B747 Undifferentiated or Other Model
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Flight Crew Total 6634; Flight Crew Type 1755
Time Pressure; Distraction; Communication Breakdown; Workload
ATC Issue All Types; Aircraft Equipment Problem Less Severe; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
Air Traffic Control Issued New Clearance; Air Traffic Control Provided Assistance; Flight Crew Requested ATC Assistance / Clarification; General Flight Cancelled / Delayed
Environment - Non Weather Related; Procedure
Shortly before takeoff; we got a msg from dispatch telling us that Shiveluch volcano had erupted and sent a recommended reroute. It took us several minutes to get on the north side of the 28 runways to deal with the issue. I asked the IRO (International Relief Officer) to go to clearance delivery for a refile - CD (Clearance Delivery) did not want to deal with us as they were busy. We asked [the dispatcher] to refile us but he said it was better to refile enroute. We had shut down engines because I wanted to get things straightened out before we left but with [the dispatcher] not refiling and ATC subsequently telling us it would be a lengthy delay if we changed SIDs; we decided to go ahead and take off - we had lots of gas due to the 1.5 hrs extra for some Asian flights. Once we leveled off; I called Oakland ATC on the SATCOM - he also did not want to deal with us because our original route did not take us into their airspace. He also wanted us to deal with it on CPDLC (Controller Pilot Data Link Communications) but I had already tried to log on but it wouldn't take us. I finally was able to verbally give him our proposed reroute - we were talking to SEA center by then so he said they would help us. We got an initial left turn for our new route from SEA and then were able to log on to KZAK because we were going to be in their airspace. When the reroute started coming up on CPDLC; it was not a clean upload as I think the OAK guy on the phone misspelled a fix. Our route took us to the fix CHINO but he had CHINU which is an actual fix within a couple hundred miles of our route but did not work with the airways. The FO (First Officer) then called OAK ATC on the SATCOM again and tried to get it straightened out but we were about to enter PAZN airspace so they told us to work with them. ANC ATC told us we would be able to get CPDLC help a few hundred miles down the road. When we finally tried to clarify our route with PAZN; they only cleared us a couple of fixes into ZZZZ airspace and told us to get the rest from ZZZZ. Somewhere in there; we got another reroute from [the dispatcher] to go further south for a wider margin from the volcanic ash. The relief pilots were not able to get our requested clearance from CPDLC and had to get it over a congested HF freq. But finally got a clearance with another slight reroute from them. It seemed like everyone was 'passing the buck' with us leaving us in an uncomfortable and possibly unsafe condition - a clearance limit that was nowhere near our destination and not in VHF range. Another complication was that right after we got the 1st reroute from [the dispatcher]; they had a crew change so when I called them from the ground; the guy had just sat down and wasn't able to help much. On the return flight; I saw the dispatcher was the same one who had originally planned us so I asked him why it was so hard for them to reroute us in the beginning and he said the short answer was that ATC doesn't like them doing it. I don 't know if that is another limitation of the [computer] system but it sure would have been easier for us since we were still on the ground at that point.
A Boeing 747 Captain reported difficulty obtaining an oceanic reroute clearance to avoid an area of volcanic activity. The communication difficulty was due to both equipment and human factors.