Fuel Theft
 

Should one expect their aircraft to be secure from thieves when parked overnight? (Landing and parking fees paid)


I recently had a rather substantial amount of fuel stolen from my aircraft. The aerodrome manager said was that they couldn’t do anything about it.


Are the airfields supposed /obliged to provide protection against theft and damage?


Regards

Depends on the airport. If it's a large international airport, with airliners parked overnight, then I'd expect that they would almost definately security onsite.

But many smaller airports doen't even have a fence around its boundary, and I certainly don't want to pay the increased landing/parking fees to fund it.

In either case, if my aircraft was damaged/stolen, I wouldn't expect the airport insurance to cover it, the same as if my car was damaged/stolen in a public car park.

Having said that I'd expect the airport to co-operate in finding the culpurit as much as possible, such as giving any CCTV footage that they have to the police etc.

It's not a nice thing to happen, and not a lot you can do about it either. I'm always very consious about the fuel when the aircraft is left at an unsecured airport. Not only what is taken out of the tanks, but also what could have been added to the tanks!

Fuel Theft
 

I think that I would have reported the matter to the police!

No more than you'd expect from the owners of car park were you pay to park your car and they display notices to that affect i.e. "not liable for theft of losses" etc.

If the airfield doesn't display such notices or inform you in some other manner that they do not accept liability for any losses, you may be able to get something from them but don't hold your breath.

The lesson you've learnt is to leave as little as possible in the tanks, even if this means syphoning it out yourself and taking it home with you.

Incidentally, there's no reason you couldn't give a hint on here as to where this happened, as it might not be a one off and others reading this may now of other fuel thefts that have happened there.

The last thing an airfield owner/operator wants is bad news plastered across forum pages and if they have any professionalism they would take it seriously and improve security!

If the airfield owner/operator says it's not cost effective to have security devices installed, then I'd question if they scrimp on costs in other areas of their operation and consider the impact on safety.

As for security devices themselves, there are plenty about (wifi devices are great) and when set-up correctly can discriminate between humans and wildlife and so avoid false triggering. I know because I've got the lot (badgers, deer, foxes, hares and bunnies) roaming about my place and my devices had to set-up well if I'm to get a good nights sleep but on the occasion when someone has snooped about they work a treat.

Sorry to hear of your misfortune.

When I was a young Ops lad at a grass strip airfield we had a number of aircraft robbed of their fuel.

We didn't have CCTV in those days so I borrowed some NVGs off a friend and spent the next couple of nights staking out the airfield with a PC remaining in the local area awaiting my call should the culprits turn up.

As luck (bad) would have it, the NVGs were prod-all use as there was thick fog both nights. It's pretty spooky being on an airfield, out in the middle of nowhere in the dead of the night, especially when you can barely see your hand in front of your face.

On the second night at about 2am I heard a noise and thinking it was the thieves, cautiously made my way out of the unlit clubhouse to see if I could spot them.

With my heartbeat up to a gurzillion beats a minute (I was convinced they must be able to hear it) I crept towards the noise. A moment later I bumped into something and, flight or fight instinct kicking in, jumped about four feet in the air and was about to smash the 100m sprint world record when out of the fog materialsed a deer, who leapt even higher than me and made off into the gloom.

Well that was enough for me, so I radioed the PC and told him I was going home. No amount of overtime was worth the strain it was putting on my ticker.

Police picked up the culprits a couple of days later when they raided their caravan park for some other reason and found a drum full of Avgas and the pump they'd been using to drain the aircraft. Think they'd been using the fuel to power their motor bikes.

Can't recall if we topped up the resident's aircraft, free of charge, but suspect we did.

With the price of CCTV being so low these days I can't see any justification for not installing them at every airfield / farm strip - it's not only useful for catching theives, but also smugglers doing midnight flits in and out of airfields under the illumination of a harvest moon (but that's another story).

I'd definitely let the local Plod know of the theft as more than likely they'll have an idea who the cuplrits are. They did in our case but either had to catch them red-handed or find some other justification for getting a search warrant, which luckily they did.

Regards, jez

At least you noticed, A lot of people may of missed the fact the fuel was missing and may of flew home the next day. It doesn't even need thinking about what could of happened afterward

You left off a smiley there :)

I thought you were going to suggest draining out every plane at the local airfield, to see how many pilots never check fuel visually :)

I bet the results would be pretty scary, especially with some types (twins?).

As said above, video security (over wifi or even over GPRS/3G) is cheap nowadays. I would even put it inside a hangar, to eliminate hangar rash which nobody owns up to.

I think we have to be even more aware especially with high costs of fuel and hard times.
A juicy fat twin with unsecured caps must be a target not just from external thieves but private owners feeling the pinch.
I flew a Seneca which was hangered although the hanger doors were open in the day. We were loosing fuel so started locking the fuel caps.
few days later came back to the aircraft and there were chips and scratch marks around the fuel caps where someone had tried to prize them off with a screwdriver.
There are obvious dangers of thinking you have X amount of fuel and next day taking off with X - ?
Also as another poster put beware of vandalism where some clever clogs decides to tip some water in the tanks or grinding paste into the oil filler or even worse tamper with the controls. There are many anti aviation nutters about!
Even more reason to do thorough pre flights especially first flight of the day!

Pace

I know a Seneca probably cannot carry 6 people in this way, but surely one should never fly without a visual check on the fuel level?

Where I am based there were reports of fuel theft some 10 years ago, but one could never be quite sure, on the school planes, whether it was theft, or whether somebody did a flight they did not put in the tech log. I certainly found (on a preflight) a few cases of fuel being way below the tech log figure during my PPL training.

In fact I am suprised that vandalism in general, around unsecured strips, isn't far bigger than it appears to be. I suspect the people that do it tend to not venure too far away from their nearest kebab joint, and the mysterious thing called "countryside" is a bit below their radar. Just as well.

I am surprised at what some people will do. There was the much publicised event years back of a well know balloon pilot taking off early morning into solid IMC in a push pull cessna twin.
Being in a hurry and thinking no one had used the aircraft since he filled it a few days earlier he merrily flew on his way till both engines stopped over the top of Gloucester (formally Staverton)
Being told by ATC that the cloudbase was some 400 feet AGL he spiraled down around the NDB.
Breaking out he landed on one of the multiple runways at Gloucester.
People are People and we do some very silly things sometimes :{

The requirement to visually check fuel quantities before flight was brought home to me in a salutary fashion a couple of years ago. I am the only person that flies my aircraft and I keep meticulous fuel logs and complete visual checks before flight.

The aircraft normally resides in a hangar on a secure airfield overnight however on one trip I made – I left it overnight on a smallish rural field in UK and returned the next day to find that someone had stolen about 400 litres. The 4 tanks were refuelled after arrival ready for an early pre-planned departure time the following day to meet a slot. That flight was to Germany over the North Sea.

So even after confirming the uptake from my fuel log during the standard daily A check and knowing that I had uploaded (and paid for) full tanks the previous day – I could have been caught out unless the visual check was made.

I guess it confirms Eugene Fordsworthe’s premise that “assumption is the mother of all screw ups” – although I believe he later qualified this adage to “I have assumed that there is no good in assuming."

I wonder how they carted away 400 litres.

We thought about 3 standard oil barrels loaded on a trolley and probably pumped full directly from the fuel filler caps. It would take far too long via the fuel drains by the u/c doors. For some reason the starboard outer was almost full and the other 3 almost bone dry.

How they managed to transport the barrels which would have weighed about 100kgs each is a matter of conjecture but judging by the way the modern miscreant can strip a church of 1000's of kgs of lead or a Comet store in south London of plasma TV's - these small logistical details are probably second nature to even a moderately well equiped larconist.

Indeed, but the Comet store has sat there for how many years, to be joint-cased by umpteen gangs of East European "businessmen" :)

And flogging flat screen TVs from the back of a white van is old hat. I work near a petrol station and have been offered all kinds of stuff when I park my car. Shamefully, one mob offering me TVs spoke my language (Czech) but I didn't reply :)

Your plane sat there for how long?

It's highly likely it was an inside job, whereby somebody routinely present at the airfield has/had an "assignment" to report planes which are known to be fuelled up and which can be pumped out. It would make no sense at all to have 3 barrels and a trailer sitting somewhere, and watch the airfield from a distance...

I hope you have reported it to The Plod :) If they have half a brain, they can set things up....

Basically sat on the field for 18 hours mostly overnight. Yes – a crime number was issued but the drawback form had been posted and then had to be rescinded otherwise there was a chance of inadvertently offending HMRC. Additionally - calls to engineers to check that a possible asymmetric wing loading had not created a problem – with only the outer starboard full; the inconvenience of cancelling a slot and FP from a remote AD, cancelled appointments with incredulous clients……..

Locals had reported similar intermittent thefts of smaller quantities of fuel over the years and agreed that we had been opportunistically targeted. “Yeh, that’ll be right son – you’ve been right done over” was one comforting remark.

The overwhelming sensation was how could they do this: aircraft are sacrosanct. Surely? Followed by a very strong sense of affirmation why checks are so important.

To the best of my knowledge – no one has ever been apprehended and prosecuted for this event.

At least when you land at Farnborough or Luton for example – the robbery is legal and you know it’s coming.:oh:

If they're stealing it to use in bikes/cars, would 100LL screw up a modern engine expecting UL? If so, then at least you might get some comeback!

Tim

I won't name the airfield in question. The fuel theft was a regular occurance but they have neglected to do anything about it other than report it to the police. Fuel was even stolen out of aircraft in a locked hangar, makes you wonder if it's an inside job.

As for the use they get out of it, it has been rumoured that they use the high octane of avgas for off-road quadbikes and motorbikes.

Cheers ladies and gents for your interest.

I filled up all tanks on the C421 a few weeks back ready for an early morning departure.
I cancelled the flight on the morning at the last minute due to other commitments.
I returned to the aircraft a week later. Did the fuel drain checks starting starboard main - Not a drip! :confused: Checked inside the tank - Zero! :ugh: Went to inboard tank - still full. Port main - Not a drip! Port inboard was half full. Lost nearly 500Lts

I went straight to the airfield manager and advised my findings. He stated that it was not the airfields responsibility :confused: I then asked them to check CCTV footage of the 2 cameras facing the aircraft but was then informed that they were not working :ugh:

Apparently, I was parked in a problem area of a North London airfield where fuel had been stolen in the past to fuel gypsy machinery.

Thankfully, we do not suffer this at home airfield.

Well done for staying silent and doing your part to stop other people having fuel stolen :rolleyes:

Steady on !

Reporting stuff on PPRuNe is not yet compulsory ;)