ETOPS – Enhancing Safety On Long Flights

As passenger, you might see the word “ETOPS” (pronounced Ē-Tops) stenciled on airplanes. Occasionally, you’ll hear about it in the news. Follow a few AvGeeks on Twitter or Facebook and you’ll most definitely see this term used, joked about, and misused. What does ETOPS mean and why is it important?

[Author’s note: Information in this article is based on United States air regulations. ETOPS rules and terminology may differ in other countries

ETOPS: Acronym for Extended Operations. ETOPS is a set of rules that enhance safety when flying over areas of the world that have few airports that can be used in an emergency.

Suitable Diversion Airport (sometimes call an alternate): A preselected place to land in the event an airliner has a problem during a flight. A diversion airport must have appropriate facilities to handle the aircraft and meet minimum weather criteria.

**The 60 Minute Rule

Airliners with two engines can fly most any route, as long as they stay within 60 minutes flying time of an airport that is adequate for landing in the event of an emergency. The 60 minute distance is calculated using the aircraft’s speed with one engine inoperative in still air (no wind). As an example, the 60 minute distance for the 767 I fly is about 430 miles.

North America and Europe have numerous airports that can handle airliners. When flying over these continents, it’s unusual to be farther than 60 minutes from a place to land in an emergency.

Extra minutes for extra engines: The same regulation that limits two-engine airplanes to the 60-minute rule allows passenger jets with more than two engines (like a 747 or A340) to venture as far as 180 minutes from an airport. 180 minutes gives these aircraft access to 95% of the earth’s surface. Aircraft with more than two engines are rewarded with a longer leash due to increased engine and systems redundancy

**More Than 60 Minutes in a Twin = ETOPS

ETOPS all the things!What happens if we want to fly a two-engine aircraft, like a Boeing 777, out over the ocean? The 5 1/2 hour flight from Los Angeles to Hawaii takes us way beyond 60 minutes from an airport. For a two-engine aircraft to exceed the 60 minute rule, we need… more rules!

**ETOPS Navigation Charts

Airlines are quickly moving to paperless cockpits. Thanks to advanced systems in newer jets and tablet computers (like the iPad), we pilots do a lot less navigation work than we used to. One task many airlines still require is plotting ETOPS data on a paper chart. The nice thing about paper is that it doesn’t need batteries and still works after I spill coffee on it!

Below is an example of a plotting chart for a Los Angeles to Honolulu flight. We use a fresh chart for each flight. Using different colored highlighters is not only fun, but makes the chart easy to read. In the example, our planned route is highlighted in yellow and the 180 minute circles around our ETOPS diversion alternates are in green. This chart is custom printed for my airline; the ETOPS circles are the correct 180 minute no-wind distance for our Boeing 767 aircraft. There is a circle for each diversion airport we are approved to use. We simply highlight the circle (or arc) for the diversion airports our dispatcher selects for each flight.