Jetstar excess Fuel YBBN.

[RIVER3]

On Jan 29 JQ 753 YBBN to Launceston off loaded approx 97 bags as excess fuel was loaded.
Not sure if this was Flight Crew calculation error or Refuller error?

Assume 97 bags at 20 kg = 1,940 kg.
Jet Fuel at 0.8 kg/L means 1,940 x 0.8 = 2,425L approx of excess fuel.

Is it possible for a A320-200 to have excess fuel removed?

Aircraft was fully loaded with passengers as Virgin had cancelled flights to Hobart and YMLT a few hours earlier.

On arrival at YMLT at 2130 passengers were advised by Ground Staff that only 14 bags had travelled on flight.

Needless to say there were now over 100 very unhappy customers,who if they had been advised in Brisbane would have had time to
consider the implications of not having their bag on arrival.
Approx 63 bags were delivered the next day and 34 bags were delivered another day later ie 2 days later.

I wonder what procedures Jetstar are putting in place to prevent this happening again?

[C441]

Assume 97 bags at 20 kg = 1,940 kg…….
Aircraft was fully loaded with passengers as Virgin had cancelled flights to Hobart and YMLT a few hours earlier.
Was it a fuel overload, JQ accommodating 20 or 25 Virgin pax at the expense of offloading 97 bags or a bit of both? It's quite possible the fuel had already been loaded before the crew became aware that the ZFW had gone up by 2000kg. It's significantly quicker to offload bags than defuel - assuming of course that defuelling was even available.

[SHVC]

Or was it an AC swap, that AC was going somewhere further than intended. Whether in HB and LST req an ALT like ML a lot of factors can lead to this.

[Icarus2001]

A change in ZFW being a daily occurrence around the country. Every now and then someone gets caught out.

[PiperCameron]

On Jan 29 JQ 753 YBBN to Launceston off loaded approx 97 bags as excess fuel was loaded.
Not sure if this was Flight Crew calculation error or Refuller error?

Assume 97 bags at 20 kg = 1,940 kg.
Jet Fuel at 0.8 kg/L means 1,940 x 0.8 = 2,425L approx of excess fuel.

Is it possible for a A320-200 to have excess fuel removed?

Not whilst parked at Brisbane Domestic terminal, no.

The refueller is told how much to load initially and then must wait for the final figure before topping up... so, no, it wont be a Refueller error. Somebody else stuffed up.

[Capt Fathom]

If they can refuel an aircraft at the 'domestic' terminal, why couldn't they defuel there (notwithstanding the painful logistics involved in that!).

Normally the engineer (or pilot) preselects the fuel load required. The refueller hits the switch. :ok:

[itsnotthatbloodyhard]

Not whilst parked at Brisbane Domestic terminal, no.

The refueller is told how much to load initially and then must wait for the final figure before topping up... so, no, it wont be a Refueller error. Somebody else stuffed up.

It can be a refueller error, & has happened to me. The correct figure was in the system, and the refueller even confirmed it with me as I went past on the walkround. By the time I got back to the flight deck, we were over by about a tonne - he’d just had some sort of brain failure when setting the preselects, which left us with a MLW issue. Fortunately we were able to go low and fast and just burn off the excess, but that won’t always be a practical option.

[PiperCameron]

It can be a refueller error, & has happened to me. The correct figure was in the system, and the refueller even confirmed it with me as I went past on the walkround. By the time I got back to the flight deck, we were over by about a tonne - he’d just had some sort of brain failure when setting the preselects, which left us with a MLW issue. Fortunately we were able to go low and fast and just burn off the excess, but that won’t always be a practical option.

Bugger!.. sorry to hear that! I hope you reported him to the company anyway because it's not always that easy to fix and he's bound to do it again to someone less fortunate.

[Stationair8]

Townsville Refueller, reckons they sell heavy fuel down in Incestown.

[ahramin]

While it's theoretically simple to defuel an aircraft, in practical terms it's impossible. Once they fuel goes into the aircraft it belongs to the airline and no fuel company is going to buy it back from the airline. To defuel the airline has to rent an empty fuel truck, defuel into the truck, and then store it there until it can be disposed of. And no one has an empty truck for rent.

[Icarus2001]

Yes imagine something practical like offloading 2500 litres of Jet A1 into the mobile tanker and then putting that fuel into an aircraft owned by the same operator. Better to try to reconcile the Chinese with Taiwan.

[Capt Quentin McHale]

Was fuel available in Launceston? Tankering maybe?

Rgds McHale.

[PiperCameron]

Yes imagine something practical like offloading 2500 litres of Jet A1 into the mobile tanker and then putting that fuel into an aircraft owned by the same operator. Better to try to reconcile the Chinese with Taiwan.

Actually, aircraft maintenance bases the world over usually have defuelling facilities for small quantities of Jet-A1. Qantas Jet Base, Sydney, used to have an entire tank farm they could use to defuel, test, recertify and fuel their aircraft for engine runs and similar - so there you go, Qantas (used to) do it all the time. All aircraft boneyards (including the one at Alice) also have defueliing facilities, only since the offloaded fuel is technically theirs now, they on-sell it as clean returns.

And, yes, the fuel companies at Australia's major airports will happily take fuel back if you ask nicely - only don't expect them to (a) do it anywhere near a crowded passenger terminal and (b) pay you for it 'cause its a waste product from then on.

[KAPAC]

Can usually be used in company aircraft .

[empacher48]

Perhaps an issue with an MEL?

If they had the outer wing tanks or centre tank with a fault, they may have had trapped fuel, Both outer tanks would be about 1,400kg of extra weight in fuel which has to be added to the ZFW of the aircraft.

[compressor stall]

And, yes, the fuel companies at Australia's major airports will happily take fuel back if you ask nicely - only don't expect them to (a) do it anywhere near a crowded passenger terminal and (b) pay you for it 'cause its a waste product from then on.
it’s been a few years but last time I tried to get rid of a few tonnes for free at a capital city airport no one was interested. “Call Vioela waste management” was the reply.

[shortshortz]

What a crack up.
Virgin passengers whinge their bags aren't at their destination vs not departing BN at all.
Fuel is expensive at certain ports - tanker up to max landing weight for the return - here's another X passengers from a cancelled flight - not hard to see why they went overweight.

[PiperCameron]

it’s been a few years but last time I tried to get rid of a few tonnes for free at a capital city airport no one was interested. “Call Vioela waste management” was the reply.

Maybe you didn't ask nicely then?? :)

(Or maybe they were simply too busy that day. A few tonnes is a pretty big deal)

[BANANASBANANAS]

While it's theoretically simple to defuel an aircraft, in practical terms it's impossible. Once they fuel goes into the aircraft it belongs to the airline and no fuel company is going to buy it back from the airline. To defuel the airline has to rent an empty fuel truck, defuel into the truck, and then store it there until it can be disposed of. And no one has an empty truck for rent.
Not normally possible according to most airline SOPs for the simple reason that, once defuelled, that fuel is classed as 'contaminated' and it is not worth the time, effort or money to do the checks to have it declared 'clean' again. I had a couple of tonnes defuelled from a 757 many years ago in UK and, thanks to some friends in low places' it ran the central heating in the captain's business premises for a couple of years.

[Bula]

Someone from outside of aviation trying to understand how the most regulated industry in the world works.

There was an issue, the bags couldn’t travel. Why does everyone want to be an expert.

[tossbag]

'cause its a waste product from then on.

Nah, its not a waste, it's quite entertaining. When smelly skydivers are throwing aerosol cans on the fire to scare the **** out of you, sneak away, get a plastic garbo put about 30 litres of Jet A in it, sit it on the fire and wait.

[puff]

Not sure of JQs policys but Tassie ports I imagine would be tanker sectors - tankering fuel is loaded - last minute boost of pax numbers would have them put them overweight on max landing - choice of pax or baggage. De-fuelling is rare as rocking horse poo these days, as mentioned before it has to be put into another company aircraft, refuelling companies never really keen, unless they stuffed it up in the first place !

[Captn Rex Havack]

So VA still scheduling flights and cancelling willy nilly.every day

[Matt48]

On Jan 29 JQ 753 YBBN to Launceston off loaded approx 97 bags as excess fuel was loaded.
Not sure if this was Flight Crew calculation error or Refuller error?

Assume 97 bags at 20 kg = 1,940 kg.
Jet Fuel at 0.8 kg/L means 1,940 x 0.8 = 2,425L approx of excess fuel.

Is it possible for a A320-200 to have excess fuel removed?

Aircraft was fully loaded with passengers as Virgin had cancelled flights to Hobart and YMLT a few hours earlier.

On arrival at YMLT at 2130 passengers were advised by Ground Staff that only 14 bags had travelled on flight.

Needless to say there were now over 100 very unhappy customers,who if they had been advised in Brisbane would have had time to
consider the implications of not having their bag on arrival.
Approx 63 bags were delivered the next day and 34 bags were delivered another day later ie 2 days later.

I wonder what procedures Jetstar are putting in place to prevent this happening again?

All about bums on seats, bugger the bags.

[Dora-9]

At the risk of going OT (again), this reminds me of a famous Ansett episode from many years ago.



The B737 was to operated Nadi - Port Vila - Brisbane. The captain, who remains a good friend of mine, was one of those unfortunate people that, if something bad was to happen, it would happen to him. The FO was one of Ansett's first woman pilots whom I also liked/admired greatly.



On arrival at Port Vila the captain went into the terminal building to complete the paperwork while the FO, who was supposed to be supervising the refuelling (no engineer there), was distracted by the press coverage that she was receiving. The fueller meanwhile just kept on going until the tanks were full!



The aircraft was now hopelessly overweight. Off course there were no facilities to de-fuel. The solution was certainly both novel and original. A delayed flight PA was made in the terminal, the captain boarded most of the ground staff and took them for an hour's low-level sight-seeing trip around the islands in order to burn off the excess fuel.



The result: a delayed flight, ground staff morale greatly improved while management were not best pleased (an understatement)!

[tossbag]

I was on a Qantas flight, LAX to Melbourne, 747-300. Captain loaded everyone, started the taxy and said, we loaded a bit too much fuel, don't be alarmed but we're going to run it up for a few minutes and burn the extra off. It was awesome, lots of noise and rattling and shaking.

[PPRuNeUser01531]

Early 1990's on the international ramp at YMML I observed fuel venting from both wingtips of an Air Lanka L1011 TriStar. Nobody around the aircraft seemed the slightest bit concerned. Later found out that it was standard practice in an effort to get max fuel onboard for the flight to Colombo.

[BuzzBox]

At one time the airline where I worked operated a flight from Bahrain to Riyadh and then to Hong Kong. The standard practice was to tanker as much fuel as possible out of Bahrain and plan to land at MLW in Riyadh. One night we received an estimate of the ZFW that seemed quite low, but after being told that it was correct we did the usual thing and bunged on the fuel, less a bit to cater for last minute changes. All well and good, except that when we received the final ZFW it was WELL over the original estimate. Oops! Fortunately, the engineers managed to find an empty tanker fairly quickly, but we nevertheless incurred a delay of several hours to de-fuel the aircraft.

[FatPilot]

At one time the airline where I worked operated a flight from Bahrain to Riyadh and then to Hong Kong. The standard practice was to tanker as much fuel as possible out of Bahrain and plan to land at MLW in Riyadh.
why did n 't you just arrive over riyahd as planned and hit the dump button ?

[Dora-9]

I observed fuel venting from both wingtips of an Air Lanka L1011 TriStar.

On the DC9, if you disarmed the Volumetric Top-off Units you could then keep fuelling until it started losing fuel through the vents - that way you could squeeze an additional 200/300 lbs, which you desperately needed going Adelaide - Perth.

[KRviator]

On the DC9, if you disarmed the Volumetric Top-off Units you could then keep fuelling until it started losing fuel through the vents - that way you could squeeze an additional 200/300 lbs, which you desperately needed going Adelaide - Perth.In a previous life as a refueller we did this routinely to our KingAirs when the pilots told us they needed max possible range. Granted it wasn't an extra 300lbs, but you could squeeze in an extra 100lbs or so if you trickle filled it and waggled the wings to compress the oleos and level the aircraft laterally, then came back to your original tank and filled it level to the wing skin. Occasionally we'd refuel early in the day, they'd be delayed getting away and you'd see the aircraft piddling fuel out the vents around morno's.

One poor refueler, at Mt Isa I think it was found out the hard way that the oleos can compress suddenly and without warning when they did so onto his portable ladder, leaving a not-insignificant dent in the lower leading edge of one of our B200's under the boot.:oh:

[First_Principal]

I may have said this before, but given it's story time:

Once upon a time I was sitting in an office at an aerodrome watching a RAAF Caribou come in. They taxied to the fuelling area and I then went about my business, given this was somewhat less interesting than 'rating' other people's landings.

A little while later a chap pounded up the stairs and poked his head in the office, asking "do you have de-fuelling facilities for 3000l of AVGAS here?". Specifically, at that very moment, the answer was 'no', however I thought it politic to ask 'why?'.

It turned out they'd had a high-g event which knocked out a fuel pump. After all this time it's a bit hazy but I had the impression the pump was located at the bottom of a tank, either way they needed to de-fuel the machine, and - most importantly - they weren't allowed to put that fuel back in!

I thought about this for a nanosecond or two and responded to him that I'd just go to our depot and get the requisite equipment and return - wait there young man ;-)

What transpired was a mad dash home to get my transport trailer, over to a place that sold clean 44's, and back to the 'drome ASAP .. the mission was then accomplished to everyone's satisfaction. :ok:

Now I couldn't possibly comment about what happened afterwards, but purely as an aside I've got it on good authority that VW Beetle's and other such early machines aren't too picky about what they'll run on ... :suspect:

FP.

[Tangosierra]

You'd be absolutely correct there First. Caribou Fuel -" Green " 100-130 Octane, these days SUPER Super! The 38Sqn Mini Moke on Deployments around Western NSW ran on Green (don't tell Transport Section- on paper Moke got about 600 mpg according to the official refill paperwork), used to perform like a Bathurst car but mysteriously somehow burnt through an abnormal amount of valve seats! Narromine to Dubbo for the B&S Ball on a Saturday night comes to mind!!

[Eclan]

Bugger!.. sorry to hear that! I hope you reported him to the company anyway because it's not always that easy to fix and he's bound to do it again to someone less fortunate.
You hope he reported the refueler to the company. Outstanding. I hope this isn't an indication the industry (and the country even) is becoming a bunch of dobbing, back-stabbing, nanny-state tossers. It'd be a sad indictment.

[Wizofoz]

One question that hasn't been asked is whether the "excess" was MTOW or MLW. If they were over landing weight, could they have not burned it on route?

[tossbag]

becoming a bunch of dobbing, back-stabbing, nanny-state tossers. It'd be a sad indictment.

It's far too late to be worrying about that mate, you didn't see what went on during covid?

Australia is a sad reflection on what it thinks it is.

[itsnotthatbloodyhard]

You hope he reported the refueler to the company. Outstanding. I hope this isn't an indication the industry (and the country even) is becoming a bunch of dobbing, back-stabbing, nanny-state tossers. It'd be a sad indictment.

If it’s any consolation, I couldn’t see any point in reporting him. We all make mistakes, and I doubt he’ll make that particular one again. In any case, there are far more important things needing the company’s attention.

​​​​​​​One question that hasn't been asked is whether the "excess" was MTOW or MLW. If they were over landing weight, could they have not burned it on route?

That depends entirely on how much over it was.

[Capt Fathom]

That depends entirely on how much over it was.

It was over by 97 bags….. apparently!

[KRviator]

Can we convert that to elephants, or maybe a percentage of Eiffel towers?:}

[Ollie Onion]

You answered your own question, you said the ‘aircraft was full due to a cancelled Virgin flight’. The crew would have worked out the fuel on the flight plan ZFW and were caught out by the extra pax. Yes there are normal processes that could have altered the crew to the change in zfw but that would take communication and a pro-active ground staff both of high are largely missing at the moment. First the pilots would have known about it would have been when the loading paperwork arrived at departure time. **** happens,