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Today we were in Redmond, Oregon, sitting in the airplane at 6 am boarding passengers when then the skies opened up and it poured down snow. It was literally blowing horizontally. The main cabin door was right in the “line-of-fire” of the snow and there was no way to stop the snow from coming in the airplane. 

There was snow and water everywhere.

Then, when we finally got around to closing the door and de-icing the airplane, they couldn’t do it fast enough with the way it was snowing. We reached out holdover time (HOT) before they finished de-icing. (The HOT is the time when the de-icing fluid becomes ineffective and won’t absorb the snow. When and if that happens, you have to go back to the ramp to de-ice the airplane again. Period.) Unfortunately, RDM only has “Type I” de-icing fluid which has a very short HOT compared to “Type IV” de-icing fluid. Besides, de-icing again would have been a waste of time anyway because now the runway was contaminated with 1/2″ of snow.

Though the CRJ200 can takeoff with a 1/2″ of snow on the runway, we take a weight penalty if we decide to do that. It this case, because Redmond’s longest runway is about 6000 feet long, we would have had to shed around 1700 lbs or 8.9 passengers. This wasn’t really acceptable, so we waited.

In the mean time, the weather cleared…briefly. There were blue skies overhead and we thought that the worst of the weather was behind us. Nope. A few minutes later, another blizzard of snow came through and nothing moved.

So we waited.

It’s important to note that all the while, time permitting, I was giving the passengers updates on what our plan was and why. I  explained our situation and why we were taking the actions we were taking. After we landed, several passengers thanked us for keeping them informed. So, don’t forget to talk to your passengers.

Finally, we developed our third attempt at launching. We had had two “squall” blizzards come through. We had been waiting about an hour and a half and it looked like another window of opportunity was opening up. We asked operations to call the fuel truck and top us off again. While this was happening, the city was clearing the runway. Once the fuel truck finished, we asked to get de-iced. The snow had stopped and again there were patches of blue skies. This time the de-ice truck only took a few minutes to clean us off. Now we ready, or so I thought.

Right about the time we were about to begin to taxi, we were notified that SFO was going into a ground stop for low clouds at 1700 Zulu. According to our computer, we should arrive around 1655Z. Well, not time to worry about that. We had to launch.

We taxied to the end of the runway and waited to be released. Tick, tick, tick. Clear skies. Clear runway. It was time to go!

“SkyWest xxxx, cleared for takeoff runway 22, after departure turn left heading 180°.”

Finally we were airborne and on our way to SFO. As it turns out, after we were downrange about 30 miles, we called back to Redmond operations to report our “off” time. It turns out that right after we left, another blizzard hit the airport. Got lucky there! It also turns out that SFO didn’t go into a ground stop. Good thing too, because I didn’t want to have to explain that to the passengers!

To Your Flying Success…

Jeffrey

Related Link:

• FAR § 121.629   Operation in Icing Conditions
• Aircraft Icing Training – A Pilot’s Guide to In-Flight Icing
• Weather Flying – Robert Buck’s “Weather Flying” is regarded in the industry as the bible of weather flying

Related posts:

• Flying the CRJ200 in ORD
• Cancellations and Reflows – Just Another Day in Airline Life
• A Busy Day with a Mostly Broken Airplane
• Rejected Takeoffs in the CRJ200
• How to Taxi a Jet Airplane