United mayday into YSSY 4thOct
 

Media reporting - including https://www.theage.com.au/national/n...04-p507n5.html - reporting Mayday from United839 this morning due to low fuel.

Landing with less than final reserve I wouldn't have thought justified the response - but was it worse than that?

TimmyTee - A standard boilerplate PR response, I would think - you'd hardly expect a spokesman to say, "Yes, but for the grace of God, they nearly went down in flames . . . "

Less flames of course, than with full tanks:)

V-Jet: An excellent point! I'm a little slow on it today . . .

Well, it was either declare Mayday Fuel, or land in a field to ensure their FFR was intact on touchdown! :}

Hoss, gotta draw the line somewhere... :}

So i guess their fuel policy is not to plan an altn but a re-clearance which begs the question did they fly past their re-clearance/divert point without the required fuel in the tanks.

Fly safe and play hard

Hoss

That Flight Aware map on the link says to me they must have started to run below the line very quickly after passing Brissie...

It is probably worth noting that American Airlines flight 73, also a B787-9 and also out of LAX to Sydney but about an hour behind UA839, diverted into Honolulu this morning. It could have been for a totally unrelated issue but it might have been for a similar emerging fuel issue due to stronger than forecast headwinds.

Then we get wonderful press releases like this as was reported in ABC online news and so accurate.

Safety regulator Air services Australia said no passengers were at risk during the landing and that the mayday call was triggered automatically because the plane's fuel gauge dropped below a certain level.

An Air services Australia spokesperson said instances like this were "not unusual".

"It doesn't mean you have no fuel left, and you have to land right away," she said.

"You still have a lot of fuel left."

and you have to land right away.

Its a slow news day down here today

They aren't changing the prime minister this week, so the media need somewhere else to put their breathless reporters. :rolleyes:

Kudos to the crew for following their SOP's, and missing the local orphanage on the approach....

There is now a substantial amount of traffic departing the West Coast (LAX & SFO) about the same time and heading south west across the Pacific.

With the development of more sophisticated flight planning, two nights ago there were probably 6 or more aircraft (QF94, UA98, QF12, NZ5, UA 839, VA?, DL5?) all trying to get FL320 to 340, all going along roughly the same track. The NZ flight was cleared initially to FL260 en-route to Dinty (wpt); not sure how long it took them to get something higher. Ourselves and UA98 were never more than 80 miles apart from LAX to MEL all night. Some of these flights branched off but then the SFO flights merge so it's not unusual now to be asked by Oakland, and later Nadi, centre when you can accept a higher, often non-standard level. The same thing happens as you approach East of Brisbane as everyone homes in on Sydney, whether overflying for Melbourne or as their destination.

I'm not surprised that UA839 may have chewed through a bit more fuel en-route, but I am surprised it was enough to leave them down to min reserves, knowing that they are arriving in Sydney as the curfew finishes and multiple aircraft will be looking to land at the same time. Maybe it's just a clever way to jump the queue….

Are you honestly suggesting an experienced airline captain for a major world airline would deliberately declare a mayday to avoid some traffic delays just because they want to "jump the queue"?

Well, a few years ago a XXXX 747 was inbound to New York and after being told to hold soon declared "fuel emergency".Upon arrival at the gate the feds did a cockpit inspection and found they had lots of fuel so the Captain was barred from USA.He returned to NY quite soon afterwards with his new name........