 1143 was using VFR or allowing interference of VFR rather than Instrument flight rules (IFR) in his approach to landing at RNO about 10:30 PM Reno time.
Now while I must commend him for the precautionary conclusions, those conclusions were his own personal viewpoint based on VFR and not that of IFR air traffic controllers from the tower at Reno which must have cleared him to land flight 1143 not once but at least five times.
The next hour plus consisted of flight 1143 doing a series of landing approaches and aborts of landing at some few hundred feet altitude ( like touch and go's) as the plane circled the airport. At least 4 such approaches and aborts were counted by passengers.
The ostensible reason later given for theses approaches and aborted landings were the snow plows working the runways. Only this caution could be made by visually seeing the snowplows out of context of what was really happening on the ground. On the next to last attempt, the captain made the statement that if he again had to abort it would be necessary to fly to Sacramento, California for refueling. Yet he tried once more and fortunately for him and the passengers, this time the approach and landing was successful.
During the time of the circling and aborted landings, the passengers were kept completely in the dark about what was going on. A screen positioned on the backs of seats seen by passengers was constantly relaying the current flight information of the craft which did not translate to the now terrified passengers as to what was really happening. One knowledgeable male passenger in noting the air speed on an approach was 250mph, commented that 150 was stall speed for that craft and hoped to god they didn't crash.
At one point the captain came on the intercom and said, "Passengers and crew..." - then nothing more was heard for 30 minutes.
To the passengers as well as relatives and friends waiting at the terminal, silence was the most disturbing aspect of the entire one and one-half hour ordeal. Suffering those people through such conduct is reprehensible. At a minimum, an apology from the airline executives is appropriate as well as some interrogation of the pilot(s) of flight 1143 as to why they did not keep the passengers fully informed.
Also correcting the situation that caused waiting people to so suffer and being fearful by making damn sure the airline at any given airport has a responsible official present until such time as the business of that airline for the day is at an end and still further when such a delay as this occurs, that official place him/herself in the vicinity of those waiting in despair with truthful information!
