Out of Fuel

brien23

brien23

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Brien
How does this happen. Again and again it happens pilots running out of fuel. Who is most likely to run out? Seems rare of a helicopter running out of fuel not to many seaplanes or jets a few twin engine and lots of single engine land . As to pilot times some low time some high time why?
 
Well for one thing crews in jet or twin-turboprop operations fly far more regularly and generally have stricter procedures and planning, as well as better fuel management tools. The weekend warrior who owns a plane and doesn't fuel after every flight is much more likely to just take a look at the gauges and go for a flight, only to be sadly mistaken.

But you're right that it's a 99%-preventable cause of accidents. We always fuel to the tabs after a flight so that we can visually check the level and then set the fuel totalizer on the engine monitor appropriately. Between that and the generous reserves I leave myself its virtually impossible (barring a leak) for me to accidentally run the tanks dry.
 
my fuel burn varies between 9.5-11.5 gph in cruise depending on altitude. I guess on a 3-4 hr trip that can be a 6-8 gallon swing. Very bad if you don't have a fuel monitor and use an optimistic fuel burn.
 
I have purposely bought aircraft that I could fill with fuel and still haul what I needed to haul. I've never been a just look at the gauges guy, I rely much more on the totalizer which I have tested many times to be accurate within .1 or .2 of a gallon. Some of this is also pilots. I don't get cheap about buying fuel. If I land at an expensive airport, I bite the bullet.

My cars also never get below a quarter tank, it's a discipline.
 
I ask myself this same question every time. I just don't understand how people can be so lackadaisical about pre-flight.

I always do a full pre-flight on the aircraft, regardless of if I have already flown it that same day. Some call that over-doing it, but when it comes to my own hide, I don't think it's possible to overdo it.
 
Alexb2000 said:
I have purposely bought aircraft that I could fill with fuel and still haul what I needed to haul. I've never been a just look at the gauges guy, I rely much more on the totalizer which I have tested many times to be accurate within .1 or .2 of a gallon. Some of this is also pilots. I don't get cheap about buying fuel. If I land at an expensive airport, I bite the bullet.

My cars also never get below a quarter tank, it's a discipline.
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No kidding. paying an extra dollar or two per gallon is still cheaper than ditching the plane in a field.
 
Poor planning thinking they can make it, forgetting to switch the tanks. When I plan flights, I'll usually use the highest GPH fuel burn just to be conservative
 
rbridges said:
No kidding. paying an extra dollar or two per gallon is still cheaper than ditching the plane in a field.
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Had a C-172 stop for lowest price on gas in the area, pumps were out of gas he departed and ran out of gas on the way home. Cheap gas might not be so cheap if you have to put it down off airport.:confused:
 
In addition to planning via engine time and fuel burn I have a very strict but simple policy in the aircraft. Both gauges hit quarters and I hit the "nearest" button on the GPS. Don't care where I am or how near my destination. Don't care if I have to go backwards. I hit the button and go where it says. I am NOT running out of gas.
 
But actually having to do so would be poor flight planning. . . . . . . .

Ah yes, the ones who think it can never happen to them.
I am with you Steingar - I use the panel clock for a fuel gauge and the fuel gauge as a confirmation only.
My bingo is 1 hour of fuel remaining. Landed 20 minutes short of my home field because the clock (and gauge) went 'bingo'.
Pilot with me went ballistic because he HAD to be home on time to meet his wife for dinner. Bad mouthed me all over the field for a couple of years - then he totaled his plane.
Yup, you got it!
Ran out of fuel. He no longer flies.
 
I live by the most pessimistic of: The fuel gauge, my JPI totalizer, and what I computed the endurance to be.

I once had a flight with a leaking fuel fitting that was consuming fuel at the rate of 60 gph (normally about 12).
 
Like to always plan a stop with VFR reserve. Landed once and the self serve pump Was out of service.Had to go elsewhere.
 
I'm paranoid about running out of fuel so consequently I've never ran out of fuel in anything - car, truck, airplane, motorcycle....

Oh, the motorcycle. Well I have an explanation for that, and yes, ultimately it was my fault but.....

BMW uses a conductive strip level sensor for the fuel gauge in their bikes that are so equipped. This sensor fails sometimes. Mind you, I've always used the trip odometer vs. the fuel gauge, but BMW's crappy programming ALSO randomly displays either the #2 trip odometer, or the odometer, instead of whatever you last set it at.

Well there was a perfect storm. The one day I forgot to display the trip odometer (I never forgot to set it at my last fueling point) was the day when the fuel gauge decided to fail. And the failure mode is to display the last working fuel sensed by the unit. So, with a little less than a quarter tank displayed, my engine quit on me on the freeway. I pulled over. WTF out of gas??? I toggled through the display settings to display the trip odometer - sure enough, 320 miles. Oops.

I loved that bike, but ******n it had some quirky problems.
 
Dr. O said:
But actually having to do so would be poor flight planning. . . . . . . .

Ah yes, the ones who think it can never happen to them.
I am with you Steingar - I use the panel clock for a fuel gauge and the fuel gauge as a confirmation only.
My bingo is 1 hour of fuel remaining. Landed 20 minutes short of my home field because the clock (and gauge) went 'bingo'.
Pilot with me went ballistic because he HAD to be home on time to meet his wife for dinner. Bad mouthed me all over the field for a couple of years - then he totaled his plane.
Yup, you got it!
Ran out of fuel. He no longer flies.
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good for you. You think he would help pay to repair your plane if it ran out of gas and crashed? Heck, he'd probably make a beeline to the lawyer to sue you for medical costs/mental anguish.
 
wsuffa said:
Fuel totalizers are wonderful devices.
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But they still require an accurate setting from the pilot, making room for pilot error.

Personally, I stick the tanks for every flight -- even if my flight is only to the pumps 5nm away where I can get cheaper fuel, and if I don't like my levels, I get more expensive gas at the jet center I hangar at.

As to reading the gauges... I'm a firm disbeliever in them. A long time ago I was told to simply not trust fuel gauges and I blindly accepted that but now my distrust isn't so blind. I was in the Army and my squad leader had checked a Jeep out of the motor pool; he and I were taking a few hour drive. I asked him before we left "did you check the gas?". He pointed to the gauge and said "it's full". I asked him "did you actually look in the tank? these gauges break all the time" but he wasn't interested. 20 minutes later, I was relaxing on the side of the road while he was walking with a portable gas can to the station we'd passed a few miles back. I guess I was fortunate that he was the humble type, otherwise even though I was right, I'd have been walking for gas.
 
jordane93 said:
Poor planning thinking they can make it, forgetting to switch the tanks. When I plan flights, I'll usually use the highest GPH fuel burn just to be conservative
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Also, not compensating for unforecasted headwinds. That can be real bad.

And, to detect it, you need a flight log, or at least to monitor it. Following the magenta line isn't enough.
 
frfly172 said:
Like to always plan a stop with VFR reserve. Landed once and the self serve pump Was out of service.Had to go elsewhere.
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You better make sure you have enough fuel to go somewhere ELSE with a legal reserve before making that stop as well, then.
 
My airplane has sight tubes, which I have come to love. I can actually SEE when there is fuel. I calibrated them with lines for 2.5, 5, and 10 gallons per side. I don't take off or I land when the 5g per side lines are hit. The 2.5g lines are the absolute "GET ON THE GROUND RFN" lines.

My airplane burns 4.0 - 5.5 gph, so when I have 5g (2.5g per side) I have about an hour. I have never landed with less than around 10g. I usually take off with 20-24g and fly about an hour when just puttering around locally. If I'm going long distance I fill the tanks or get close, 30-34 gallons.
 
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My plane, you can't really see the fuel below about half tank. If I can see fuel, I've got that much. I have a stick for the aux tank, though for practical matters unless I top them at the start of the flight, I assume they are empty based on their rules for use.

I don't discount the fuel gauges, but they figure into the overall picture as I stated. I check to see that they are consistent with the visually observed fuel at the start of the flight. If they indicate the fuel is going faster than I had planned (or indicated by the JPI), then I believe that I may also have a problem.

In addition to the flight I had mentioned, I know at least two pilots who had fuel starvation crashes (or emergency landings if you will) because of higher than expected fuel burn. One remains a mystery as to the cause. The other was found to be a crack in the carb. If the fuel guages are heading towards empty faster than usual BELIEVE IT.
 
I am really good about planning my trips so I can still glide to the nearest airport when I run out. Some people just don't plan as well.
 
I tend to land without fuel a lot. Might be because I don't start with any to begin with ;-)
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
I am really good about planning my trips so I can still glide to the nearest airport when I run out. Some people just don't plan as well.
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If you are "really good about planning", you wouldn't have a concern about running out of fuel and thus gliding to the nearest airport. :D
[edit; forgot the emoticon]
 
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Mike I said:
Rare but it happens.
http://www.komonews.com/news/offbeat/114503119.html
http://fireaviation.com/2013/04/09/...unning-out-of-fuel-and-failure-to-autorotate/
http://www.ntsb.gov/aviationquery/brief.aspx?ev_id=45694&key=0
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Remember we are allowed 20 minute reserve and weight is more often an issue then with little airplanes. It might be the fact that fuel has to be managed more closely that helps. I am more complacent in an airplane with 5 hours of fuel. Fuel? ya I got what 5 hours right?
 
If you follow any POH by the book you would have a good chance of running out if you trust the TAS and GPH, especially if you don't lean. A lot of CFI's don't teach students to lean properly.
 
I almost ran out soon after I got my 150. The book was saying 5 gallons an hour, but I was using 6. Turned out there was a fuel leak that you couldn't see from the pre-flight and I was burning over 9.
 
Club rules require putting the plane away with full tanks. Our C-172N (with long range tanks) has about 6 hours of gas with them full. I have a 3 hour bladder. I won't say "It can never happen to me", but it is highly unlikely. That, and I'm paranoid about embarrassing myself by doing something so elementary and stupid.
 
Sac Arrow said:
I'm paranoid about running out of fuel so consequently I've never ran out of fuel in anything - car, truck, airplane, motorcycle....
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I wish I could say the same thing. I once ran my lawnmower dry. I had to push that Lawnboy all the way back to the minibarn to refuel. No self propelled help or anything.
 
On my student long XC (76G-APN-MKG-76G), I topped off at both APN and MKG because I wanted to do a flyby of TVC, though I could probably have made MKG if I'd gone direct from APN. I've been paranoid about fuel exhaustion since I first learned to fly. It helps now that I have a Fuel Hawk -- and use it before every leg, but that's still no guarantee. With 60 gallons useable, I have 5 hours worth of fuel at 12 gph (which is what I flight plan for on low altitude flights, though it's more like 10.5-11). On long XCs at altitude, I run at/slightly LOP burning just under 9 gph at cruise, and averaging well under 10 for the entire leg despite 14-15 gph in the climb. I still flight plan assuming 6 hour endurance though, and don't think my bladder would stand a leg much over 4 hours anyway. So I'm still confident that absent a fuel leak, I'll never run out of gas as long as I depart with full tanks.
 
In all seriousness, my personal min is 1 hour remaining.
Don't have a fuel flow gauge and I think the plane gauges are an estimation at best.
 
Pilots are cheap. I'm a perfect example. Did an experiment yesterday. I had to go R/T to Houston, and had quite a bit in the tanks when I first left. I figured it that I could do down and back without fueling and would have 7gal reserve. I got to Houston, and gas was moderately cheap so I took on 10 gal in a different tank. I tried going back without touching that tank, and when I had the field in sight, I was down to ~6 gal on the tank in use without touching my added fuel. Sure - I woulda made it, and I would land with ~4 remaining which is under the reserve required by law, but I was off by 4 gallons and I leaned aggressively and flew at my normal or slightly lower power setting.

It happens because we are trying to save a buck here and there. No reason other than money in most cases. Oh, and before you go blathering about my use of fuel gauges, I had them calibrated, and I know how much fuel they have and where they read in level flight. Of course, anyone could come up with a cockamaymee failure mode to affect that, but it's circular because -- that's why I have gauges and can monitor the use.
 
There are 2 things that play into running out of fuel, that some may overlook.

1) If you lose a magneto and don't register the issue, you can have a severe climb in fuel burn. The same with a leak in the tank, that you may or may not notice due to the high evaporation rate. Of course both of these things are preventable, but these issues do occur without notice.

2) I have met a few pilots that carry very light fuel for a fear that they have. This is something I had never thought of, but can understand the fear. They are always concerned that if they had to commit to an off-airport landing event, that in most cases, the plane catches fire. If they don't have very much fuel, maybe they won't catch on fire and burn up. Of course, the conundrum is having to land off-airport BECAUSE of no fuel...

Anyways, just two points of view that I think weren't mentioned.
 
Dr. O said:
But actually having to do so would be poor flight planning. . . . . . . .

Ah yes, the ones who think it can never happen to them.
I am with you Steingar - I use the panel clock for a fuel gauge and the fuel gauge as a confirmation only.
My bingo is 1 hour of fuel remaining. Landed 20 minutes short of my home field because the clock (and gauge) went 'bingo'.
Pilot with me went ballistic because he HAD to be home on time to meet his wife for dinner. Bad mouthed me all over the field for a couple of years - then he totaled his plane.
Yup, you got it!
Ran out of fuel. He no longer flies.
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Did you ever meet his wife? Maybe the possibility of running out of gas was a better choice than being late...
 
docmirror said:
It happens because we are trying to save a buck here and there. No reason other than money in most cases. Oh, and before you go blathering about my use of fuel gauges, I had them calibrated, and I know how much fuel they have and where they read in level flight. Of course, anyone could come up with a cockamaymee failure mode to affect that, but it's circular because -- that's why I have gauges and can monitor the use.
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Money or time. If folks are anxious to get home they often don't want to make that fuel stop if they think they can make it... :nono:
 
JB1842 said:
I almost ran out soon after I got my 150. The book was saying 5 gallons an hour, but I was using 6. Turned out there was a fuel leak that you couldn't see from the pre-flight and I was burning over 9.
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Actually you were burning 6 and leaking 3.
 
There is running out of fuel, and there is having fuel onboard but the fuel controls are set wrong to provide fuel to the engine. Both happen.

I'll tell you another way it can happen. Renter calls and has the tanks on the 182 topped off. Should have enough to make it to Vegas tomorrow. He shows up at 11 am, and takes off. Runs out of fuel just short of Vegas. Why? Turns out someone else rented the airplane that morning before he did and burned off an hours worth.

Another way is there is no fuel available at the airport where you were planning on refueling. So pilot makes the decision to try and make it to the next airport, and doesn't.

The list goes on and on.

The moral of the story is be a fantatic about anything related to fuel. If you never run out of fuel, you cut the chances of an off airport forced landing by half. That's the half you want to be in.
 
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