Drifting along...oh well go with it...
ATSB investigating Virgin Mildura fog incident
The ATSB has launched an inquiry into yesterday’s emergency landing at a fog bound Mildura airport by a Virgin Australia 737-800 which declared a fuel emergency after fog closed Adelaide airport.
It described the incident as ‘serious’.
This inquiry is understood to be among the very few cases that a serious fuel related incident involving an Australian airliner of size has come under scrutiny.
The ATSB will have the benefit of first person accounts of the incident not only from the pilots, but it is understood, from persons who were among the more than 90 passenger and crew onboard the flight from Brisbane to Adelaide.
It will also have recourse to a video taken on the ground at Mildura Airport of the incident and limited visibility that applied at the time, when the Virgin Australia 737 made two missed approaches prior to its landing.
Passengers were told to brace before the landing, an instruction consistent with preparation for a crash.
If the inquiry meets the expectations of concerned pilots and other interested parties it will ask questions about the Bureau of Meteorology forecasts for conditions at Adelaide which were taken into account by the pilots and flight planners affected by that airport’s unexpected closure, as well as advice that Mildura was clear when the Qantas and Virgin flights that then diverted to it found it seriously fog affected.
It will also need to address the fuel policies or rules which apply to flights like those which had already been affected by a series of serious and often unforecast fogs at SE Australia airports this autumn and early winter before yesterday’s Mildura incident.
Are these rules adequate if they leave airliners in a position where they have no alternative but to land in poor visibility because of insufficient fuel for longer holding patterns or a long return to airport of departure or a more distant alternative airport?
The spotlight will be on the ATSB for such questions and answers, in a winter which has only just started, and has been unusually foggy. It is an incident of significant safety importance.
Hmm maybe R25...
Recommendation 25
9.108 The committee recommends that the Aeronautical Information Package (AIP) En Route Supplement Australia (ERSA) is updated to reflect the need for caution with regard to Norfolk Island forecasts where the actual conditions can change rapidly and vary from forecasts.
...should be amended to..."
caution with regard to all Australian airport forecasts where the actual conditions can change rapidly and vary from forecasts"...