RPT "emergency landing" in NSW from low fuel!

[bexrbetter]

Main strip is around 1800m's 737's operate into strip lengths shorter than that, Ballina NSW is same length, Port Macquarie is 1650ishmand in any event you wouldn't need a full fuel load to get from there to ADL....

Might have been a thump of a landing and they know something we don't.

 

 

[Ryanm]

The TAF that the crew had prior to departure didn't require an alternate, unfortunately for the crew, it seems that they didn't get the revised TAF issued during their flight. How ever they were made aware of the situation and told the weather is now below minima on descent. If you look at flightaware, you would notice that the aircraft leveled out at F170, climbed to F250 and diverted along with a QF737. NO CREW would ever divert away from a major city airfield without first crunching the numbers and deciding that a diversion is the best option.

 

As a turboprop or jet climbs, they burn a lot of extra fuel, and so once the decision is made to divert, there is generally no going back. Especially if you weren't carry alternate fuel to begin with. If you divert while still in the cruise, you have a much longer range as no fuel has been burned in an approach/missed approach and climb. More range+ more options....

 

Well done to the crew (and all their support staff) for getting the aircraft on the ground safely!

 

 

[Ultralights]

airlines putting minimum fuel to save money?

 

Standard practice in the airline game.

 

 

[kaz3g]

I knew I read that the Virgin aircraft was Melbou to Adel....

 

http://www.3aw.com.au/blogs/breaking-news-blog/fog-forces-mildura-landings-for-virgin-australia-plane/20130618-2ofbx.html

 

Fog forces Mildura landings for Virgin Australia plane

 

A Qantas pilot has helped a Virgin Australia plane, low on fuel, land safely at Mildura Airport.

 

Two passenger planes were forced to land at Mildura Airport after fog at Adelaide meant they had to use alternate airports.

 

A Qantas plane landed safely this morning but a Virgin Australia flight from Melbourne to Adelaide needed guidance.

 

Photo: A. Baxter

 

A spokesperson from Mildura Airport says the Virgin plane, which with 91 people on board, was running low on fuel.

 

It circled until the Qantas pilot helped guild it to the runway where it landed safely at around 10.15am.

 

The airport says both planes will be re-fuelled and remain on the tarmac until the fog lifts.

 

 

[flindersflyer]

You have to laugh at the pathetic attempt by James Dowling trying to sensationalise a straight forward diversionary landing by making a ridiculous statement that the 91 pax were rattled. I could also make a statement that they were only acting that way as they got to have a holiday for a short period in Mildura, but I didn't interview any pax. Did James Dowling interview 91 pax??

 

 

[kaz3g]

http://blogs.crikey.com.au/planetalking/2013/06/19/atsb-investigating-virgin-mildura-fog-incident/

 

Perhaps more serious than first appears...

 

Kaz

 

 

[Downunder]

Interesting comments on that blog!

 

 

[Phil Perry]

Yeah, but it would - to me - raise questions:BNE - Adelaide.

 

Mildura is EN-ROUTE!

 

If they were low of fuel there.......

 

Ok, maybe they had to turn back.

 

All the same: Aren't comercial flights supposed to have enough fuel for viable diversion?

I think you need to as a man called Michael O'Leary about that one Phil,. . . .he owns an airline called RYANAIR and regularly insists on his flights only uploading the MINIMUM QUANTITY of fuel for the particular flight, to keep his costs down. This has already caused a few incidents where aircraft have been diverted and had ONLY JUST enough juice to get back onto the deck safely. This is also the ***hole who has suggested that modern airliners only really need ONE PILOT. . . using cabin staff to assist in any type of emergency. . . and has put forward an idea where passengers actually STAND UP in harnesses similar to those you see on fairground rides, so that he can squeeze a few more passengers onto each aluminium tube.

 

The Manufacturers love him though, as he's now saying he's ordering another 200 or so aircraft from Boeing ( he doesn't like Airbus aparently, as they refuse to cram enough seats into their aeroplanes to suit his wallet )

 

Any pilot stupid enough to want to work for him has to purchase his / her uniform from the Ryanair Shop, and take their own sandwiches onto EVERY flight, as all crews are excluded from the on board meals list. He's even bringing in a rule which whill mean you have to pay a Quid to go for a wee. ( I'm not joking ) This must surely fall into the category of taking the Pee. . .?

 

I know a couple of guys who are already Captains on 737, but he insists that EVERYONE has to go through another Ryanair-derived 737 course at huge expense, irrespective of their hours, experience or qualifications.

 

If I get sued for this, It was my secretary who typed it and not Phil.

 

Phil's secretary.

 

 

[Phil Perry]

When did Mildura move to NSW, last I knew, it was still in Victoria...

I think you're right IG,. . .

 

I could have sworn it was in Vic when I landed downwind there in a C-210 in 1974. . . . . . didn't really matter, as the runways are quite accomodating in dimensions. . . and all you have to say to non flying passengers as you decellerate thru 100 knots is something like . . . " Geez, this hot tarmac doesn't half make yer tyres squeal a bit dunnit ? ? ? "

 

Phil

 

 

[facthunter]

If Mildura weather was fog affected they would have been better to try an approach at a major airport where more support would be available. Getting assistance from a Qantas plane might be giving weather info (.RVR etc) Certainly the crew were put in a crook situation. Weather observers were taken out of the system years ago and I don't think they do as much air mass analysis either , now, so I question the forecasts having been caught out myself a few times. It won't hurt the industry to have a PROPER investigation. Australia is not overpopulated with good aerodromes that provide suitable alternates. Nev

 

 

[Ryanm]

If Mildura weather was fog affected they would have been better to try an approach at a major airport where more support would be available. Getting assistance from a Qantas plane might be giving weather info (.RVR etc) Certainly the crew were put in a crook situation. Weather observers were taken out of the system years ago and I don't think they do as much air mass analysis either , now, so I question the forecasts having been caught out myself a few times. It won't hurt the industry to have a PROPER investigation. Australia is not overpopulated with good aerodromes that provide suitable alternates. Nev

Exactly.... the only real "assistance" the QF crew would have given was the vis during their approach.. no different to what we do every day! You generally help out the next guy doing an instrument approach. Hopefully the bean counters learn something.... not likely!

 

 

[flindersflyer]

http://blogs.crikey.com.au/planetalking/2013/06/19/atsb-investigating-virgin-mildura-fog-incident/Perhaps more serious than first appears...

 

Kaz

Thanks for the link Kaz. Puts a different slant on the situation.

 

 

[motzartmerv]

All the same: Aren't comercial flights supposed to have enough fuel for viable diversion?

It seems enough fuel was carried hey? Did they run out of fuel? or did I read a different story?

 

Its not only commercial flights that need to carry reserve fuel... :) tip..

 

Typical storm in a tea cup reporting i reckon. These blokes (the controllers included) know what they are doing, and sometimes nature dishes up rubbish that was not predicted, and the system is in place to catch the problem.

 

At best, an interesting story for the crew to share at the Christmas party.

 

 

[Jabiru Phil]

The ATSB commenced an investigation at about 1100 on 18 June 2013 and the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder were removed from the aircraft and forwarded to the ATSB’s facilities in Canberra for download. The investigation is continuing

 

This could explain why they didn't continue the journey.

 

 

[djpacro]

The problem was not caught - had less than minimum weather requirements to land.

 

 

[Aldo]

It won't be about the length of the runway, there are plenty of places around where 737's operate from that are shorter take a look at Rio (Brazil) domestic for instance (approx. 1100 mts). The intelligent thing to do in this case is to transport the passengers by other means and have the crew fly it off and back to Melbourne or wherever. I can just hear the outcry from this forum (and the media) if they did it with passengers and something went wrong. Just good common sense (risk management in todays language) in my opinion. A job well done by the original crew from all reports.

 

 

[facthunter]

It's no good when the divert aerodrome itself is not meeting the minimums. Fog is not an on-off thing. It can hang around all day in places like wagga.. The use of reserve fuel is often debated. To me it's carried to be used but then there is NO reserve. and it has to get you to where you want to go. Maybe a team of experts will deliberate over a week or so to find out that what someone had minutes to decide, could have ben done another way. It would be every pilots nightmare to miss out a couple of times at an alternate with nowhere to go and no fuel to wait around, either. Nev

 

 

[dutchroll]

I haven't really read much about this incident and I've been on leave from my "iconic major Australian airline" for a few weeks for a sanity break. But here's some general info about major RPT stuff and fuel policies:

 

Planned Fuel Uplift: the flight plan pretty much always has the bare bones minimum legally required fuel on board for the current valid weather forecast. This is standard airline company policy. If your planned landing time is 60 seconds outside the buffer period for a TEMPO, then the company will not plan you with TEMPO fuel. There are a couple of exceptions to this in my company, but I won't complicate the argument with them.

 

Real Fuel Uplift: having said the above, the Captain can uplift whatever fuel he considers necessary for the safe operation of the flight. See CAR 233 - Responsibility of a Pilot In Command (applicable to all pilots of Australian registered aircraft).

 

Management Pressure: Do Management pressure us to restrict our extra fuel uplift? Yes, often. This pressure is largely ignored (in fact treated with a degree of contempt) in my experience, but I have seen cases where it influenced the decision.

 

In Practice: In crappy weather conditions, I've never known anyone on my fleet to not want to put on extra fuel over and above what is on the flight plan. If fog is a possibility, even when it doesn't cause a legal requirement, you'd put on alternate fuel plus a bit extra, generally. But there are times when this might not be achievable.

 

Do we always carry an alternate? No. Only if we actually require one due to the weather forecast, or if the Captain wants one anyway. If the company plans an alternate due to weather, it is planned once again on the bare-bones minimum fuel required. Do your approach, go-round, divert direct to the alternate, land with the absolute minimum legal fuel reserves (ie, essentially just fixed fuel reserve). That's how they plan it. Once again, the PIC would generally add a bit to this, but bear in mind that if you're taking off from LAX and you're already at max weight, well now if you want any more fuel, you must offload freight or passengers - and while certainly possible, it can get messy (I offloaded 3 tonnes of freight just recently for extra fuel, and the company were not happy about it, but they'll get over it).

 

I too have been caught out a couple of times, and we've had incidents where a Captain has declared a fuel emergency, once or twice even conducting an ILS to autoland on runways without Cat 3 approaches! Sometimes despite your best intentions, sh*t happens. I don't skimp and scrounge with my fuel orders, but when you're halfway to Sydney from Melbourne and they declare a hazard alert doubling the holding time due to unforecast thunderstorms, well what do you do? Go to Canberra, yep that's fine. But what if you're already well past that point? There are so many variables. I don't know the full circumstances of what happened to the Virgin guys, but getting low on gas sometimes happens even in the big jets which fly hundreds of sectors every day across all the airlines, and a diversion from your destination is absolutely certain to make you low on gas, even if you have alternate fuel. You just need a plan A, B and C (sometimes in very short order!)

 

Hope this is educational.

 

 

[poteroo]

It almost goes without saying that the longer your flight time, and the greater the distance involved - the higher is the probability you'll encounter weather changes. Makes long distance jet ops a bit trickier than you'd think. Forecasts are only forecasts. Wise pilot always adds a bit of insurance. My 1st commercial charter in the mid 60's,(on an island north of Oz), saw one of the senior pilots pull me aside and suggest that I upload another hours fuel for the trip. I needed some of it - good lesson in saving yours and paxs' collective skins!

 

happy days,