What do you think Table 10 is then if it is not a transcript?
Table 10 is a description of the discussion - it is not a transcript.
- Flight planning in this company was a bit haphazard. There were two "shortcut" methods in the manual approved by the CAA. Testing those shortcuts with the Aircraft Performance Manual showed that the approximations were reasonably accurate for normal operations, but the shortcut systems didn't take into account the regulatory requirement to allow for engine failure or depressurisation en route.
- Training on in-flight fuel planning was almost entirely absent, as the long routes weren't used for training (which was reasonable in itself, due to the nature of AeroMed flights). This is true throughout the industry I think, including major airlines.
- The above, frankly, holds true for all GA companies, BTW. This resulted in most company pilots planning on a "rule of thumb" basis, but mitigating that by carrying large amounts of extra fuel, and normally full fuel on that particular route, and the company had no problem with this and put no pressure on pilots to carry less fuel.
- There is circumstantial evidence that this particular pilot had a habit of not bothering to obtain current winds for return legs but relying on the out-of-date winds from the previous outbound leg. On his 30 September 2009 flight, he reported "the forecast 70kt average headwind turned out to be 155kt." when the 155kt headwind was correct
if he read the correct wind forecast. His in-flight planning appeared sloppy as well, not updating times when they were outside the required 2 minutes (12 minutes early at one point) and missing reporting points.
- on this particular flight the pilot decided to carry minimum fuel on an estimated fuel plan. That was the bad decision - either spend the effort to plan accurately and then take minimum fuel OR make sure you take extra to allow for errors.
The pilot said he did this to be light enough to climb above RVSM airspace - but he was permitted to plan in RVSM and as a MED1 priority could expect to maintain that.
The pilot wanted to do this to save the company money - but the fuel at Nadi was half the cost of the fuel at Norfolk, although this flight left from Apia, tankering would likely have been the cheaper option.
The pilot calculated the fuel for the next, shorter, leg at 7500lbs - when he had loaded only 7200 lbs for the accident flight. He also indicated that he would only load 7500lbs even though the FO suggested full tanks. It seems he was fixated on minimum fuel that day, even though he normally took full fuel on these flights in the same way as the other company pilots.
En-route he was given a mistaken weather ceiling of 6000' instead of 600' - but this was corrected a minute later with the 0800 SPECI report, showind ceiling 1100'. He didn't ask for, and wasn't given the 0830 SPECI showing broken cloud at 300'. Had he received this, would he have diverted? The PNR for a diversion to Noumea was about 0844 and the PNR for a diversion to Nadi was about 0900. Using the captain’s reported method, the PNR for Noumea was estimated to be about 0852 and the PNR for Nadi was estimated to be about 0903. As he didn't ask for the 0830 weather, I doubt that he had calculated a PNR - would he have been ready for a minimum fuel diversion to an airport he hadn't obtained a TAF or other weather report for?