Still harping on about fuel
Thanks Zorab.
You will have gathered that I am still fixated on fuel as the cause!
Given that fuel would certainly have to be on the prime suspects list, I am of the view that the AAIB would have drained the entire system at the scene Leaving aside any health and safety concerns about transporting the wreckage containng fuel, the risks of any leakage in transit compromising the evidence would not have been acceptable. The subsequent Eurocopter statement was in any event unambiguous, so it would seem that the entire contents were 95 litres.
As you appreciate, this is below the MLA for this aircraft flying at night, so even if you do not believe that it caused the accident, fuel was problematically low, in a way which would seem uncharacteristic of the pilot. Quite how it came to be so low, when he had passed up the opportunity to refuel at EGPH on the way home, needs to be understood, and for me the explanation is clear, faulty readings from the fuel probes.
The other significance of the fuel system contents being only 95 litres would be that in ordinary course, the main tank would have been empty, and indeed even the supply tanks would only be part full . The maintank would in fact have been empty for several minutes before the accident.
As I understand it, there are handling restrictions on the aircraft at low fuel levels, connected, amongst other things,with the fact that fuel can still be displaced from the supply tank overflow fences into the main tank. But if the fuel gauge was telling the pilot he was not in this zone, could it be that in the transition from the cruise in preparation for landing, fuel spilled out of the supply tanks into the main? Given that the main was empty, the spilled fuel would be difficult for the transfer pumps to capture and return to the supply tanks, and they certainly would not likely be able to return it to the supply tanks in the same quantities as it had left, so the design assymetry of the supply tanks could have been lost.
More speculation, I know, but what do you think?