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bemest t1_ir4pas2 wrote

Looks like visibility. Flew the approach but not enough visibility to land so diverted to Boston. If the cloud ceiling is 1000’ at Boston it’s zero at Worcester.

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Centrist_gun_nut t1_ir5wua1 wrote

This is close but it may be way more interesting than that. I listened to the ATC, briefly.

It sounds like the approach charts that Jetblue had for this require full instrument landing systems but that the distance-measuring radios (DMEs) have been out of service in Worcester for like a month. NOTAM reads:

!ORH 08/011 ORH NAV ILS RWY 29 DME u / S 2208101301-2304192000EST meaning "DME Unusable".

Worcester Tower said it was fine to try without this, and it sounds like the pilots tried a couple of times but weren't predisposed to taking risks when their paperwork says they needed the system that was broken.

So it was a combination of broken ILS, bad weather, and caution.

Disclaimer: not this kind of pilot.

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Touareg21 t1_ir6mqv7 wrote

I was on a flight once that got diverted to Boston because of low visibility

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bemest t1_ir6nmbl wrote

It used to be much more common. Part of the the problem keeping airline operators at Worcester. They’ve upgraded the approach system, it’s better but they still get zero-zero days. That is zero feet of cloud ceiling and zero forward visibility.

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