Piston Plane Refueled with Jet Fuel Kills Pilot
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How about a little substitution? Let us just say this aircraft had carb icing or an ignition switch failure. Would these have been to responsible for the crash? In this case, I feel each would have lead to the same outcome. That therefore means we should elsewhere for a solution - ie. an attempt to prevent reoccurence.
That doen't mean to say we should do all we can to prevent the wrong fuel from getting in the tanks. What we must do is invest in training to ensure engine failures in singles are more surviable than they are at the moment.
PM
That doen't mean to say we should do all we can to prevent the wrong fuel from getting in the tanks. What we must do is invest in training to ensure engine failures in singles are more surviable than they are at the moment.
PM
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@ Avturboy....I absolutely agree with you , prevention is better than cure, however, you say yourself, it continues in your 25 years experience.
All pilots hope never to have a power-failure at takeoff (see what I did there! even covered the snapped glider tow cable) but they continually train for that event. there are many other scenarios where , although one hopes "it'll never happen to me", the scenario is, nevertheless, rehearsed and a mitigating strategy practised.
My post was in the same spirit, IE- Is there anything a pil;ot could do to increase the possibility of keeping the donk turning and burning on the wrong / contaminated fuel. I am well aware that a turbine can run on just about any combustible liquid, though this may seriously foreshorten operating life.
All pilots hope never to have a power-failure at takeoff (see what I did there! even covered the snapped glider tow cable) but they continually train for that event. there are many other scenarios where , although one hopes "it'll never happen to me", the scenario is, nevertheless, rehearsed and a mitigating strategy practised.
My post was in the same spirit, IE- Is there anything a pil;ot could do to increase the possibility of keeping the donk turning and burning on the wrong / contaminated fuel. I am well aware that a turbine can run on just about any combustible liquid, though this may seriously foreshorten operating life.
I don't see mis-fueling as the root cause of this incident. That's not going deep enough.
I see the physical possibility to mis-fuel as the root cause -it is physically possible to put the wrong fuel in an aircraft.
The only measures preventing misfueling are administrative; that is, training of pilots and refuelers and marking of aircraft, pumps, tankers, etc, to attempt to ensure that the correct fuel comes out of the correctly marked pump or tanker and goes into the correctly marked aircraft filler.
In the hierarchy of hazard controls, administrative controls, which rely upon humans not to make mistakes, are a poor substitute for engineering controls which make it physically impossible to make the mistake in question.
Think about it: cars the world over which run on unleaded petrol (gasoline) have special smaller filler necks and a physical flap in the filler - and that's just to prevent even small amounts of leaded fuel contaminating the tank and poisoning the oxygen sensor and the exhaust catalyst.
This is standardised across hundreds of millions of cars, in a world where leaded petrol was eliminated by 2011. If the car industry can achieve this, why can't aviation come up with an engineering control preventing mis-fueling?
Now one response would be to point out that petrol cars, which cannot tolerate lead, but can tolerate misfueling with diesel fuel without damage, have the limiting filler, while diesel cars, which are readily damaged by fueling with petrol, and are probably more likely to be misfueled by drivers familiar with petrol cars, are not protected. This is correct, and is a consequence of the need to retain backward compatibility with existing vehicles and bowsers, as well as high volume diesel pumps.
But for aircraft, this is potentially a matter of life and death. The numbers of fillers and bowsers is far smaller, and the ratio of the cost of the fillers to the value of the aircraft is probably lower. Aircraft are regularly subject to regulatory requirements to make modifications as design issues come to light.
Would it really be that difficult to develop special shaped bowser nozzles and filler orifices to physically prevent misfuelling?
As a side note, about 20 years ago, I helped a friend fit a small turbo diesel motor to a Suzuki Sierra "jeep" style 4wd, previously fitted with a (leaded) petrol motor. He often got comments from service station operators.
On one occasion he arrived at a remote roadhouse (Australia), stopped, looked around for the diesel bowsers, finally found them in the section with lots of room for road trains, and went and filled. When he went in to pay, the usual discussion about diesel into a Suzuki ensued, and the cashier commented "I was going to get on the PA and warn you that you were filling with diesel, but you looked very determined to use diesel..."
I see the physical possibility to mis-fuel as the root cause -it is physically possible to put the wrong fuel in an aircraft.
The only measures preventing misfueling are administrative; that is, training of pilots and refuelers and marking of aircraft, pumps, tankers, etc, to attempt to ensure that the correct fuel comes out of the correctly marked pump or tanker and goes into the correctly marked aircraft filler.
In the hierarchy of hazard controls, administrative controls, which rely upon humans not to make mistakes, are a poor substitute for engineering controls which make it physically impossible to make the mistake in question.
Think about it: cars the world over which run on unleaded petrol (gasoline) have special smaller filler necks and a physical flap in the filler - and that's just to prevent even small amounts of leaded fuel contaminating the tank and poisoning the oxygen sensor and the exhaust catalyst.
This is standardised across hundreds of millions of cars, in a world where leaded petrol was eliminated by 2011. If the car industry can achieve this, why can't aviation come up with an engineering control preventing mis-fueling?
Now one response would be to point out that petrol cars, which cannot tolerate lead, but can tolerate misfueling with diesel fuel without damage, have the limiting filler, while diesel cars, which are readily damaged by fueling with petrol, and are probably more likely to be misfueled by drivers familiar with petrol cars, are not protected. This is correct, and is a consequence of the need to retain backward compatibility with existing vehicles and bowsers, as well as high volume diesel pumps.
But for aircraft, this is potentially a matter of life and death. The numbers of fillers and bowsers is far smaller, and the ratio of the cost of the fillers to the value of the aircraft is probably lower. Aircraft are regularly subject to regulatory requirements to make modifications as design issues come to light.
Would it really be that difficult to develop special shaped bowser nozzles and filler orifices to physically prevent misfuelling?
As a side note, about 20 years ago, I helped a friend fit a small turbo diesel motor to a Suzuki Sierra "jeep" style 4wd, previously fitted with a (leaded) petrol motor. He often got comments from service station operators.
On one occasion he arrived at a remote roadhouse (Australia), stopped, looked around for the diesel bowsers, finally found them in the section with lots of room for road trains, and went and filled. When he went in to pay, the usual discussion about diesel into a Suzuki ensued, and the cashier commented "I was going to get on the PA and warn you that you were filling with diesel, but you looked very determined to use diesel..."
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A light piston twin accident nearby, 30 years ago, was found to be fueled with Jet-A rather than 100LL.
Yes, pilot negligence, because he had signed the fuel receipt stating clearly "Jet-A".
And the lineboy had seen the "Turbo" logo on the nacelles (i.e. turbosupercharged) so he was confident he had selected the right fuel.
Neither the first nor last time, unfortunately.
Yes, pilot negligence, because he had signed the fuel receipt stating clearly "Jet-A".
And the lineboy had seen the "Turbo" logo on the nacelles (i.e. turbosupercharged) so he was confident he had selected the right fuel.
Neither the first nor last time, unfortunately.
The only wording to be concerned with is clear, unambiguous grade placard/decal situated at the fuelling orifice.
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As a result of such investigations then procedures are refined to the point where a robust fuelling procedure is in place, which "providing" it is followed will control the risk. However, as you point out, an administrative control is still open to poor human performance and that is the limiting factor in controlling misfuels.
I agree that mechanical/engineering controls are the only way to give the guaranteed performance we are looking for. For whatever reason the ongoing nature of this problem (even with continuing loss of life) does not seem to provide the industry/manufacturers/regulators with the incentive to get on do something about it.
My comments reflect my involvement in fuelling operations where we have to work with what we are given, which is a global fleet of aircraft requiring overwing/open line/gravity (or whatever anyone wants to call it) fuelling, without the necessary standardization in fuelling equipment.
There are many proactive folks in the fuelling industry who have tried hard to make it as fool proof as possible. Having worked in locations around the world I am not naive and I realize that in some places the rigor applied to fuelling operations is not be ideal and therefore problems will occur.
In too many places fuelling is seen as an inconvenience, something that everyone knows has to be done but sometimes its just not taken seriously enough. With such attitudes and a reliance on procedure to prevent misfuelling then it's almost a given that it will happen.
I'd like to see the engineering route to a solution explored, in truth I don't think it'll ever happen.
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Nobody has yet mentioned that in this case the two pumps were in the same metal cabinet and shared a common Apron. Surely airfield design was a factor in this accident.
If the two fuels have separate Pumps on different Aprons, then this accident would be less likely... Also more aircraft could be re-fuelled at once.
If the two fuels have separate Pumps on different Aprons, then this accident would be less likely... Also more aircraft could be re-fuelled at once.
