Ryanair emergency landing Valencia 14th May
 

Hallo - this is my first post although I have followed the forums for some time. I'm an ex-aircraft engineer - BA Heathrow and Gatwick - some time ago now but some things don't seem to change! I'm now an expat living in Spain

Apologies if I've missed this but this morning in our Spanish paper there was a news item regarding the Ministry of the Interior conducting an investigation into an emergency landing on 14th May by a Ryanair flight from Stanstead to El Altet which had to divert to Valencia due to the ash cloud. The emergecny was called at Valencia due to lack of fuel. Has anyone any more information on this?

Thanks

Incident: Ryanair B738 at Alicante and Valencia on May 14th 2010, fuel emergency

Well, diverting tends to eat into you reserves. Add to that maybe some other delays due to the ash madness et voila. Don't know what Ryans policy is, but most airlines have a policy of declaring an emergency/urgency if they even suspect that they will land with less than 30 minutes fuel. So it seems like a wise move. It happens more often than you think. I would not loose any sleep over it.

- yes, but it is not SUPPOSED to eat into your final reserve, is it, unless Ryanair have a different fuel policy to everyone else? RT actions quite correct. Company no doubt looking at why they ran short of fuel. Unless they had excessive delays on the div it sounds as if the second ALC approach might not have been a good idea. - I hope not!

That I agree with BOAC, it will be interesting to see why they thought they could commit to rwy 28. However I must say I did not read the second post, as it was not there when typed in my reply, so I did not have that information. I thought more along the lines of severe disruption with multiple delays due to the ash cloud madness, as aluded to in the first post.

What would the typical burn be for a go-around and circuit to land in a -800?

I'm not sure that would have 'committed' to ALC - that means "I am definitely landing there and nowhere else" so if the wind was questionable that was not an option.

Anyway, all safe, and as I said no doubt OPS will be looking closely while MOL will be happy with the fuel saving :)

Actual diversion fuel may be significantly different from the planned figure if ATC do not allow you to conform to the planned route or optimum altitude.

BOAC, that's exactly what I mean. Anyway, too much speculation with too little information. They might as well have encountered ATC induced delays.

Final reserve (30 minutes at 1500') in an NG is right on the 900kg mark, so they were very close to landing with final reserve intact, after three approaches and a diversion. Missed approach, and quick vectors for a second approach in an NG is about 500 kg, a visual circuit about 250-300kg.

No criticism can be made without knowing the circumstances of the diversion - what route was planned versus what they were able to get on the day, and the planned destination weather vs. what actually was involved.

Frankly it all sounds normal, "efficient" minimum planning for convective weather forecast @ destination. Take 1000ks over plan for the convective weather, arrive & make a missed approach - be offered a second approach to a reciprocal runway (command decision time when you calculate you just have enough fuel to achieve this and still divert) take the second approach, unfortunately make another missed. Two weather missed approaches = mandatory divert in most SOPs.

Then the diversion runs a touch longer than anticipated or planned, resulting in a landing a smidge under fixed reserve - an honest Mayday call required by SOPs when this becomes the case is transmitted (again a good, honest, command decision when some might have remained silent).

Tight fuel planning, unlucky on the day, a couple of difficult decisions reasonably handled (and again unlucky with the second approach), and it all working within 100kg of being OK. Tough day out, I think.

Not forgetting, of course, that as I recall 'PAN' was barely recognised in Spain in my day, so straight to a MAYDAY for me to get attention. Then no more " what route was planned versus what they were able to get on the day," - I am going direct to VLC!

Tailwinds on approach
 

I was operating into LEAL that day and I remember there being a few RYR's before/after us, amongst others... Valencia control cleared us for VLC2N, then Alicante approach 'direct Vilna'... then Polop... then Vilna... then hold at Polop... aircraft before us were going around due to tailwinds on both ends.

It was a bit of a shambles and aircraft were all over the place positioning visually and being vectored to each end and going around... we finally made one approach on R28 with a tailwind down to about 50'. All within limits for us but I can understand some aircraft getting worried about fuel levels. We happened to have an extra 1000kg or so and burnt about 600kg more than expected. They had us descending to 6000' in the hold still being number 8 or so... burning fuel like it was out of fashion!

With fuel getting that low a mayday is obviously the way to go to ensure less delays and get on the ground as swiftly and safely as possible.

Thanks for your posts and for the link provided by BFCGT (I hope I got that right!).

It's clear that there were difficulties with tailwinds at LEAL that day. What would be the minimum he had to climb for the short diversion to VLC? He was obviously right on the limit fuel-wise, and I was interested in the comment of a MAYDAY once being necessary to alert the tower. Is this still the case?

Question for Ryanair pilots ?
 

Ryanair pilots,

Whats the policy for taking extra fuel ?

Do Captains get in trouble for taking extra contingency fuel ?

As the rumour is that you have problems for taking extra fuel more than flight plan ?

Thanks Jimmy

Jimmy, try doing a search of the forums before you launch into print. Whatever your motives are for trying to renew the discussion, believe me, every aspect of the point you are trying to make has been gone over a thousand times in previous posts. They landed with reserves close to or at the minimum. Any problem with that?

see the search option at the top of the page? Open it and type in 'Ryanair tankering' or some such and your questions will be answered.

Where did it say that he has a "motive" for opening the discussion again? That's what we do here, discuss. I'd welcome further discussion as myself and others might learn something that we would've never seen. If the thread bores you, don't read it?

Final Reserve in 737-700 is about 1000kgs, a 737-800 will be slightly more . Allowing for a bit of fuel burn on the taxi in and APU burn prior to the fuel readings being taken, the fuel totals mentioned look just about spot on and what you would expect following a diversion on minimums.

A very uncomfatable situation to be in but not necessarily a screw up.

Fuel policy is: you can take as much as you want however over 300kgs answer requires reason on voyage report.
Compared to some airlines (I believe EZY anything over plog requires explanation) 300kgs is quite generous.
Contrary to popular belief there is no pressure on us Captains to take min fuel etc,etc,etc.

an 'explanation' being one word such as wx, forecast, snow, notam.

final reserve
 

thanks say mach number there does seem to a lot of propaganda out there


rubik 101 did not like the patronizing, we are referring to this incident specifically guess you did not undestand the question and didnt read because you do not work for ryanair. " They landed with reserves close to or at the minimum. Any problem with that? "

Yeah looks there may be a problem and I for one will wait for the investigation to come out.

Learn from the mistakes of others, not that they made a mistake. Dont know ?

The question is, What can I learn from this ?

Hell, it could happen to me !!


The organizational culture does tend to be a factor.

Rubik 101, If you dont understand what the problem is in going below Final Reserve or being at it Then smart #/& you appear to have a learning deficiency with all your time on pprune and 800 posts or you are a wind up artist.


I for one dont have time to be scouring all the ryanair threads and others got better things to do.