141–150 of 586 posts
For reference, passenger airlines immediately declare emergency if their planned flight path would put them under 30 minutes of fuel (at least in the US). Landing with 5 minutes remaining of fuel is very atypical
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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 t…
> They had 6 more minutes to do that touch and go around if that happened 6 minutes is way out of the comfort zone. They might not have made it in that case.
So I don't think 220kg is enough to do a go-around in a 737 (well, a go-around would've been initiated with a bit more than 220kg in the tank - they burned some taxing to the gate - but you get my point.) I've read around 2,300kg for takeoff and climb on a normal flight in a 737-8. A go-around is going to use close to that, it's a full power takeoff but a much shorter climb phase up to whatever procedure is set for the airport and then what ATC tells you.
I just flew 172s but even with those little things we were told, your reserve is never to be used.
These people came very, very close to a disaster. Fortunately they had as much luck left as they did fuel.
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Management can't cut fuel reserves, not because the pilots are unionized but because there are some very strict rules about these fuel estimations prior to take off and margins be damned. And those rules are exactly there because otherwise this kind of incident would happen far more frequently. But it's regulation that is the backstop here, not the pilots.
The point is that the unions are there to allow the pilots to advocate for all kinds of safety-of-flight related things like fuel reserves, crew rest, and so forth that management would be happy to cut to save money. And to do so without fear of retaliation. And if you don't think the airlines would love to lobby Congress about the regulatory backstop, well . . .
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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.
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…
const estimateFuel = (distanceInKms, litersPerKm) => distanceInKms * litersPerKm;
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 wha…
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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.
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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?
There are three different kinds of jet fuel and all are produced to strict standards, and then there are allowances for ppm water contamination (very low, to ensure the fuel system will never freeze at altitude or in freezing weather on the ground or at lower altitude).
Fortunately, the flight left with extra fuel, because it was cheaper to carry excess from the origin airport than to buy it at the destination airport, so reserve fuel wasn't needed, but it was close. Also, there was lots of lightning.
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const estimateFuel = (distanceInKms, litersPerKm) => distanceInKms * litersPerKm;
I don't even know what I'm talking about, but you at least forgot to account for headwinds and differing drag amounts at different altitudes/speeds.