Luck continued with a broken plane in YVR

Well I got into Vancouver finally after a long day of commercially traveling on Sunday. Ate lots of leftover goodies that my parents had from an xmas party they threw a couple nights earlier. The next morning I ran some errands on my way to the airport for our noon departure out to Edmonton.

Upon doing some preflight checks on the aircraft at about 11:30 I came across one of our systems which was failing. It was the tail de-ice system. On our aircraft it is a rubber boot that runs the leading edge of the tail, that inflates from air taken from the engine to break off any ice that may accumulate when flying in clouds below the freezing level. So with the system failing, we were not allowed to go into icing conditions, of which our flight had exactly that, icing conditions.

So we tested and tested and tested but it didn't work. Our passnegers arrived and we explained the situation to them, and of course they're understanding. They were given a couple of options about having another aircraft in Vancouver within 4hrs or they could fly commercially. They were strapped for time so they went off on Westjet.

A mechanic was sent out on Westjet and it wasn't until about 4:30pm that he arrived. It took him about an hour to look around and change a couple of switches within the tail de-ice system. After some more testing, the system was up and running. It took another hour to put everything back together and to ensure everything was going to be good for our flight back. After talking to our dispatch it was determined we were just going to come back to Calgary. Which was relief for our mechanic as he had only left Calgary with the clothes on his back.

It was an uneventful and speedy flight back home. The winds were right on the tail the whole flight back and it was a new record for me to make it back in 58mins.

Too bad we got things fixed, I was looking forward to spending more time in YVR. That will have to wait until later in the week though, as I do plan to be home for xmas from the 26th to 29th.. can't wait.