My personal philosophy is to always have a Plan B.... And when Plan B becomes A you need a new Plan B. A Plan C while Plan A is feasible is probably a bit OTT ;) Of course, each successive Plan B becomes more tighter on rules / commercial factors etc.
Seems our friend has a similar philosophy, kept everyone in the loop, and despite some adverse factors, still landed above Reserves on Plan B Mk2 :)

Indeed. The crew/ATC themselves haven't surfaced on this thread yet, so none of us here really know the exact details. My point was more along the lines of whether company bases are considered more suitable as diverts, I wasn't questioning, and never would as I'm not sufficiently qualified, the decision of the crew in this particular instance and apologies if it sounded that way. I'd be interested to know if there are any set criteria for selecting an alternate, or whether it simply comes down to the nearest airfield with suitable weather and landing slots. (mods, please move this post if its more suitable for the SLF forum)

Sounds like it was all dealt with in a thoroughly professional manner - bit of a bad day in the office, but we all have those once in a while!

Well said perkin and gatbusdriver.....
I'm lead to believe that they landed with 2000kg in tanks....NO ISSUE !!!
Get a life you lot...

Bam Thwok
 

It patently IS an issue, any aircraft getting low on fuel is an issue, as it stops being an aircraft not long after it runs out, particulary if its flying at approach altitudes!

But it seems in this case it was perhaps a bit of a close run thing, but no major drama. My experience so far with Jet2 (around 150 sectors as pax) suggests that all their crews would behave with the utmost professionalism in any situation and this instance demonstrates it - presumably the pilot could've landed just below minima at Teeside just to get the bird on the ground, but chose to make another divert, got to give them some credit for that, it must be extremely uncomfortable to be in a situation like that :D

No, it was a non-issue. The whole point of the policy on calling a "fuel PAN" is to get the aircraft on the ground while it still has a safe fuel margin. In this case, since a Mayday was never called, they obviously still had at least 30 minutes reserve at the time they touched down.

Considering (according to somebody who was there) they'd already held for 45 minutes at Leeds then had a missed approach at Teeside (because he went by the book and didn't cheat on visibility minimums), to make it to the second alternate still carrying the legal 30 minute reserve says to me the captain acted in a safe professional manner throughout and used his discretion to carry rather more than minimum fuel, probably because he knew there was grotty weather in NE England.

I'm only one of the SLF members but I'd be very happy to fly with the crew in question up front!

Bob

he needed an OVERSHOOT?
 

was he wearing flared trousers with his uniform and a white man's permed afro?
:}

Disagree.

It was an issue. Imagine the workload on the flightdeck after the vis at Teeside was revealed.

It ended ok with more fuel left than it might have, almost certainly because there was much more good planning than bad in the whole trip, but when it starts going wrong, boy does it go fast :hmm:


Conclusion? Lots of useful revision learning can be prompted by this thread. It was real, it was non-routine, and it upped adrenalin flows.

It is no major issue, since this crew did not deem it necessary to declare a Mayday. One can assume they would have if it had been likely that they would use part of those 30 minutes reserve fuel.

So:

- they landed with more than minimum reserve fuel
- they had taken enough extra fuel to allow allow for two subsequent diversions
- their fuel planning was therefore appropriate in view of the weather forecast
- the crew made prudent and timely decisions before running out of options (they did not commit themselves to their first alternate or waste time by staying in a holding for too long)
- they correctly informed ATC about their situation, to ensure that an actual fuel emergency would be prevented.

In short: the crew was nowhere near the disaster scenarios painted by some posters, precisely because they dealt with the situation professionally. A job well done by this crew and thus a good (albeit long and probably tiring) day at the office. :ok:

If you look carefully no-one had painted disaster scenerarios in this thread(carefully steered and edited version, thereof) except the mischievous mercenary pilot :rolleyes:

The initial post (chocolate eclairs aside) was a good intro to a useful discussion that needs to do the rounds constantly.

I say again.....they had 2 tons on arrival at NCL....that's after holding 45mins, diverting to 1st alternate (MME), approach and G/A the divert to NCL.
2 tons on a 73 is no way near 30 minute min reserves...prob closer on an hour !
Don't assume that because a "PAN" call was made, was wholely down to a low fuel state and it's Operations Manual definition.
It's possible the crew were by this time getting a bit "twitchy" and only wanted to assure priority into NCL.
At no time am I lead to believe that it was...."a close run thing" !

I'd like to get back to the phraseology issue.

Pan, pan, pan denotes an urgency: no immediate assistance is required.
Mayday, mayday, mayday denotes distress: immediate assistance is required.

What is the point of declaring a fuel pan (thinking you are landing with slightly more than the reserve fuel) if you do not need ATC assistance, ie priority? I would always go for mayday and associated paperwork.

Think you've answered this yourself. A fuel PAN says that the assistance is required when you reach the destination, be it a diversion airfield or not. If you're already en route to that airfield then you will receive a priority approach and landing, therefore immediate assistance is not required. A Mayday call means "get me on the ground now by all means possible", and to be honest probably means something has gone badly wrong. I can think of numerous scenarios which could generate a PAN for fuel - more holding than expected due to blocked runway/snow clearing etc. or diversion as in this case (wholly appropriate, IMHO ), but not many which would generate a MAYDAY.

:)

Some valid and interesting points made, I am slightly confused by some of the pilots comments when he was given the MME RVR on approach, he sounded VERY concerned and said we are VERY low on fuel!! Perhaps he was shocked at the reduction in RVR on the field during his approach?? Maybe he didnt know the vis at NCL was 8 kms?

Perhaps we will never know the full story but obviously the remaining fuel in the tanks has been confirmed above, your anonimity is safe!!:\

Here we go ... so now we have a fuel pan whch appears to be different to a pan pan pan, which in turn have nothing to do with Mayday mayday mayday or a fuel emergency. Anyone else see the intermittent fog appearing as usual?

On this new basis I extrapolate that all transatlantic traffic would be well advised to declare a fuel pan on encountering unforecast headwinds midroute...d'oh!

I'll ask the obvious question of why he was so intent on an overshoot at his prmimary alternate when he was established on a published segment of the approach. Iy makes it seem from the post that as soon as he was told the vis was below his mins, he decided that he was going to have to overshoot. Surely not the case I hope. Regardless if the vis was called below his mins, who cares, he's on a published segment of the approach, he should still be able to continue to DA and and if having the required viz, and being in a safe position to land, land at his primary alternate.

Thanks! It's always good to hear an opinion from an UK ATCO.

Some Catchy Name,
Not if if the RVR was stated before the outer marker/equivalent point. There would have to have been an improvement to 550m RVR for him to continue the approach past that point.

The aircraft was passing 5 miles out (for 23) when the 500m RVR was declared to them

According to DIRECTTANGODELTA, this aircraft went round from 300' at Teeside.

Would that have been his DA by any chance?

Any 'insight' Bam Thwok? Direct TD?

Edited to add: It sounds like they went round from DA, due nothing sighted, rather than because the vis went out of limits.

The crew have been variously described as "concerned", "nervous", "twitchy", and apparently made a 'pan' call when there was absolutely no need whatsoever! (Even though they said they were VERY short of fuel??)

Not sure this can be presented by anyone as a 'good day'.

All very confusing.

I am fairly sure they continued to 300ft but not 100%, the pilot asked for an immediate right turn to NCL as he was overshooting and climbed to FL50. I dont understand what all the fuss was about if he had over 2 tons of fuel in the tanks? but it cetainly came across from the pilot that a problem existed, would another approach at MME not have been worth it as the RVR was only 50 metres below his minima?