Mayday: Say Souls and Fuel

[AF1]

The ATC response - at some point - to Declaring an Emergency, or making a Mayday call, is Say Souls on Board and Fuel Remaining.

For commercial ops - lets take a 737 - for the Fuel Remaining question, who is this information for, and what is the correct unit of measurement?

- Gallons, Litres
- Pounds, Kilos
- Time

?

[Denti]

The one time i got this question it was not about souls, nobody wants a philosophic/religious discussion at this point. They just wanted to know the number of persons (which excluded both AVIs).

And ATC was perfectly satisfied with the answer in time for the fuel remaining, which was important for their planning purposes. But i later asked myself if the fire services would find it rather more helpful if the answers was in another unit, the only we have indicated on board is Kilos.

[Genghis the Engineer]

I would have thought time for any circumstance but an impending forced landing - in which case any convenient unit of mass or volume. The fire teams can do their own unit conversions.

G

[aerolearner]

Here ATC asks "pounds", the emergency aircraft answers "kilos" (what they have on gauges) and a helpful crew on frequency provides the conversion.
Team Resource Management at its best!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjpBcGGsE6w#t=4m03s

[Ant T]

Team Resource Management at its best!

Absolutely agree - that Youtube link was a great example of how to communicate clearly, calmly and efficiently, on all sides, aircraft, ATC and fire service.

[Escape Path]

I've always thought you're supposed to give fuel remaining in time. I was taught to advise fuel quantity when informing ATC you're evacuating, if your emergency takes you to such scenario, along with any dangerous goods you have on board, if you haven't advised them already

[AF1]

Thanks all for the replies so far. I'm coming at this from a viewpoint of questioning why this standard question is asked, and who it benefits versus the interference factor in handling a real aircraft emergency by the crew.

In almost every single tape I've heard (and the EI example linked above is a great exception), the crew don't have a ready answer to the questions, and it places a sometimes significant strain on the workload level.

Again, talking about a 737 type operation, one could argue that the Airline (Flight Ops) have the numbers for Souls on Board, and probably also a good estimate of Fuel Remaining. So why not call them instead?

From the incidents I have reviewed there is a pattern of distraction during almost every emergency, which is really interesting.

1. Crew declare Emergency or Mayday.
2. ATC ack, and immediate start into an Instructions, Suggestions and Questions list.
3. Crew repeatedly plead for ATC to stand by. "Stand by", "We'll call you back", "We need a few minutes here", and so on.

On the Souls and Fuel question - as an ATCO, I can tell you that I have no need to know either. So, it's for the Rescue guys.

For fuel remaining - if a 767 is landing soon, I'm curious what the difference is from a fire fighting perspective between an aircraft with 1 hour of fuel remaining, and an aircraft with 10 hours of fuel. What would you do differently as RFF with information of 1,2, or 10 hours of fuel? A good sized aircraft landing soon is going to have a good amount of fuel on it.

I'm really questioning whether knowing if that's 10 tons or 50 tons, or 1 hour or 10 hours makes any difference?

I'm sure some will say that "for a professional crew" it's easy to glance at a Fuel Totaliser and a Loadsheet and give that info - but my belief is that in a real emergency, that's actually quite a big distraction, especially in a critical situation like engine fail on departure.

Any more thoughts on that?

[Escape Path]

Well, as you point out, if ATC shoots the question and I'm the middle of something I will surely tell them I'll get back to them on that one when I can, and I expect them to give me time for that.

Aviate, navigate, communicate, in that order. First things first.

[zonoma]

As an ATC I think that the POB is a crazy question. The fire brigade are going to keep going until they are assured there is no one left, it will make little difference if they know how many were there in the first place. I can understand that if say an A380 landed with an emergency that was only carrying 15 crew (eg), then the local emergency services will benefit from that info and not send the entire county to the airport should the need arise, but surely the handling agent is capable of providing POB quite quickly?

As for fuel remaining, I think there are three main reasons to this. How long can you fly for, are you landing overweight, and how much flammable material will the fire brigade have to deal with if the landing doesn't go to plan? I'd ask exactly what is required rather than "how much fuel do you have remaining" to satisfy whichever agency needs to know.

[neilki]

the (thankfully) single i time i was asked i answered in both endurance & quantity. easier than trying to understand the reason behind the question.

[army_av8r]

This emergency questioning is not only designed for airlines, these are the same questions asked for a civilian flight in a light aircraft. The airport may not be able to call dispatch for your private flight, but they would like to have the info for the first responders. As for fuel, how much hang time or how big of a fireball, very simple really, just depends on the immediate concern

[Chu Chu]

10 hours of fuel on a 767 is (potentially) going to take 10 times as much water and foam to extinguish as 1 hour will. That could make a difference in planning the response. And even though the aircraft type will tell the responders quite a lot, suppose it's an Antonov or a Yak? No doubt someone could look it up, but getting actual numbers for passengers and fuel will save steps and possible errors.

[Derfred]

10 hours of fuel on a 767 is (potentially) going to take 10 times as much water and foam to extinguish as 1 hour will.

Really?????

[Michael S]

10 hours of fuel on a 767 is (potentially) going to take 10 times as much water and foam to extinguish as 1 hour will. That could make a difference in planning the response. And even though the aircraft type will tell the responders quite a lot, suppose it's an Antonov or a Yak? No doubt someone could look it up, but getting actual numbers for passengers and fuel will save steps and possible errors.

I would rather say it's about the extent of spill if such occures, as fireball doesn't make much difference.

[Oakape]

POB or souls on board is so RFF can determine if everyone is off or not by a head count. That way they don't have to send people into harms way unnecessarily. Regarding the fuel, I was told the RFF use the fuel on board to determine how much fire fighting agent they will need to deploy to the aircraft. I imagine giving ATC your endurance will enable them to help monitor the situation in order to avoid the aircraft running out of fuel while the crew are concentrating on a non-normal situation, as has happened in the past.

[Chu Chu]

And of course, airplanes can end up in all kinds of different places, so a good head count might mean they keep looking for someone bobbing around in a life jacket in the dark.

[Potsie Weber]

POB is to get a sense of scale, generally not a specific headcount during an evacuation (unless POB is small). It will take quite some time to gather 300 evacuating passengers and count them accurately. RFF are not going to sit there twiddling their thumbs waiting for the headcount figure, they will enter and search as soon as/if the fire commander assesses it safe for them to do so.

[Wageslave]

Fuel on board is and always has been purely for awareness of endurance. - you gonna start quoting figures for the Environmental Protection people and newt-counters too? Just get on with your own job and let others do theirs.

POB is a figure that every prudent airman writtes in bold on the top of his PLOG, doesn't he? It is the whole point of a headcount before departure and is a whole number, never ever "plus" or "minus" anything. Just a number to which he has already added the crew. So he doesn't have to add up when it all goes to cactus.

Airmanship, it's called.

[Intruder]

From the FAA AIM, Article 6-3-2, par a.3.(i):
Fuel remaining in minutes.

[ImbracableCrunk]

In the US, it's time. I had an emergency return a few months ago and chatted with the fire chief afterwards and he said they prefer to know pounds.

[flyingmed]

I dont think the firefighting needs are under question. Each airport declares its firefighting capability so regardless of how much fuel is onboard an aircraft you will (should) get every fire truck available should you ever need them.

As mentioned above the fuel figure is related to endurance. Not sure if you can declare fuel in time or if it has to be a pound/kilogram figure.

[Lancelot de boyles]

Having had this situation, ATC initially asked our PoB and fuel endurance on arrival (time).
Slightly later, questions came in which were geared more to containment of any further issue on the ground- fuel quantity in Kilos, and nature with specific location of dangerous goods.