Jet goes down on its way to Medellin, Colombia

[butterfly68]

The police released this video about the rescue of Mr Tumiri, unbelivable how he is almost fine... a miracle, may he recover well especially from the psychological trauma...can't imagine how terrible it must be.
http://video.repubblica.it/mondo/aer...92?ref=HRESS-6

[PEI_3721]

Any 146/RJ operators prepared to admit one of those 'Doh' moments when using the GNS fuel planning page as an inflight guide - 'how goes it', forgetting that the system requires manual updating.
Memory fades, but only part of the system, fuel contents or fuel flow, was automated.
Well, yes; I managed at least one Ooops during in-flight planning. More seriously, witnessed at least two Doh moments, one involving a tech stop to refuel.

Recall the A300 at Vienna landing without fuel; as an industry we tend to forget safety lessons.

[patowalker]

Originally Posted by cappt

It came from this interview.
Director de la aerolínea LaMia habla sobre accidente de Chapecoense - Justicia - ELTIEMPO.COM

Translated

http://www.pprune.org/9594414-post157.html

Sí, pero lo hicimos dos veces de Medellín a Bolivia. Era un vuelo que siempre estaba perfecto.

They had done the flight twice from Medellin to Bolivia. He was careful to avoid saying from Medellin to Santa Cruz. I suspect they flew Medellin to Cobija.

[IcePack]

Why such a big deal of what was written on the filed FlightPlan? You can write what you like on it possibly illegally but I suspect it would not be noticed. Surprised the filed plan was so blatantly written.

[AerocatS2A]

Originally Posted by PEI_3721

Any 146/RJ operators prepared to admit one of those 'Doh' moments when using the GNS fuel planning page as an inflight guide - 'how goes it', forgetting that the system requires manual updating.
Memory fades, but only part of the system, fuel contents or fuel flow, was automated.

Contents and fuel flow are both automated to an extent. Fuel flow is an automatic input and contents is manual input but fuel used is taken off to give fuel remaining automatically. Errors can be made inputing the contents either at the start of the flight or in flight if you feel the need to update them. Personally I only update the FMS fuel contents down. If the FMS contents is lower than the gauges then I leave it (within reason of course.)

[mary meagher]

No fuel, no fire...

Alas para volar in quoting Andy JS, post 511, reminds us that it is not usually the fire that kills in an aircraft accident. It is, of course, the sudden stop at the end; if like the Gimli glider you have daylight, the pilot despite his mistake that ended up with no fuel, kept his wits together....he remembered an old airfield used only by gokarts and gliders, and put his Air Canada plane down there with very little damage and no loss of life. Even a farmers field might have served in an emergency....in daylight.


The LAMIA T28B pilot had done this trip before. In this day and age every mobile phone includes a GPS..and a torch/flashlight. If he was fit to fly he might still have saved the situation, with help from the copilot, and from the controller. He should have established priority, called a Mayday.

Was he fit to fly?

[alemaobaiano]

Originally Posted by Contact Approach

LiveLeak.com - Chapecoense team aboard doomed plane before taking off for Colombia

No, she was not the co-pilot on this flight. Sisy Arias was an observer, still under training. She was on the flight deck but not operating the flight. I suspect that there was an element of publicity involved in her presence.

Ovar Goytia was acting as FO for this flight, as confirmed by both families.

[Double Back]

In the crew list I see the rank of the F/O as capt also. So two cpts and one F/O on her first, or training flt.
I have flown enough with two cpts but both need to do some role playing iso the normal way of behaving is my experience.
Only once I experienced it as a burden, however that was not about a safety issue, but I was a little disturbed the rest of the flight which is of course not optimal.
It will be one of the many issues in this accident that possibly contributed.

[Trim Stab]

suspect that there was an element of publicity involved in her presence.

Yes - note that she is wearing three stripes whereas Goytia is wearing two...

[deefer dog]

As two others have noted, something doesn't seem quite right with the flight plan we've seen.

Any pilot wanting to fudge the figures and circumnavigate the regs to "make the flight work," is very unlikely to highlight his endeavors by stating on the flight plan that the estimated elapsed flight time is exactly equal to the fuel endurance.

[Toruk Macto]

For some reason they held no fear of the authorities ? No one submits a flight plan showing no reserves unless you know you can't be challenged .

[noflynomore]

Post 329 demonstrates the attitude the despatcher, the Captain and the company had towards an accurate flight plan. Is this a "normal" attitude in that area? Is the flightplan regarded as an unnecessary and pointless embuggerance as these people clearly did? Presumably the authorities do too or they'd never have tried to file such a faulty document. The attitude seems to have been that it wasn't important enough to bother with and an attitude like that can really only come from prior experience that there will be no follow-up. There are parts of the world where merely filing a document is enough, it matters not a jot what's actually written on it. Is this a recognisable S American attitude? It certainly sounds as though it might be so.

They filed no second diversion, no SID, despatcher failed to append his name and as we know refused to change the EET/Endurance figures.

This cavalier attitude to flight plans might logically be carried over to other paperwork. Having flown the 146 extensively (tho not the RJ) I would love to see the loadsheet for starters.

My take on the incident is Capt and Owner has done the trip before - refuelled en route and reckons he could have just done it - just - unrefueled. He overrides/"explains" to any FO objection that overflying the primary diversion enables a last minute calculation of fuel to destination - a kind of unofficial en-route diversion procedure. Authority gradient makes it stick. Hey, we'll look at it as we go along, OK?
Overflying Bogotŕ they do indeed appear to have fuel to enable a landing at Medellin - waaay below minima but still "enough". Probably just 10 mins absolute. Skipper wants to save money and time plus not look silly to "celeb" pax by landing for fuel just 150 miles short of destination so the decision is made. The CVR at this point would make fascinating listening.

It would have worked except someone else got priority at destination. Can't go back so imagine the dilemma, a highly publicised fuel mayday, lose the prestigious footie contract, attract all sorts of unwelcome public and governmental attention or just keep shtum for a few more minutes and land asap right after the other one. How long can they take after all, they're in a hurry too?

Sure, that's all speculation but it's a very feasible mindset and it fits the picture. It has to be something pretty close to that, not so?

The loadsheet will be a telling document if/when it comes into the public domain. I'll bet that too bears only an Alice in Wonderland connection with reality.

No one submits a flight plan showing no reserves unless you know you can't be challenged .

Quite...tho I'd substitute "won't" for "can't".

[RAT 5]

Skipper wants to save money and time plus not look silly to "celeb" pax by landing for fuel just 150 miles short of destination

That would suggest the customer was not advised in advance that a fuel stop would be made. Surely the charter price would have included such a stop and priced accordingly. Thus the customer would have known. That should be easy for the investigators to discover.

[Chris2303]

Two things from SLF/airline reservations.
If ATC get a plan that EET 4h22m / endurance 4h22m can't they refuse the plan?
IMHO when they flew over BOG without refuelling they condemned all aboard to death.

[Joejosh999]

What's most astonishing to me is how desperate and unprepared the crew seemed in the last few r/ts. From the start they knew they'd arrive w minutes to spare at best. You'd think they'd know the airport info by heart , esp that the VOR was 9 mi short of threshold....the heading they'd need from there....be prepared to glide if necessary...and on and on.
Yet they seemed completely not ready to deal with a circumstance that they were very well aware could occur.
Incredible.

[alanda]

Originally Posted by costalpilot

If it's true they elected to give up a fuel stop looking for a passenger,s game----it was not fate but stupidity that was hunting them. Imo.

Otoh, that's a big IF.

Whatever the reason, they took off late, and then couldn't land at Cobija because it had no lighting.

[Melax]

The flight plan stamp is applied to the bottom right area labelled "additional information" instead of the center labelled "accepted by".
Can someone familiar with how they conduct business down there clarify why ?
I'm under the impression that more info was requested or the person who stamped the form turned a blind eye ?! Do they just stamp the form anywhere like in some West African states ?
(ETE 4:22 / Endurance 4:22)

[neila83]

Originally Posted by AtomKraft

I'm an ex RJ-85 pilot, and while I've no idea what they used for their planned diversion, I wouldn't be surprised if this flight was planned as a 're-clearance' operation.
In other words, you plan the flight with somewhere en route as the 'destination'.
When you are about there, you see if you have enough to proceed to your 'diversion', which is really where you wanted to land anyway.
If you have enough gas, you continue- if not, you land and refuel.

I've done this a few times, and in my view while legal, it can turn into a trap for fools.

If you go on to your 'diversion' then you KNOW that you are going to use:
Start and taxi fuel, sector fuel and diversion fuel. Thus you know that you will land with final reserve and maybe some of your contingency fuel, but that's it.

As usual, it will all come out in the wash, but I'd like to think that in these enlightened times, the days of airliners crashing simply because they 'ran out of gas' are behind us. But then, I don't fly in Columbia.....

Not arrguing with your point, but your your last line is a bit off. This was a Bolivian plane, Colombia's only involvement was ATC and as has been noted that was exemplarary.

Before talking about culture too much, contributors should bear in mind that despite being a very large aviation market, as it's geography makes road travel difficult, and despite having a very hostile topographic and meteorological flying environment, Colombia's airlines have a very impressive safety record. Since terrorism stopped being a concern here, there hasn't been a significant accident I believe.

Which suggests to me they're doing something right. As has already been noted, ATC is generally very good. It has to be! Their pilots seem well able to fly several times a day through some of the worst areas of CB activity on the planet.

So I wouldn't tar all south Americans.

[cappt]

What's most astonishing to me is how desperate and unprepared the crew seemed in the last few r/ts. From the start they knew they'd arrive w minutes to spare at best. You'd think they'd know the airport info by heart , esp that the VOR was 9 mi short of threshold....the heading they'd need from there....be prepared to glide if necessary...and on and on.
Yet they seemed completely not ready to deal with a circumstance that they were very well aware could occur.
Incredible.

In todays airline environment we call that identifying threats and making a plan to mitigate them or "TEAM" for another acronym. Of course this applies to the planning/dispatch stage as well and continues to the completion of the flight.

I'm curious were the Captain got his type rating and what kind of training and experience he had in the RJ85?

[Hippy]

Originally Posted by Chris2303

If ATC get a plan that EET 4h22m / endurance 4h22m can't they refuse the plan?

ATC don't see the endurance. That part of the plan is not transmitted when the plan is filed. That part of the plan is only disseminated when overdue/SAR action needs to be taken.