Tampa Thunderstorms

I just finished a long four day trip, emphasis on long. Four days, in my opinion, is just one day too many. We laid over in Seattle, Tampa and Puerta Vallarta, which made the trip a little more bearable, but it was still too long. Tampa was a mess…

When we departed Dallas, Tampa was being impacted by the leading edge of a severe line of thunderstorms that were forecast to be long gone by the time we arrived near midnight, but our first contact with Jacksonville Center yielded a holding clearance. The storms were moving much slower than predicted and filling in behind the leading edge. We had about 30 minutes of holding fuel and JAX as an alternate when we entered a holding pattern about 80 miles north of Tampa. However, as we neared our bingo fuel* we were informed that all personnel had gone home for the night at JAX. MCO was suggested, but was quickly ruled out since there were storms nearing the airport. FLL, MIA and RSW were all unacceptable for the same reasons. We didn’t have enough fuel to go any farther, so we had to stick with JAX as our alternate. Hopefully dispatch could get someone out of bed to service us once we landed. Just as we were about to make the decision to divert, we were given the option to be the first aircraft to attempt landing at TPA.

Tough decision. When fog or low ceilings result in a divert, you can fly directly to your alternate and land, often with little or no delay and the computed fuel needed to divert is typically accurate. When thunderstorms are involved everything is different and far more complicated. We turned toward Tampa with a lot on our minds.

Our first thought was that we needed to get down. We had been holding at 35,000 ft. to conserve fuel, and we were only 80 miles from the airport with a clearance to proceed directly to the field when able. There was conflicting traffic that made getting down difficult, but since the airport was landing to the north, we would have some extra time. Second thought was the line of thunderstorms sitting about 10 miles north of the airport. There was a small break in the line just northwest of the field through which a departure had just flown with little complaint, so we headed for the hole. Our ride through this area was unusually smooth, all things considered, but the lighting was intense. I have flown around many thunderstorms in my career, but have never experienced lightning like this. Most aircraft are equipped with a thunderstorm light in the cockpit that lights up the instrument panel with bright light at night to protect the pilots from being temporarily blinded by lightning. I had never used this light until tonight.

We continued our descent and picked our way around the storms until eventually turning final for runway 36L at Tampa. We were instructed to intercept the localizer for 36L, but were not given an approach clearance. There was another airline taking off opposite direction on our runway, so our descent would be delayed. As we continued on the localizer, the glide slope began to move and continued almost full deflection before we received an approach clearance. You must be careful in this situation, since you will have to descend at a greater rate than normal in order to intercept the glide path. My airline requires me to be fully configured for the landing, on speed and on glide path with engines spooled up by 1000 ft. above touchdown. Beginning the descent late makes this difficult. We started down at about 1500 ft/min to intercept the glide slope, began configuring early and met the 1000ft restriction just in time. The missed approach corridor looked pretty scary, but there was a small area of escape if we needed to use it. Hopefully we would not.

From about 800 ft. down, the ride was pretty rough, with gains and losses of about 10 knots all the way down. The runway came into view at about 500 ft. though light rain and the wipers noisily bouncing back and forth. I touched down deliberately as the Captain announced ”deployed,” referring to the speed brakes. As I put the nose on the ground my windshield wiper quit working…nice timing. The auto brakes worked their magic and the anti-skid cycled as we slowed. We cleared the runway and began our after landing checklist as another airline broke out of the clouds on final. We were one of only three landings during that little break in the weather. The others would have a much longer night. Shortly after we arrived at the gate, the storms again began to impact the airport. We earned our pay that night. I remember feeling rather accomplished and proud of our performance.


*Bing Fuel - As you enter holding, you must figure the amount of fuel needed to leave the pattern and safely arrive at your destination, execute a missed approach and proceed to your alternate. Decide on a “bingo” fuel early and stick to your numbers. Stretching your fuel supply is never a good idea. Remember…it is better to be on the ground wishing you were in the air than in the air wishing you were on the ground.

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Medical Emergency

I was responding to our instructions to “Descend now, cross MOOSE at FL 240” when I heard the cabin emergency signal. I turned up the volume on the intercom in time to hear one of the flight attendants in the back alerting the others that we had a passenger in distress near the last row. A man in his 40’s had lost consciousness after standing near his seat and hit his head on the way to the floor. One of the flight attendants tried to break his fall, but was injured in the process. The captain instructed me to declare a medical emergency and handle the flying and ATC communications while he took over coordination with the flight attendants and our company dispatch.

As we learned later from exiting passengers, the flight attendants were doing an excellent job with their patient and were both calm and collected as they performed life saving duties. They are trained for this sort of thing, but situations like this are uncommon. Normally, the flight attendants are seen passing out drinks and trying to make everyone’s flight a little more comfortable, but they are trained for much more. Even on a routine flight, they perform many safety related duties that are not recognized by the average traveler, but when called upon in an emergency, they are invaluable.

In the cockpit, it seemed like the interphone chime sounded a hundred times in the 15 minutes it took us to get on the ground. Every time there was a change in the passenger’s condition, we were notified. The Captain was in constant contact with the flight attendants, company dispatch, and the “on-call physician” available to us via phone patch. Passenger condition, medical history, medications…everything was important. You never know how these things are going to turn out and I've seen them go both ways…but you have to assume and prepare for the worst. Sometimes you do everything in your power to get what you think is a dying passenger on the ground only to have them walk off the jet in seemingly perfect health. Other times, it’s the real deal and a life is in the balance.

Once I uttered the word “emergency” to ATC, we were immediately cleared direct to our destination and others in our path were given vectors to clear the way. I increased our speed to Mach .80 and transitioned to 330 knots. As far as the flying was concerned, everything we were doing felt out of the norm, so I had to be very careful to plan my descent and speed reduction to avoid any mistakes. I wanted to fly as fast as possible and delay my speed reduction as late as I could, but had to plan carefully, and when it came to the approach, flew normal speeds and utilized standard procedures in order to insure the safety of all those on board. We had our choice of runways and were cleared direct to the outer marker from about 80 miles out. As we broke out of the clouds at about 1000 ft, we could see that there was a line of planes awaiting our arrival. All departures were suspended as we approached the airport to insure there would be no delays for our flight.

After landing, the tower cleared us directly to our gate where paramedics, passenger service personnel and a ground crew were ready and waiting. As we approached the gate, I asked our passengers to remain seated until the paramedics had entered the aircraft and assessed the situation. Thankfully for all involved, this situation ended well. The ill passenger was removed from the aircraft and taken to the hospital where he was treated and released. The injured flight attendant had a bruised hand and will recover fully. To be honest, the whole thing was a little anti-climactic. After we arrived at the gate, my job was essentially over. It seemed like there should be more for me to do, but there wasn’t. I thanked everyone involved, packed up my bags and headed for home.

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