How much fuel?

[CAEBr]

Interesting report from Flight Global - SIA 777 getting airborne with 41t more fuel than expected.

https://www.flightglobal.com/news/ar...rnback-449734/

[Cloudtopper]

Personally speaking , if the pilots did not realise something was amiss with longer ground run , rotation speeds , and initial optimum/ Max altitudes then one needs to question there overall experience

Singapore appears here quite often for topics related to safety .....

[Black Pudding]

How the hell can the actual uplift and calculated uplift discrepancy not tell them there was something wrong.

Who filled in the tech log and who who signed the tech log.

[Herod]

It seems to me that the crew were not at fault here. The basic error would appear to be the fact that the ground staff did not dip ALL the tanks. Basic requirement I would have thought.

[Piltdown Man]

Herod - I disagree with your interpretation. The wing tanks were assumed to be full so the sum of their contents was added to an incorrectly dipped centre tank. Measuring the wing tanks would not have changed the numbers. What I find interesting is that the blame fell in the shoulders of the techie and none on the manufacturer. After all, how difficult can it be to dip a tank? Maybe Boeing’s ‘Magastick’ checking procedures need reviewing as does their QA process for installing programable fuel sensors that enable spurious tank values to be displayed. And how many times has this happened before? I also find it interesting that the additonal 41 tonnes went unnoticed in performance terms but as I only fly bug smashers I’ll let someone more qualified comment.

PM

[Landflap]

Beats the hell out of departing with 41 tons less than expected.

[MaximumPete]

Back to basics!!! What fuel load did it arrive with on board and how much did they put on. Now that can't be hard, or can it?

[am111]

I'm not familiar with the Magastick procedure but sounds like confusion coupled with confirmation bias as it sounds like absolutely no discrepancy was found first time round?

[crwkunt roll]

So how much above MTOW was it? No way could it be below it, on a 13 hour sector, with 40t too much gas.

[mustafagander]

FFS, an uplift way exceeding the planned fuel load needs investigating. Simple. The only thing I would accept is a full magnastick check of all tanks as well as a reasonable explanation of how come the uplift was so much higher than calculated. In my mob we went through fuel measuring problems in the B747SP era when the fuel tended to stratify. We did, however, delay for long enough to resolve each discrepancy.

[172_driver]

Back to basics!!! What fuel load did it arrive with on board and how much did they put on. Now that can't be hard, or can it?

Did I miss something? That's what they were concerned with, hence dripping the tanks. It was the dripping that wasn't done correctly. I sympathize with the crew if they were told 86 T onboard after the check.

There was an Air France A319 that ran one tank dry despite it showing over 1000 kg remaining. Google it!
Funny little things those indication systems.

[spannersatcx]

Whenever a fuel measuring stick check is required to verify the fuel uplifted / fuel quantity inside the tank due to MEL applied, Fuel Measuring Stick Manual has to be used. It is quite time consuming to look up for correct fuel quantity value using this manual and human error might occurs.

To reduce the inconvenience caused, Boeing has released an iPad app, Boeing FMSM, to calculate fuel quantity using the fuel measuring sticks. The Boeing FMSM app is an electronic version of the referenced FMSM available in MyBoeingFleet. The Boeing FMSM app performs all the calculations and table lookups. The app can perform two different functions:

 Identify the fuel sticks to be checked for a given fuel load

 Calculate the fuel quantity for a given fuel stick reading

[BAengineer]

The technicians, it says, had "limited" experience in performing the check and that the magnastick readings were "likely not correct".

I can quite believe that. I worked for several airlines in the Middle East before I retired and a decision to fuel stick an aircraft was a big deal (with possible delay indications) simply because the Engineers and Technicians had no experience of the task. Many didnt understand the concept and were totally lost when it came to reading the charts - this was not because they were bad engineers or technicians it was just that those airlines tend to use new modern aircraft where the fuel systems are usually accurate and reliable, they just dont ever need to stick the tanks. I grew up on DC10's and other old birds were we did stick checks before each flight so a task that was easy for me to carry out on a 777 (say 15-20 minutes) could take 2 hours for inexperienced technicians.

When I say they didnt get the concept it appears that the SQ guys didnt either - you do a stick check when you dont trust the onboad fuel system and want to know exactly what fuel is onboard so checking all the tanks is obviously needed.

[CargoOne]

I am finding it quite peculiar that official report says nothing about aircraft all up weight, performance and envelope basically omitting the basic items for ICAO report standards.

[Sailvi767]

I thought every airline crew had to perform a fuel verification checking the uplift against the arrival fuel. It’s a basic safety precaution.

[am111]

They did spot a discrepancy...

Although the aircraft's cockpit and refuelling-panel indicators showed total fuel of 86t, the refuelling had taken longer than expected, and the ground personnel found that the dispenser had apparently delivered 121.5t to the aircraft.

The ground team was uncertain about the discrepancy, initially believing that the fuel-flow counter might not have been reset before the fuel was dispensed.

This prompted them to dip the centre fuel tanks and somehow managed to come to the same 86t figure the aircraft came to. Their logical but false conclusion must have been that the discrepancy lay with the fuel bowser and not the aircraft.

[dweeks]

Originally Posted by Sailvi767

I thought every airline crew had to perform a fuel verification checking the uplift against the arrival fuel. It’s a basic safety precaution.

Well, at my carrier ( one of the US Big 3) we don't even get a fuel slip any more, unless there is some MEL or non-standard procedural requirement for one. If the totalizer number agrees with the ECAM fuel page numbers, you're good to go with no fuel slip.

[BluSdUp]

Another Sloppy report!

So, Here we have armchair experts PAYED to investigate and they dont even come up with a proper ICAO standard report .
Namely the fact all the V1 V2 and Vr and Vref was WRONG with a factor close to 1.3 or 1.2.
On the 737 one ton equals ca 1 knot, so if I take off with speeds for a a 10 to lighter aircraft I would use Vspeeds that are ca 10kts to slow.
I would ask you 777 drivers to do a quick calculation for the two scenario we have here : 1 the calculated one and 2 the actual one.
Also C\G is wrong as the 777- 200ER Center Tank is more forward.
Boeing and the Airline got of hook this time as I can not think of how this could have gone the other way, Gimli Glider style.
Standing by to be corrected.
Cpt B

[Sailvi767]

Originally Posted by dweeks

Well, at my carrier ( one of the US Big 3) we don't even get a fuel slip any more, unless there is some MEL or non-standard procedural requirement for one. If the totalizer number agrees with the ECAM fuel page numbers, you're good to go with no fuel slip.

Wow, lots of trust in your fuelers, they must be highly trained.

[BluSdUp]

And this fueler was 62 years old and had 40 year experience!