Thanks vmandr, sadly, that seems to indicate that with 19 miles to track from 21000 feet and no wind they might just have made it - everything else being perfect.

Which, clearly, it wasn't.

Interesting article by The Economist, usually a very reliable source of information:

"It is not clear how or why the last-minute change in flight plan was approved. According to El Deber, a Bolivian newspaper, airport officials in Santa Cruz de la Sierra raised several questions about it. Mr Quiroga reportedly made various verbal guarantees that the plane had enough fuel for the trip.

Other considerations may have been on the pilot’s mind. Mr Quiroga was a co-owner of Lamia airlines. As such he had a unique set of incentives in this situation. Postponing a chartered flight in a time-sensitive industry is not good for business. Once in the air, telling officials that the plane is running out of fuel is less than desirable: the penalty for any firm being caught flouting regulations is huge. It is too early to say whether such factors played a part in his decision-making.

It is also unclear why a top-tier football team was flying to a major sporting event with an airline like Lamia in the first place. The firm was founded in 2009 in Mérida, a small city in western Venezuela. Last year Lamia Bolivia, a separate business entity, was set up. The airline claims to specialise in chartered flights, particularly for football teams. The only functioning plane it has ever owned is the 17-year-old jet that crashed into the muddy Colombian mountainside.

The players of Chapecoense were not the only footballers to fly with Lamia. Few airlines provide chartered flights in Latin America, and none does it cheaper. “A flight that another company charges you $100,000 for, Lamia offered for $60,000,” an industry insider told La Nacion, an Argentine newspaper."

Fuel folly: Why the Chapecoense football team?s plane ran out of fuel | The Economist

No, not many proffesional pilots have done that. You on crack or just ignorant?

The number of aerial filming accidents makes it's clear that the pressure/glamour of being associated with TV, corrupts flight safety.

From the planning stage onwards, producers are very persuasive.

With this in mind who actually charted the flight, the Football team or the TV Network?

Was the pilot given ample warning that TV crew and production staff were to be onboard?

Were the (reported but not confirmed) technical crew carrying large amounts of camera gear?
Enough to cover the match or just a few interview cameras?

Were interviews conducted on the flight deck during the flight?

Did the (possible) prescence of a camera (GoPro or manned) on the flight deck deter the pilot from declaring a fuel emergency?


Mickjoebill

Some more information from a reliable source:

"Brazil’s aviation authority, ANAC, said Tuesday morning that the LaMia airline had asked permission to fly directly from Brazil to Colombia, but the request was denied on the basis of international aviation agreements. An ANAC spokesman said under these agreements a charter flight between two countries can’t be operated by an airline from a third country."

Plane Carrying Brazilian Soccer Team Crashes in Colombia; At Least 70 Killed - WSJ

a few words about flight planning.

seems that sometimes 'we can do it' attitude, supported by a piece of paper (cfp, ofp) goes a long way with crews and AROs.
this story could have stopped right at dep airport.
dont know if they used a cfp and if that cfp gave same figure for eet and endurance.
if it did then maybe it is time for the cfp provider to re-arrange the algorithms to not allow eet = endurance.

- The Football Team

- This air company was used of transporting south american football team. The pilot itself as the owner, knew who they were transporting, of course. And the crew too. The airplane is painted with Chapecoense badge and some colors

- No cameras gear, only small I presume. The cameras used in the match are from the Colombian TV that covers the game in medellin. This is common in soccer games. Each stadium has it own cameras from a local network.

- During the flight no idea. But before the flight, yes.

- I woulnt assume that. Problems happen. But in this case it was intentional, so the pilot covered it due to penalties , with or without cameras.

Very similar to Virgin VA-1384 in Mildura. Almost ran out of fuel after priority was given to another Qantas 737.

At one time MH had their 747s landing at LHR with little more than fumes.

Perhaps these incidences happen more often than what the public thinks?

Except VOZ1384 flew from Sydney to Adelaide. Found the weather to be below legal minimums, then diverted to Mildura, flew an approach, went around, and then flew a second approach and landed, then taxied to the apron on their own power.

They did not takeoff from Sydney without enough fuel to actually get to Adelaide, then crash well short of the runway after gliding the first approach without fuel on board.

But yea, similar if you really stretch the definition.

No, I don't think planes crashing because they have run out of fuel is happening more often than the public thinks. As has already been pointed out this is in no way similar the the Virgin incident. Well except a plane was involved.

After the earlier post about Ryanair, where does all this nonsense come from? Ryanair were perfectly legal and as was even noted in the post diverted to 2 different airports and still landed safely. That's the difference between carrying enough fuel and not carrying enough fuel. This flight was actually planned - it's there on the plan - so that if a single nautical mile extra was required it couldn't make it. Consider that for a second.

I'd like to see the evidence for MH apparently routinely landing at LHR below legal minimums?

"LaMia Airline's general manager, Gustavo Vargas Gamboa, and the head of Bolivia's Civil Aviation National Registry are father and son. Vargas Gamboa, the father, denied that the family ties allow him or his company any special benefits. "For this reason, I am not a partner, I'm a general manager," Vargas Gamboa said, explaining he does not own any company assets."

Colombia plane crash: Jet without fuel, crew member said - CNN.com

there was a lot of talk about this back in about 1999

It's pretty easy to put "Malaysian low fuel Heathrow" into Google and come up with a string of articles

https://www.flightglobal.com/news/ar...o-years-51332/

Without doubt, the global aviation community is standing on the side of the contoller... I have just set up a Go Fund Me on her behalf, the limk can be found here https://www.gofundme.com/controller-of-the-lamia-crash Please, Help me with the wording, if I can express the sentiment better, I will. Thank you all

That sentence is a little ambiguous and could seem to imply the negligence was on her part.

Might like to reword to suggest "through no fault of her own", but its friday arvo in aussie and I've had one too many lagers, so ...

Maybe not "many" professionals do it, but some do. A flight from Rio to Lisbon by a major airline landed in Lisbon with zero fuel and had to be towed out of the runway.

Thank you Unworry.. I have changed the tesx to... Through no negligence of her own.

https://www.gofundme.com/controller-of-the-lamia-crash

Enjoy the VBs

On my post 367 wondered if the investigation into this disaster would have included a p.m. of the aircrew. Broadreach of Sao Paulo and dmba of Brazil replied that no way would a party atmosphere in the aircraft have indicated alcohol might have been involved. Nonetheless it is unusual that in a disaster very seldom can a proper p.m. of the crew be undertaken. In this accident because no fire was involved, it should be possible to set at rest any suggestion that the PIC was not fit to fly.

Apparently, in the late 90's MH pilots were pressured to carry as little fuel as possible to save money. I presume this no longer happens with the majors. Anyone has any stats on how common is it for pilots to declare low fuel?

In this case, had they not been put on hold, they would have landed and no one would know any better.

Non-sense cultural prejudice. The accident statistics show otherwise. And though small numbers can be deceiving, as per the 2015 safety report the region's accident rate for jet operations was 0.39 which was lower than the 5-year mean rates in Africa (3.69), Asia-Pacific (0.56), CIS (3.14) and the Middle East-North Africa (1.00). And, interestingly enough, the region did the best of all other regions on turbo-prop operations with 0 (that´s zero) accidents. I can understand that a small charter operator would want to take advantage of a media-heavy event to promote his airline. In any case, the lack of professionalism on this particular flight was appalling. From there to demonize a whole region appears unjustified and uncalled for.

Well it is certainly something the accountants are still aware of.

"Pressured" might not be the right word but where I am we get regular reminders about carrying extra fuel and we do get a regular personalised breakdown of how much "excess" fuel we decide to carry on each sector and whether it was actually used...

That said I've never had a decision to carry extra fuel decision queried.

Unfortunately, it appears that it is what happened, judging from what is written here: Por 5 observaciones no debía volar | Noticias de Bolivia y el Mundo - EL DEBER

I have mentioned this twice before, but here it goes again: The Viva Colombia aircraft did not declare an emergency, it simply diverted to Medellin for a precautionary landing due to a fuel warning light coming on.

"El avión de VivaColombia en ningún momento se declaró en emergencia" | EL UNIVERSAL - Cartagena

The pretty girl was a mother of two small boys, with an FAA CPL gained at American Flyers, Pompano, Fl. She was an observer on the flight, according to her father.

BEA report into RJ85 Low Fuel Incident
 

An insight into the RJ85's fuel system & management at low quantity:

https://www.bea.aero/docspa/2010/ei-...w100617.en.pdf

No, he isn't. Are you aware of the incident to which he refers?

Everyone who compares this tragedy to the Ryanair fuel incident shows a severe lack of knowledge regarding fuel planning.

All Ryanair aircraft carried extra fuel that night (above the minimum legal reserves), Lamia appears to have carried NO reserve whatsoever. Due to extended holding and an emergency from another South American airliner who really was running out of fuel (!), two of the Ryanairs ended up using 2 minutes of their 30 minute reserve. There are lessons to be learned about the Ryanair situation, but it has absolutely nothing to do with this Lamia tragedy where it seems that there were no reserves planned at all.

Yesterday, dmba posted a link to a document written by the controller. It gives her name.

The confusion isn't helped by soundbites like this from their CEO:

"Fuel emergencies, declared when pilots come close to having 30 minutes of fuel left on landing, 'while rare, are not unusual' in the airline industry"

M O'L August 2013.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...safety-culture

Now that does explain a lot.

Does it? Registry is just a book-keeping function. Licencing, Certification, Operations, these could be relevant, though not necessarily so.

Controllers find it hard to say the words "avoiding action" because we don't say it very often and it is tantamount to admitting it's all gone wrong. This is especially the case if it is your own mistake and not say a level bust. Sometimes controllers think they have said those words, and are surprised when hearing the replay that they haven't and have said immediately instead. I presume the same would apply to pilots who don't want to admit it's all gone wrong or think that saying you are low on fuel is the same as a pan or mayday.
In the uk we do practice for emergencies in the simulator and the people running them try to engineer situations which require controllers to say "avoiding action" so it isn't a strange thing to have to say.

Am I the only one on these boards who considers your conclusion, which I have highlighted, to be at odds with the evidence which you yourself provide "in spades"?

No, it's not. THIS is what happens when people fly around with significantly less than minimum fuel. Those RYR aircraft had sufficient fuel to divert and land safely. This aircraft rather tragically, did not.

maire paire:

As one who has spent half their professional life working in South America, speaks fluent Spanish and Portuguese and had dealings with the civil aviation authorities in most of those countries, I will say only this:

1) Not all of the accidents which take place are investigated or reported officially. Example - the 'meat run' from Trinidad (Bolivia) to La Paz when there were many accidents, one of which I saw myself, but it was never formally reported.
2) Why were DC-3s allowed to take off from Villavicencio (Colombia) with their doors removed so that they could carry petrol drums? This happened in plain sight during the day - I saw it with my own eyes - and not just once.

I fully understand that breaches of the rules take place in other parts of the world too, but I speak only of what I know.

Military background contributing factor?
 

I understand that the PICwas ex-military. Isn't it possible that pilots with such a background, due to the nature of their flight training which involves risky manoevers and missions may be willing to take higher risks than their civilian counterparts? Are there any statistical figures regarding accidents involving retired military pilots?

Unfortunately, despite better flight planning tools and resources this still happens occasionally.
I remember in the late 90's I was in Recife awaiting a flight to Lisbon. The airplane, an A310-300 of a national carrier, arrive from Fortaleza partially loaded to pick up the Recife pax. Once boarded we were told we were to expect a delay awaiting fuel. I sat at the back of business on the right side almost over the top of the refuel panel. Never saw anyone. After 45 minutes we started up and took off. Guess what, we were greeted with blue lights at the threshold on landing at Lisbon and had to be towed to the gate. Did we take gas in Recife....probably not.

So lack of regulation then?

Sully was ex military and it was this training and background that probably saved the Hudson River passengers. There's military and there's South American military.

Used the sim & LaMia 2933 was totally survivable
 

Maybe if the crew had trained for total electrical failure everyone would have lived. Some of my best training was at 4 am, in the sim at FlightSafety, when we had time to experiment.

Human factors: Based on their ATC calls, it sounds like they did not realize a flameout caused a total electrical failure. This blacked out the flight deck, where the captain overreacted and dove for the runway. Then the cabin went pitch black and people jumped up out of their seats screaming, which the pilots heard. It appears they totally lost situational awareness, thinking the radio beacon was the airport. Look at the crash site picture (Crash: LAMIA Bolivia RJ85 near Medellin on Nov 28th 2016, electrical problems, no fuel, impact with terrain).

Why would they nose dive for a spot 9.5 miles from the runway where there are no lights? The ridge they hit is 300 meters from the station (RNG VOR). My hunch is that they completely disregarded their fuel state, partly due to the distracting nature of the charter. How often was the captain leaving the flight deck to socialize in the back? Whatever he had been wrapped up in, he was not calm or setup for the approach. Instead of pitching for best glide, they dove for the deck. They could have squeezed out 10 minutes from FL210 when the lights went out. That's a ton of time to make life saving decisions.

Sim test: I tried the scenario w/ an ERJ-190 gear down at FL210 heading away from SKRG 15 miles to the south--made the runway, no problem. LaMia could have easily glided that distance and seen the runway. Even if they only made it halfway to the airport, there are flat open fields to ditch. People could have walked off that plane, at least the smart ones belted into their seats.

I'm left wondering if the pilots had clue one that they were in trouble. If I was in the right seat (or the jumpseat) I'd of been worrying about the fuel situation an hour prior. I would have been vocal about it. With 30 mins. left I'd of been pushing hard to land, and at 15 mins. I would have been freaked out and declaring an emergency. The closest I came to this scenario was a nasty winter storm at SFO. I was pressing ATC to let us land after being stuck in a +1 hour hold over Santa Cruz. The FO and I were discussing contingencies the entire time. When we approached 30 mins. of fuel left, I demanded immediate routing to San Jose. This got us clearance to SFO, but it still took 20 mins. to land and 10 mins. to taxi. I was worried that one of the engines might quit on the way to the gate, and how I'd explain myself. Anyway, the LaMia accident was totally survivable, even with fuel mismanagement and a dead stick landing.