Originally Posted by marie paire
Please stop throwing red herrings into the equation!. From all that is known so far, the accident occurred because:
1. Main factor:
The flight was planned with insufficient fuel for the flight in violation of ICAO and national regulations;
2. Contributing factors:
a. the PIC failed to declare fuel emergency when it became apparent that the fuel was below the established minimuns. Mayday was never heard;
b. After the flame-out, the crew did not possess the skill to glide the plane to the airport.
The investigation may unearth additional causes. But, discounting an attempt at a cover-up, it would be extremely surprising if it came out with something substantively different from the above.
marie, your main and contributing factors will probably be mentioned in the final accident report. However, the contributing factors are totally irrelevant. The main factor is the only thing that's worth investigating and I hope it will be a thorough one! As soon as I heard that they were trying to fly a 4:22 hrs long flight in an Avro RJ85, fuel starvation immediately came into my mind.
It turns out that they had performed several earlier 4 hrs+ flights before with this RJ85.
Sorry, but I can not imagine any pilot in any serious company in Western Europe would be foolish enough to attempt a flight where he knows he will be arriving with just a few minutes fuel left.
IF(!) the investigation is done seriously, I'm sure the report will be mentioning criminal negligence, not only from the captain, but from many other people from the company. Lack of oversight from the Bolivian authorities and likely corruption are probably larger contributing factors then the one you mentioned. I know that saying this is not politically correct but anyone with a little bit of common sense will probably agree. May I suggest you let go of your political correctness and give some credit to people displaying some common sense.
The only one I feel sorry for, apart from the innocent victims of course, is Celia Castedo. If she really tried to get answers from the crew about their filed FPLN, only to be sent away, she did more then should be expected from an ARO clerk.
Let's hope that the true criminal responsables for this event fail in trying to make her the scapegoat!