What policy are you asking about? The captains I fly with decide what they want. If it happens to fit the policy, then great. If it doesn't, then stiff ****. Never heard any of them being questioned on it.

the one that says its ok to depart without a plan b

didnt think it was that cryptic. Ive been reading the thread akro

Porch monkey, agreed. A decent Captain will consider company requests and plan his flight considering both safety and economic requirements. However, a decent Captain will tell Flight Ops to jam it up their ass if he decides additional fuel is required, especially if the BOM can't be trusted as is becoming more and more apparent.
I'm sick to death of hearing about 'operational pressure', 'the high cost of a barrel of oil', and the bean counters sitting in a basement telling me how much fuel I need! To them I say 'thanks for the assistance, your intent is well noted', but it is my aircraft, my passengers and my responsibility, so stick your calculators, abacus and lucky rabbits foot where the sun don't shine because I decide how much fuel I need. Full stop.

Really Oleo, what airline do you work for where accountants are ringing you up telling you how much fuel to carry? I would be surprised if anyone is being contacted by commercial to explain their fuel orders. Any pressure being applied is self-imposed. There is no need for an OM to spell out a plan b, that is implied in the responsibility of the PIC to carry whatever fuel he/she considers necessary to get the job done safely. The big problem with Adelaide is that the occurence of fog is so rare that if it is not on the forecast then the forecast will be accepted at face value. The problem in this incident is that when the crew of both aircraft were gathering the information on which to decide a course of action they were provided with faulty info regarding the weather at MIA. It simply isn't acceptable that having not forecast the fog in ADL that they provided information to Airservices that MIA would be wide open.

Warren, I am not sure

Quote:

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it's ok to depart without a plan b

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is an accurate or fair description of the current VA fuel policy nor is it an accurate description of the fuel management of VA crews.

I think you will find that it does at the very least give a diversion to the nearest suitable alternate even on a Cavok day.
It may not describe it as such but it does allow the diversion.

Crews are without doubt given FULL authority to carry what they wish and DO.

In 11 years I have never been counselled on my fuel requests.

A fuel policy will never satisfy all of the people all of the time and quite obviously is part of the overall risk management of the operation.
If that system evolves in the future from the lessons learnt from this incident then that also is part of a mature operation.

Quite simply full tanks would not satisfy some people on some days.

Equally it appears that the Met reporting system let several Airlines down on that particular day and if we as an Airline have to adjust for those continued flaws then it WILL happen

Perhaps reading posts on PPRuNe does not give a fair appraisal of the VA operation.

Err Looleft it does happen. You wouldn't be aware of that though, spending your days in the boondocks of SA training student pilots and writing pointless submissions filled with nothing meaningful to senate inquiries. And I didn't say 'commercial' are ringing pilots telling them how much fuel to take. As usual you are not properly reading mor understanding posts and you are taking snippets where it suits and spinning them into a ridiculous story.

Oleo, if your company is enforcing a non compliant fuel policy you should report it to the senate.

Owen weenie, the Senate are very much aware of a number if key issues, and they have the evidence. Thanks however for your robust advice, albeit 14 months late :D

Hi Ventus, yes that's it. Great read. Thanks.

No, they won't.

The possibility of fog or TS forming is actually not that difficult to predict. It only becomes difficult when you try to convert that into a probability.

I'm not interested in the probability, I'm interested in the possibility.

Lookleft Lyon, such anger? I guess that's what happens when you have been a supporter of the Liberals for over 50 years :ugh:
And you are still dribbling on about accountants, WTF. Pack up the Zimmer frame and go take a nap.
And surely you don't display such anger around other Chieftain fans? Naughty role model.

From the "Forty Years Ago"

Don't have to wait for CASA or ATSB.

Thanks Ventus top story!:ok: Ironically not much has really changed..fog is still a show stopper and potentially a silent killer and the BoM still struggle to predict to the nth degree the onset of fog...guess that is why they call them forecasts and not.."today's weather will be!"

Couple of passages from the 40 years ago thread are worth highlighting (my bold): Gold..pure gold..should be titled.."how the west was won!"

Agree 601...why bother waiting around for DCA??:ok:

Always amazed me Sarcs that the boys in the West only ever got the most marginal of aircraft to fly such large distances. The other interesting point is the role of the AFAP. Fortunately PICs no longer have to flight plan according to union directive.

Another point not mentioned about that flight is the amount of flak Harold copped over his decision making on that flight. He was hurt by the amount of 'armchair' experts dissecting the end result afterward. It is mentioned in the book about his fellow WWII compatriot Charles Learmonth in the book 'Wings of Destiny.'

In some ways it is sad that Harold is more famous for this event than his exploits in PNG during WWII which were truly remarkable.

Not much love for the BOM here. The fact is, we don't manufacture the weather. We can control much of the our flying environment, but we can't predict the weather, only offer estimates of what may happen.

The fact is that weather forecasting is far more accurate now than it has been in the past, now that the bom has more powerful supercomputers to model the weather. They can't get it it perfectly right, though, weather is chaotic. What is amazing is how accurate their forecasts are compared to just 20 years ago.

In other words, make sure you have enough fuel on board to cope with the unpredictable.

How unpredictable does it need to get? I always carry fuel for KG when I go to PTH. That is carrying fuel for the unpredictable. Should I then also carry fuel to go KG-ADL every time in case the unpredictable then occurs at KG?

How much discretion does the forecaster have in issuing a TAF with PROB FG even if the modeling doesn't suggest it will form? Can a forecaster be conservative with his/her forecasting based on experience and gut feeling?

I can understand the lack of a PROB FG for ADL, but given that why were the crews advised that MIA would be a suitable destination? Why wouldn't a forecaster use his/her experience and knowledge to think that if unforecast fog has formed at ADL then it is probable that it would also form at MIA?:confused:

However your predictions are getting worse at a alarming rate. This winter has produced numerous diversions and issues that have culminated in this incident.

If you are saying that the BOM cannot forecast properly you need to tell the government this and we need to get CAT III at every capital city airport in Australia and we need to rewrite the regulations in this country. The current situation is untenable and at worst is outright dangerous.

It's global warming oops, climate change's fault that the BOM can't predict with accuracy. Isn't it?:E

beancounters, technology and humans
 

What are the chances that the ATSB will think about the consequences of replacing the good old-fashioned but highly experienced met observer, whose true value lay in their propensity for a dingo's breakfast (quick slash and a sloowww look around), with AWS that may detect something in the narrow overhead window but sees nothing coming or going. :ugh:

Will they question the seemingly increasing reliance by less knowledgeable pilots on METARs, which are merely a data snapshot from an unintelligent recording device? And to what extent is aviation truly being served by the withdrawal to centralised forecasting centres where macro phenomena are much better predicted but local phenomena like fogs and crappy weather on Norfolk and Christmas Islands are not? :=

Will the aviation community now get a bit more interested in the BoM TAF and TTF Reviews? :O

Is there a measure of BoM accuracy? I'm sure they keep track of how often the get it wrong but is there a publicly available source to back up statements like
?

Prince

I don't know about so called less knowledgeable pilots as you put it, but the Metars for Mildura were not produced by automated services as they were on the blink.

So how did the BOM get the info to put a Metar out? An observer perhaps as in human?

Still I suppose a more knowledgeable pilot would have been able to see the weather in Mildura from Adelaide hey?

We're going to lose one, one day - let;s NOT
 

Ladies and gents,

If you can't see that this was a near accident, then you shouldn't be posting here. The fact that all survived is great! What forces made that crew nearly kill themselves? If I said to you; "Fill that aircraft up with fuel, and run it into that hill!" you would quite rightly say "No Way!".

Yet, the same sentiment, re-phrased, in a different environment makes people (sane people) push the envelope. Some die, some don't. You have but one life. Don't lose it for anyone. Don't lose it for bean-counters. Don'e lose it for thong-footed bum-scratchers, don't lose it for fat useless executives who don't lead by example.

Just carry enough fuel! OK?

Ned

They did Ned.

Well, to clarify, they did when they departed. Circumstances changed later on.........

STOP. there is readily available infrastructure, airborne technology available.


This is an infrastructure issue, and NOTHING else. Build it now. Make it compulsory now for capital airports. Make money available NOW. Imagine a mass loss of life now. This has to be a priority now.

Trouble is guys we live in Australia where we are a nation of horse lovers........................bolted ones that is !!


Wmk2

Virgin Aircraft 'Emergency' Landing
 

Fk me dead, what happened before Cat III ILS? Professional pilots are aware that a METAR with the word AUTO attached comes out of a machine....don't they?

In this case, a CAT3 ILS in Adelaide is unlikely to have made any difference. If the cloud/vis is below the alternate criteria (typically 400'/1600m for airports with low vis. installations) and they had the fuel, the crew would have been obliged to divert. So, it's highly probable they would have ended up in Mildura anyway.

I agree they're long overdue in this part of the world but they're not the only piece in this jigsaw puzzle.

At least the FSOs never "broke down" when they were stationed at Mildura.
But I guess the economies of having them there...for the once in 100 year airline events..would not be sustainable.

I don't understand our aversion to installing contemporary aviation infrastructure.

Hempy's argument that real pilots don't need ILS is nonsense. I bet the old & bold said the same thing about the introduction of VOR. With the generally benign weather in Australia we can get by without it it, but why? Are we a first world nation or not? I've noted before that we could install ILS in 4 airports for the cost of the Mildura passenger terminal renovation. It shows were our priorities lie.

The trouble is that we don't have a strategy for upgrading our air navigation system. We won't put in new ILS systems, but neither will we embrace WAAS. What else is there?

Before we get too far into the debate about re installing FSO's, its worth remembering is that all these flights needed was the BOM to get the TAF remotely correct 2 hours into the future. I suspect the Mildura TAF was still saying PROB30 FOG while it was forming on the runway.

If the diverted flights had better information on Adelaide 60 - 90 minutes out, the decision making would have been better / different.
If the crews had better information on the Mildura weather at the time of diversion, the decision making would have been better / different.
If there was an ILS at Mildura, it would all have been a non-event.

I fly to Mildura about 6 times a year and the number of times the TAF is comprehensively wrong is staggering. But it used to be good. Something changed, I reckon, 3 - 5 years ago. I have no idea what it is, but I suspect there is too much reliance on computer models and not enough judgement. Morning forecasts are always better than the overnight ones. I used to reckon that the 6am forecast was the first of the day that got better. I often used to see significant differences in the forecast then. Now, I think its 9am. My imagination is that the BOM has de-skilled the overnight shifts and are now primarily a 9 - 5 operation.

6 million dollars spent on a terminal at Mildura eh? How much is overnight parking there?

Does runway 28L at San Francisco have an ILS?

Ah actually no.....

If you are carrying the alternate you try the approach first - subject to reported vis/ RVR being above your company and type minimas. If you don't get in (zero base and either 75 or 100m for Boeing/ Airbus min RVR cat IIIb) then you divert to said alternate.

No local knowledge left in BOM any more. They have all retired. Replaced by a computer model.

Is it an Australian model or model(s) run by overseas Met officers?

From memory, $6.4m. No change to the roof. No area extension. Just paving, paint, carpet, partitions. I haven't met a single person in Mildura that thought it was necessary (including some people from local government there).

Daylight Robbery

Ah actually Yes....

The aircraft inbound to ADL didn't have Alternate fuel. That's why they went to Mildura where the weather was supposedly fine.

So it would not have mattered what approaches were available in ADL that day!

If ADL had a CatIIIB ILS then the crew would not have needed to go to MIA. Given that they were not required to carry an alternate due to the initial forecast they could have continued to ADL and conducted an autoland. Its what has happened at SY on a few occasions even though CB has been available.

What Capt Fathom said. They didn't have the fuel to go to ADL. The absence of a CAT3 ILS is not what caused the diversion.

If ADL had had a CAT3 ILS they would still have been required to go to MIA if that was a company alternate and the weather at ADL was below alternate criteria and they didn't have the fuel to divert after an ILS - which they didn't.

Does the ops manual stipulate that a flight once airborne must hold an alternate if the weather at destination is below alternate minima? Why when flying precision approaches is ceiling a factor? In the rest of the world only RVR or vis is required for a precision approach. There is usually no ceiling in fog.

Hempy,

What was that about AUTO on the YMIA metars?
From what I am hearing the AUTO (AWIS) was notamed out.
The metars would presumably have been issued from human observations.