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.:):)

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?