UA pilot made mayday call before landing at SYD

[Quickstatus]

They had the fuel to do so, but United didn’t. QF’s plans are very much minimum plans, so I’d love to see the United one.

UA839 departed 8 min early landed 21 min late (without any holding) compared to schedule . Thats not a lot of contingency built in if you need a fuel priority to arrive without any holding?

 

[jb747]

Apparently being low (less than 30 minutes flying time) constitutes an emergency (if i read the article correctly)

If you are projected to land, with less than 30 minutes of fuel left (at the 1,500' holding rate), when you reach the end of the landing roll, then you have an emergency. As best I can tell from what I've read, he's said that IF he had to hold as long as was being required, then he would be below that minimum. By not holding at all, I'd expect he's landed with about an hour's worth.

QF12, a 747 this morning, departed with 20 minutes worth of ATC holding, plus another 43 minutes for basically 'Sydney'.

 

[jb747]

UA839 departed 8 min early landed 21 min late (without any holding) compared to schedule . Thats not a lot of contingency built in if you need a fuel priority to arrive without any holding?

You can't read too much into either of those numbers. 8 minutes early is calculated at the gate....he may well have taken off on the planned time. But why was he 21 late. If held well below his planned altitudes, then you'd slow down a bit as well. A couple of thousand feet low, and slightly late, would likely be almost the same fuel burn. But, looking at FR24, his altitudes look to be pretty normal all the way across, in which case he's lost 21 minutes...so a third of an hours extra fuel burn. I'd guess that amount would be about 2,000 kgs, so that would pretty much consume his variable reserve.

Realistically, all of this is pretty normal Sydney, so as I see he's simply departed with too little. I guess that's what happens when flight planning departments actually order the fuel.

 

[Captain Halliday]

You can't read too much into either of those numbers. 8 minutes early is calculated at the gate....he may well have taken off on the planned time. But why was he 21 late. If held well below his planned altitudes, then you'd slow down a bit as well. A couple of thousand feet low, and slightly late, would likely be almost the same fuel burn. But, looking at FR24, his altitudes look to be pretty normal all the way across, in which case he's lost 21 minutes...so a third of an hours extra fuel burn. I'd guess that amount would be about 2,000 kgs, so that would pretty much consume his variable reserve.

Realistically, all of this is pretty normal Sydney, so as I see he's simply departed with too little. I guess that's what happens when flight planning departments actually order the fuel.

Surely he would have known he’d burnt an extra 2,000kg if they were monitororing correctly?

Would he have had the TAF for SYD at the decision making point for a diversaion to BNE?

If yes, and armed with the knowledge he’d burned his variable reserve, what would be the rationale for continuing to SYD rather than the BNE splash and dash?

 

[turtlemichael]

Are there any repercussions possible when a mayday is called? Is it investigated by CASA? Any costs to the airline? I can see that Sydney Airport could probably come up with a case that it cost it money.

 

[jb747]

Surely he would have known he’d burnt an extra 2,000kg if they were monitoring correctly?

That's what variable fuel reserve is for...whilst it's nice to have it at the end of a flight, it is sometimes consumed during the course of the journey. The inflight requirement is 10% of fuel to go somewhere...and as long as you have that, you're still legal.

Would he have had the TAF for SYD at the decision making point for a diversion to BNE?

Yes, he'd have had the TAF (which is largely useless), and the much more useful TTF (current weather, plus the next three hours). From what little I've gleaned about this, there was nothing in the weather forecast to force any diversion.

If yes, and armed with the knowledge he’d burned his variable reserve, what would be the rationale for continuing to SYD rather than the BNE splash and dash?

All he has to do, is stay above the line for the expected conditions. But, if that plan included 20 minutes of ATC holding (not weather, just holding), and that figure subsequently went up, then it's just a case of too bad. He's been legal at the decision point, and that's all he needs.

As long as the above was ok, then CASA won't have any comeback against the pilot or airline. But, they could well look at any other players, both ATC and even Sydney Airport if anything they did reduced the flow.

 

[Lynda2475]

From personal experience Id say UA have form in not loading enough fuel for trans-pacific flights when there are strong head winds. Back in 2000 my LAX-SYD UA flight had to divert to HNL to refuel, due "to strong head winds", yet the QF flights that departed at a similar time had no such diversions/delays. That was last time I flew UA to/from US.

 

[moa999]

Had a bit of the ATC discussion on News tonight.
Sounded as though there was some discussion regarding the hold, then ATC basically said thats the plan, otherwise you will need to call Mayday.
Pilot then immediately called it.

 

[Comoman]

So it appears that closing all the roads etc. seems like an over reaction if the mayday was purely for below minimum fuel?

 

[Quickstatus]

Can understand ATC POV. The whole system will fall apart if they gave priority to everyone who says they are low on fuel. This way a "Mayday" gives top of queue priority, but carries with it publicity, and a "please explain" from various corners including verbal and written ones.

So it appears that closing all the roads etc. seems like an over reaction if the mayday was purely for below minimum fuel?

Below minimum fuel can mean one drop above empty. As I suggested above, responses to situations like this are formalised depending on the emergency in a Disaster Plan. In this case it falls into "Full Emergency" Level 3. Its activated by ATC. Under the plan, a certain response then occurs involving emergency services.

Like the Mayday, once an emergency is activated there is no negotiation or clarification. The big red button is pressed and the plan is followed. ATC and the flight crew would have too much on their hands at that moment to discuss the matter any further with anyone.

 

[tgh]

Perhaps it's a rock and hard place dilemma .
If less hold time is "negotiable", ( it seems to be this way in the us ? ) ...then everyone will be trying to do it.
Otoh , the full monty is a huge waste of local resources when it's facilitating the activity of a queue jumper who didn't load enough fuel

 

[Quickstatus]

I think the US ATC also say that queue jumping requires an emergency declaration.

 

[tgh]

cut and paste from pprune today ( which has been very quiet , maybe it's commonplace in the US )..

Come in JB … CCCCCcccccooooooeeeeeeeeeeeeee…...

It was likely a low fuel state. In the US you can declare 'min fuel' without declaring an emergency. Not so in Australia. You have to declare an emergency to receive any preferential handling. So the plane could have been landing with completely adequate fuel state, but exercising an abundance of caution so as to not be put into a hold.

 

[jb747]

Can understand ATC POV. The whole system will fall apart if they gave priority to everyone who says they are low on fuel. This way a "Mayday" gives top of queue priority, but carries with it publicity, and a "please explain" from various corners including verbal and written ones.

Firstly it's stupid that a mayday is required. ATC know what the issue, is, as does everyone else.

The issue in Australia is that they don't stand by their nominated holding times. It is the only place that has 'advisory' hold. I don't know what that means. As it's advisory, I guess I can simply ignore it.

20 minutes hold becomes 40 plus. I was in a holding pattern some years ago. Had been there for 40 minutes. The requirement was 20. We advised ATC that we would be leaving the hold at the next passage of the fix. The response was to ask what our latest diversion time was. Do they think we just beam up fuel from the ground.

 

[Quickstatus]

So maybe the "please explain" from CASA will also be directed at ATC?

 

[AviatorInsight]

There are two statements which apply in regards to fuel. Firstly, if a pilot declares "minimum fuel", informs ATC that the aircraft has sufficient fuel remaining to follow the cleared routing, execute an arrival and approach procedure and land with the required fuel reserves. Controllers are not required to provide priority to pilots of aircraft that have indicated or suggested that they are becoming short of fuel or have used the RTF phraseology "minimum fuel" (from the PANS-ATM Doc 4444 for those interested).

If, at any time, the remaining usable fuel supply suggests the need for traffic priority in order to ensure a safe landing, the pilot should declare an emergency "mayday fuel" when the calculated usable fuel predicted to be available upon landing at the nearest aerodrome where a safe landing can be made is less than the planned fixed reserve fuel.

From what I've read there have been stronger headwinds westbound. Also, on a number of occasions we have been kept down at lower altitudes due to the amount of traffic leaving the west coast (LAX and SFO for Australia) and we're unable to get our optimum level for the first couple of hours. Compounded with the need to cross a fix between a particular time (SYD only during non daylight saving time due to 6am arrivals) this can require holding into SYD.

This coincides with the delayed departure out of LAX for UA's history. We held on the gate plenty of times to manage our curfew arrival (much to the dismay of LA Airport).

 

[Himeno]

ATC recording

 

[drron]

As to hospitals I was on duty at Maitland Hospital at the time of the Newcastle Earthquake.Presuming Newcastle hospitals would be compromised 2 wards at Maitland were emptied with some beds out on the New England Highway-a detour put in place.So overfull wards are not a problem,well weren't then.