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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

#111

Post by fidotron »

kpmcc wrote: post #92
fidotron wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have known former air traffic controllers that won't fly certain airlines because of a notorious habit some have for queue jumping by claiming they're low on fuel. If they are low on fuel is something else, but in any case when the ATCs have noticed a pattern then something is up. This situation sounds a lot less nefarious, but it does also sound like they should have rerouted earlier.

Which airlines? I feel like if this is an issue we should be naming names.

No way.

Having attended meetings at ICAO I can also tell you many details of various aviation incidents, including their existence, are covered by some secret classification. This fact being disclosed caused most of the attendees to lose all hope in the rest of the proceedings. To their credit the FAA reps on that occasion were by far the most reasonable gov representatives in the room, and the FAA are one of the major voices pushing for greater transparency on it.

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

#112

Post by behringer »

AceyMan wrote: post #94
AceyMan wrote: post #68

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…

Update: OK, if *Edinburgh* was their alternate and they missed there and were then forced to bugout for Manchester, that's then an example of when reserve is OK to be burned. (The 'slight simplification' I omitted was unpacking how the alternate fuel plays into the process, but here, that was a key part of the series of events.) That's what I get for not reading TFA first :-/

Not really, you should have enough fuel to make it to multiple alternatives or make emergency landing somewhere else. You should never burn that last 45 mins unless you want to make the news and file a lot of paperwork.

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

#113

Post by AceyMan »

w10-1 wrote: post #99

Can anyone say whether airline pilots make each diversion decision solely based on their own information and judgment, or do they loop in the company?

Unless they are in an emergency and are busy with aviating, they will coordinate with their dispatcher on diverting, even if only to verify that the weather at the intended alternate is still favorable. Per the FAA regulations, the PIC and the dispatcher have joint operational control over the flight. Of course, at the end of the day, only the pilots have their hands on the controls, so they can make the plane do what they want—but from a legal standpoint, the dispatcher and pilot-in-command have equal & shared responsibility for the safe operation of the flight.

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

#114

Post by jacquesm »

fidotron wrote: post #87
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…

I have known former air traffic controllers that won't fly certain airlines because of a notorious habit some have for queue jumping by claiming they're low on fuel. If they are low on fuel is something else, but in any case when the ATCs have noticed a pattern then something is up. This situation sounds a lot less nefarious, but it does also sound like they should have rerouted earlier.

Claiming you're low when you are not is going to cause a major headache for the PIC, they're going to have to write that up and they may well be investigated. If it turns out they were lying they would likely find out that that is a career limiting move and if it happens too often then that too should result in consequences. The main reason is that your fake emergency may cause someone else to have a real one.

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

#115

Post by constantcrying »

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?

>I’m a little confused by what there is to investigate at all.

One of the most important aspects of taking safety seriously is that you do not just investigate things which had an impact, but that you proactively investigate near misses (as was the case here) and even potential incidents.

A plane with 6 minutes of fuel left is always a risk to every person on board and potentially others if an emergency landing becomes the only option.

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

#116

Post by krisoft »

jacquesm wrote: post #106
krisoft wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read and agree with all those options being possible. Except the "they may have had a batch of bad fuel". How would that work in your thinking? I can imagine a bad batch of fuel leading to engine damage or flameout and many other things, but it is hard for me to imagine how a bad batch would lead to not enough fuel remaining in the tank.

If you have more water in the fuel than you think you do (there always is some due to condensation in the tanks) then you might be able to reach your destination but you'll be burning more 'fuel' than your original estimate would have you believe because there is less power per unit weight of (contaminated) fuel. This is fairly common in GA and there are cases where it has happened in scheduled flights as well. That'…

Interesting. That makes sense. Thank you for the explanation!

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

#117

Post by jakub_g »

jacquesm wrote: post #63
jakub_g wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 diffe…

I can only imagine how the test suite looks like. Wild.

This made me think about the fuel itself: is aviation fuel globally standardised and the same quality in every single airport in the world?

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

#118

Post by recursive »

dTal wrote: post #85
jacquesm wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just reaching altitude again to make it to the first and later second alternate are mostly likely the biggest factors in the extra fuel consumption. That's very expensive.

You get that energy back on descent, no?

As someone who has ridden a bike up a big hill, and then down it, I don't think you get it back.

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

#119

Post by jacquesm »

nickff wrote: post #84
loverofhumanz wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I’m a little confused by what there is to investigate at all." You're confused why they should investigate how everyone on that flight came within minutes of dying? Something about the fuel reserves, procedures, or execution was clearly flawed.

Fuel depletion is risky, but not that risky; see the Gimli Glider for a case much more dangerous than this, which still worked out amazingly well. Edit: Here is the Wiki on incidents... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_starvation_and_fuel_exhau...

Fuel depletion is stupendously risky, it is one of the most risky things that can happen to a jet. The only things more dangerous are fire and control systems failure.

The Gimli Glider was a case of many items of luck lining up.

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

#120

Post by gsnedders »

gregoriol wrote: post #57
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?

Flight from Edinburgh to Manchester is just a bit more than 1 hour, so after trying 2 landings, diverting to Edinburgh (15-20 minutes flight), 1 more landing attempt, well, you get very close to 2 hours.

I felt like that seems a little long from EDI to MAN (after all, EDI to LHR is typically a flight time of under an hour!), so:

https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=4d2256&lat=54.720&lon=-... is the track of this flight.

Went around at EDI at about 19:10Z, landed at about 19:51Z, so about a 41 minute flight.

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