Hapag-Llloyd Airbus pilot charged...

[chuks]

From this morning's German paper (loose translation from a 'dpa' dispatch):

3 1/2 years after a forced landing in Vienna a charge has been raised by the public prosecutor's office in Hanover, Germany against the captain of the Airbus involved.

The pilot has been charged with hazardous operation for choosing to continue to Vienna rather than diverting to Zagreb (the nearest airport) when cockpit indications showed a fuel shortage on a flight from Crete to Hanover.

The aircraft ran out of fuel and glided the last 20 kilometres to make an off-runway landing at Vienna next to the runway. 13 people sustained minor injuries in the emergency landing.

The captain declined an offer from the prosecutor's office to accept a ten-month probation so that this matter has now come to trial.

[SeniorDispatcher]

Anybody have a link to the HF 3378 accident report?

[GW76]

Couldnt find official report but these are worth a read -

http://aviation-safety.net/database/2000/000712-0.htm

[411A]

Hardly surprising, considering that the said Captain chose to continue to destination, rather than divert to a more suitable runway, knowing full well that a shortage of fuel would present problems.
If, on the other hand, he did not realize same, then he should have not been in the LHS (or indeed in any FD seat) to begin with.

In short, his actions represented very poor judgement and were totally irresponsible.

[chuks]

Well, that settles that, I guess...

Dear 411A,

Perhaps you would like to get in touch with the authorities here and spare them the trouble and expense of a public trial. You certainly seem to have a clear vision of the whole situation from a long way off. Or could it be that there are some minor points that need to be cleared up before they take this fellow away to be hanged, have his license ripped up into little tiny pieces or whatever it is they want to do to one of the brotherhood who seems to have made a serious boo-boo?

Let's wait and see what comes out at the trial, eh? Like not telling everyone straight out that the ring ends up destroyed at the end of nine hours of sitting through 'The Lord of the Rings' wait for the show.

Here, given that the pilot declined a slap on the wrist, perhaps he has taken expert advice that he has something to tell the court in his defense. For his sake I hope so. Wait and see.

[Avman]

I'm relying on my poor (so declares my wife) memory here, but I seem to recollect that this was a classic case of company pressure versus Captain's authority. The company encouraged the Captain to bring the a/c to MUC to minimize AOG time for the required maintenance. When the critical fuel situation became evident the a/c had just passed BUD and the crew calculated that the time to make the descent into BUD they could equally make it to VIE.

How often are we, in our respective jobs, confronted with the choice between safety and future career prospects within the company? If you stick to your guns in the name of safety you're labelled a trouble maker. If you appease your chiefs and screw up you're on your own!

[320DRIVER]

This is what 411A wrote about the Munich F70 incident:

Quote

To evac...or not.

To those that think that this crew was irresponsible to not evac...were YOU there to assess the situation?

Thought not.
Would suggest these folks, who claim to 'know it all' and would have done differently...YOU WERN'T AT THE SCENE, so of course cannot comment effectively about the situation.

Some never learn, it seems.
Why should we be surprised?


Endquote


Enough said.

[Diesel]

411a

Prejudging? You? Surely not.........


Hope you never do jury service

[Miss Management]

411A

You sound like a clever bloke, but I'm not there to be able to judge it!

[cessna l plate]

As a mere learner in this great world that we call aviation, I am probably in no position to judge this captain, he must have had good reasons for doing what he did, and I am sure that this will clear itself up in court. The mere fact that he didn't accept a "plea-bargain" shows that there is a tale to tell. I will reserve an opinion until after the case has been heard..... unlike 411A, but who am I, a bottom of the rung circuit basher to critisise 411A, an airline captain no less (according to his profile anyway).

However, as a human being I feel that I am in a good position to critisise this individual. Whenever an issue exists on this forum, there always seems to be a self-opinionated, stir the smelly-stuff up, etc attitude posted under the heading 411A. Does this person have any sense of natural justice? Let those with the right to do so carve this captain up, if that is what he deserves, I just hope that you never serve on a jury for an aviation related case, but if you do, please don't forget to bring your own piece of rope to court, it saves the authorities the time and money for going to buy one for the poor sod you want to hang.

Question: If memory serves me correct, wasn't there a thread recently for the removal of 411A from this forum?? If so, where do I sign. And finally, after 2500+ posts, don't you think it high time, 411A, that you bought a personal title, and give something back to Danny after he has given you somewhere to print your worthless opinions?
I do aplogise if this post offends anyone ( excpet 411A of course) but I thought that we all stuck together in this industry, to fight the beancounters amongst others.

[412A]

....hmm,....a bit quiet 411A.....unusual for you...! I think the phrase is 'hung by ones own petard'.... the comment regarding the personal title was apt I might add.

[694c]

The accident report will surely make fascinating reading, when it is eventually published.
As the aircraft crashed in Vienna, the Austrians are responsible for the investigation. I looked for information but nothing has yet been released by them on the www.bmvit.gv.at website. The Huns have published some details but only in kraut on www.bfu-web.de click 'Bulletin' and look further under 'Juli 2000' .pdf files.
If I can help with translating any of this report I'll gladly do so.

[mutt]

Talk about thread creep..... forget about 411A.........


Now can anyone offer a legitimate reason why a commercial airliner landed at an enroute airport without fuel?

Mutt.

[StressFree]

Thank-you Mutt for re-directing the thread towards the real questions. I also would like to know why a commercial airliner with pax on board landed with no fuel in a part of the World with many decent airports. It surely cannot be just that the captain was bullied into SUCH a dangerous situation by his company, there must be more as I'm sure no-one could be that stupid.....

[Semaphore Sam]

I've seen most of 411A's posts, and, whether I agree or not, they seem well reasoned on the whole; more dangerous than overzealous criticism is oversealous protectionism, which results in lowering of standards. Landing with empty tanks DEMANDS an explanation...whether there is blame to the Captain or not, the situation must be resolved.

[Tartan Giant]

Oops!

There certainly seems to be a prima facie case for being unhappy with the Commander's decision to "continue" with a rapidly depleting fuel supply.

One cannot imagine carrying enough fuel to be able to make the early judgement to "continue" with the gear down, flying slower, and at a lower cruise level, all the way to the original destination; given the assumption that sort of snag was never in your fuel planning in the first place.


Quote
Shortly after the aircraft departed Chania, Greece bound for Hanover, Germany, the flight crew realized that the landing gear could not be retracted.
The decision was made to continue the flight to Hanover at a lower altitude and airspeed with the landing gear extended.

As the aircraft neared the mid-point of its journey, the crew realized that the remaining fuel would be insufficient to continue the flight to Hanover, so a landing was planning at Vienna, Austria.
As the aircraft descended through 10,000 feet, the left engine failed due to fuel exhaustion.
By utilizing crossfeed fuel pumps, the crew was able to keep the right engine running, but was unable to restart the left.

As the aircraft turned a six mile final, the right engine also failed due to fuel exhaustion.

The plane touched down 600 feet short of runway 34, collapsing the main landing gear, and seriously damaging the left wing and engine.
Unquote

So near, and yet so far.

TG

[NigelOnDraft]

I know little of the "facts" in the VIE landing - maybe an advantage...

The 'A' for Airmanship is being driven out of aviation by company's, Training Capts etc. toeing the Co. line.

Say the FMGC, the thing we are increasingly driven to "believe" "follow" and "use to manage" did not allow for the extra fuel burn with the U/C down... and so predicted VIE with suitable fuel... and only as they got nearer did things not "add up"??

Very few accidents are caused by a "single event"... and unlikely any Captain, or indeed more correctly crew, would make such a crass mistake as to "decide" to run out of fuel, as they are being hung for here... Suspect 5+ factors led to this - and let's remember, the only casualty was an A310, no serious injuries (I believe)!

Edit: The above post overlapped with mine - interesting. Most importantly, we all have, and will, learn from it...

[Tartan Giant]

Try this?

I wonder how many desk-bound chaps are this minute bashing into the Trip Fuel ground PC,

Trip One
From : Chania
To : Hanover
FL : 250
Maintenance: Gear Down

Trip Two
Bog-standard A - B.


I would be very interested in seeing the two figures for the
MIN RAMP FUEL Required for these two trips.


The conversation BIGIRON had with the F/O of that fateful trip tells us a lot:

Despite the FO's best effort to convince the captain they were not going to make it he pushed on

I am very surprised the Commander, with such seniority, was sucked into that hole.

Dispatch and maintenance put a lot of pressure on the crew to make it to Munich or Vienna (both have Airbus maintenance)

Dispatch should stick to what the word says.

Maintenance should do what they do best too.

Commanders should tell them both what's going to happen, despite listening to their dreams!

TG

[broadreach]

Check out Avman's post again; Mrs Avman's memory is pretty good. It would help perspective tremendously if someone could post a link to the original thread - if it still exists. The subject was discussed intelligently and exhaustively there and, if I'm not mistaken, there was a timeline of sorts describing communications between the cockpit and dispatch/maintenance. I certainly recall there was company pressure to bring the aircraft to a HL base.

The discussion here, years after the fact and without the benefit of facts or even the gossip at the time, is pretty pointless.

[SeniorDispatcher]

With all due respect to the respective posters, I must take exception with one statement, and comment on another..

>>>Dispatch should stick to what the word says.

It must first be recognized that the functions and responsibilities that an airline's dispatch office and an individual dispatcher have are quite non-standardized across the globe, since various countries have various rules. In some places, a "dispatcher" could be the one that waves the aircraft in/out of the parking area with the pretty flashlights. In some places, the "dispatcher" is the local person doing the weight and balance shipside. In some other places, the "dispatcher" is the lad/lass working in a centralized (usually) airline office that initiates the computer flight plans and ATC filings, amongst other things.

In the USA, the FAA Part 121 regs take that third "dispatcher" definition above and expand on it by making the dispatcher and PIC jointly responsible for "operational control" and the safe conduct of the flight. The US FARs (Part 1.1) state: "Operational control, with respect to a flight, means the exercise of authority over initiating, conducting or terminating a flight.

Everyone seems to understand the "initiating" function (pulling flight plans and filing ATC strips), but the previous statement "Dispatch should stick to what the word says" fails to acknowledge the "conducting" and (potential) "terminating" aspects of flight operations. While the vast majority of an airline's flights are routine and communications between PIC dispatcher will be minimal, that changes rapidly when weather-related or mechanical-related issues arise.

A key benefit of US FAR Part 121-type operational control is that the dispatcher is in a position to "backstop" the PIC when it comes to some critical decisionmaking as far as additional information that the PIC might not possess. Additionally, in of the event of a PICs ill-advised decision to "press-on" into an unsafe situation, the US FAR Part 121 dispatcher has the ability to -independently- initiate the declaration of an emergency condition.

Back to the Hapag-Lloyd 3378 accident, in the absence of an official report, I cannot say whether Hapag-Lloyd had the same operational control set-up as a US airline (as some non-US airlines do), or whether their "dispatcher" just pulled flight plans and filed ATC strips, and devoid of any supporting regulatory language, was forced to leave the critical safety-of-flight decisionmaking to management personnel. If it had been a Part 121-style operation, the flight would have had a different outcome.

I can personally attest that, in my 25 years as a dispatcher for 3 different US airlines, I have seen numerous situations where dispatcher intervention (mine, or that of colleagues) has been the "voice of reason" as far as countering a PIC's desire to do something that really wasn't safe, and PIC and dispatcher jointly (there's that word again) agreed on a more conservative course of action, which while not pleasing some of the management types, was truly in the airline's best -overall- interest, since it helped them to potentially stay off the evening news.

There may be some who read this and assume that I'm saying that "pilots are stupid" or some other nonsense, and I don't believe that for a second. What I do believe is that pilots, as well as dispatchers, are all human beings, and thus capable of some well-intended but poor decisionmaking at times. The duality afforded by US FAR Part 121-type operational control can (properly supported and exercised) serve in a similar "crosscheck" capacity as does the "two key" philosophy on a nuclear missile submarine. That is not to say that I expect a "Mother, may I?" call for every PIC deviation around weather, but I do expect one on obvious safety-of-flight items.

While operational control certainly can't prevent all accidents, it can sure prevent some. Anyone so inclined can see this in various accidents such as Air Illinois flight 710 (US, HS-748, 1985), Avianca 52 (US, B-707, 1990), and Valujet 558 (US, DC-9, 1996, and no, this was a different one than the Everglades crash). There are also the ones you -don't- hear about, for obvious PR reasons. I know of two potential fuel-starvations that were averted, one involving a MLG door stuck down, sucking fuel, and that one necessitated the dispatcher declaring an emergency and diverting the flight to an offline airport. The other was a MLG itself stuck down, sucking fuel, and the PIC wanting to continue to his desired XYZ (instead of a much closer ABC) due to his FMC telling him "he could do it." The dispatcher got the flight diverted to ABC without declaring the emergency, but his finger was on the proverbial trigger had the PIC not agreed. Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it, as the man once said...



>>>Dispatch and maintenance put a lot of pressure on the crew to make it to Munich or Vienna (both have Airbus maintenance)

Irrespective of whatever kind of dispatch operation an airline has, this kind of pressure (assuming it occurred, again in the absence of an official report, and the former Hapag-Lloyd F/O's comments notwithstanding), is simply unacceptable. One has to wonder if the pressure was coming from the "dispatcher" who did the flight plan and filed the ATC strip, or some management person (or two).

That said, another benefit of the US FAR Part 121-type operational control is that the dispatcher is licensed by the FAA, just as the flightcrew and mechanics are. It's not always a comfy place to be, this little no-man's land between company pressure and FAA accountability, and some outfits don't want/support that objectivity.

I'm quite fortunate in that my airline does support it. A PIC once called me on the last flight of the night (to a MX base) with a grounding item. It was a full flight, and he felt the pressure, but wasn't happy with the aircraft. I conferenced MX control in, and it was obvious that they wanted the bird back at the MX base for the night for the easiest and most convenient repair. The PIC asked me what I thought, and I opined that I wanted the aircraft back at the MX base just as much as the PIC and MX did, but that it didn't matter to me whether we MX-ferried it empty or taxied it 500 miles home on the interstate highway. The MX guy actually told me "Well, this aircraft is in no condition to MX-ferry", so I asked the inevitable question that nobody else seemed to be willing to ask "Then why are you trying to con us into carrying revenue pax on it?" No answer from the MX guy, but the PIC then chimed in "Yeah, I'm not going to take it." And we didn't. After an overnight light-twin charter with parts and personnel, they had it fixed for the morning.

Had my airline not supported me, my union and I were each quite content to have taken the issue directly to the FAA. Sadly, at some places, that's all too often an occurrence, and it's largely a matter of an airline's corporate culture.

In closing (sorry for the length), there are some kinds of "dispatch" that do need improvement, but there are some types of operational control that work quite well if properly understood, supported, and exercised...

Cheers...