Whatever caused the leak, it was massive. This means you don`t pick it up on routine checks - it suddenly hits you - and needs action.
The action includes:
Flying the aircraft,
Troubleshooting the problem, which may well require extra- checklist brainwork(and the presumably Swissair checklist above is not neccessarily typical for the carrier affected)
Communicating with the cabin,
Preparing for emergency landing on land or water,
Navigating to the most suitable site and calculating a descent with non-standard parameters (no engines)and -
Rockhound`s biggest priority - making a distress call.
Now Rockhound - you have quickly changed your tune from faulty tanking to disbelief how quickly an airliner can lose fuel, to the shrill query, why a distress call only came late in the flight. So this post is mainly for you.
Listen more and criticise less maybe.