Expose: Airliners running out of gas!

mikea

mikea

Touchdown! Greaser!
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There was a story on Good Morning America this morning from WABC New York that the incidents of airliners declaring minimum or emergency fuel are way up. The claim: with fuel prices up 38% airlines are loading less fuel to save weight and thus the fuel required to carry it.

A new York controller said he has never seen so many jets requiring priority handling due to low fuel.

They had a recently retired captain who said he was called on the carpet because he was taking too much fuel. He said he had to fudge the numbers somehow to sneak extra fuel onboard.

Should be fun to see how this story gets spun by the airlines and the feds. They did blame ATC delays. They didn't blame GA, but we can look for that from the ATA.
 
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We almost always "sneak" extra gas when we can. Then again, it makes much less of a difference for us between full fuel and half a tank compared to the big iron who carry our gross weight in gas...
 
im pretty sure the only airliners to ever run out of gas completely are the 2 air canada flights. Gimli Glider and the one over the atlantic that had a bad fittin gin the fuel system and made a power off landing in the azores (?) where the shuttle landing strip is.
 
tonycondon said:
im pretty sure the only airliners to ever run out of gas completely are the 2 air canada flights. Gimli Glider and the one over the atlantic that had a bad fittin gin the fuel system and made a power off landing in the azores (?) where the shuttle landing strip is.
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These are from memory. I'll see if I can find the full facts.

There was a Columbian airliner that was bingo fuel and communicated it pretty poorly to some ATC out east. They ended up crashing.

Then there was also the TACE (Honduran Airline) that ran out of fuel and he managed to glide to a landing off field. The only successful off field landing of a 737.
 
There was also an airliner that ran dry and ditched in the water somewhere, but I think that had been hijacked, which tends to throw preflight planning right in the crapper.
 
tonycondon said:
im pretty sure the only airliners to ever run out of gas completely are the 2 air canada flights. Gimli Glider and the one over the atlantic that had a bad fittin gin the fuel system and made a power off landing in the azores (?) where the shuttle landing strip is.
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The second one was Air Transat, not Air Canada.
 
I think the future looks bright for pilots like Tony!! :D
 
737 landing off field eh? i wonder what the retrieve was like
 
Here are some accounts of how they got it out of there

[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]Eric Rabalais recounted an episode from May 1988: “A Taca Airlines Boeing 737 [Flight 111] [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]deadsticked it into the grassy area on the south side of the facility, after being struck by lightning.

[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]It was stuck in the mud, but luckily there were no injuries.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]The maintenance crew showed up the next day & swapped an engine out.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]It later took off from the old runway & headed for Lakefront Airport.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]That was an exciting couple of days at work!” [/FONT]​
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[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]The Boeing representatives initially thought about barging the aircraft out[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]but the field seemed good enough to fly off of once it dried out a bit.[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]They replaced both engines & about 10 days later flew the aircraft over to MSY for a straight in approach to Runway 28.[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]TACA had only been operating this particular aircraft (on a lease from Continental Airlines) for about 3 weeks.[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]It had less than 90 hours total time on the plane. It was for all, intents and purposes, brand new[/FONT]​
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smigaldi said:
There was a Columbian airliner that was bingo fuel and communicated it pretty poorly to some ATC out east. They ended up crashing.
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It was a south american airline, I don't remember it as being Columbian. And the intended landing was at JFK.

-Skip
 
smigaldi said:
Read my earlier post



A BOEING 707-321B WITH COLOMBIAN REGISTRATION HK-2016
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Oh, THAT one.

Just kidding. I didn't mean to imply that Columbian was wrong, just that I couldn't remember it. JFK was indeed the airport.

-Skip
 
Skip Miller said:
Oh, THAT one.

Just kidding. I didn't mean to imply that Columbian was wrong, just that I couldn't remember it. JFK was indeed the airport.

-Skip
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I didn't think you did. I just thought you missed the post. I was firing them out pretty quick and there a bunch in the thread now.
 
scotts trying to hit 10,000 by the end of the day
 
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There was also the United DC-8 that ran out of fuel near PDX in 1978 while troubleshooting a landing gear problem (talk about swamps and alligators!). You can read all about the United 173 accident here. FWIW, it was this accident that led United to pioneer CRM due both to the pilots not communicating well in the cockpit and the lack of communication between cockpit and cabin crews.

Also, there's the Hapag-Lloyd A310 which almost ran out of gas (they got one restarted and made it to the airport) while diverting with a landing gear problem in 2000, and an Allegro Air DC-9 which landed on a road short of the airport in Mexico with no fuel left in 1996. See http://www.airsafe.com/events/noengine.htm for more on those.

Thus, we have at least six jet airliner fuel exhaustions on record.
 
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scott you know when you hit 10000 the post count just rolls over to 0, right?
 
So let me see if I understand this...

.. the airliners are pressuring the captains to load less fuel.

The idea being, less fuel, less force needed to accelerate the fuel, so less fuel burned?

That just seems ... wrong to me.
 
thats how i read it. and apparently the captains are taking the bait, evidenced by more than a 14 times increase in minimum fuel calls. I *think* it was Bob Buck who talked in his book North Star Over my Shoulder about how there are few true captains left, and this seems to be proof.
 
Greebo said:
So let me see if I understand this...

.. the airliners are pressuring the captains to load less fuel.

The idea being, less fuel, less force needed to accelerate the fuel, so less fuel burned?

That just seems ... wrong to me.
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No. Less fuel = less gross weight to haul = less fuel required to haul the weight

Or you could take the Fark sub's take on this very story that the airlines are loading less fuel so they can get priority handling on landing. :rolleyes:

We all know how routine and how much fun it is to declare an emergency so you get priority handling, right? :no:
 
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I guess it makes sense but it seems like needless risk on the part of the airlines to me. Do you think the FAA should look in to a reasonable method for setting fines for running too low on fuel assuming the route itself was as planned and reasonable?
 
While frequently listening to JFK Tower, I've heard at least one landing that was definitely short on fuel in the last couple weeks. I've caught part of other calls which were given priority but didn't catch what the issue was. A couple others had gear issues.

But, I can't tell you the number of times I hear an aircraft in the departure lineup state they may need to return to the gate for fuel if not off the ground soon. Among them have been Air France and Virgin and at least once for Air China.

With your mentioning the obtaining "priority handling" I have to wonder if the "return to gate" lines are ever used to persuade ATC to get them ahead of others.
 
Greebo said:
So let me see if I understand this...

.. the airliners are pressuring the captains to load less fuel.

The idea being, less fuel, less force needed to accelerate the fuel, so less fuel burned?

That just seems ... wrong to me.
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and less fuel to carry it aloft

There is also some other games they play with fuel. For instance if point a is cheap fuel and destination b is high fuel, they may load up at a and bring fuel to b.
 
mikea said:
No. Less fuel = less gross weight to haul = less fuel required to haul the weight
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That's exactly what it is. MSNBC did an OUTSTANDING special on a week in the life of American Airlines. They got unprecedented access to all aspects of the airline, from the corporate headquarters to the cockpit, baggage handling to the ramp...it's incredible. They go into the math behind this - I don't remember the exact numbers, but for every X amount of extra gas they carry, it costs $x to carry the unusable gas, alone. By reducing the amount of gas to only what they need (planned route + alternate + req'd reserve at normal cruise setting) they're saving 100s of thousands of dollars a year, and burning less gas in the process.
 
KennyFlys said:
While frequently listening to JFK Tower, I've heard at least one landing that was definitely short on fuel in the last couple weeks. I've caught part of other calls which were given priority but didn't catch what the issue was. A couple others had gear issues.
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This happens all the time...especially in New York. We had to declare min fuel week before last in Boston (they always ask if you're declaring an emergency, you assure them "not yet, we just can't incure many more delays before we will"). It was a low IFR day (RVRs between 600 and 1800 all day), and the wind was howling out of the west leaving them with only one take off and one landing runway. When we got gas in ISP, the company knows it takes us an average of: 50lbs to taxi, 688lbs enroute, 220lbs to get to our first alternate, 200lbs to get to our second alternate, it's bad wx so they gave us another 800lbs extra and yet another 1000lbs tanker. Full mains for us is 3200lbs, so they just let us top them off and go. We could have carried more gas with our passenger load (only 16 people) but 3200lbs seems like plenty when we only require 688lbs to get to BOS. Well, between holding at WOONS...and again at BOSOX, then going missed off the ILS, we found ourselves getting into the uncomfortable range as they put us into another hold to resequence us for the ILS. We declared min fuel, they put us back into the lineup for the ILS. Had to go missed off that again...now it's time to bug out for Manchester. BOS approach was sending about half of the planes in their airspace to MHT, so we got stuck with more holding after we told them we had to divert. Again we reminded them we were now "critical fuel" - still not an emergency, but we're really not kidding now. We landed with 150lbs of fuel...a lot less than the comfortable range and not because of any irresponsibility on the part of the company or the CA...it's just what happens with ATC and wx delays these days. When we get a hold, its the second thing we brief...when we have to bug out because of gas.

But, I can't tell you the number of times I hear an aircraft in the departure lineup state they may need to return to the gate for fuel if not off the ground soon. Among them have been Air France and Virgin and at least once for Air China. With your mentioning the obtaining "priority handling" I have to wonder if the "return to gate" lines are ever used to persuade ATC to get them ahead of others.
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All the freakin time in New York...all the time! We got to sneak around about a 2.5 hour lineup once using it (19 people, 32 bags, so we didn't have a lot of gas on board because of landing weight restrictions in LEB), but most of the time it doesn't work...they just have you tell them when you need to get out of the lineup, and they'll start working on your hour long taxi route back to the gate. "Priority handling" is just to avoid a critical situation turning into an emergency...if we do get priority handling, we better be able to prove that we needed it when we get on the ground, cause there's a good chance guys in suits are going to be asking for some paperwork if we declare min fuel on a CAVU day.
 
Teller1900 said:
That's exactly what it is. MSNBC did an OUTSTANDING special on a week in the life of American Airlines. They got unprecedented access to all aspects of the airline, from the corporate headquarters to the cockpit, baggage handling to the ramp...it's incredible. They go into the math behind this - I don't remember the exact numbers, but for every X amount of extra gas they carry, it costs $x to carry the unusable gas, alone. By reducing the amount of gas to only what they need (planned route + alternate + req'd reserve at normal cruise setting) they're saving 100s of thousands of dollars a year, and burning less gas in the process.
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I've seen that special - it's VERY good. It also mentioned how much money the airline saved system-wide by just taxiing out on one engine, and shutting one engine down upon clearing the runway to taxi back to the gate. It's only a few dollars on each flight, but with thousands of flights daily, that adds up quick.
 
Teller1900 said:
We landed with 150lbs of fuel...a lot less than the comfortable range and not because of any irresponsibility on the part of the company or the CA..
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Ouch..That's like..what...12 minutes until glider? Where does one draw the line on declaring an emergency?
 
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