Featured Maps: US Airways Flight 432 Diversion (19 September 2010)

On Friday 17 September, US Airways flight 432 from Phoenix to Kahulua (Maui), operated in a Boeing 757-2G7 (N908AW, SN 24233 / LN 244, which once wore a special "Arizona Cardinals" livery), had been enroute a little over 3.5 hours when the crew reported smoke in the cockpit and elected to make a precautionary diversion to San Francisco.

According to FlightAware, the planned flight path (shown in blue on the map below) went slightly north of Los Angeles, then via the DINTY reporting point and DIALO RNAV waypoint to Kahului. At the approximate point that the diversion began, SFO was 122 nm closer than LAX and 238 nm closer than OGG. These choices are shown in red on the map. (In terms of flying time, OGG was even farther than either California airport due to winds.)

It appears that the flight diverted before reaching DIALO but even at that point, SFO would have been the best choice: a search for major airports near DIALO reveals that only Monterey was slightly closer. Longer runways and more capable ARFF made SFO a better choice than MRY.

The diversion was uneventful and the aircraft landed on runway 28L at SFO. US Airways provided another 757 (N901AW) to complete the flight, which arrived in Hawaii safely albeit about 11 hours late.

Additional information may be found at:

• U.S. Airways Jet Makes Emergency Landing At SFO — KTVU
• Incident: US Airways B752 over Pacific on Sep 17th 2010, smoke in cockpit — The Aviation Herald
• US Airways #432 – 17-Sep-2010 – KPHX-PHOG — FlightAware
• N908AW US Airways Boeing 757-2G7 - cn 24233 / ln 244 — Planespotters.net
• Photos of N908AW — Airliners.net