I have an interesting thought and I’ll put it in a scenario to give you a perspective. A Qatar Airways flight headed to the Asia-Pacific Region suddenly has an emergency about forty minutes after takeoff. The closest airport right now will be OMDB. However, since the blockade sanction against Qatar has been implemented, the aircraft has nowhere else to go and may have to go back to Doha. Where does the aircraft land in order to assess the situation? Below is the map of the blockade.
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I think in an emergancy, they will land at the closest nearest airport, regardless of any diplomatic tensions. I think that in reality, no foreign state regardless of tension is going to disallow an emergancy aircraft from landing.
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I think in an emergency situation this aircraft has to be allowed to land at OMDB ik the block is in place but lives are at stake
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I have lived in Saudi Arabia and this has been a topic discussed greatly as many of the locals feel this blockade is good, however, for an emergency it can land at the nearest airport so it won’t have to turn back to Doha.
What probably will happen after the plane landed legally in UAE because of the emergency, is that the authorities in Dubai won’t allow the plane to take off anymore since it’s not allowed to fly in their airspace. If this should ever happen, there’ll be an interesting diplomatic aftermath. But that’s a small price to pay in order to save the lives on board.
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In an emergency you land where you ‘need’ to land. The ‘geo-political’ aspects are a secondary issue. Getting the aircraft on the ground safely or getting the necessary medical attention for your passengers are primary.
Let the politicians fight it out afterwards.
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@Marc brings up an intresting point, would the passngers be let off, and would it be allowed to take off again, since when the plane takes off it is no longer an “emergency”
From my experience the passengers would be required to remain on the aircraft. If it were an aircraft emergency then the carrier would be required to provide alternate forward transport. If it were an emergency medical issue then the patient would be sorted and the aircraft refueled and dispatched.
I doubt any regime would put politics before lives. Lets be realistic.
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Ahem, -cough- North Korea -Cough-
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But we’re not talking about North Korea.
I was giving a example to him,
Okay, just to clarify. I have a list of destinations that I am ‘advised’ not to divert to. These many be due to commercial or political reasons. I would not generally fly in airspace which would ‘require’ me to divert to somewhere such as North Korea. I would always have a viable alternate. (ICN is pretty close!)
However, in the event of a catastrophic failure or a time critical event then the priority becomes getting the aircraft and the crew/passengers on the ground safely. That over-rides everything and if, the worst case scenario comes true, that means landing in North Korea then, so be it.
I would rather have 250+ alive crew and passengers and a diplomatic spat than the potential alternative.
My choice at the time.
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