Skadi,
"Fortyodd2, Are You really sure about that?
AFAIK the caption illuminates as soon as the pumps were switched off".
Yes I am sure - very sure. It's what happens every day when I carry out the Check A. I run each pump in turn, prime and transfer, looking for the captions, looking for the Amps indication and listening for the pump running. Once I've done that, I put the nav and boarding lights on and walk around the aircraft to ensure they are working and am back in the pilots seat about 30 seconds before the TX Pump captions come on.
SASless, you are preaching to the converted as far as the organisation having sufficient access to fuel - we are continually being told that "someone is working on it".
Did they really have 400Kgs on board? Well, we will never know for certain but we know that they had 76.4 afterwards and we know that they flew for 1:37 which at an average 3 per min gives 367.4 - so yes a "potential" deficit of 24 kgs. However, 3 per min is a planning figure only - a lot of hovering earlier in the sortie and 2 long legs at cruise power to factor in as well. As I've said many times before in this and the 135 thread, it is a system and you have to take notice of all components of that system. It is no good relying on the gauge when the warnings, captions, crew members, clock and the hairs on the back of your neck are screaming at you that all is not well.
As TC has already said, at police units it is the pilot and crew that do the refuel - we carry out a check each time to see that the amount of litres put in = the expected amount of Kgs seen on the display.
Rather than "was there somewhere else they could have gone for fuel" we should be asking "Why they stayed airborne to carry out another task instead of routing directly back to base after their journey to the East and back?"