Emergency Landing in Syracuse, NY

Sunday, February 18, 2007

Emergency landing
A Delta Airlines regional jet going from Atlanta to Rochester made an emergency landing Sunday in Syracuse after experiencing mechanical problems, said Anthony Mancuso, Syracuse’s aviation commissioner.

No one was injured in the 3:30 p.m. landing at Syracuse Hancock International Airport. Delta put its 36 passengers on a bus and sent them to Rochester, Mancuso said.

“The pilot had a flap problem. He was concerned enough to ask to land in Syracuse,” Mancuso said.

Emergency crews were dispatched to Syracuse’s airport.
- Mike McAndrew
As noted by the Syracuse Post Standard

Flap situation sounds pretty serious!

Could be something simple, maybe they wouldn't come down fully for some reason and he needed to land somewhere with a longer runway since he would have a faster landing speed.

If he had a split flap situation, where one side extended further than the other, that can get a little tricky, but usually if they will retract again, you just make a no-flap or partial flap landing.

I know, I know, to us pilot-types, the plane could be on fire with pieces falling off and we wouldn't think it was a big deal 8)

My lack of knowledge of the NY area will betray me here, but if he was looking for a larger runway, why not go to JFK/LGA? Aren't those somewhat close to Syracuse?

Syracuse is about 75 miles from Rochester, NYC is nearly 250 miles (straight line distance)

Ahh, ok. I guess I was wrong...

what are the differences in runway lengths between SYR and ROC? no flaps usually just means a higher landing speed. since the CRJ-200 has no leading edge slats, no flaps would be a significant increse for them as it's the only way to slow down and increase lift.

since those airports are snow magnets, and i don't know what the runway conditions were. if the longest runway in ROC was contaminated and too short to land at the speed they'd be landing at then it was a qucik decision to divert. i'm at work with no access to and AFD, anyone know the actual lengths?

8000 for Rochester, 9000 for Syracuse. Syracuse may also have a higher level of fire/rescue equipment (remember, it's an ANG base). SYR is the second longest civil runway in Western NY - the longest happens to be 9829 at Niagara Falls/IAG (also an ANG base).

SYR longest runway is 9000, ROC is 8000.

forgot about airnav:

http://www.airnav.com/airport/KROC

http://www.airnav.com/airport/KSYR


SYR's longest is 4/22 at 8001 ft. ROC's longest is 10/28 at 9003 ft. 1000 ft is a lot of room to slow an airplane on, especially if it's covered in snow, sand or any chemicals. also, there could have been company mx people in SYR.

dam you guys are quick!