Originally Posted by
jayteeto
Helicomparator. I gave 2 days of evidence to the enquiry. About a week after the tragedy I was flying an aircraft that had both red warnings come on in flight. The tanks showed 47/26/43 on the gauges and the amber/yellow fuel warning did not show. I landed very quickly, the tanks were drained and were nearly empty. We nearly repeated the accident. So the sherif WAS talking about this scenario.
ultimately, the conclusion is correct. I was confused but believed the “worst” warning. It appears Dave didn’t.
My argument ALWAYS was that whilst it was pilot error, I believed there were possible mitigating circumstances where Dave was confused by what he saw. I’m glad the sheriff has understood this and accepted that he may have been confused.
For the record, the court was totally fair with me, they gave me a hard time but they were also prepared to listen and consider my answers. Hopefully the families can find some peace now
Yes it seems there wasn’t a clear understanding of the simplicity and reliability of the thermistor system vs the unreliability of the capacitor probe system. But even so, I don’t understand why when presented with the red low fuel warnings, one wouldn’t notice the transfer pump lights on. Just so I understand, in the cruise with that sort of fuel state, would it be normal for one pump to be switched off? I suppose not noticing that 2 captions as opposed to 1 were on, is a bit more understandable than if neither should have been on.
Finally, I rather dispute the Sheriff’s point about the types of pump. Surely it wouldn’t be a big deal to say (for UK aircraft at least) only the Fuchs pumps may be installed and hence there would be no need to ever fiddle with the switches. Routinely switching off the transfer pumps is surely at the heart of this accident. Or am I missing something?