Ryanair, too low on..
VinRouge, if the weather / likely traffic situation at destination merits additonal fuel over and above normal contingency then fine - that's up to the captain to decide.
The legal fuel to the alternate includes a go-around, climb, cruise and descent, to arrive overhead the alternate with 30 min holding fuel plus fuel for the approach.
My concern would be whether an assumed climb/cruise/descent profile was actually overly optimistic, in the case of bad weather and certain Mediterranean air traffickers.... For example, a certain manufacturer's table only allows for a visual approach at the alternate for absolute minimum legal fuel planning. If you're going to cut it that fine, then corrections for cruise level, ISA deviation, wind component and planned landing weight must be included in the diversion calculations.
The reported BUD event is a little confusing. It seems that the crew arrived with more fuel than the legal minimum, then commenced a diversion to their alternate after the tower suffered its fire. But after the crew had commenced their diversion, ATC seems perhaps to have misunderstood and offered them an immediate visual at BUD, thinking that the crew was in a critical situation? Which they clearly were not. Nevertheless, deciding to abandon a diversion and to return for an immediate visual takes some pretty rapid thinking.....
The legal fuel to the alternate includes a go-around, climb, cruise and descent, to arrive overhead the alternate with 30 min holding fuel plus fuel for the approach.
My concern would be whether an assumed climb/cruise/descent profile was actually overly optimistic, in the case of bad weather and certain Mediterranean air traffickers.... For example, a certain manufacturer's table only allows for a visual approach at the alternate for absolute minimum legal fuel planning. If you're going to cut it that fine, then corrections for cruise level, ISA deviation, wind component and planned landing weight must be included in the diversion calculations.
The reported BUD event is a little confusing. It seems that the crew arrived with more fuel than the legal minimum, then commenced a diversion to their alternate after the tower suffered its fire. But after the crew had commenced their diversion, ATC seems perhaps to have misunderstood and offered them an immediate visual at BUD, thinking that the crew was in a critical situation? Which they clearly were not. Nevertheless, deciding to abandon a diversion and to return for an immediate visual takes some pretty rapid thinking.....
Last edited by BEagle; 8th Dec 2012 at 22:30.
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Not the most experienced skipper, but once I have decided to div, I div. it gets too confusing otherwise and fuel is usually pretty critical too. I am not sure I would be keen to return to an airfield whilst the tower is on fire.
Last edited by VinRouge; 8th Dec 2012 at 20:31.
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My concern would be whether the climb/cruise/descent profile was actually overly optimistic
Agree about the BUD thing, doesn't appear to be any pressing need to land at a closed airport without a tower.
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I'm not going to bother reading thru this whole thread..."Hetfield" says it all...the guy who doesn't understand "no flap landing" profiles obvivously doesn't understand the defination of a visual approach, verses a "stabilised" approach...(from another thread for which I critisied him...however now I think I understand where he is coming from...)
Trying to interject his long learned and age old wisdom (which in my opinion is very valuable and a lost art nowadays) should be something all of you young guys should take note of... I don't really understand the problem here...
If 1,000 AGL is the minimum safe altitude, how could you ever land if even one tiny little cog in the wheel was out of the mix?
That's why we are Captains, a title that didn't come with a training course and a few years experience back in Hetfield's day...(Nor mine, may I add) and doesn't come with an instruction book. A Captain will never find all of the answers to any given situation in a Flight Manual...
Basic principals of flight always dictate the flight of the airframe...I think what Hetfield is saying and I fully agree with is: How you as a Captain apply basic aerodynamics to your aircraft in any given situation is not taught in any school, it is only learned after years of watching and picking the best of every "Greybeard" you fly with and learn why some other Captains scared the hell out of you...
That's my rant...I know a few Ryanair Captains, one of which was an Instructror with me in the mid 1980's....I've never ridden on Ryanair, but I wouldn't hesitate to do so if they were going my way...
Hetfield...I hope you realize I'm agreeing with you...sort of...DI3G
Trying to interject his long learned and age old wisdom (which in my opinion is very valuable and a lost art nowadays) should be something all of you young guys should take note of... I don't really understand the problem here...
If 1,000 AGL is the minimum safe altitude, how could you ever land if even one tiny little cog in the wheel was out of the mix?
That's why we are Captains, a title that didn't come with a training course and a few years experience back in Hetfield's day...(Nor mine, may I add) and doesn't come with an instruction book. A Captain will never find all of the answers to any given situation in a Flight Manual...
Basic principals of flight always dictate the flight of the airframe...I think what Hetfield is saying and I fully agree with is: How you as a Captain apply basic aerodynamics to your aircraft in any given situation is not taught in any school, it is only learned after years of watching and picking the best of every "Greybeard" you fly with and learn why some other Captains scared the hell out of you...
That's my rant...I know a few Ryanair Captains, one of which was an Instructror with me in the mid 1980's....I've never ridden on Ryanair, but I wouldn't hesitate to do so if they were going my way...
Hetfield...I hope you realize I'm agreeing with you...sort of...DI3G
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"Agree about the BUD thing, doesn't appear to be any pressing need to land at a closed airport without a tower."
Is BUD not a base? Was this a BUD a/c with a BUD crew? Could this explain the gethomeitis? If the a/c was then grounded by the closed airport I'm sure RYR have enough spare machinery around the network to sort it out. After all, if there were return pax they would have to bussed to Bratislava anyway.
It reminds me of an incident with me, after closure curfew. It was 20mins after the airport closed, and usually the tower and services were shutdown. This night, for some reason, ATC was there. They cleared me to land and confirmed fire cover was there. Ops was open. I had fuel to hold for a while so I asked OPs if the airfield was open. They replied that it was officially closed. I said ATC would let me land, but please call mission control for their permission. We didn't want to start a war with the locals. End result is we diverted. I wonder if in this case they had the time to get an answer from their mission control. We're always told Ops has the big picture. Surely, it's not a bad idea to pass the buck sometimes.
Is BUD not a base? Was this a BUD a/c with a BUD crew? Could this explain the gethomeitis? If the a/c was then grounded by the closed airport I'm sure RYR have enough spare machinery around the network to sort it out. After all, if there were return pax they would have to bussed to Bratislava anyway.
It reminds me of an incident with me, after closure curfew. It was 20mins after the airport closed, and usually the tower and services were shutdown. This night, for some reason, ATC was there. They cleared me to land and confirmed fire cover was there. Ops was open. I had fuel to hold for a while so I asked OPs if the airfield was open. They replied that it was officially closed. I said ATC would let me land, but please call mission control for their permission. We didn't want to start a war with the locals. End result is we diverted. I wonder if in this case they had the time to get an answer from their mission control. We're always told Ops has the big picture. Surely, it's not a bad idea to pass the buck sometimes.
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Budapest diversion.
A classic opportunity for "order, counter-order, disorder".
imho its a poor decision to go back on a decision to divert. Once you've made a decision and committed, carry it through. It's tempting, I know, but. As it happens the result was completely benign but what if...what if...?
Looks awfully like more press-on-itis to me.
And it would be interesting to see if the scenario described above re cleared to land but field not open applied here too - I'll store that little gem away for BUD arrivals in future.
A classic opportunity for "order, counter-order, disorder".
imho its a poor decision to go back on a decision to divert. Once you've made a decision and committed, carry it through. It's tempting, I know, but. As it happens the result was completely benign but what if...what if...?
Looks awfully like more press-on-itis to me.
And it would be interesting to see if the scenario described above re cleared to land but field not open applied here too - I'll store that little gem away for BUD arrivals in future.
im
That's what I was always taught. Many years ago, I was on a precision approach in minimum conditions and didn't see the RW at minima; as I started the go-around to my alternate, the other crew member said he could see the RW. It was very probable that I could easily have got in on a subsequent approach, but that would have meant landing below briefed minimum diversion fuel. It didn't help that the only available aerodrome was quite distant and that the aircraft configuration was such that an extra fuel burn penalty had raised the minimum fuel requirement. Of course you can't win - the diversion was no problem but I was hauled over the coals when I got back.....because others had landed successfully. 
But in this Budapest case, things were probably rather different. For example, it might have been a wise move to have understated the actual spare fuel in the first place? But once the offer of a priority approach to a clear runway with no traffic ahead in CAVOK conditions was given, a quick recalc by an experienced crew might have identified that they could still make a visual approach and land with minimum legal diversion fuel, especially given that they probably hadn't used any contingency at that point.
It would be interesting to know whether they were still south of Budapest when climbing through FL110. They also had the weather and runway directions in their favour; to be honest, to me it sounds like a pretty slick decision from a quick thinking crew.
ho its a poor decision to go back on a decision to divert. Once you've made a decision and committed, carry it through. It's tempting, I know, but. As it happens the result was completely benign but what if...what if...?
But in this Budapest case, things were probably rather different. For example, it might have been a wise move to have understated the actual spare fuel in the first place? But once the offer of a priority approach to a clear runway with no traffic ahead in CAVOK conditions was given, a quick recalc by an experienced crew might have identified that they could still make a visual approach and land with minimum legal diversion fuel, especially given that they probably hadn't used any contingency at that point.
It would be interesting to know whether they were still south of Budapest when climbing through FL110. They also had the weather and runway directions in their favour; to be honest, to me it sounds like a pretty slick decision from a quick thinking crew.
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Bullying media is a bad idea
Reading headlines like "Ryanair plane barely avoids crash", I can understand why the company's PR and legal depts are in full panic mode. Getting press like this is surely damaging their reputation (or what little is left thereof). They need to do damage control, but putting pressure on the messenger is always a bad move.
From my experience as a journalist, it's quiet common for corporations to have their legal depts bully smaller news outlets or blogs into obedience (bark at the big dogs for a change, you cowards). On a side note, a true PR professional would never allow something like this to happen. This will fire back at you -- it always does.
I'm not an expert in aviation, but the incident as described by BFU sounds pretty serious. So instead of bullying the media, Ryanair should investigate what internal procedures lead to a crew trying to make up for lost time by an impromptu change of plans that nearly went south.
From my experience as a journalist, it's quiet common for corporations to have their legal depts bully smaller news outlets or blogs into obedience (bark at the big dogs for a change, you cowards). On a side note, a true PR professional would never allow something like this to happen. This will fire back at you -- it always does.
I'm not an expert in aviation, but the incident as described by BFU sounds pretty serious. So instead of bullying the media, Ryanair should investigate what internal procedures lead to a crew trying to make up for lost time by an impromptu change of plans that nearly went south.
I'm not an expert in aviation, but the incident as described by BFU sounds pretty serious. So instead of bullying the media, Ryanair should investigate what internal procedures lead to a crew trying to make up for lost time by an impromptu change of plans that nearly went south.
Do you think that Ryanair haven't already run that scenario through numerous times to find what occured. In addition gone through their SOPs with crew to find those which were transgressed and why ?
Ryanair reported incident within 12 hours to IAA and kept the data to ensure all could be investigated.
Or perhaps you are another one believing in the story where no facts are checked.
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Are you really that nieve ?
I am aware that Ryanair is surely doing everything to investigate the issue. So let me rephrase: Instead of bullying the media, they should concentrate on the investigation and drawing conclusions from that.
As "Enjoy the view" pointed out, there is some evidence (not only from this incident, and surely not only regarding Ryanair), circumstantial as it might be, that points to a corporate culture that might be problematic.
Like I said, I'm not an airline professional, and I'm not trying to blame Ryanair here, cause I don't know enough about the business. But it ticks me off when a company's legal department harasses a news outlet for reporting accurately – and here's where I have some expertise – what an official report says.
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now picked up by the Daily Mail
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According to the German newsmedium "Spiegel" Ryanair gave a statement about the incident stating that the crew experienced tailwind and that they performed a go-around according the text book.
I must say Ryanair is completely correct about this....
But then again they 'missed' some important information.... Because this unesteblished-high-energy-low-pass was the problem, not the tailwind. They might have performed a text-book go-around, but that was AFTER they screwed up this approach....
And if Ryanair is really concerned about 'safety', then stop MOL saying things about seatbelts and co-pilots.....
I must say Ryanair is completely correct about this....
But then again they 'missed' some important information.... Because this unesteblished-high-energy-low-pass was the problem, not the tailwind. They might have performed a text-book go-around, but that was AFTER they screwed up this approach....
And if Ryanair is really concerned about 'safety', then stop MOL saying things about seatbelts and co-pilots.....
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Ryanair have a very positive risk profile in part created by a zero loss history.
Reports in the media about the airline contemplating charging a Euro to go to the loo is light hearted and funny and gives free publicity but reports that cast doubt over safety can damage the bottom line and need to be managed very carefully.
The other danger to the airline is that at renewal of insurance such incidents could influence an underwriters perception of the risk being presented and the airline will need to demonstrate clearly and convincingly why they deserve a good deal.
Reports in the media about the airline contemplating charging a Euro to go to the loo is light hearted and funny and gives free publicity but reports that cast doubt over safety can damage the bottom line and need to be managed very carefully.
The other danger to the airline is that at renewal of insurance such incidents could influence an underwriters perception of the risk being presented and the airline will need to demonstrate clearly and convincingly why they deserve a good deal.
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It must be annoying for all those undoubted professional pilots and trainers in Ryanair to see the company bring this on itself.
How does it go? "When you are in a hole, stop digging"?
How does it go? "When you are in a hole, stop digging"?
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Got to love the Daily Mail..
At one point, the plane was just 450ft (150m) above the ground while dropping at a rate of 500ft/sec....
Last edited by cwatters; 10th Dec 2012 at 19:10.
Ryanair have a very positive risk profile in part created by a zero loss history.