767 lands !!!!
 

Happened last week:

Aircraft with 235 pax and 9 crew is lined up on ILS, weather Cat3, remaining fuel at or below required minimum. Airport has electrical power problems: rvr and wind info no longer available. Aircraft therefore instructed to go-around, crew then declare short of fuel and emergency situation imminent. ILS officially downgraded to Cat1. All other traffic diverts. ATC clear aircraft for Cat1 approach although weather remains Cat3. Crew commence approach, at final approach fix ATC informs that rvr below Cat1 minimum. aircraft however continues, but does not receive landing clearance. Just before touchdown crew asks for and receives clearance to land.

Guess the operator and airport...

interesting,

you seem to be suggesting that they should have gone around and crashed after running out of fuel.

would have kept them legal.:confused:

Dunno??????

the heavy heavy, you beat me to it. Shouldn't have got into that situation in the first place, but I fail to see any other option? Is that the discussion over?

Hate to say, but "“A superior pilot is one who stays out of trouble by using superior judgment to avoid situations which might require the use of superior skill”. "Pilot" should be "crew" in any case.

If weather is CatIII you'd better not arrive with low fuel. Thats what JAR says anyhow. So still wondering where this happened. Don't get caught.

Anyway: **** happens, and as long as you can walk away..... Hope this kind of thing does not happen to me sometime....

Aeropers,

You're obviously such an expert tell us what you would do?

Run out of fuel and be legal? or land asap and keep 235 pax alive and well?

Shags

At the end of the day there is a getout clause in the rules, I can't remember the exact phrasing, but it basically says that if you need to do it because you are in the s*#t then you can do it anyway, maybe subject to question, but in the end probably not illegal!:p

Shouldn't this be changed to 767 Lands safely?

Yes, yes, there are lots of reasons why it shouldn't have got this bad but as Heavy says what should he have done fired them up and flown to his alternate crash site, half way to his designated alternate?

No other decision to be made... LAND...

Maybe a company restraint on how much fuel can be taken, without the captain getting out his own wallet to cover the tankering costs...

Ps Oops :sad:

Somewhat like Flight & Duty time regulations, under normal circumstances one is allowed X number of hours discretion but when the sh1t hits the fan ..... one is allowed to act as deemed necessary given the circumstances.

The following reasoning may be a bit twisted but if you can continue if RVR drops below min after passing the approach ban point, you can do it in this case before reaching App Ban Point

I realise the ILS was CAT I but only because the backup equipment was not on line but effectively the ILS was at cat III level.

Based on this information I think it’s OK at least it can be defended to be better than any other available alternative. Extra fuel of course being the best option.

20/20
 

Hindsight is 20/20.

However this is one of these situations where they were going to make the papers regardless of the outcome. There are 2 possible out comes.

1. Bust minima, and land in one piece.

2. Divert with less than minimum fuel, turn into a glider, and then end up a smoking hole in the ground. Well maybe not too much smoke (no fuel!), but you get the idea.

Aircraft in one piece, No fatalaties, everyone walks away, albeit a little embarrsed.

Now you decide what option you'd pick.

IR

ATC
 

Once again the myth of ATC "controlling" a flight arises.

The only sure control is gravity. The crew use their wits and resources to overcome gravity as long as safely possible, knowing they will run out of both at some point.

At that point ATC becomes irrelevant.

Go on..... tell us.... who was it?

767 could have had a fuel leak, been held down for cruise, already on a weather diversion, or any number of "mitigating factors". Legality may be irrelevant, and ultimately was. Bloody smug lawyer-types, keep me from 'em.

to be honest i dont want to know who it was and where it was, seems a bit of a silly post tome to have a pop at a perticular person or airline, not what pprune should be all about. Please tell me what would you guys have done i know what i would have done and sod the rule books, no facts are talked about so how can we make a judgment on the situation. With out going into the in's and out's of KLM's fuel policy we are not required anymore to carry so called "AWO fuel" therefore no extra required, anyone can get into that situation. Im glad the crew landed safely rather than go around and run out of fuel. Perhaps in the future if such a post is going to be admitted a little more detail would be good rather than just trying to slate someone..... perhaps i smell a rat somewhere along the line

all details to be found at http://www.bfu.admin.ch/common/pdf/HB-ISE

aeropers, did I win, did I win :p

fuel emergency Cat 3 weather
 

Not saying this is what happened in this case but imagine.... you arrive at destination which is unexpectedly cat 3 weather and you are told 50 mins holding. You have fuel for 20 mins. So you divert to your alternate. Your alternate is cat 1 with one runway and on the approach the runway is blocked by the aircraft ahead. ATC tell you to go around and expect 1 hours delay.

Say there are no other airfields. Where do you go? Back to the destination and declare an emergency? If you still have the fuel, otherwise you might be stuffed already but... you get back there and the ILS is downgraded but the weather is still cat 3. F***!

But whatever the reason for having very little fuel, what choice do you have if you don't have enough to go somewhere else?

passengers' safety can't be discussed, it comes before anything else.

The 767's captain did the best thing , they had no other place to land so with a little fuel and that runway was the safest place to go .

Option 1: Their declaration has been true. IMHO they had no other option and your thread should be rebranded as proposed: "767 landed safely".
Option2: Do you have any doubts? Are you guessing that they just pressed on pretending to be low on fuel, thus avoiding a go around?
Regards