Originally Posted by overstress
Bermondseya
I saw the bit about the spirit of good debate, but your points have already been covered many times elsewhere.
The crew always had enough fuel for LHR. They diverted to MAN for another reason - they thought that at a late stage some fuel which was useable, was in fact unuseable.
This point has been made by BA insiders ad infinitum
If that is an invitation to find that information by crawling through the many threads, I am not sure I could face that
But joking aside, I don't think the sequence of events has been properly documented on here or anywhere. Isn't that why we have
independent bodies like the AAIB and NTSB - independant of the regulators even, as the suspicion that the regulators are in the pockets of the airlines is just too strong, on both sides of the pond. So with due respect to the BA insiders, I will wait until the
independent reports come out before I know whether they "always had enough fuel for LHR". The only factual piece of information we have is that they didn't make it.
I am really wondering out loud why the FAA are going after BA for operating an "unairworthy airplane"? Perhaps they consider a 3 engined 747 airworthy for a PAX trip to JFK, but not across the N Atlantic in winter. In their complaint they said BA bypassed many suitable airfields, they must think that is relevant. They also mentioned the MAYDAY in their complaint, they must feel it relevent, and perhaps they do actually know how much fuel was on board. Perhaps they do consider amount of fuel on board for the filed destination an airworthyness issue. BA does appear to have a fuel policy which might not pass muster with the FARs. When did they decide to head for Manchester, seems from the FAA complaint that it was quite a hurried decision, not the sort of behavior to expect from an airline that 'BA insiders' are telling us is the most experienced and safest in the world
That's not a nice thing to say to those of us who have never had to divert with a MAYDAY because we haven't a clue how much usable fuel we have.
I still think it's the fuel and the management of the same, but as there is no real evidence to suggest what the FAA are thinking, this is just a WAG. But plenty of other new ideas in my original post, this fuel/engine discussion is indeed becoming stale. What about the FAA vs NTSB and Merrill case? The FAA can now change how they interpret the FARs and the NTSB judge is bound to accept any new FAA intepretation. In US law, it appears to me that you can no longer win against the FAA if they don't want you to, that should be of real concern to BA (and the rest of us)