VS201 27AUG05 SYD-BNE-HKG

Hi Gang!

Brisbane (Virgin Blue's home town) finally got a visit by a Virgin Atlantic Aircraft! G-VMEG made a planned diversion to Brisbane because of limited fuel supplies in Sydney due to contamination.

Was nice to see another virgin tail in town - I was working at the domestic otherwise I would have gone over to have a look .. spoke to the VS engineer later in the evening and he gave me all the info anyways.

Cheers! [8D]

So it was in-flight and had to make an emergency landing? That sounds a bit worrying[:(]

[preiffer]

Originally posted by s0436
So it was in-flight and had to make an emergency landing? That sounds a bit worrying[:(]

s0436 - Please read posts carefully before jumping to conclusions... [:0]

If you read Kaptin K's post thoroughly, you'll note no mention of an emergency landing - it was a PLANNED DIVERSION.

They obviously couldn't "fill up" in SYD, so needed to get JET A1 out of a non-contaminated source (ie: Brisbane).

Non-event (but good for Kaptin K to see "another virgin tail in town" )

a whole load of fuel at SYD has been contaminiated, meaning SYD has limited fuel supplies.

All airlines are affected by this - partcicularly Qantas of course.

SIA is even flying its own fuel supplies to SYD!

As an aside - on Thursday the VS200 LHRHKG was delayed I believe which meant it didn't operate HKGSYD. So VS wet leased a Qantas B744 to operate VS201 on Friday SYDHKG. Flew back empty as VS1200 to SYD.

I bet those passengers on the Qantas 744 were in for a surprise, especially those in UC and PE, who I guess were upgraded to the equivalent cabins (First and business)

[preiffer]

Originally posted by GrinningJackanapes
Yes. If you come here, please read every word and no errors of interpretation will be allowed. I appreciate the high standards this site maintains! Not like other sites. Thank you Preiffer and company.

Not quite...

The point in this case is that posts claiming "emergency landings" often create incorrect (inappropriate) responses. Since this clearly was not an emergency, the notes in the original post were reinforced.

The fuel didn't fail contamination tests it failed conductivity tests. The ship built up too much static in a storm so layed up in Sydney Harbour for a few days for it to settle. The planned trip to BNE was because SYD could only provide 40% of the required uplift. The same was planned for the following day but by tankering fuel and being able to uplift 60% we were able to get through to HKG.

[Bazz]

Thanks for the clarification on this one G-VOPS, nice to be able to dispel the rumours with some factual info from time to time. [y]