cavortingcheetah
Your will not be popular on this thread for using reasoned and sensible argument!
If I was a betting man I would say your speculation is probably the nearest to what actually happened of anything written so far.
763jock
An emergency exists if the fuel remaining reduces to an amount where an approach to land should be started without delay
With respect that quote from one of your company manuals is very imprecise. In BA the amount is defined generically i.e. 30 minutes holding fuel at 1500' blah, blah. It is shown in kgs. on the flight plan and is the amount that must remain in tanks after landing.
Our SOPs are that if it is likely to land with less than that fuel a PAN call must be made and if an aircraft WILL land with less than that fuel a MAYDAY call must be made.
The article I had the misfortune to read in The Times was cringemaking in the extreme. Since News International took over The Times it has slowly descended to the level of The Sun and the article was nothing less than one would expect, up to its usual abysmally low standards.
As for Mr. Learmount, does he actually know anything about aviation?