Narrative:

Flight to lhr; computer flight plan has enroute alternate airport cyjt. Weather is 25 KTS tailwind for the ILS 27. It is night and not so good weather; with sigmets; thunderstorms; rain and visibility issues in the area. The airplane will not do a localizer back course 9 approach. Another unusable airport selected by dispatch. The crew is left to get their own weather and NOTAMS from private weather sources for usable airports since the computer flight plan withholds weather and NOTAMS at other airports in the area for route awareness or in event of a required diversion. Thunderstorms in the area required a SIGMET to be issued. The SIGMET for thunderstorms is known by several other airlines in the area; we have nothing. We select ACARS severe weather and get 15 pages of volcano data for chile; tying up the ACARS for 30 minutes and compromising oceanic clearance receipt/confirmation. No canadian sigmets for thunderstorms on our course ever appear on ACARS but we are well versed on south american volcanoes. We satcom commercial radio and have them read us the SIGMET. Thunderstorms were on our route requiring deviation. Can we get airports listed on the flight plan that are usable with weather; runway conditions and NOTAMS provided by dispatch? Can we stop the practice of listing airports in the waypoint chain that are unusable; events like closed; NOTAM out of service; crosswinds-tailwinds; contaminated runways; et al? The computer flight plan is of no use to the crew in meeting requirements in ICAO for the pilot in command to plan for an alternate course of action in event the original flight plan cannot be flown. Can we free up the satcom to call private weather dispatch services as well as FSS to get the weather and NOTAMS given dispatch often saying they are too busy to supply safety information on alternate airports for the crew or will not provide info until after a diversion is underway? Often we are NORDO in northern latitudes; this dispatch 'plan' does not seem safe. This would free up dispatch to do their duties as they say our requests are too time consuming when asking to be informed; safe and prepared as appears to be required by law of the pilot in command but ignored by dispatch with increasing frequency. Thank you for helping us be safe and fulfill government imposed responsibilities placed upon the pilot in command. On a recent line check by the FAA the crew was asked about diversion plans to the nearest suitable airport. We had no dispatch supplied weather; NOTAMS or runway conditions for any airport within 1;000 miles; even though there were three much closer and listed in ops specs as airports for our plane type.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: B747 Captain reports that his company's flight planning computer does not provide pertinent weather information for the route of flight and chooses inappropriate enroute alternate airports.

Narrative: Flight to LHR; computer flight plan has enroute alternate airport CYJT. Weather is 25 KTS tailwind for the ILS 27. It is night and not so good weather; with SIGMETS; thunderstorms; rain and visibility issues in the area. The airplane will not do a localizer back course 9 approach. Another unusable airport selected by Dispatch. The crew is left to get their own weather and NOTAMS from private weather sources for usable airports since the computer flight plan withholds weather and NOTAMS at other airports in the area for route awareness or in event of a required diversion. Thunderstorms in the area required a SIGMET to be issued. The SIGMET for thunderstorms is known by several other airlines in the area; we have nothing. We select ACARS SEVERE WEATHER and get 15 pages of volcano data for Chile; tying up the ACARS for 30 minutes and compromising oceanic clearance receipt/confirmation. No Canadian SIGMETS for thunderstorms on our course ever appear on ACARS but we are well versed on South American volcanoes. We SATCOM Commercial Radio and have them read us the SIGMET. Thunderstorms were on our route requiring deviation. Can we get airports listed on the flight plan that are usable with weather; runway conditions and NOTAMS provided by Dispatch? Can we stop the practice of listing airports in the waypoint chain that are unusable; events like closed; NOTAM out of service; crosswinds-tailwinds; contaminated runways; et al? The computer flight plan is of no use to the crew in meeting requirements in ICAO for the pilot in command to plan for an alternate course of action in event the original flight plan cannot be flown. Can we free up the SATCOM to call private weather dispatch services as well as FSS to get the weather and NOTAMS given Dispatch often saying they are too busy to supply safety information on alternate airports for the crew or will not provide info until after a diversion is underway? Often we are NORDO in northern latitudes; this dispatch 'plan' does not seem safe. This would free up Dispatch to do their duties as they say our requests are too time consuming when asking to be informed; safe and prepared as appears to be required by law of the pilot in command but ignored by Dispatch with increasing frequency. Thank you for helping us be safe and fulfill government imposed responsibilities placed upon the pilot in command. On a recent line check by the FAA the crew was asked about diversion plans to the nearest suitable airport. We had no Dispatch supplied weather; NOTAMS or runway conditions for any airport within 1;000 miles; even though there were three much closer and listed in Ops Specs as airports for our plane type.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of April 2012 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.