2006-06 · NASA ASRS report 701400
THE CREW OF AN MD80 RPTS THE MISHANDLING OF A MEDICAL EMER UPON ARR AT A LARGE HUB ARPT.
RETURNING TO DFW FROM MMSD ABOUT OVER MRF I WAS NOTIFIED OF AN ILL PAX ON BOARD. SHE WAS TRAVELING WITH HER FAMILY. HER MOTHER IS AN EMER ROOM NURSE AND SHE TOLD THE FLT ATTENDANTS THAT SHE THOUGHT HER DAUGHTER WAS HAVING AN APPENDICITIS ATTACK. SHE HAD SUSPECTED IT FOR A DAY OR SO AND WANTED TO GET HER DAUGHTER TO THE STATES FOR CARE. SHE DID NOT TELL ANY PERSON OF HER DAUGHTER'S CONDITION BEFORE BOARDING THE PLANE. SHE REQUESTED THAT WE HAVE EMT'S MEET THE PLANE AND SHE WANTED HER DAUGHTER TRANSPORTED TO THE HOSPITAL UPON ARRIVING AT DFW. I CONTACTED DISPATCH; RELAYED ALL THE INFO AND REQUESTS. I EMPHASIZED TO DISPATCH THAT RAMP AND OPS SHOULD BE NOTIFIED AND TO HAVE THE EMT'S STANDING BY AND TO BE PREPARED FOR TRANSPORT. I THEN INFORMED ATC. I DID NOT DECLARE AN EMER AS WE WERE HEADED DIRECTLY TO DFW ANYWAY. I ASKED WHAT THE TFC SITUATION WAS AND INQUIRED AS TO ANY DELAYS. NONE WERE EXPECTED. I ASKED THEM TO FORWARD TO DFW THAT I WOULD APPRECIATE RWY 36R SO AS TO ENSURE NO DELAYS IN XING THE RWY TO GET TO THE GATE. ATC WANTED TO KNOW WHAT GATE WE WERE PARKING AT AND WE TOLD THEM X. I HAVE EXPERIENCED RAMP SNAFUS BEFORE IN A SITUATION LIKE THIS SO I HAD THE FO SEND A TEXT MESSAGE REITERATING OUR REQUEST FOR NO GATE CHANGES AND OUR EXPECTATION OF BEING MET BY EMT'S. WHEN IN RADIO RANGE I HAD THE FO CALL DFW OPS AND RAMP CTL AGAIN REQUESTING OUR GATE AND AGAIN INFORMING THEM OF WHAT WE NEEDED. UPON SWITCHING TO APCH WE WERE CLRED FOR THE RWY 36R APCH. SWITCHING TO TWR WE WERE CLRED TO LAND AND THEY TOLD US THEY WOULD BE HOLDING ALL GND TFC AND AFTER LNDG TO JUST TAXI TO THE GATE WITHOUT CALLING GND. OUTSTANDING SVC BY THE TFC CTL PEOPLE. UNFORTUNATELY; WE THEN HAD TO DEAL WITH OUR OWN PEOPLE. UPON LNDG WE STARTED TO TAXI TO GATE X. WRONG. GATE CHANGED TO Y! WE WERE TOLD TO TAXI TO SPOT AND HOLD! WHY! WELL; REMEMBER THAT GND WAS HOLD ALL TFC UNTIL WE PARKED AT GATE X; WELL THEY CERTAINLY DID. THE TXWY TO GATE Y WAS OCCUPIED BY 2 B777'S AND AN MD80 ALL BEING TOLD TO HOLD THEIR POS BY GND. AFTER SEVERAL MINS WE MANAGED TO GET THE B777'S MOVING AND HELD THE MD80 SO WE COULD TAXI TO Y. WHAT NEXT? OF COURSE; NO PARKING CREW. NO PROB AFTER 11000 HRS I KNOW WHERE TO STOP THE AIRPLANE. WHEN I WAS ABOUT 25 FT FROM THE CHOCKS THE GND CREW SHOWED OBVIOUSLY ANGRY BECAUSE I HAD THE TEMERITY TO TAXI IN WITHOUT THEM. NOW WHAT? YOU GUESSED IT -- NO GATE AGENT OR EMT'S. THE EMT'S WERE PROBABLY AT X. AFTER AN INSUFFERABLE AMOUNT OF TIME AND ME MELTING THE AIRWAYS ON RAMP CTL; BOTH AN AGENT AND THE EMT'S ARRIVED. WE WENT TO EXTRAORDINARY LENGTHS TO COMMUNICATE WITH OUR PEOPLE -- NOT JUST ONCE BUT SEVERAL TIMES TO PREVENT WHAT HAPPENED FROM HAPPENING. WE NEED TO FIX THIS PROB. IF I HAVE AN ILL PAX WE NEED TO DEDICATE AN OPEN GATE TO MY ACFT; NOT BET ON THE COME THAT SOME PLANE WILL DEPART ON TIME. I WAS ABSOLUTELY EMBARRASSED BY THE COMPANY PERFORMANCE. AS I SAID BEFORE; THIS IS ALMOST AN EXACT REPEAT OF WHAT HAPPENED TO ME SEVERAL YRS AGO.
Source: NASA Aviation Safety Reporting System (public domain). Reports are voluntary submissions and are not verified by NASA.
Loading the flight search…
Pick an aircraft model — Boeing 737, Airbus A320, A380, Boeing 787 Dreamliner and more — enter your origin airport, and FlightFinder shows every route that plane flies from there with live fares.
We support Boeing 737/747/757/767/777/787, the full Airbus A220/A319/A320/A321/A330/A340/A350/A380 family, Embraer E170/E175/E190/E195, Bombardier CRJ and Dash 8, and the ATR 42/72 turboprops.
Search and schedules are free. Pro ($4.99/month, $39/year, or $99 one-time lifetime) unlocks the enriched flight card — on-time stats, CO₂ per passenger, amenities, live gate & weather — plus My Trips with push alerts.
Live schedules come from Amadeus, AeroDataBox and Travelpayouts. Observed routes (which aircraft actually flew a given city pair) are crowdsourced from adsb.lol ADS-B data under the Open Database License.