Aldente I was making a point about the interview with the Spanish ATCO, he say's in the interview that the LAN called a mayday "not because of fuel shortage, but because of engine failure." A bit disingenuous if the reason the engine shut down was due to fuel starvation.
@23:50 in this clip
KRO Reporter: Mayday Mayday - Uitzending Gemist
The documentary goes out of it's way to attack Ryanair as the only bad guy in this event. From what I can see the LAN was the nearest miss on the night and they played it down as a none event. They've also made heroes out of Spanish ATC who seem to have been a major contributor to the whole mess. I'm not saying Ryanair haven't questions to answer from this incident, but if these guys are going to make a documentary they should at least make some effort to keep a bit of integrity to their argument. From what I understood of this documentary even Michael Moore would be cringing.
If you read my post you will also notice that most of it is talking about the culture within Ryanair, but maybe you didn't like the fact that I talked about the culture of these individual Captains within the airline. They're supposed to be commanders of the aircraft, if they can justify extra fuel then take it and make the justification if need be, if you can't justify it, then why are you taking it? If you can justify and don't take then maybe you should resign yourself to the right seat.
I have to say that having followed the ECA for the last 6 months or so they come across to me as an embarrassment to the profession. I suspect that they are a major motivator behind this documentary. I would love to see better terms and conditions for flight crew but these guys are just going about it the wrong way. They had a number of baseless claims on facebook following this Madrid incident and their Cpt. Dead Tired campaign just makes Pilots look incompetent and spoiled. Stop trying bull**** the public that Ryanair aren't safe, when in fact they are one of the safest. There seems to be plenty of ways to hit them where it hurts. Contract employment for one, start lobbying EASA and National Authorities to improve conditions for pilots. The states are doing it, 1500hours minimums for F/O's would reduce the pool of wannabes fairly rapidly and force better conditions.