Jet 2 737 Declares fuel PAN
 

Not a good day at the office for the pilot of this mornings Amsterdam Leeds Jet 2 flight. First good old LBA was fog bound so he held overhead only to divert to Teesside just as the fog came down only to go-around. He declaired a fuel PAN climbed to 5000ft and made it into Newcastle. 65 pax and 5 crew how close to disaster was he and how much fuel should he have had?

He plummeted and only just managed to avoid a primary school, a hospital and an old peoples home. :rolleyes:

It's not a BIG, big deal.
It is a precautionary action. NOT unsafe.

A pan is required if you expect that you may start using reserve fuel.
Having made the decision to divert, the crew is probably now using diversion fuel. Unusually, a second diversion was required.
Therefore on arrival at the diversion, they may start burning reserves.
You want ATC assistance to avoid any further delays.

With weather conditions stated, then other aircraft may choose to divert also, but the aircraft expecting to use reserve fuel will need to arrive without delays.

Not close to disaster, because procedure was followed.

Difficult to say how much fuel he should have had. By all accounts, enough.

It was a reasonable question.

I count two diversions not one.

Yes, seems 2 diverts.

Leeds to Teeside.
Teeside to Newcastle.

Fuel required for the trip would allow 1 diversion.
So by the account given initially, there was sufficient to make a second diversion, and enough fuel to only declare a pan.

Seems like a good day at the office, where all went according to planning.
:D

Consol (edited to add, post now deleted)

Are you saying 'Diversion Fuel' 'includes' 30 mins of holding fuel overhead the alternate?

???

Or perhaps you meant the 30 mins of 'reserve fuel', after which the engines stop??

In the same way that the Iberia in another thread had 'enough' de-icing!

I think it's a fair question, for what must have been a rather unusual occurence.

Even a "MSN flight sim" pilot can guess that two diversions and a fuel pan is rather undesirable!

If that's a "good day at the office", I guess I should spend more time "planning"!

A single diversion is undesireable. But you plan for it.
If the weather is looking pretty grotty, planning for a second would not be bad decision.

Shiny side down

In some companies, "If the weather is looking pretty grotty", planning for a second alternate is compulsory.

Choosing the RIGHT one, "would not be bad decision."

Shiny side down was exactly right to say a fuel 'pan' call is announced if it becomes apparent that an aircraft may land with less than 'reserve fuel'.

Presumably the situation in question.

'Reserve Fuel' represents 30 minutes holding fuel at 1500' clean, at planned landing weight at the alternate: - An aircraft uses relatively small amounts of fuel in the hold, when clean.

This is not the case for an approach and subsequent go-around, should that have been necessary at Newcastle!

A second diversion is rather unusual, and not something that reserve fuel (nor anything else!) is designed to cater for!

Sounds to me like a bad day at the office that turned out ok in the end.

Out of curiosity (puzzled SLF here), would it not make have made more sense to divert to Manchester or Newcastle immediately as being Jet2 bases they can presumably better cater for diverted pax, or are there more parts to the equation than that? Do ATC have any influence over where an aircraft diverts?

Just some thoughts, I'm certainly not trying to make any controversial criticism, sounds like the flight crew handled it by the book :)

Can anyone tell me

what the clean 1500' holding fuel flow would be.

What does a go around and circuit consume

Can someone tell me what a "fuel pan" is.
If you are going to land with less than 30 min of fuel you declare an emergency, ie Mayday, Mayday, Mayday.
WHEN would you call a "fuel pan"?

If you think you might land with less than reserve, then PAN. If you are going to land with less than reserve, MAYDAY.

That's true but that plan includes a choice of alternates, so that you have more than one option available if your destination is below limits. What it doesn't necessarily do is give you the ability to go to one alternate then divert to somewhere else from that original alternate.

In real life it may not take much 'extra' fuel to give yourself a nice selection of places to go; you're increasing the size of the area inside which you can reach another airport. If you wanted sequential alternates, it'll take a bit more gas to achieve...

Assuming he followed SOPs (and we have no reason to doubt that), and he didn't make a Mayday, we can assume he landed with >Reserve i.e. the whole thing is a complete wind-up/non-event...
I would suggest a couple of RW changes at LHR last night put at least 10 inbound aircraft not far off the Pan scenario... ;)

Agree NOD.
Why do we make a fuss about doing the job as per book.
My Company words it thus:
If the total fuel on board is expected to be less than FINAL RESERVE FUEL before landing, a PRIORITY APPROACH/LANDING must be requested. If the fuel on board reaches FINAL RESERVE FUEL before landing an EMERGENCY must be delared.
FINAL RESERVE FUEL = 30 mins Holding at 1500ft ISA at estimated landing weight on arrival at the alternate. Approx 1945Kg for a 763 at 120T land wt.(sorry don't know about 737 but a fair bit less)
So as once happened to me: Pan Pan Pan, Request a priority approach! ATC Are you delaring an Emergency? Me No but will be in about 200Kg,s. Funny got the priority approach as requested. No Drama just diverting. However we will be seeing a bit more of this as airlines sqeeze the fuel amounts carried as the price is nearly 1000$us a ton these days.
:)

A pan is required if you think you might land with less than reserve fuel.
A mayday is required when you WILL land with less than final reserves.

Reasons why you would make these determinations?
Having made one diversion, and it's gone below minima, you may have sufficient fuel to go to the second. But you don't want to hang around. You don't want any delays, such as number 5 to land behind 4 dash8.
If you want ATC to help you, first they need to know the picture. A simple pan gets the message across very easily. It doesn't imply that everything is looking bad. It does imply that the crew are very much aware and in control of what is going on.

I wasn't flying yesterday, so I don't know what the weather was. But if I try to put myself in the same position mentally, and using a lot of supposition.

Forecasts may have indicated some fairly grotty weather.
The plog will be calculated as always with the normal fuel, and a choice of 4 alternates (for us, normally with the nearest alternate selected automatically, but the final decision rests with us).
Maybe knowing the sort of traffic you might expect at certain times of day and factoring in weather and local knowledge with that too, I would likely take fuel well above this computer calculated figure.

Similar situations can be encountered occasionally for London/Southampton/Bournemouth.

I've seen it happen a few times where the vis has dropped at Gatwick, Heathrow, etc. A quick listen to all the london weather built a picture of similar happening at Southend, Stansted, Luton, Southampton. It means a lot of other people may be in the same situation, so delays would be likely.

Perkin.
There is more to it than just where the company bases are. Newcastle may seem like a more appropriate choice than Teeside, but as we don't know the full details, we are hardly in a position to say if that was a good or bad choice. The crew operating had that information.

I'm always amazed when collegues and ops. designate an alternate that is not equipped for LVP's or doesn't have a CONSIDERABLE margin with regards to actual weather conditions only to uplift "minimum fuel". Mind you, I don't claim that this was so in this case.
Alternate planning should be done in the briefing room and re-evalued en-route.
That said, anyone can have "a bad day in the office".

Ice Pack

"So as once happened to me: Pan Pan Pan, Request a priority approach! ATC Are you delaring an Emergency? Me No but will be in about 200Kg,s."

From an ATC POV Pan Pan Pan IS an emergency and the only way to request a priority approach due fuel (other than Mayday obviously). If you simply ask for a priority approach due fuel you won't get it. It may be that if you ask, there is no holding and no expected delays, but our rules are quite clear that you MUST declare a fuel emergency ( PAN or MAYDAY as appropriate ) before priority can be given. This arose because a number of airlines took the p**s and used " a bit short of fuel " to avoid holding.

Hope this clarifies!

:ugh::ugh::ugh::ugh:

More uninformed twaddle on this subject (from some) that has been done to death recently (BA into Luton)

This guy made two diversions and still landed with more than reserve, he was no where near disaster.

That to me sounds like a pain in the ass day in the office, which was dealt with professionally.

I observed this incident yesterday, the 733 held at the LBA for 45 minutes at FL100 waiting for an improvement. At that time MME(1st alternate) was at 800-1000 metres so no problem, the 733 then headed for MME descending and on radar vectors for an ILS on 23. Once on the localisor the visibility was given at 500 metres and the pilot said he needed 550 metres, he sounded very nervous at this point and told the controller he was VERY low on fuel and needed to overshoot. The controller advised that vis was still at 500 metres and the 733 overshot at 300 feet with an immediate right turn to Newcastle and climbed to FL50. The pilot then said he would be calling a Mayday but never did, once at FL50 the 733 maintained 210 knots and on transfer to Newcastle ATC he again declared a PAN PAN and asked for a 3-4 mile final and priority approach. It obviously landed without incident.:):)