Return to departure airport.

[Deleted]

Can anyone explain why an aircraft that is clearly capable of landing at its destination airport returns to its point of departure if there's a problem? Here's a classic example. A Fokker 100 managed to remain in the air for almost one and a half hours after hitting a bird on take off. I hope the aircraft was burning fuel rather than needlessly polluting the environment by dumping it as suggested in the 7 News tweet. Incidentally, the flight time from Broome to Perth is 2 hours 35 minutes and Broome to Port Hedland (international airport on route) is one hour five minutes.

aviation-safety.net/wikibase/227097

[northbynorthwest]

Certain situations require landing at the nearest suitable airport. Birdstrikes can definitely require this, especially if any engine fluctuations noted after the event. I am pretty sure that the Fokker 70/100 do not have a fuel jettison system - similar to most short haul aircraft, so perhaps they had to burn off enough fuel to land at or below maximum landing weight for the aircraft or for the airport. If it was a dire emergency, they could of course land well over maximum landing weight, but that might involve having an overweight landing inspection before return to service. Could also be that the airline had mechanics and/or a spare aircraft at the departure station, so returning might help with passenger convenience, or save the aircraft being stranded elsewhere.

[Deleted]

Thanks northbynorthwest, very informative. I'm glad they didn't jettison any fuel, looks like we've exported our journalists desire for sensationalism to Australia too.