Some very very good reading, this post.
All the reasons behind landing with minimum fuel in tanks is fully understandable. It has happened to me, and at some point in everyones career will happen to you. There are allways factors not accounted for. If they add up on one flight you land with less fuel then you (or the computer) planned for. Thanks to the way we USED to think in aviation practice, some margins are build in to the rules, company procedures and education. So if one day you stepped out of bed with the wrong leg does not mean you'll crash as a result. Thanks to the back up designed into the system.
IF however people are trying to run an airport stretched to its limits. With procedures in the margin of whats legally, human performance wise and technically possible. Than think what will happen if all the bad factors play up on one day. If you arrive on that day with minimum fuel in tanks on short final with that aircraft with a blown tire/ rejected take-off etc....in front of you.
I love to go to Heathrow, and admire the people making it work. But I still got that feeling that its an accident waiting to happen. Again, no offense to people making it happen, but more to the system driving us all in the wrong direction. The reason being either being money, companies or politics. probably a combination of these three which is the worst of all. As this combination is ussually the most difficult to pursue to a change. Everybody waiting for somebody else to make the thirst move, in the mean time saying; we have done it now for years and it's been going great...
If you think safety is expensive. Try an accident.
Keep up the good work at Heathtrow
