I’d always thought passengers were not to be on board while the plane was being refuelled, as that had been my experience in North America and parts of Britain and Europe. But last year on a fully-boarded Virgin Blue plane in Australia, waiting for departure, we were told by the attendant the plane would leave as soon as the refuelling was finished
Is this [refuelling with passengers on board] customary elsewhere than in Oz? Is it, in fact, against regs in the US and Canada? Sources, please.
Can’t help you with the US or elsewhere but can confirm that it is a common practice in Australia to refuel planes while passengers are disembarking- embarking. I catch planes here several times a week and in almost all cases the plane is being refuelled right up till the last minute before taxiing out to the runway.
I am not aware of any regulation regarding passengers being on or off the airplane in the US, but that’s with the caveat that I fly small planes, not for the airlines. I do know when I flew to Europe (as a passenger) and we stopped in Iceland we took on fuel with us passengers still on board.
Particular airlines may have developed their own rules about this that are more restrictive than the FAA
Jet fuel is much less volatile than gasoline, so there is probably less danger of a jet blowing up while being refueled than an automobile. Jets and turboprops have been known to “hot refuel” (refuel while the engines are running) because it counts on the overhaul schedule how many times you start a turbine – and overhauls are expensive. I don’t think piston-engine airplanes are allowed to be hot refueled because of the volatility of avgas. (But I’ve never read a rule re: piston planes.)
Anecdotally, I’ve been aboard a transatlantic 747 which had to return to Heathrow because of an engine problem; we had to jettison quite a bit of fuel before landing, and were kept on the plane while refuelling took place. (I think this was BA, but it could have been Air France, and it’s going back about 5/6 years).
We were never told what the engine problem was, but it was fixed by what appeared to be an 80-year old Yoda lookalike with a screwdriver in about 15 seconds of opening some access flap. Given the price of jetfuel and the amount we dumped, that was an expensive engine problem.
I was delayed leaving Seattle last week because the ground crews were late refuelling the planes. Eventually a guy showed up and I watched him do it (from inside - the plane was fully loaded with passengers).
The plane was a Bombardier turboprop.
Johnny - air-to-air hot refueling pre-dates the jet engine. There’s no reason you can’t do this with piston engines provide adequate safety precautions are taken. Given that the proper procedure for refueling ANY piston plane involves making sure the thing is grounded - a step not normally taken with cars and trucks - this might not be as hazardous as it first appears.
Xerxes - if you’re talking about aircraft, ANY engine problem, no matter how minor, is an expensive problem.
True, but nowadays I never hear of hot-refueling a piston aircraft.
Been on many airliners myself while they were being fueled up, on various USA airports.
I was flying from Buenos Aires to Tiearra Del Fuego and we had to stop in Trelew to refuel. We weren’t allowed to leave the plane or use the washrooms.
Just as a slight digression, but it’s one which I’ve always wanted to ask…
The inherent differences between AVGAS and Jet Fuel? I understand AVGAS is really, really high octane gasoline and goes all the way back to pre World War II. But Jet Fuel? It’s basically kerosene, is it not?
Yes, jetfuel is basically fancy kerosene.
Back to hot-refueling… I would guess that most folks who own piston engine aircraft are outside the military and commercial airlines, where the time-is-money equation is pretty harsh. Add to that the hazards of our hypothetical gas dispensing human being working around a spinning prop and shutting down makes sense from more than just fear of explosion.
The only place I’d expect to see hot-refueling in pistons might be in agricultural applications or some other industrial circumstance.
Yes, passenger airliners are refueled with people on them in the US. I’d say that about 60% of the time people are either boarding or deplaning while the fuel truck is hooked up.
The FAA is involved in certifying everything involved in the operation, of course: the airline, the type of aircraft, the refueling company, the fuel truck, etc. It’s done so often that it’s really no big deal - the fuel truck is grounded (to a metal post in the ground), and the airplane is grounded to the fuel truck. The only restriction we have is that we can’t start or shut off the APU while refueling - the chance of a hot start, or fuel trapped in the exhaust igniting outweigh the (extremely small) time or fuel savings. Some of the bigger airplanes (747 or 777) which have the APU exhaust way back in the tail and pointing away might not even have this restriction.
Local flights in the UK are often refuelled with passengers on board. The only restrictions I have noticed (British Airways & British Midland) is that we are told not to fasten seatbelts.
Presumably, if there was a tremendous explosion and fire, the extra seconds it would take to remove our seatbelts would make the difference between escaping and not.
Russell