Numbers are irrelevant, you make sure you have enough fuel, whatever the fuck the math. I know the statement “numbers are irrelevant” is ridiculous in this regard, but you get what I mean.
This is the crux of my argument: professional pilots don’t get these things wrong. Of course, like you said, we don’t know the true cause of the crash, but it seems increasingly like I’m right.
I get that. But I also get that 99.999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999% of recalculations don’t result in crashing your plane.
The other aircraft incoming that had a fuel problem was a Viva Colombia (not Avianca) Airbus A320, inbound from Panama. That flight route would have had the Viva Colombia flight flying past the Olaya Herrera (downtown Medellin) airport enroute to the intended destination at the Jose Maria Cordova (newer airport at Rionegro).
News reports show the charter flight that crashed was put into a holding loop south of the Rionegro airport.
If ATC had known of the full urgency of both planes could the Viva Colombia flight have been redirected to the downtown airport? The runway at Olaya Herrera is 2510m (8234 ft) which should be long enough, even at their altitude of 1505m (4940ft).
Well, if you’ve got one aircraft on final that cannot go around, and another with both engines out, it’s not as though ATC will be trying to maintain standard separation. Nor will the fuel-exhausted aircraft be waiting for ATC clearance in any case. If he’s out of fuel and can make the field dead stick, he’s going to try to put it on the runway even if he’s right behind another landing aircraft, that’s still a better expected outcome than anything else. If there are no other runways and the leading aircraft is also close to fuel exhaustion, ATC’s role will be to try to get the guy in front to maintain speed before and after touchdown to any extent possible, and just get off as soon as possible.
If the Lamia aircraft had both engines out from fuel exhaustion and did not make an immediate approach, it’s not because of ATC instructions. It’s because he was disoriented, not in full control, or just did not realize he was out of fuel.
I think the other aircraft with the fuel leak is a red herring. IF they ran out of fuel then they had 30 minutes worth of low fuel warnings, plenty of time to let someone know and come up with some kind of plan, but once the engines stopped they weren’t going anywhere good. The chances of them doing a “dead stick” landing in the dark with only battery power and no hydraulics are remote and the presence of another aircraft on the approach probably didn’t change their outcome. The RJ pilot was apparently requesting vectors direct but ATC couldn’t see them anymore on radar (transponder isn’t powered once on battery power) so couldn’t help.
Just an observation: that’s three times now that you’ve responded to useful informative posts with sardonic quips that insinuate that nobody other than you realizes that running out of fuel is not usually associated with a good outcome, or that the crew and the airline probably made serious mistakes if this happened. I do think we all realize that, and I’m appreciating the information from the professional pilots here.
Risking being sardonic again, you could ignore my posts conveniently titled with my username and focus on the information by the professionals. I’m obviously only offering my amateur opinion here. Why you would read or care about that so much, given your stated distaste for such, perplexes me. Just an observation.
And please don’t mistake my posts for “insinuate that nobody other than [me] realizes that running out of fuel is not usually associate with a good outcome…” If you believe that, then either you have failed, or I have.
An audio clip of the pilot’s conversation has been making its way around Colombia today. The pilot pleads for a Vector and informed ATC that he had total electrical failure and was out of fuel. Conversation was heard by a nearby Avianca pilot who confirms the authenticity of the recording.
Translates as:
Flight CP-2933 we report that we have a total electrical failure and are without fuel.
Thanks, Iggy. If I’m reading the Spanish correctly, the airplane that was occupying the runway area when the accident pilot made his first request to land wasn’t that Viva Colombia plane itself – it had already landed – but rather some other (small?) plane that was looking for traces of leaked fuel on the ground (leaked from the Viva Columbia plane).
Sorry, I conflated two events. First, the ATC said the runway wasn’t clear because people on the ground (trucks?) were looking for that leaked fuel. A little later, the impediment becomes other “aeronaves” (planes).
Last thing I’ll mention: The pilot’s tone of voice is so different around eight minutes before the crash (when he said he had a fuel “problem”) compared to one minute before (out of fuel), that I now think he really didn’t know how low his fuel was until flameout occurred.
Until I heard the audio, I was more under the impression that maybe he’d merely poorly communicated the state of emergency (in the earlier message).
From what I’ve read in South American press sites, this particular operator was something of a popular choice among various teams – probably provided very good deals for game charters.
Chapecoense reportedly had intended to use them all the way, which would be way beyond range but doable with refueling stops in Bolivia and Colombia; but this was denied as the laws and regulations say that a charter with origin in Brazil and destination in Colombia has to be flown by a carrier flagged/regulated by one of the two countries. The operator is Bolivia-based and a Venezuelan company owns the planes. So instead they took regular flights via Saõ Paulo to Santa Cruz and there picked up the charter.
From a Santa Cruz newspaper site (Spanish) (so mind that it’s one paper’s reporting), the scheduling and permitting froofraw resulted in a much delayed trip which may have created pressure on the pilot/co-owner to try and make up time. This is a tiny shop that had only a dozen staff and 3 RJ85s, two of which seem to be hangar queens so this one was the only one making revenue. It’s such a small shop that it’s claimed they registered in Bolivia using the same name and liveries of the Venezuelan company (that had been unsuccesful as an airline there and switched to leasing) just to save money on repainting/rebranding the hardware.
The reports say that according to authorities with access to the flight plan, Cobija would have been the primary refueling point (1100 NM from Medellín) and Bogotá then their alternate if for some reason he could not make it to Medellín or had to divert, but both were up to the PIC’s judgement, and he *had *supposedly made that nonstop before. Bogotá’s 1486 NM from Santa Cruz but if you first head to Medellín and then hold or divert that eats into your margin.
As I said, I don’t know their rules. Our rules don’t require an alternate unless the weather is worse than certain criteria (I am aware that Australia is a little odd in this respect.) The portion you’ve quoted is just intended as an example fuel policy for the purpose of demonstrating the difference between pre-flight planning, and in-flight fuel management.
More reports say that the paperwork sent ahead to Colombia to approve the charter flight had the point of departure before entering Colombian airspace as Cobija, not Santa Cruz. Meanwhile, that the person in charge of reviewing the departure flight plan in Bolivia did initially warn them that it was several sorts of wrong but received much assurance that it was being taken care of.
LaMia has now had its certificate pulled and the heads of Bolivia’s Airports and Aerial Navigation Support Agency and of the Civil Aviation Directorate have been placed on Admin Leave pending inquiries.
Since this is being reported poorly in the press, just to point out:
It appears from the tapes that the ATC controller in Medellin behaved in exemplary fashion in a difficult and stressful situation, and any claim to the contrary based on what we know so far is ignorant. Prior to the crash, she was landing another aircraft with a declared problem in poor weather. Of course it is correct to prioritize the only aircraft known to be in difficulty and put others (including Lamia) in the hold. So far as we know, prior to actual fuel exhaustion the Lamia crew gave no hint to ATC that they had any problem, let alone declare a fuel emergency as they should have done at least 30 minutes before they crashed. As soon as Lamia do state they have a problem, ATC immediately gets everyone else out of their way. In one of their last calls to ATC, when they say “Miss, vectors, vectors!” this is not because ATC is somehow denying them landing. It is because their fuel is gone, electrical generators are out and their navigation instruments have lost power, so they are lost. They are hoping that ATC can tell them how to steer to the field using her radar, which she tries to do immediately, but she is hampered by the loss of their transponder signal, again caused by the loss of power in the aircraft.
From what we know, any claim that ATC is in any way responsible for this crash for putting Lamia in the hold is utterly wrong.