Hi slice,
Your right there. It is the flight crew's command responsibility to get the weather update to make decisions wether to divert to Boston which was their alternate if it had better weather conditions and not to eat into their reserves as well. I was watching it and I was shaking my head in disbelief.
Holding at JFK is unbelievable I have to say. That happened to me when I went there a couple of years ago for X-mas break and we were put in a holding pattern over the ocean for at least 45 minutes. I think the waypoint that Avianca used was the same one that we were in "waypoint Cameron ".
Of course the pax lawyers would blame ATC, who else would they sue. They wouldn't sue their own pilots.
I would've gone to the alternate which was Boston in their case if the weather was a bit better if my fuel was down to just enough for the trip to the alternate with reserves intact.
They must have had a fuel planning policy in the company and maybe it was ignored. By all 3 ?
Factors were aggravated because the autopilot was u/s for the 4 hour trip to JFK and therefore have impaired the captains decision making capabilities because he was tired, then his english was poor so the F/O did all the comms work ( not that anything is wrong with that ).
The only thing which I can compare to our controllers here is when I had my right seat door open mid-flight on me (due to a hinge coming off) Sydney Radar asked me "Are you declaring an emergency ?" which JFK controllers never asked with the F/O when he said we are running out of fuel. Of course the show was only re-enacting the ATC's response but it seems there was already an urgency from ATC anway. The thing is they were being vectored too far away for another shot of the ILS if the F/O said "we were running out of fuel" if they thought it was an emergency. Maybe that's their procedure I dont know.
The thing is one of the controllers which was told they are low on fuel did not pass on their situation to the next one. I think that was JFK approach.
And yes the FE knew they only had one shot at it. But the thing is by the time they got to the DA, they couldn't see the runway.
2 or 3 aircraft before them had already done a mis-approach during the night.
I would've been on the radio declaring Mayday as loud as I can.
I dont care if I would fill up a mountain of papers after that.
Everything was stacked against them that night.
D6