The
IAA report report highlights the true problem imho, madrid control or whatever their callsign is today. Nothing changed since 20 years ago when i ended up in Vallodolid in a similar WX situation and without help from ATC.
In a WX situation like given ATC has to expect flights getting close to their diversion fuel and have to organize the diversions according to the actual fuel remaining figures (in hours / minutes) and have to inform the crews abbout the intended sequencing and the necessary time until landing. That way confidence into the ability to handle the situation is developping in the cockpits and that should keep everything calm and in order. If this confidence gets lost in one cockpit and the first mayday call is out in the open, the following unknown resequencing and unknown time for the own landing leads to the next mayday call and the next necessity to resequence the rest of the flights. Itīs like some kind of domino effect, not stoppable anymore.
As the fuel figures turned out i see nothing wrong with the fuel loaded, with the fuel when diversions started and even not with the figures they finally landed. But sometime in the sequence some crew (we even donīt know wether a Ryan Air flight declared the first mayday, do we?) lost enough confidence in ATC to handle the diversions in that way, that the fuel would be suficient. That was when the chips started falling, and only ATC coud have prevented the situation from further decaying.
But as i said before, they hadnīt been able in the past, and when nothing changed or will change, then itīs going to happen again.
franzl