Cleared for the Straight in VOR Approach via OMREL

 

Photo of one of our aircraft just shortly after rotation in St Lucia. Thanks to Gianni Deligny, one of LIAT's First Officers (and professional photographers)

Well after several months of being in a holding pattern, I've finally decided to bring out the old pen and paper (AKA: IPad) and continue writing! What turned out to be 'a few weeks off' with Christmas around the corner, turned into a few more weeks studying and preparing for recurrent simulator, which turned into several more months of studying for my Canadian Airline Transport Pilot's Licence (ATPL). With recurrent simulator training right around the corner again in mid-July, I couldn't believe that the time flew by so quickly without any blog posts.



For those of you unsure what a hold is an oval or race-track shaped pattern which we manoeuvre the aircraft in over a fixed point in space by using gps co-ordinates or a distance and bearing from a navigation facility: Because we can't just stop in the air, air traffic control may request us to hold: most often occurring in the arrival phase of flight, just before executing the approach, and any can be due to many things like; slower traffic head, weather at the airport or congestion of landing and departing traffic. I've included a picture of one of the instrument approach plates to the Antigua's V.C. Bird Airport to give you a picture as to what it looks like. You can see on the picture, there is a five letter word 'OMREL' with a racetrack to the Northwest of it. It shows on the approach plate that there are left turns. After making the left turn and going away from OMREL on the outbound leg, we use a timer to accurately adjust the time we spend flying away from the point to correctly estimate a one minute inbound leg (from the time we turn back towards the fix to the time we cross over it).  Every LIAT pilot knows this spot in the Caribbean exceptionally well, because Antigua's air traffic control is known to clear pilots to OMREL even on the most severe clear day, with not a single cloud or aircraft in the airspace. I will work on explaining more of this approach plate in future blogs.


In other news, we had a bit of a disaster in Antigua just recently. Two weekends ago LIAT had one of its two hangers go up in flames one night. Rumors are one of the golf carts the maintenance department uses for getting from the hanger to the ramp had been plugged in all weekend, the battery over charged and exploded. This caused quite the fireworks display for Antigua, causing one of the worst fires the island has seen. I think a hanger is one of the most dangerous places to have a fire. With Jet fuels, oils and lubricants and 100% oxygen stored there, it is a recipe for disaster if there are sparks or an ignition source.

This shot below was taken from the runway showing one of our two hangers on fire.



That night there were winds very strong winds in Antigua, fueling the fire creating such an intense heat that it hindered the firefighters from getting anywhere close to where the flames actually were. What's not seen in this picture is that there was actually an airplane in both hangers that night.


Shot of the hanger ingulfed in flames so much so that it's not even visible.


Aftermath of the hanger. The sliding door in the middle is the only thing holding the roof up.





This picture is showing the lost aircraft inside the hanger. The heat was so intense it melted the aircraft into pieces of scrap that look like pop cans. The only things recognize-able are the two engine mounts being held up by scaffolding and the boarding stairs at the bottom of the ladder.


The disaster is a tremendous loss to LIAT, as they had owned that hanger and the four adjacent buildings on the right; the inner two being destroyed by fire and outer two destroyed by smoke. The aircraft was one of the oldest in our fleet, however it was only leased. V2-LGH (the aircrafts call sign) had been in the hanger for 3 weeks getting a major overhaul where the company and the company had just put approximately 3million XCD into it. The company has estimated its insured losses at 35 million Eastern Caribbean dollars, with the uninsured losses being dramatically more.