Reusing salvaged Fuel
 

Today, my outfit had an AOG with a fuel leak. When it became clear the whole affected tank had to be drained for maintenance, management were not too enthusiastic about ditching 2000 kg of JET A-1 so the question came up if one couldn't just transfer the fuel to another aircraft.

All pilots asked were strictly against it, yet nobody could quote a regulation proscribing the reuse of fuel that was salvaged from another aircraft's tank. Would somebody here be able to quote such a provision?

Definitely not allowed, but can't quote anything. EASA land.
Not only it can't be used again, but also you have to pay for its disposal. And that's even more pricey.

@Hvogt:
I think the first reply, from @safelife, covered the subject well. If this is of major importance to you, I'm certain that you can search a bit and find the regulations and/or call the regulating authority in Germany. Good luck...
I too am unable to instantly quote any U.S. or Euro regulation on the subject, but I've understood for years that the practice is forbidden. I could be very wrong here, but in some places it MAY be possible to reuse the fuel, but ONLY in the SAME airplane. As for returning the fuel to the general supply, don't even think about it!
One can easily understand why discarding 2000kg of fuel would cause the bean counters a little stress, but they will just have get over it. IMO it is not a stretch to consider this as a Safety of Flight issue.

Just a curious SLF back in 2011-2012 there was a thread about a Easyjet flight that had to be defuel and a member stated it was ok to use the fuel in another company aircraft. Unfortunately I can't find the thread.

Ref Oz practices of yesteryear, fuel defueled could then not meet the required QA standards for reuse.


However, it was occasional practice to fuel direct from one aircraft to another .. eg, the company had an approved practice whereby, if an aircraft were stranded due diversion at a port where fuel was not available, a "tanker" would be flown in to refuel the problem girl and off they would go. In this latter case, QA aspects were maintained. I can't see a problem providing that the fuel remains within approved aircraft systems throughout.


Caveat - I am not a fuel expert.

You can in Australia

http://training.gov.au/TrainingCompo...IW3011B_R1.pdf

As JT has said, it was rather common practice when fuel availability was a problem, the airlines would have an aircraft fill to the brim at an out of the way airport and transfer it to aircraft in need back at base so they could maintain scheduled services as best they could. (JT, used to see DC-9 at Whyalla on those occasions tankering fuel to Adelaide - no pax involved, just the boys up front)

Fuel at our operation always went back into the tanker for reuse on company aircraft, but the operation was private rather than airline.

I recall (more or less as the time delta increases) the F28 had an Ops Manual procedure for MMA out of the way refuel ops and, stretching the memory cells here, I think we also had a procedure on the Electra to get the F28 out of trouble, mainly for PER wx diversions to KAL and such .. one thing the Goose had was plenty of gas carrying capability on domestic ops .. PER-MEL and wx problems .. no worry .. carry Auckland.


Certainly, using the available aircraft to tanker in from outports during fuel strikes, etc., was routine run of the mill .. although used delicately so as not to inflame the industrial situation of the day.

Thinking back through the haze to when I ran an airport and sold fuel to all comers, if we defuelled an aircraft the removed fuel was put back into the storage upstream of filters etc, in other words exactly as the fuel arriving on site by road in a 23,000 ltr bridger. I don't recall any procedures about direct transfer between one company's aircraft, and I cannot imagine how that could be done without using an airport supplier's tanker to do it, which I would never have allowed had it been requested, for all sorts of reasons, liability being top of the list.

However if the removed fuel was found to be contaminated it was kept quarantined until treated or maybe just left to settle, I don't remember; usually in a tanker.

Because of the time it took, and the problems of dealing with and storing the fuel, we charged so much that it was better for the airline to offload some passengers or freight, which was exactly our intention. We really did not want to know! Getting down to a maximum RTOW (or another weight, if limiting; forgive the old-fashioned terminology) was almost always the purpose of the defuel. The reason was usually either tankering in too much (by cheapskate airlines who didn't like our very reasonable prices), or crew miscalculation when ordering the uplift.

The reference CAP 748 seems to be engraved on my heart, but may be something else entirely. In any case, EASA has probably produced a 1,000 page document on the subject, saying the roughly the same as the UK CAA said in about 20 succinct and totally adequate pages. They've done that for everything else, why should fuel storage and delivery be spared?

Thank you all for your opinions, thoughts and anecdotes; they are all greatly appreciated. Thank you especially, Capot, for mentioning CAP 748 which, as far as I understand, is not a source of law in itself but probably comes closest to a rule of law as we will get in this matter.

Not my subject area but you might find an answer from these people - Joint Inspection Group | Joint Inspection Group.

Or in ICAO Doc 9977 Manual on Civil Aviation Jet Fuel Supply.

Unfortunately both sources charge for their documents but you may be able to find them if you Google creatively (for the latter you don't even need to be very creative!).

I cannot imagine how that could be done without using an airport supplier's tanker to do it


Hook the two aircraft fuel systems up directly with a fuel transfer hose and pump away ... ie required mx activity.

Years ago if an aircraft was defused into a standard bowser it was legal to upload it into another of the same companies aircraft - this was in the UK. If the stuff cannot be used by an aircraft sell it off for ground use - if your taxation system permits.

As in BC Gallacher's post, the airline that I worked for for many years allowed defueled fuel to be uploaded to another company aircraft. We operated under rules that closely followed the UK. There may have been a time limit of 24 hours between offload and reload however I have away from aviation for a few years so "things" might have changed.

Again, have always been told that this was a No No.

Not really relevant I guess, but the only time I've been personally involved it was with Avgas - it kept my motor bike going for a long time !

.. as did fuel drain waste during PPL training for the old motorbike ..

Defuelling from one aircraft to another is a very common maintenance practice as long as you transfer the fuel into another aircraft on your fleet - obviously other operators dont want your ex-fuel. Depending where you are some fuel companies dont like putting used fuel back in their tankers so direct transfer between aircraft is used.

Airliners regularly have to be defuelled prior to commencing "C" checks etc

The normal practice at my location is that the defuel stock goes pretty rapidly onto another company aircraft (otherwise the bowser cannot be used for anything else!) The fuelling company have paperwork to complete related to this but otherwise that's it!

I spoke to former aircraft mechanic from an MRO in Dublin, he said they bought some of the fuel for their kerosene boilers to heat the hangars, the fire brigade also bought some to fuel their training fires on their aircraft mockup. It was forbidden to put fuel removed for an aircraft into another according to him, under any circumstances.

Dublin Aerospace are an MRO and apart from Air Lingus are unlikely to have two aircraft from the same airline undergoing heavy check at the same time - therefore you dont have another company aircraft to transfer the fuel to.

He was former SRT...