Jet goes down on its way to Medellin, Colombia

[unworry]

@Dave, you are of course correct, but the infographic is an interesting representation of recent flight history benchmarked against the duration of the final flight.

Would anyone care to elaborate on the range empty?

[A0283]

@lemme - have you already reached a stage where you have an estimated speed just before impact ?

[AerocatS2A]

Originally Posted by unworry

@Dave, you are of course correct, but the infographic is an interesting representation of recent flight history benchmarked against the duration of the final flight.

Would anyone care to elaborate on the range empty?

Performance manual only has distances up to 1800 NM, which at ISA, landing weight of 30,000 kg (lower weights not provided), and cruise at FL350, would use 8290 kg. About a 1000 kg reserve available, but subtract 350 kg or so for start, taxi, approach, and landing.

To put it another way, a fuel plan for a 1650 NM flight empty would look something like this:

Start/taxi: 150 kg
Burn: 7590 kg
Approach: 143 kg
Total required: 7883 kg

Margin available for reserves = 1477 kg

You wouldn't run out of fuel but I don't think that is enough margin for a typical alternate + reserves.

[lemme]

Originally Posted by A0283

@lemme - have you already reached a stage where you have an estimated speed just before impact ?

There is no way to know as the transponder reports stopped nearly 8,000 above the crash site. I would assume the speed of about 125 KCAS would have been maintained.

If it had been flaps up gear down, the airplane would have been flying more like 195 KCAS. Just for reference, as it appears they were flaps&gear down.

Correcting for 7,000 feet altitude, that is 140/215 KTAS.

Vertical speed flaps up gear down would be about 3,500 fpm.

Assuming the same for flaps down, for I have no other data, it would be about 2,400 fpm.

There was a slight headwind which would reduce the ground speed.

[DaveReidUK]

Originally Posted by unworry

Would anyone care to elaborate on the range empty?

Source: BAE SYSTEMS 2004

The solid line applies as the LAMIA aircraft didn't have pannier tanks, so range for a positioning flight with zero payload and JAR reserves is roughly 1700 nm.

[ATC Watcher]

A0283 :

the investigation till now is a confusing mix of criminal and safety investigation.

This is unfortunately the trend those last years , while in France (the example you quoted) there is and always was a technical safety investigation ( the BEA) and in parallel a so called " administrative" investigation one done by the Judiciary ( usually a special branch of the gendarme/police ) what is new is prosecutors wanted to make a name for themselves jumping to the media hours after an accident divulging information from the Safety investigation and pointing at " culprits " to blame. .

This new tendency is going absolutely against Safety , as it encourages people to refrain from talking freely to Safety investigators

last bit , you said :

the 4h22/4h22, and the fact that flight release authority is not clear

Yes it clear in any " normal " AIP : an ARO cannot refuse to transmit a PLN to ATC ansd SAR ( because it is all she does here ) because of values put on the Endurance and Flight time boxes if the Pilot in Command ( or his delegated idividual ) insist on them . Which appears to be the case here.

[AerocatS2A]

Originally Posted by Small cog

Is the range / payload chart for a FL 310, 330 or 350 capable aircraft?

Difference between FL310 and FL350 over 1800 NM at 30,000 kg landing weight is only 140 kg.

[Heathrow Harry]

You can argue about payload etc etc but that chart of recent flights clearly shows he was constantly pushing the limits - you get away with it for a while but eventually ..................

[portmanteau]

Were any of LaMia's other flights captained by someone other than Quiroga or was he the sole perpetrator of this tragic scam?
Flight Plans are submitted so that ATC can extract the information they require for ATC purposes. They are not required to be checked for accuracy of every entry though gross errors such as this one would, as we have seen, be picked up. And just suppose that was passed to the Tower and they refused to give start clearance, Quiroga would simply have said sorry thats an error, it should have read 0530, please change it and away they go.

[ATC Watcher]

portmanteau : Endurance and EET are not extracted/ passed on to ATC . They are only there for SAR and Alerfa purposes .

[Lancelot de boyles]

Originally Posted by joejosh999

I'm curious because the Avianca pilot related that the LAM pilot kept saying "I can't remember the f*cking code!"

I have a small nagging thought about this- why would you need to remember the code, unless you don't have the relevant charts to hand? Where did this piece of info originate?

[jess15]

Originally Posted by portmanteau

Were any of LaMia's other flights captained by someone other than Quiroga or was he the sole perpetrator of this tragic scam?
......

snipped.

Yes to the first question. Apparently not, to your last.

Quiroga was keen on marketing through social media. So you can still access his FB profile and superficially"cross check" flights (as well as the riskiest flights) they made against his FB photo record of who is crewing.
Quiroga is most frequently photo'd as the captain (& self-described there as Chief Pilot. Rocha annotated as Chief of Operations.)
Rocha ( owner 2, still in Paraguay,) is very occasionally, the captain, more often co-piloting. Ex-General Vargas also in his uniform co-piloting some of the flights, Co Pilot Encina is there too.

Incidentally, photos also seem to show that Quiroga brought along his child (teen son) for the previous Chapo game ( Cobija flight to Barranquilla for Copa Sudamericana Oct 18 flight.) Also photographed - his Ipad clearly propped on flight deck tracking routes etc. Quiroga also photographed his pilots licence, ratings, the company's licence, trips to Vigo in Spain (where Albacete lives) , flights to Sierra Leone etc etc.

Anyway, more important than his photo albums, would like to know how they managed to pay for their insurance, maybe there's another backer?
(ie. Last week, company records said LaMia had only US$16k, on paper, at time of the disaster. It has since been clarified that they did have valid insurance, although only to $25 m.)
Every report just generates more questions- hard to entangle amongst all the political infighting within the Govt.

In other MSM news: Brazilian Att General also reported that they managed to get the charters for 25 football teams between Aug & Nov 2016. (It's no wonder that, the morning after the crash, Vargas Snr, described the company's growth as "booming".)
Quiroga F-in-law ( the ex senator in exile) , claims he has documents to show the Lamia planes' leases were due to end on 31 Dec 2016 and that the company was already in negotiations to lease a fleet of five 757 from Brazilian & Spanish companies.

[deefer dog]

I also wondered what this could have meant. Perhaps someone familiar with the language could confirm whether a VOR or LOC frequency would be referred to as a "code?"

[DaveReidUK]

Originally Posted by Small cog

As I understand the story so far, the aircraft operated at FL 280 and 290 on this flight.

There is a couple of hours of cruise flight missing from the ADS-B trace (because of lack of receiver coverage).

Immediately before that segment, the aircraft was climbing through FL300.

[aterpster]

Lancelot de boyles:

I have a small nagging thought about this- why would you need to remember the code, unless you don't have the relevant charts to hand? Where did this piece of info originate?

If the required instrument flight procedure charts were or were not on board, I would trust that would be discovered in the human-factors investigator's inventory at the crash site, since there was no fire.

[Trav a la]

Would Celia have had any involvement in the previous eight questionable flights?

[jess15]

Celia Castedo only worked in the Asaana office at Santa Cruz, at VV airport

In the chart I posted yesterday you can see which flights operated out of that airport:

Also here's a basic diagram charting 8 flights CP2933 made between Aug – Nov 2016. (Nothing new, just based on FRadar24 data.)
Antes de estrellarse, el avión de LaMia forzó la reserva de combustible en otros ocho vuelos - Univision

Presumably the Colombian Att General's team is looking at flights/flight plans outward from Medellin etc. ( No comment made by them on that AFAIK)
OTOH His Brazilian equivalent has said he is looking at all Brazilian flight plans authorised via their national offices.

Other
Lamia lease financials released - apparently US$ 35k a month to lessor. ( Compare this figure to the earlier posts I made re. a supposed (unconfirmed) plan to dry lease five 757 as of next month and what's been released about the company's assets, on paper. )

[Loose rivets]

Could the code simply be Ident? Though I can't see him getting so worked up about that.

[marie paire]

Portuguese Diário de Notícias is reporting that Celia Castelo has been indicted by the Public ProsecutorGomer Padilla (Colômbia - Ministério Público da Colômbia acusa técnica que alertou para pouco combustível).

[portmanteau]

ATCWatcher, have to correct you. Unless things have changed radically since my day, the ATC FPL is seen in its entirety by the departure aerodrome ATC who, as the form tells them, are not required to send the supplementary information to other ATC units along the route. However they are required to pass it to other ATC units if asked for it in the event of an incident/accident anywhere along the route involving SAR and its Incerfa/Alerfa/Detresfa phases. Hence the need for the dep ATC to have the supp info to hand for as long as necessary.