American Airlines Virtual

That's a great account from the flight deck perspective. Many times when we are forced to divert it has nothing to do with the state of "our" aircraft and what this story describes so well is just how congested and stressful the process can become. When an airport goes down due to weather or any circumstance causing closure it's not just your airplane, it's every airplane headed to that destination that needs to divert; satellite airports quickly become overwhelmed. Add to that an airport like Narita and the whole situation gets far more complex. Sometimes you just need to tell ATC what has to happen and it seems like thats what this crew ended up doing. Good for them on being proactive and not making a terrible situation worse. So sad for the people of Japan.

Thanks for sharing Jeff. Always interesting to hear these anecdotal accounts.