Fuel contamination problem in TLV halts flights

[nombody]

Fuel contamination halts flights - Israel News, Ynetnews (http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4065059,00.html)

Air traffic at Ben Gurion International Airport halted after contamination is discovered in jet fuel. Airline official says airport plunges into 'colossal chaos.' All flights diverted to Cyprus for refueling

Dozens of flights scheduled to depart from the Ben Gurion Airport on Thursday were halted until further notice due to contamination discovered in airport's jet fuel supply. Airport management has ordered to suspend all aircraft fueling. As a result thousands of passengers are stranded at the airport.

[ynwa]

Some flights will be diverted to Athens as well.
A short time ago AZ 813 to FCO(from TLV) landed for refuelling.
More flights are expected later on in the evening.

[pattern_is_full]

Glad to see officials are downplaying the possibility of sabotage while awaiting test results to see what the contamination really is.

Responsible approach.

[Espada III]

Katz launches emergency probe into contaminated fuel (http://www.jpost.com/NationalNews/Article.aspx?id=219427)

Certainly no sign of panic in the Israeli press and no screams of 'sabotage' from the right wing politicians. It will be interesting to find out what the true cause is - although likely to be mundane.

[B737NG]

I am glad to see that bashing is out of order and all efforts are taken to get to the root cause. Find the facts and get rid of the fiction, should be done more often: We would all be more effective then affected.

Fly safe and land happy

NG

[cwatters]

The original link appears to make serious allegations..

Fuel contamination halts flights - Israel News, Ynetnews (http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4065059,00.html)

Disaster averted

Meanwhile, Ynet learned that while a malfunction in an Arkia plane was the cause for Thursday's decision to ground all airplanes at Ben Gurion, problems with the fuel were detected over a week ago.

According to an employee with one of the fuel providers, the decision followed "three small explosions heard inside an Arkia engine. It was then that an order was issued to stop all fueling activities."

The sources added that the problem was undisclosed initially, due to financial concerns. "All this time, the filters were clogging, until we almost had a disaster today," he said, adding that it is highly likely the directive will remain in place until the problem is solved.

The initial assumption, he continued, "Was that maybe the fueling line was contaminated. Now it is believed that the fuel may have been contaminated at the refinery."

The implications are potentially horrific, as clogged fuel filters may cause a plane to crash.

Paz Aviation Assets said Thursday that it was an unidentified oily substance in the fueling terminals that caused the contamination to the filters, which were sent to the Israel Institute of Energy and Environment for testing. Mercury said it was still investigating.

The institute could not identify the substance and eventually ruled it may be a hazardous material, prompting the decision to immediately halt all fueling activities.

[vapilot2004]

Particles possibly of the binding type?

[BusyB]

Sounds similar to Surubaya fuel affecting the CX A330.

[Pugilistic Animus]

Maybe some sort of microorganism is responsible it's a common cause of fuel contamination

[mzgoo]

easyJet TLV-LTN have been tech stopping at PFO for fuel

[pzu]

see

DownstreamToday.com - News and Information for the Downstream Oil and Gas Industry (http://www.downstreamtoday.com/news/article.aspx?a_id=26557)

PZU - Out of Africa (Retired)