I just stumbled across this.  Wind was 32023G35, and runway 22 was active.  The pilot is cleared to land on 22L.  ATC reports the winds 1 minute into the recording.  The pilot breaks off his approach, and says that  he wants 31R, or he'll declare an emergency.   I'll see if I can find the full story.

ETA: DUH.  Full Story




"On May 5th, American Airlines Flight 2 from LAX was cleared to land on JFK‘s Runway 22L when the tower offered a wind update: “Wind now 3-2-0 at 2-3, gusting to 3-5.”

A few seconds later, one of the pilots responds, “American 2, we can’t land on 2-2. We’re breaking off approach, and if you don’t give us to, uhh, runway, uhh, 3-1-Right we’re going to declare an emergency.”

   Tower: “Alright I will pass it along, fly runway heading for now.”

   AA 2 heavy: “Okay, we’re declaring emergency, we’re gonna land 3-1-right. We’re going to the left and then coming around.”

   Tower: “American 2 heavy, just fly runway heading.”

   AA 2 heavy: “Clear the area.”

   Tower: “You say you’re declaring emergency?”

   AA 2 heavy: “Three times I’ve told you that. Three times we’re declaring an emergency.”

   Tower: “Okay, I just want to verify, I know you said if you didn’t get 31-right you have to declare an emergency. Okay, understand, fly runway heading and I gotta get you a turn!”

   Tower: “Fly heading 1-8-0?

   AA 2 heavy: “American 2 heavy, we are turning around to the left here and landing on 3-1. Remove everybody from our way. We’ve declared an emergency. We’re on a visual.”

   Tower: “Alright, American 2 heavy, cleared to land, 3-1-right, 3-1-0 2-4 gusting to 3-4.”

   AA 2 heavy: “Cleared to land, runway 3-1-right, American 2 heavy.”

Reportedly beyond the crosswind limits of the 767-200 and too low on fuel to perform a new approach, the crew of the jet may have had no choice but to land immediately. JFK has been using its 4/22 runways during crosswind conditions more frequently since the March closure of runway 13R/31L for construction.

I would have worded the subject line:

AA pilot had to declare an emergency to get a minimally suitable runway at JFK.

i'm not an aviator but IMHO the pilot crossed himself up twice here.  

first, if he had a fuel emergency on final approach, he knew that was going to be the case well before starting final approach.  so, declare fuel emergency before starting down the pipe, and give yourself and everyone else the luxury of time to sort things out without the stress/drama exhibited above.

second, if you are going to declare an emergency, then declare an emergency.  don't threaten to declare an emergency if, while you are on final, you don't get your (new) optimal pattern.  this confused the ATC and although the PIC has the responsibility for his A/C he is not the only A/C in the airspace/on ground at a busy airport.

ar-jedi

You're not wrong but it just isn't that simple.  

That situation appears to have sucked for everyone.

I believe that it may be speculation that fuel was even his concern.  He certainly didn't say that it was.  Maybe he had to take a shit.  The only thing he told ATC was that he couldn't use 22L, and ATC responded to his emergency by planning to vector him back around to his runway of choice.  If he had stated that he was low on fuel, maybe it would have been handled differently.  The pilot may have made the correct decision, but IMO, he handled it badly.

This is a classic example of a situation know in professional aviation circles as a "long-dick contest". AA guy had the longest dick until he landed. I would wager that he subsequently had a substantial length of his member removed at his own expense with a dull, rusty scalpel and regular deposits in his personal checking account ceased for a while.

A chief pilot office droid, union lawyer and union rep probably spent several weeks trying to smooth the aftermath of this competition out with numerous FAA officials. None of these people sustained any interruption of deposits in their personal checking accounts and they only thought of this issue during office hours. Captain Long Dick, on the other hand, probably hasn't had a good night's sleep since then and is probably still fantasizing on how to secretly murder everyone else involved in the contest and their children and pets.

Life is a bitch.......then you die

If you believe all that propaganda about Captain's authority then you believe Obama is as transparent as distilled water

Captains authority is not propoganda, but you better be able ti back it up with logic and common sense, not dick swinging.

The captain has total authority, but he will certainly have to explain himself.  For his dependents' sake, I hope he had a real emergency, and that he filed a NASA form on line as he taxied to the gate.

Well said...  Many "meetings" happen after these "events".  Sometimes the best you can hope for after one of these "events" is someone else sticks their head up in the game of whack a mole...

Sounds like the Captain did the right thing. Runway 22's winds were outside the limitations for his airplane and the go around may have put him into his reserve fuel, that would have constituted a legal  emergency situation. It's not uncommon for the major hub airports to not give a pilot what they need in order to maintain "flow". Had he had sufficient fuel to fly a normal go-around and approach, he could have used the words "unable" and been sequenced. You do not have to tell ATC what your emergency is, but you may have to explain it later to an FAA Inspector if ATC pressed the issue. But the tower being told three times that the Captain had declared an emergency may have put the whole thing into the round file to save some face over at the FAA/ATC.

I suspect that AA didn't ever hear from the FAA on this one, dick's on all sides are safe. And for the record, I never lost sleep, nor did any of my fellow Captain's over declaring an emergency. We all did over not declaring one when we should have...

What is the max crosswind component for a 767?

The pilot may not have been required to state the nature of his emergency, but it sure would have helped.  The controller naturally assumed that his issue was only the crosswind.  If instead of saying, "or I will declare an emergency" he had said, "I don't have fuel for a go-around", he probably would have been given what he wanted the first time he asked.  As previously stated, he chose to make it a dick measuring contest.

I imagine he was thinking hard about Avianca Flight 52 that ran out of gas over New York.  The cause was the flight crew's inability to communicate a low fuel state to ATC.  I suspect that the primary concern was gas, and the cross-wind was up there, but was secondary.  The maximum cross wind component is generally the worst cross wind the test pilots encountered during certification.  In the Midwest, I am told that light aircraft are routinely landed above the book numbers. (I understand this was not a steady-state crosswind like in the Midwest, but a gusty East Coast crosswind.)  I would imagine the company had a whole set of parameters that were chiseled in stone for their pilots above and beyond what the book said for the aircraft.

30 knots is the limitation on the B757/767.

You might be able to land routinely above the demonstrated crosswind limitation under FAR Part 91, but under Part 121 it will get you a $10-20,000 fine and a sixty day suspension. It is a limitation for a transport category airplane, not a demonstrated maximum component.

if this were the case, there'd probably be many more emergencies declared (declaring emer due to fuel prior to being emer fuel).  Though I doubt he was emergency fuel.  I've used min fuel numerous times to give the heads up, but that does require ATC to do anything special for you.

I was involved in similar incident last year.



Corpus International isn't a big airport but can get really busy.  There is a lot of private/commercial/military use of the airport and one of the runways is shutdown.  I was out of their airspace but inside the veil.  



A flight out of Houston wasn't amused to learn he was #6 in line and was asked to slow take the scenic route.  He asked if he could be given priority because he might end up in an emergency fuel situation and might have to declare an emergency.  The controller verified but the pilot was making subtle threats about declaring an emergency "But I don't want to have to do that".  Mind you the hop from Houston is a very short one and there is no reason in hell he should have been low on fuel.



The controller said "I am declaring an emergency for you.  You are clear to land 13.  We will work this out once you are safely on the ground" and starts moving traffic out of the area.  The response from the pilot was something along the lines of "Uh, uh, understand clear to land" with a healthy dose of FML in the tone of his voice.  





I kind of feel bad for the pilot in the OP story.  One of the local airports, Victoria regional will ALWAYS put small planes on 13R which is a short and beat to hell runway.  I think at some point in its life I think it was used for bombing practice.  I always have to ask if the other decent one is available.

Well played.  

I remember during Andrew there was a shttload of military aircraft and I monitored on the scanner

A female controller with an unsure voice told an aircraft to turn

The pilot of the military aircraft told the controller that he was a KC135 Stratotanker and he did not do turns and he was going direct to Mcdill  

Pretty funny

That was a fun flight.  It was my first flight with a passenger and my wife's first experience in a small airplane.  She is afraid of flying and gets sea/airsick easily.  Not only did she get to experience a real aerial emergency, we flew on one of the 4 nice flying days we have here in Corpus.  



 

AA 2 Heavy Pilot sure Sounds like an asshole to me...

I've heard that is part of the hiring process and initial company indoctrination

That, and pestering ATC for ride reports every 10 minutes.

Wind check, wind check, wind check

Depends on the airline.. ours are 40kts for landing, wet or dry.

40 knots direct crosswind component? I have been to several county fairs and a couple of interracial taffy pulls within the aviation community over the last 50 years and I don't recall ever seeing that.

The crosswind limit at AA for the 767-200 is 29 knots, 767-300 is 33 knots.

We have to use the gusts when computing the wind, so the gusting to 35 puts the wind well over limit.

The DC9-10 was 38 knots, that was tough!

That must have been "sporty".  On our -80's, the limit is 30 knots.   There have been some wing tip strikes in strong cross winds, so we get to do max cross/tail wind landings every trip through recurrent.  For whatever reason, they recently added "balked landing" basically a touch and go after ground spoiler deployment.  Not sure exactly what incident drove that change.

The -80 is always exciting in a maximum effort cross wind, you kind of "herd" it around on final, rather than finesse it (for those who have never flown a DC9, it's all control tabs, with roll spoiler assist.  The wheel doesn't actually move the ailerons, just the control tabs, that in turn move the control surfaces).  It's always fun to watch a first time jump seater's reaction to the lock to lock control movements when it's gusty.

I would loved to have flown one of the short body airplanes, I hear it was a real performer.  I also regret that I'll never get to fly a 727.

LOL yep I just looked it up... 40kts for takeoff and landing on the 757-200/300 and 767-200/300/400 series.


FWIW our 777s have a 40kt takeoff and 45kt landing limitation.



Both are considerably more complicated than that, but that's just for dry/wet non-contaminated runways.

The D9-10 with intermixed -9 or bigger engines on those cold midwest winter mornings could climb over 7,000 FPM at max gross, a bit quicker that the B757 at 180k take off weights.

We had a company crosswind limitation of 30kts on most everything at NWA, except for the stubby DC9. As a retired Army rotor head, I never found myself cleaning out the cockpit with the yoke, it was busy, just finer adjustments.

The B727 was a truck, I only flew a couple of hundred hours in the right seat and several hundred as a flight engineer.

Good ole long pecker contest.  Sadly I have had a few with a pilot or two.  Generally I don't get into pissing contests with pilots, but when I do, I make sure I have my refrence material to back it up

My father described the DC-9-10 as the most fun airliner he flew, the L1011 as the most advanced airliner, and the 727 as best all around airliner.

this is the 'give me runway __ or ill declare' video correct?



that was an interesting one

this is the 'give me runway __ or ill declare' audio correct?





that was an interesting one

 

This is how I I prefer to see these situations play out, and I think slowly but steadily this has become a more and more common approach by the controller in deciding how best to handle dealing with either, A. coninous veiled threats,or B. a PIC who doesnt want to deal with the incorrect assumption regarding the mountains of paperwork and hassles that supposedly accompany you after declaring. rumors that have been routinely brought up and constantly disproven as being totally wihtout merit time and time again but with very little change to the pilot mindset of doing everything possible to avoid saying those words.