Uh oh!

This Sunday, Dubuque operations experienced it's first cancellation of service for Northwest Airlink since it's return on June 20, 2008.
My morning shift had gone really well. There were only two of us working and we had a few passengers listed on the afternoon flight show up to fly standby. I had never helped accommodate anyone in this fashion before, but I learned quickly that it wasn't as hard as it first appeared. We got the flight out and I felt a good sense of accomplishment. After a quick nap, I attended the morning church service at the Bridge. We had a visiting pastor since our ministering pastor preached his last sermon the week before. He and his family were moving elsewhere to continue ministering. After church I wrote up my previous blog and headed back out to work.
We were working shorthanded again and I considered calling in for re-enforcements, but decided that those who had the day off deserved it and it would be difficult to convince anyone to come in on such short notice. Working quickly, we got everyone off the plane and into the terminal and the next bunch onto the plane. With the engines started, my day was almost over until a look of concern came over the captain's face. I went inside to talk to her on the radio. She explained that they were having a problem getting the oil pressure in the right engine to reach the normal operating range. After a few minutes of troubleshooting and talking to dispatch in Minneapolis, she decided to have the passengers deplaned while she further diagnosed the problem.
We performed a run-up but it resulted in the same outcome. Without going into too much more detail, after about 20 minutes and still no definitive answer, the captain with the advice of dispatch and maintenance control decided to cancel the flight. I had to call our station manager on his day off to advise him of the situation and ask for his assistance in re-booking our passengers. Some passengers decided immediately to drive. Others were rerouted to American Airlines through Chicago. The really unfortunate ones, who couldn't make any connections to their final destination that late in the afternoon, had to stay overnight and go out on our first flight Monday morning. Only one gentleman required a hotel stay. The remaining passengers were either staying with relatives or had a residence in Dubuque.
Being relatively young and resilient, I volunteered to come back that evening to make sure everything ran smoothly. Minneapolis would be sending a mechanic down on our late arrival to try to fix the problem. This meant we would have two aircraft on the ground at once and the movement of passengers had to be controlled over a longer distance across the ramp. The flight crew from the afternoon flight went to the hotel to rest for a while, not knowing exactly what the course of action would be taken if and when the aircraft was fixed. Again, to make a long story short, the crew and I ended up waiting around until about three in the morning while the mechanic worked on the engine. Despite being extremely exhausted, we had fun passing the time and I made two more contacts in the Mesaba network of pilots.
Because the pilots had exceeded their allowable time on the clock and the problem wasn't completely resolved, they couldn't leave immediately and a second mechanic had to be sent in the morning. The crew and mechanic went back to the hotel to get some more rest. I got about a half hour of sleep at home before heading back into work at 5am for my scheduled shift. We sent the good plane out that came in the previous night as usual. I got to go home and sleep some more while the second mechanic worked on the engine. He determined that the cause of the problem was a broken lead somewhere in the engine. He was able to repair this in a fairly quick manner and the paperwork to reposition the aircraft to MSP was begun. I arrived for my next scheduled shift at 1pm and the crew from yesterday showed up shortly thereafter. We said our goodbyes with the expectation that we would see each other again soon, but under better circumstances. I worked the normal afternoon flight without incident before getting on to head out to Massachusetts. It was a long day and a half, but the vacation I had been looking forward to and the extra hours to cover my time off made it worth it.