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IT’S BEEN AN eventful few weeks for former justice minister Alan Shatter and according to today’s Irish Sun he had a “lucky escape” when his flight came “within seconds of disaster” at Dublin Airport.
The front page story – headlined ‘I Nearly Shatter Myself’ – says that Shatter was on board the Aer Lingus flight EI152 to Heathrow yesterday that had “to slam on the brakes as it hurtled down” the runway at Dublin Airport.
This was because of a delayed aircraft which was coming into land and forced the Aer Lingus flight to abort its take off just before 7am.
The flight returned to stand before subsequently taking off just before 8am when the runway had been cleared.
The story by Eavan Murray includes a picture of what Shatter might look like on an airplane and quotes an “informed source” who said it was “the stuff of nightmares” with Shatter and passengers on board said to have “cheated death”.
However, two sources in the aviation industry played down the incident when contacted by TheJournal.ie today.
One said the story in The Irish Sun is “exaggerated” and described the incident as “a normal navigational issue”. Another insisted “there is no story in this”.
We also contacted the Irish Aviation Authority and Aer Lingus to see what they had to say.
Here’s what the IAA said in a statement:
Yesterday, Dublin Air Traffic Control instructed an Aer Lingus aircraft to abort its take off, when an incoming aircraft advised that it would perform a go around for technical reasons. This was done to ensure that the departing aircraft would not conflict with the flight path of the aircraft going around. The risk of a possible near miss was therefore eliminated.
Meanwhile, Aer Lingus said:
Aer Lingus flight EI 152, Dublin to London Heathrow, pushed-back for departure at 6:38 yesterday morning. Shortly thereafter Air Traffic Control instructed the crew to abort take-off. This was due to the delayed landing of another aircraft. EI 152 returned safely to stand and subsequently took off at 7:56. The length of the delay was exacerbated by the fact that the incident occurred during the peak morning period.
Neither were able to confirm if Shatter was in fact on the flight, but we have contacted the Fine Gael backbencher this morning and judging by the dial tone he appears to be out of the country.
He hasn’t responded to our request to talk about how he “cheated death” at the time of publication.
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Pathetic headline from a pathetic paper.
It had me in stitches. You need to lighten up, Cosmo!
Snakes on a plane would have been better.
Just saw your comment, I’m for lighting up Rupert Murdoch.
Well I won’t stop you there!
Sounds made up. The morons at the Sun were probably just dying to use that headline
MAYBE HE WAS GOING HERE !
According to the black box, Hamas were behind it !!
Pilots looked a tad anti-semetic too. if ya ask me …
Anyone who buys that rag deserves to be fed the crap it peddles.
Such as this recent headline….
http://royaldutchshellplc.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Screen-Shot-2014-07-18-at-10.15.15.jpg
“Exaggerated”…in The Sun..!!!…hard to believe really…:-)
He’ll be wanting the government jet again after that.
Next week he plans to get himself stranded off Dollymount. The Jedward of Irish politics…..just won’t go away.
Great analogy Nos. …thanks for the laugh..
I think Jedward are brighter though ..’cos they know they are not too bright in fairness !
Was he the only one on the plane ? … or do the other humans not deserve the self -promotion that this rubbish affords a political incompetent ? …as proven in and recorded by the Dail !
How is it self promotion? He’s not answering calls about it
Dermot, ask yourself how this rag knew Shatter was on this plane ? Do they have full lists of all air passengers leaving Dublin ? No, methinks not. Self promotion at its worst. Just look again at the arrogant lecture he gave on the day he very kindly handed back that severance payment he got for being an incompetent servant of the state. He deliberately waited until after the embargo on the election coverage so as to maximise publicity for his own self importance.This man beggars belief.
I like the way you think Nosmo !
But was he even on the plane? It’s a nothing story probably not even true.
You seem to think I’m a fan of his, I’m not, by the way
OH NO COOL DERMOT …WASN’T DISAGREEING WIITH YOU – APOLOGIES FOR NOT REPLYING !
What a ridiculous headline.. The aircraft performing the go around would of been a few thousand feet in the air. Shatters aircraft was still on the runway, even if it took off both aircraft would of having plenty of time to avoid each other.. These sort of things happen all the time..
Cosmos, I wouldn’t let you ride a push bike let alone fly an aircraft with an attitude like that, I think you’ll find there is a minimum distance aircrafts have to be form each other (health and safety or some nonsense like that)
@Brian what are you talking about. One aircraft was on the ground, the other was just about to land. The plane coming into land decided to go around and was a few hundred or a thousand feet off the ground..
Not as bad a near death experience as the thousand of victims of violent crime in this country that have suffered while him and his cronies stood idly by.
Anyone got a clue why he was leaving?
Clearly this is aimed as a comment on Alan Shatter’s Jewish religion. Regardless how you feel about his politics, this is irrelevant to his faith.
Patrick – how exactly did you get that from what Garry said?
He’s probably just going on a holiday.
Yea Patrick for a long time I never knew what shatters faith was, he could worship the sun for all I care. I judged him solely on his performance in office and he failed the country he was elected to represent.
I nearly won the lotto last week, only needed 5 more numbers
@ patrice lelookcoco ah yeah , here we go , paranoia, to feigned indignation, steer said indignation towards religion and hey presto……. another anti semite, shame on ya gary coll:)
Sorry Patrice.
Sound Patrice, sorry bout that too, didnt know where you were coming from……..,,,, eeeer right so, some weather we’re havin all the same…
As someone much older than me and probably dead use to say…
” nearly never won the race”
“Nearly never bulled the cow”
Silly season in full swing
Alan pensively sits, staring at the headline, biting slowly into his Sesame Ryvita with cheddar topping and remembers back to his school days and that fateful day his bowels first let him down. It had been chicken curry night. Too spicy. From that day on, and the taunts that followed, never ever would he let anyone get the better of him. To this day he crosses to the other side of the street when he sees a curry house….
I’m beginning to feel sorry for him – you just get the feeling that he has no friends – you can be my friend Alan if you like …when you read this !
Blame Ryanair ! That’s normally what the Journal.ie does……
I presume that it was his own private jet and there were no other passengers because their names never appeared in the paper people in ireland have near death experience every day and it never makes the paper Think of all nasty demands for all types of things like property tax water charges. Etc etc Shatter should keep a very low profile and maybe people may forget about him but not forgive him
Why did Captain Kirk’s wife need to take a shower?
Because William Shat’n'er
@ Ah here………. uncalled for & totally juvenile, but very funny too, just splutterd half my cuppa over keyboard
A go around is not too big a deal. Aborting a take off is and is not done likely. There should never be an aborted take off because of a go around.
Sounds like an air traffic control screw up and an Irish Aviation Authority play on words to deflect the real failure here.
Aborting a take-off is a highly normal procedure for something as small as a warning light in the flight deck, pilots are highly trained to do it, by the sounds of it, it was a low speed abort, so a non issue really, it happens multiple times a day with different airlines
You are showing how little you know Aaron. Aborting a take off is not something done lightly. Stopping 100 tonnes from 150 mph in 6 seconds is a big deal. If you knew anything about flying you would know it’s not done for a little failure. The warning systems are inhibited to only give you major failures at high speed. You say this was at low speed and have provided no evidence whatsoever .
An A320 at MTW (Max Take off Weight) is between 73 and 77 tonne, not 100 tonne, that makes a big difference when stopping it, the autobrake would be set to RTO and will apply maximum brakes automatically if the throttles are reduced to idle or reverse thrust is activated.
The reason for me saying low speed is because if it was past the point of V1 and the tower called to abort, most likely the pilots would of continued to fly and ignored the abort message as it would be highly unsafe after V1 unless the pilots had doubts about the aircrafts ability to fly. This is why I am led to believe it was a low speed abort (below 80kts) anything above this speed would have to be something major like an engine fire, engine failure, fire indication etc. Low speed aborts can be for warning indication lights, burst tyres, runway incursion, go arounds etc.
The decision is not taken lightly or heavily, the decision is taken with the pax and crews safety before anything else.
Tom, you that knows everything you haven’t provided any evidence it was travelling at 150mph I can only assume you’re a spotter, it’s nice to get the truth which is more than that anti-Irish rag the sun would publish
Before V1 does not mean it was at 80 Kts. We don’t know. The main point I was making was that an aircraft should not have to abort because another aircraft goes around. That points to an air traffic control screw up unless they can provide a valid reason.
Was the flight delayed for 1 hour because of a slot or because they were waiting for the brakes to cool?
You’re right Brian, I haven’t provided any evidence that it was doing 150 mph. That explains why I never said it was going at 150 mph. Try reading again what I wrote.
So why are you assuming the abort was not between 80 Kts and V1? You are adding 2+2 and getting 5. You are making assumptions.
‘A highly normal procedure’. What a bizarre choice of words. Normal procedure would suffice.
The EI was cleared for take off on RWY10, the WestJet WS16 was on approach, by the time the WestJet got to 1.5 miles to touchdown the EI had only started to roll, the WestJet called go-around due to traffic on the RWY, the tower told EI to abort take off, they exited at the next intersection. The reason for the aborted take-off is due to the WestJet climbing to 3000ft straight ahead until cleared to turn (most normal go-around procedures in DUB), if the EI had of continued take-off, TCAS on both a/c could have been activated due to loss of seperation, Tower did the right thing and EI pilot thanked him on the RT after it. EI returned to stand for a quick check and then departed again.
‘Aborted take offs Multiple times a day with many airlines’. Complete and utter tripe. Must pilots would have many missed approaches in their career. Most pilots would probably never have an aborted take off in their career except in a simulator. That’s the truth.
Nonsense. An aircraft should never have to abort for a missed approach. Aircraft doing missed approach does not have to go straight ahead. They can make an early turn left or right. Your TCAS talk is nonsense. This could have been easily handled if it wS done properly. Wouldn’t happen in Heathrow because the delay would cause problems as the runway needs to be inspected after a rejected take off. This was air traffic control panicking.
So they went around due to traffic on the runway. Would that be the Aer Lingus on the runway? And who let him enter the runway? Air traffic control.
Tom, if you ever become a pilot let me know so I know not to sit in the left or right seat beside you, or even in the cabin.
The aborted take off was to stop a piggy back go-around which would cause a lot more danger to both flights, ATC made the correct call.
So far this year there’s been 50 aborted/rejected take-offs officially reported, thats not including the ones that go unreported, like the Shamrock from yesterday. It happens a lot more often then you think.
When landing on RWY10 in Dublin the go-around procedure is to climb to 3000ft and straight out, unless otherwise told, this is due to traffic on both sides of you vectoring in from North and South to turn in for RWY10.
Maybe I should not have used the word ‘highly’ normal but it is a standard procedure that is normal to the pilots, they are well trained to do it and would not have broke a sweat while having to do it or shītting themselves either.
The hour delay could have been for the brakes to cool or just due to an ATC slot back into LHR as its so busy
I was on the flight.
The delay was to take on more fuel as the Heathrow slot was missed and we might have needed to go into a holding pattern at LHR.
So what is your source for saying there were 50 rejected take offs officially reported? Can you provide a web link please. Also 50 where? Dublin airport? Europe? Ireland? Where?
Again I come back to my very first point. Why was the go around? Did Lingus delay in taking off or did air traffic control get the spacing wrong. Somebody here screwed up. Again I take exception to your throwaway comment. Rejected take offs are not that common. Ask the journal readers. How mans have been involved in a go around and how many have been involved in a high speed rejected take off? You say a rejected take off is normal for pilots- no it’s not. It’s normal to be trained for if but like dealing with an engine fire it’s not normal in everyday operations, thankfully.
Is this sufficient evidence? Read the first line
http://flightcrewguide.com/wiki/performance/rejected-take/
Gerry, did Shattermann try to sell copies of his book during the ensuing crisis and delayed departure ? A perfect opportunity to make a few scheckels.
lol, legend headline
sh** paper, tho
There could be a movie in this somewhere if alan wants a break from politics…..hes always shown a talent for fiction, what with his novel and his political career. It could be The Final Final Destination
Who cares if Shatter was or wasn’t on it more important were those on it who don’t get a large government pension for screwing up!
Ha ha ha. Its funny because his name is Shatter. Ha ha ha ha oh ha ha ha Shatter .
He would have been no loss.
Who cares if it was Shatter or not? Slow news day by lazy incompetent so called journalists
Ebola eh?
“judging by the dial tone he appears to be out of the country.”
Same dial tone if he’s in the UK.
There are no dial tones on mobiles, it’s a ring-tone… Just saying.
Come On!
Do you SERIOUSLY expect us to believe THE SUN?
I wouldn’t believe them if they told me today was Sunday …
Even The Grim Reaper couldn’t be putting up with him.
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