Originally Posted by
AtomKraft
I'm an ex RJ-85 pilot, and while I've no idea what they used for their planned diversion, I wouldn't be surprised if this flight was planned as a 're-clearance' operation.
In other words, you plan the flight with somewhere en route as the 'destination'.
When you are about there, you see if you have enough to proceed to your 'diversion', which is really where you wanted to land anyway.
If you have enough gas, you continue- if not, you land and refuel.
I've done this a few times, and in my view while legal, it can turn into a trap for fools.
If you go on to your 'diversion' then you KNOW that you are going to use:
Start and taxi fuel, sector fuel and diversion fuel. Thus you know that you will land with final reserve and maybe some of your contingency fuel, but that's it.
As usual, it will all come out in the wash, but I'd like to think that in these enlightened times, the days of airliners crashing simply because they 'ran out of gas' are behind us. But then, I don't fly in Columbia.....
Not arrguing with your point, but your your last line is a bit off. This was a Bolivian plane, Colombia's only involvement was ATC and as has been noted that was exemplarary.
Before talking about culture too much, contributors should bear in mind that despite being a very large aviation market, as it's geography makes road travel difficult, and despite having a very hostile topographic and meteorological flying environment, Colombia's airlines have a very impressive safety record. Since terrorism stopped being a concern here, there hasn't been a significant accident I believe.
Which suggests to me they're doing something right. As has already been noted, ATC is generally very good. It has to be! Their pilots seem well able to fly several times a day through some of the worst areas of CB activity on the planet.
So I wouldn't tar all south Americans.