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Ryanair flight landed at Manchester airport with six minutes of fuel left

theguardian.com

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Re: Ryanair flight landed at Manchester airport with six minutes of fuel left

#61

Post by khuey »

gosub100 wrote: post #15
tyre wrote: post #3

Looks like they tried two attempts to land in Prestwick over two hours, then flew to Edinburgh and made one aborted landing, then finally went to Manchester. What a nerve wracking experience for those pilots. I wonder if on the final attempt they knew they had to force it down no matter what.

About 5 years ago before ATC recordings became mainstay on YouTube, there was an American pilot that declared an emergency at JFK and very firmly said "we are turning back and landing NOW. Get the aircraft OFF all runways". He was low in fuel and also frustrated with Kennedy ATC because he declared "minimum fuel" earlier and was still getting vectored around. (I know "minimum fuel" is not an emergency and has a very…

You might be thinking of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sQuHnrJu1I

For comparison, this is what can happen when the pilots are not that assertive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avianca_Flight_052

Re: Ryanair flight landed at Manchester airport with six minutes of fuel left

#62

Post by jakub_g »

xnorswap wrote: post #32
doitLP wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Is ATC a problem in other countries than the US? Are they also under training pilots? If anything RyanAir with its flamboyant history of cost cutting (CEO always threatening to charge for use of the onboard lavatory) seems a more likely source than the flying infrastructure itself.

Ryanair has a very good safety history, among the highest in the world. They make outrageous claims for publicity, and their customer experience is all about hidden extras and "gotcha" pricing, but I don't think they fuck around when it comes to safety. They know that with their reputation they would be sunk if they did have a major incident.

It's both true that Ryanair has very good safety record, and that in the past there were incidents with them landing on low fuel.

https://www.eurocockpit.eu/news/mayday-mayday-wins-over-ryan...

> In 2012 and 2013 “Brandpunt Reporter” broadcasted a two episode TV investigation in which Ryanair pilots, speaking anonymously, raised concerns about the airline’s fuel policies and company culture. The pilots revealed that the company may be exerting pressure on them to minimize the amount of fuel they take on board – a practice which limits significantly the fuel costs for the company but could jeopardise safety in certain circumstances. The direct reasons for this broadcast were 3 emergency landings of Ryanair aircraft in Valencia Spain on the 26 July 2012, within a short timeframe due to low fuel levels.

Re: Ryanair flight landed at Manchester airport with six minutes of fuel left

#63

Post by jacquesm »

jakub_g wrote: post #44
jacquesm wrote: post #23

That is very exceptional. I've written fuel estimation software for airliners (cargo, fortunately), and the number of rules regarding go-arounds, alternates and holding time resulted in there usually being quite a bit of fuel in the tanks on landing, by design. I've never heard of '6 minutes left' in practice where it wasn't a massive issue and the investigation into how this could have happened will make for interes…

How many go-arounds and alternates are usually accounted for? Assuming EU, high-airport density etc, typical 2h flight. Does the estimation change depending on weather forecast, season of the year etc?

3 go arounds + 2 hours in a holding pattern should result in at least 45 to 60 minutes left in the tanks after landing. Depending on the kind of aircraft that can be a pretty impressive amount of fuel.

> Does the estimation change depending on weather forecast, season of the year etc?

Yes. There are many factors that go into this including trade winds (which vary quite a bit seasonally and which can make a huge difference), time of day, altitude of the various legs, route flown, weather, distance to alternates, altitude of the place of departure and altitude of the place where you are landing, weight of the aircraft, engine type, engine hours since last overhaul, weight of passengers, luggage and cargo, angle-of-attack and so on. The software I wrote was a couple of thousand lines just to output a single number and 10x as much code for tests, and it was just one module in a much larger pre-flight application.

Re: Ryanair flight landed at Manchester airport with six minutes of fuel left

#64

Post by parineum »

psunavy03 wrote: post #36
jacquesm wrote: post #23

That is very exceptional. I've written fuel estimation software for airliners (cargo, fortunately), and the number of rules regarding go-arounds, alternates and holding time resulted in there usually being quite a bit of fuel in the tanks on landing, by design. I've never heard of '6 minutes left' in practice where it wasn't a massive issue and the investigation into how this could have happened will make for interes…

And the reason why those fuel reserves exist is to be a guard band allowing situations like this to happen without flames, wreckage, and death. Having worked with many US airline pilots over the years, this is also why they are so proud to be unionized. Sure, senior pilots make as much as some FAANG developers, but the union is also there so that management doesn't get bright ideas about things like cutting fuel rese…

> Sure, senior pilots make as much as some FAANG developers

That's a funny way to phrase it. I'd probably go the other way and say "sure, FAANG developers make as much as some pilots..."

Those pilots have hundreds of lives on the line every day.

Re: Ryanair flight landed at Manchester airport with six minutes of fuel left

#65

Post by jacquesm »

dehrmann wrote: post #60
jacquesm wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's one conclusion. But don't rule out a lot of other things that may have been a factor, for instance, they may have had a batch of bad fuel, they may have had less fuel to start with than they thought they had (this happens, it shouldn't but it does happen), the fuel indicators may have been off (you only know for sure after touch down), there may have been a leak, an engine may have been burning more than it sh…

Those are all possibilities, but https://www.flightaware.com/live/flight/RYR3418/history/2025... They had at least an extra hour of fuel, and they landed at the third airport they tried.

Yes, that's how it should be. Something went badly wrong here. The big question is what.

Re: Ryanair flight landed at Manchester airport with six minutes of fuel left

#66

Post by metalman »

abtinf wrote: post #40
jacquesm wrote: post #23

That is very exceptional. I've written fuel estimation software for airliners (cargo, fortunately), and the number of rules regarding go-arounds, alternates and holding time resulted in there usually being quite a bit of fuel in the tanks on landing, by design. I've never heard of '6 minutes left' in practice where it wasn't a massive issue and the investigation into how this could have happened will make for interes…

Naively as an outsider, this situation seems like everything worked as intended? On a nominally 2h45m flight, they spent an extra 2 hours in the air, presumably doing doing fuel intensive altitude changing maneuvers, and were eventually able to land safely with their reserves almost exhausted. I’m a little confused by what there is to investigate at all. How much fuel should they have landed with?

6 min, is empty, 6 min is purely theoretical, 6 min would not clear for ground handling or a test start, or a fuel system check,6 min would not do a go around. will interesting to see if they release info about what the real amount of fuel left is, and an authorative discussion on how much useable flight time was there. did they actualy make the taxi to the terminal?, or run out on the apron?

Re: Ryanair flight landed at Manchester airport with six minutes of fuel left

#67

Post by gsnedders »

abtinf wrote: post #40
jacquesm wrote: post #23

That is very exceptional. I've written fuel estimation software for airliners (cargo, fortunately), and the number of rules regarding go-arounds, alternates and holding time resulted in there usually being quite a bit of fuel in the tanks on landing, by design. I've never heard of '6 minutes left' in practice where it wasn't a massive issue and the investigation into how this could have happened will make for interes…

Naively as an outsider, this situation seems like everything worked as intended? On a nominally 2h45m flight, they spent an extra 2 hours in the air, presumably doing doing fuel intensive altitude changing maneuvers, and were eventually able to land safely with their reserves almost exhausted. I’m a little confused by what there is to investigate at all. How much fuel should they have landed with?

As others have said, final fuel reserves are typically at least half an hour, and you shouldn't really be cutting into them. What if their first approach into MAN had led to another go around?

With a major storm heading north-easterly across the UK, the planning should have reasonably foreseen that an airport 56 miles east may also be unavailable, and should've further diverted prior to that point.

They likely used the majority of their final fuel reserve on the secondary diversion from EDI to MAN, presumably having planned to land at their alternate (EDI) around the time they reached the final fuel reserve.

Any CAA report into this, if there is one produced, is going to be interesting, because there's multiple people having made multiple decisions that led to this.

Re: Ryanair flight landed at Manchester airport with six minutes of fuel left

#68

Post by AceyMan »

Under FAA rules this was a screwup. [edit: see my own reply] (However, the rules are subtle, so they can be partially forgiven.) However, I'm not only a dispatcher but also a philosophy BA, so I've found a good way to explain it.

Your reserve fuel (the "extra" fuel over what the actual flight burn) can of course be used (hello, that's what it's there for) but—and here's the rub—you can never plan on using it.

That is to say, in this case, when they missed their first or second approach, they CANNOT say, "We'll use our reserve fuel and make another go at it" because that would be intentionally planning to burn your reserve.

You may only dip into your reserve when you have no other choice. In this case, when the only fuel they had left was reserve, they are obligated by law to proceed to the alternate airport, which clearly they did not do [correction: they did do the proper thing; see my 2nd reply below]. No bueno.

[this is a slight simplification (minor details omitted for brevity) but the kernel of the issue is properly described]

Re: Ryanair flight landed at Manchester airport with six minutes of fuel left

#69

Post by jacquesm »

paulddraper wrote: post #59
abtinf wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Naively as an outsider, this situation seems like everything worked as intended? On a nominally 2h45m flight, they spent an extra 2 hours in the air, presumably doing doing fuel intensive altitude changing maneuvers, and were eventually able to land safely with their reserves almost exhausted. I’m a little confused by what there is to investigate at all. How much fuel should they have landed with?

At what point should they investigate? 0 minutes? -1 minutes?

Anything less than 60 minutes would be looked at by the airline, anything less than the legally required amount (30 minutes for a jet of this type iirc) will result in a very serious investigation. Note that for slower aircraft (for instance a turbo-prop) the time requirement goes up not down because they may have to spend more time in the air to reach an alternate (or secondary alternate, if things are really bad, like what happened here).

Re: Ryanair flight landed at Manchester airport with six minutes of fuel left

#70

Post by bluGill »

zerkten wrote: post #52
abtinf wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Naively as an outsider, this situation seems like everything worked as intended? On a nominally 2h45m flight, they spent an extra 2 hours in the air, presumably doing doing fuel intensive altitude changing maneuvers, and were eventually able to land safely with their reserves almost exhausted. I’m a little confused by what there is to investigate at all. How much fuel should they have landed with?

If they have to touch and go, how long would it take until they get the plane around for another approach? In fact, you might not get as far as that touch and go and have to go around. You need some margin for all of these eventualities. The likelihood is low that these happen, but they have to be accounted for.

Sure, but the flight was a lot longer than planed. How much extra do we need. They declared an emergency, and thus put themselves at the front of the line. They had 6 more minutes to do that touch and go around if that happened, and since they were already in a low fuel emergency they get priority and so there is enough time to do that if they needed. (edit - as others have noted, 6 minutes with high error bars, so they could have only had 30 seconds left which is not enough)

They landed safely, that is what is important. There is great cost to have extra fuel on board, you need enough, but it doesn't look to me like more was needed. Unless an investigation determines that this emergency would happen often on that route - even then it seems like they should have been told to land in France or someplace long before they got to their intended destination to discover landing was impossible.

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