An Air Turnback is a situation in aviation where an aircraft returns to the airport it departed from without having initially planned to do so. The most common reasons for an air turnback are emergencies, technical issues or abnormal situations during or shortly after take-off. Typically, it involves the aircraft making a loop or turn to head back to the departure airport for a safe landing. It is a standard procedure included in pilot training to ensure passenger and crew safety in case of any in-flight problems.
In a case where the abnormal situation is noticed before being airborne, the crew might attempt to reject the take-off depending on the speed and the nature of the emergency. If the problem occurs during acceleration and the aircraft has already passed the critical speed, the safer option is to get airborne and then make an approach and land. Depending on the nature of the emergency and the aircraft’s current weight, the crew might opt for an overweight landing, burn excess fuel, or dump fuel if the system is available and conditions allow.
AIR TURNBACK VS AIR RETURN
Air Return is sometimes wrongly used to refer to Air Turnback, whereas the two are different. Air Return refers to the air return grille in the passenger cabin, which is part of the aircraft’s air circulation system. These grilles allow air entering the cabin from the ceiling to exit into the cargo holds and serve as a safety feature to equalize pressure between the cabin and cargo hold in case of rapid decompression.
There is also a concept known as the Point of No Return (PNR), which is the point during a flight at which an aircraft is no longer capable of returning to the airfield from which it took-off due to fuel considerations. Beyond this point, the aircraft must proceed to some other destination. If there is need for emergency landing in this case, the aircraft cannot make an air turnback, but must locate an alternate aerodrome to land.
REFERENCES
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