Alchad
From what I have read, the only "source" of how much fuel was loaded is attributed to Bloomberg as being 54 MT. The Malaysian authorities if I'm correct have only said something along the lines of "sufficient for Beijing plus some reserves"
There were 227 passengers on board which included 4 or 5 (don't have the exact number) of standby passengers because of "no shows".
As the aircraft was not fully loaded with passengers - I think I've read there were 50 plus spare seats - I'm curious as to why the standby passengers were presumably only allowed on because of the "no shows".
Does this mean the fuel capacity vs payload was the governing factor?
Point of my question is to do with the possible range of MH370. One of the early posts in this thread suggested that the plane could have been tankering fuel and carrying way over the amount needed for "Beijing plus reserve". If it was carrying a large amount of extra fuel then the maximum range would be affected. The standby passenger issue seems to contradict this theory though.
The questions you ask are all easily answered by some simple research, even if you are unfamiliar with the a/c and have no flying experience.
The 777-200ER can hold approx 120MT +/- of avgas.
The 54MT on board was sufficient for the mission + alternate with a bit to spare.
The 777 burns approx 6.5-6.7MT an hour in the cruise.
Empty weight is approx 140MT
Max T/O weight is approx 295-298MT
300 pax and bags approx 30MT
I have no idea how much freight was uplifted but simple math tells you they could have loaded a lot of lead ingots and still been under MTOW.
On ultra long haul there is obviously a trade-off between pax/frt and fuel but for a flight of this duration there is none.
The standby pax argument is a red herring.