Narrative:

As part of my preflight planning I always check the weather a few days prior to my trip to get a general idea of what type of weather conditions we may encounter; in addition to knowing what to pack. Two days prior to departing for santiago I checked the local weather forecast and was surprised at the unusually low temperatures that were expected; with lows in the 20's; and highs in the low 30's; with snow forecasted on the day of our departure. Deicing immediately came to mind. The forecast of snow is significant; because it had not snowed in years.during our flight planning the first topic of discussion was the snow!! The very next question from both myself and the first officers (first officer); was whether or not they even had deicing capability in santiago. The snow and freezing precipitation was not forecast until the following day; so we proceeded to santiago. When we arrived in santiago; we discussed the forecasted snow with the station operations representative; and whether they had any deicing capability in santiago. He indicated that there was no deicing capability available. He also said that he sent a memo to advising them of the situation; and the response was that [the company] has alternative means of dealing with this situation. I do not know what that entails.it did snow during the night and when I awoke the precipitation had ended; but there was about 1' of snow on the ground; with the sun beginning to peek out. It has to be remembered that this was a significant snow event in a city that hasn't seen snow in years. That small amount of snow wreaked havoc with the power grid; internet; phone lines; and was the major news story throughout the day.the aircraft for our departure was scheduled to arrive that morning. I was able to meet the inbound crew at the hotel; and asked if they encountered any precipitation during their arrival. The crew indicated that there was no precipitation falling during the approach and that the aircraft was dry when they parked at the gate. This information was important to me; because of the deicing problem in scl. At this point it looked at least plausible that we would be able to depart; assuming there wasn't any further precipitation and the aircraft remained dry. However; temperatures were forecast to fall into the low 20's and the element of frost was still a possibility; but we would not be able to assess that until we arrived at the aircraft.weather conditions when we got to the airplane were clear skies; no precipitation and outside air temperature of 33 degrees. All three of us (captain; first officer; and relief first officer) immediately went to the midsection of the cabin to inspect the wings. The spoiler panels; inboard and outboard ailerons; exposed areas of the trailing edge flaps and the upper areas of the leading edge flaps were contaminated with frost. I advised the station ops representative; who was present at the time that we cannot operate with frost on the wings and until it was removed; we could not operate.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: Flight crew reported being unable to operate because of inadequate deice equipment and training at the Santiago airport.

Narrative: As part of my preflight planning I always check the weather a few days prior to my trip to get a general idea of what type of weather conditions we may encounter; in addition to knowing what to pack. Two days prior to departing for Santiago I checked the local weather forecast and was surprised at the unusually low temperatures that were expected; with lows in the 20's; and highs in the low 30's; with snow forecasted on the day of our departure. Deicing immediately came to mind. The forecast of snow is significant; because it had not snowed in years.During our flight planning the first topic of discussion was the snow!! The very next question from both myself and the First Officers (FO); was whether or not they even had deicing capability in Santiago. The snow and freezing precipitation was not forecast until the following day; so we proceeded to Santiago. When we arrived in Santiago; we discussed the forecasted snow with the station operations representative; and whether they had any deicing capability in Santiago. He indicated that there was no deicing capability available. He also said that he sent a memo to advising them of the situation; and the response was that [the company] has alternative means of dealing with this situation. I do not know what that entails.It did snow during the night and when I awoke the precipitation had ended; but there was about 1' of snow on the ground; with the sun beginning to peek out. It has to be remembered that this was a significant snow event in a city that hasn't seen snow in years. That small amount of snow wreaked havoc with the power grid; internet; phone lines; and was the major news story throughout the day.The aircraft for our departure was scheduled to arrive that morning. I was able to meet the inbound crew at the hotel; and asked if they encountered any precipitation during their arrival. The crew indicated that there was no precipitation falling during the approach and that the aircraft was dry when they parked at the gate. This information was important to me; because of the deicing problem in SCL. At this point it looked at least plausible that we would be able to depart; assuming there wasn't any further precipitation and the aircraft remained dry. However; temperatures were forecast to fall into the low 20's and the element of frost was still a possibility; but we would not be able to assess that until we arrived at the aircraft.Weather conditions when we got to the airplane were clear skies; no precipitation and outside air temperature of 33 degrees. All three of us (Captain; FO; and Relief FO) immediately went to the midsection of the cabin to inspect the wings. The spoiler panels; inboard and outboard ailerons; exposed areas of the trailing edge flaps and the upper areas of the leading edge flaps were contaminated with frost. I advised the station ops representative; who was present at the time that we cannot operate with frost on the wings and until it was removed; we could not operate.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.