Ryanair 3 Emergencies in one night

Kristoffer Aspen

Kristoffer Aspen

Users Local time
Today 7:06 PM
You do not have permission to view link please Log in or Register

That is a dutch investigation into 3 emergencies involving Ryanair due to shortage of fuel.
The way the board of Ryanair handles this is say that an emergency landing is a "normal operation".

Spread it to people you know, I think the general public really needs to know who they are riding with.

// Kristoffer
 
well, I'm not a fan of RYR, but several times in the past they declared emergency well before being actually at risk to land below law levels, so from the passengers point of view that should be only a positive thing.
Take into account that they have unions (like the one that published this video) actively fighting with the management to improve the contract situation, and using the public opinion as leverage.

While we all make jokes about their "positive landing" policy, I have high respect of the Ryanair crews, they are facing difficult contract situation (like many others of course) but they were always up to the task when needed.

And most if not all the companies that I heard of have fuel saving policies, that brings pressure on the flight deck of course, but I wouldn't say that this makes for a less safe flight, nor does declare emergency with almost an hour of fuel in the tanks, it's a procedure and as I said for me it's really good that they don't have problems in doing it when and before it's necessary. Beside that I've seen how much fuel they take on several occasions and they were surely well above what my old company would have suggested.

Long story short, I don't see any time-bomb for the fuel situation, pilot fatigue is all another story but this in Europe is valid for A LOT of other companies...
 
Of course most if not all airlines have policies for fuel savings, and of course you should ask why a pilot took WAY too much fuel. But if the pilot have valid reasons for taking that extra fuel then the company should say "OK good then we now".

Where did I frown upon the crews? Of course they have a hard time, and for many new pilots Ryanair is the only choice...

But to say that emergency landings a "normal operations" is a bit of a lie, why did no other aircraft that night declare an fuel emergency?

Also the 3 aircraft all landed with LESS fuel then the 30min legal. And as the pilots say in the video, that is 30min while in a hold if they need to go around they will burn that fuel very fast.

This is not meant just to ryanair but to other actors as well.
 
no no I was just saying my opinion on FR crews, not related to what you said, sorry if I sounded harsh wasn't my intention at all! :)

Anyways, speaking of the "valencia case", I knew that only one out of three RYR flight actually landed below the legal 30 min reserve (even if there was a report which stated none of them did), unless something new has come out recently, and by something like 20 kg after the diversion and delay vectors over valencia, and they weren't the only planes who declared emergency that night, I know of at least other two traffics, one being a 340 which landed below the legal reserve and also lost an engine due to low fuel in the process.

Not counting the other 3-4 traffics which declared a minimum fuel condition, which is not according to the european regulations but is still widely used as a trick to avoid the mayday.

Don't get me wrong, I am the first to say that the situation is bad, the legal fuel as is now is way too low, I'm just saying that speaking of planes that "don't have enough fuel to fly" or a company "playing russian roulettes" (and therefore crews letting them) like the video does, is just not true.

I would be MUCH more interested to see what safety margin or "lucky coincidence" allowed all those spanish planes that night to approach under the thunderstorm while all the foreign planes were diverting or holding.

Sorry I'll look better at the reports as I'm going by memory on this, I could be wrong in the numbers.
 
No worries, I probably read it wrong :)

But it does indeed look like there is need for improvement across the board. Some airliners use twice the legal fuel to be required once you touch down.

Let's just hope the situation improves for the pilots, since they do "get forced" to fly while ill etc.
 
Unfortunately I only have data of a type which is not used in ACH, otherwise I would have been more than happy to help, I also have something for the NGs but I guess is all widely available stuff in the ".torrent" era.

Still have to start using ACH fuel predictions but so far (for the wilco 733 in fs9) I was crosschecking 3 fuel planners, and adding 1ton extra and I was usually spot on with cost index 20 :oops: so I guess is normal unless we have a statistical fuel system.


Going back to FR, here it gives a much wider and accurate view than I did, I was indeed wrong on the numbers.
http://avherald.com/h?article=454af355
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom