Archive for November, 2009

High speed abort, Friday the 13th, and 6660

Friday, November 13th, 2009

Being an aviation geek, I found my situation this afternoon/evening interesting. I was in Denver, CO, at a technology conference and coming home today. I was on United flight 6660 to Cedar Rapids, IA. Today’s date was 11/13/2009 and the day of the week was Friday. As the CRJ jet operated by SkyWest was gaining speed on takeoff, the takeoff was aborted. The aircraft, after slowing down, pulled off of the runway. The pilot came on the PA system and said that we had to abort takeoff because a warning light came on indicating that one of the deicers was overheating. In his 10 years flying, he had never had to perform a high speed abort. But he reassured everyone that we were never in danger of going off the runway since the runway at Denver is 3 miles long.