In 2010, a City Jet RJ85 encountered a low fuel situation. If only LMI2933 had learned these lessons.
At 17 h 26 min 16, while the BAe146 was 1.8 NM from the runway threshold, the crew of the A319 not having taken off, the tower controller told them : “stop immediately, hold position, repeat, stop immediately, a BAe 46 on go-around“. Then he asked the crew of the BAe to make a go-around. The latter refused because they did not have enough fuel and requested that the A319 vacate the runway.
Note: At this time and according to the airline’s analysis, the quantity of fuel remaining was estimated at 1,400 kg. The nal reserve is de ned as 850 kg.
At 17 h 26 min 36, the controller ordered a go-around, which the crew performed.
At 17 h 26 min 58, the crew stated: “we are declaring a fuel emergency now we request priority vectors for landing“.
The tower controller contacted the approach controller by telephone. They decided to have the airplane climb to 6,000 ft on the extended runway centreline and to “make it as short as possible “. The tower controller asked the crew to climb to 6,000 ft and to change frequency.
At 17 h 28 min 23, the crew of the BAe 146 contacted approach control: “Mayday Mayday Mayday, City 108X, declaring fuel emergency, request priority landing“.
After ensuring that they had the runway in sight, the approach controller offered the crew of the BAe 146 a visual approach, which was accepted.
At 17 h 34, the crew landed.
On the ground, the quantity of fuel remaining was 1,220 kg.
The Captain stated that he declared an emergency because:
ˆ He did not know the number of aeroplanes on landing there were in front of him and considered that if there were 5 or 6 aeroplanes, his landing fuel would be below the minimum regulatory quantity;
ˆ He had a low-level fuel caution.
He stated that he did not apply the “low fuel quantity“ procedure as he had priority
to land and he was concentrating on the visual circuit and the landing procedures.
CONCLUSIONS
The incident was due to the late communication by the crew to the Air Traffic controller of their low fuel situation and their emergency situation. This led to the controller being unaware of the emergency situation.
The following elements contributed to the event:
The lack of an appropriate “minimum fuel“ procedure associated with the remaining flying time.
Notion of minimum fuel
The notion of minimum fuel defined by ICAO allows a crew to describe to the air traffic services a potentially critical situation during a diversion while avoiding the declaration of a distress or emergency situation.
This notion of minimum fuel is not defined in the European regulation.
In its report on the serious incident on 28 August 1999 at Paris Charles de Gaulle (95) to the Boeing 737-528 registered F-GJNF operated by Air France, the BEA had already recommended that the DGAC define the “Minimum fuel“ callout. In answer to this recommendation the DGAC considered that: “The minimum fuel callout is a source of confusion. This callout does not lead to any action by ATC, so the crew must then declare a distress situation as soon as the quantity of fuel planned for the landing is lower than the final reserve“.
In the light of this event, the BEA recommends that:
€the DGAC and EASA implement the “minimum fuel” message already defined by ICAO, with the associated procedures. [Recommendation FRAN‐2012‐026].
https://www.bea.aero/docspa/2010/ei-...w100617.en.pdf