For the benefit of the masses of armchair pilots who have never been to EZE, the airfield lies on very flat ground to the south of the airfield on the rivers, rather massive, flood plain.
The biggest problem with EZE is that the wetlands surrounding the airfield in winter cough up very patchy but very dense fog patches. Many times these won't appear in the TAF/METAR/ATIS but, especially with a southerly wind, they will drift over the airfield with alarming regularity! Given the same southerly wind Montevideo is also suffers from the same problem off the river. Honestly, you are just plain unlucky if you get one sometimes. It seems that has been the problem here.
The fuel decisions would have been made 14-15 hours previously based on TAF's that we all know have to be interpreted. CAT IIIa with 200 meters is promulgated and the weather is acceptable, CAT II is available and adequate at 600m in BCFG. The crew (4 of them) would have made a decision to commit and then declared a mayday due to potentially landing below reserve fuel after an adequate expected 25 minute holding pattern on a long range flight. Thus allowing them to perhaps leap frog aircraft that have a greater holding capacity due to shorter routings.
Perfectly acceptable to me.
Last edited by Wirbelsturm; 6th Sep 2012 at 08:37.