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Old 16th Apr 2019, 09:55
  #37 (permalink)  
DOUBLE BOGEY
 
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: UK and MALTA
Age: 61
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If you look at the long history of posts in the original thread there is a consistent theme running through it. That pilots at the time may not have had 100% confidence in the LOW FUEL warning/caution system.

In fact after the accident several machines under test displayed erroneous contents indications when the warnings and cautions illuminated. Water seemed to be the culprit.

The clear and beautiful view from the "Hill-of-Hindsight" showed us that the FUEL LOW Red warnings were driven by Thermistors and generally applauded to be 100% accurate and a neat little backstop to the less reliable and pesky capacitance detectors driving both the contents indication system and the amber FUEL cautions (set for values ever so slightly above the RED FUEL LOW warnings). My God didn't we all Know this already???? (I am being cynical)!

So maybe, low confidence in the system WARNINGS, CAUTIONS and indications, "fuelled" (no pun intended) by the Pilots failure to appreciate the Hill of Hindsight we now all occupy (thanks to several 1000 hours of testing and conjecture), coupled with erroneous indications that the 79 kgs of fuel that remained (or at least some of it) was indicating in the supply tanks and the stage is set. Chuck in several previous exposures to same. Add the cultural disposition to "accept it for what it is" (how many of us do that), and the fickle finger of fate is poised and waiting to deliver the fatal blow.

In my considered opinion, there is much of all of us in this simple accident. There are many holes in the cheese that needed to line up. Some of them are already there, now, in our own working environments. Finding the holes and plugging them is the mission. Before, like this poor crew, it becomes too late.

The single most important legacy of this accident is us knowing how Fuel Thermistors work and thus believing their pesky Warnings when they appear.
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