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Looking at

it seems they were right there, they had an emergency, surely even a civilian airplane can land at a naval base in an emergency. I know 767-300ERs used to fly from LGA which only have 7000 ft runways and NTD has a 11000 ft one. So, why not?
chx
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1 Answers1

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In general, a commercial airliner declaring an emergency can request to land at a military airport. However, this aircraft was at over 19,000 ft when they declared an emergency:

FlightAware screenshot
(flightaware.com ATN1917 on 26 May 2022)

Descending from this altitude takes quite some time. You can see on the altitude profile that they descended continuously shortly after leveling off. The descent rate is only shallower when reaching 10,000 ft (to slow down to 250 kt) and then when slowing further for the approach.

Landing at the nearby Naval Base would have taken the same amount of time. They would have had to descend in a holding pattern. Therefore, it makes sense to fly back to your departure airport, where maintenance facilities are available to get the aircraft repaired quickly:

The aircraft remained on the ground in Los Angeles for about 24 hours before returning to service.

(Aviation Herald)

Bianfable
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    Great answer. People often forget to think in three dimensions – Arkhem Sep 08 '22 at 08:01
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    It's not just maintenance facilities, landing at a commercial airport makes it much easier to get all the affected passengers and their luggage to their intended destinations. – Dan Is Fiddling By Firelight Sep 08 '22 at 17:21
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    @DanIsFiddlingByFirelight Prime Air does not fly any passengers, but people surely want their Amazon packages to be on time xD – Bianfable Sep 08 '22 at 17:23
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    You're saying that landing at NAS Ventura County would have effectively required falling out of the sky, and that's generally frowned upon by all involved, especially the pilots in question? – FreeMan Sep 08 '22 at 17:26
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    Also, LAX has a compatible ILS system, an approach they're familiar with and have charts for, etc. That is likely not the case at a naval air base. – Gavin S. Yancey Sep 08 '22 at 17:35
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    @GavinS.Yancey There would be no difference at all in ILS procedures at the NAS, and any pilot flying into LAX would have the approach plates for KNTD as well. If they were flying paper charts, all 8 approaches would be in the same book as all of LAX's, and if they are flying electronic charts, then they'd have them all as well. There'd be no procedural difference between the two. – Max R Sep 08 '22 at 22:35
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    And if you're not familiar, you can do the math... If you have to lose 19,000 feet, and will do it at an aggressive 1,000 FPM, then you need 19 minutes to get down. And at about 5 miles per minute of speed, you'll cover close to 100 miles in that 19 minutes. If you want to cut that to 30 miles, you either need to slow way down, or descend at an ear-abusing 3,000 FPM. They were about 40 nautical miles out. It's not unusual for an airliner to begin descending over 200 miles from the destination airport. – Max R Sep 08 '22 at 22:44
  • Thanks, I simply didn't realize they already were this high up. – chx Sep 08 '22 at 23:02