PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Avianca A332, Santa Cruz fuel leak, lost 17 tons!
Old 21st Sep 2013, 00:53
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broadreach
 
Join Date: Feb 2000
Location: Scotland
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A Spanish-speaking layman's observation:

a) pretty relaxed atmosphere in the tower. There was sufficient interest to film the landing but not to understand the implications and potential consequences of the fuel leak evidently trailing behind the starboard wing, and act upon them. At an early stage in the clip someone answers the phone and says "completamente desconocido" which I take as referring to the novelty of an Avianca aircraft landing.

b) Not 100% sure about this but the impression from the tower/aircraft talk is that the flight deck only learned where the leak was when they were on the taxiway opposite the tower. Seems surprising and I wonder if indeed they even tried to have a look from one of the windows at the rear. And if they did, whether the fuel trail would have been visible up close, from immediately opposite the trail. It is in the clip but of course that's from a totally different angle.

c) Hot brakes. Viru Viru is just over 11,000 ft and they turned off at the first available exit, having used around 3/4 of the available runway. With convenient 20:20 hindsight I wonder whether using the remaining length of the runway might not have assisted in cooling the brakes to a less threatening temperature.
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