Allegiant Air Fuel Incident

Here's the flight path. Doesn't look overly awful like they were circling and circling. http://flightaware.com/live/flight/AAY426/history/20150723/1405Z/KLAS/KFAR
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Eagle421flyer said:
What's even better is that the two flying the plane are the Director of Safety and the VP of flight ops.
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...who recently fired the CA of the flight that evacuated (IAW their GOM) after an emergency landing for smoke in the cabin and ARFF reported smoke from the left engine.

and

...recently reduced the min landing fuel for the MD80 fleet from 6000 to 5000#.


Seggy said:
Need to use proper ICAO phraseology folks or you can be in a world of hurt.

There is a reason for that phraseology!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avianca_Flight_52
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Damn...I just liked one of @Seggy 's posts. The end is near. :D


Boris Badenov said:
And on a related note *hic*. If the ATIS gets any longer most "major" airports, we're not going to have to worry about single-pilot airliners. Back when I was flying single-pilot, it was bad enough. Now it's like listening to a freaking Sham-Wow! commercial. Oh, that's fascinating, Memphis. Thanks for letting me know in the most laborious *&#$#ing way that 9/27 is shorter than the other runways. I had no idea. Because I'm a retard and have nothing better to do than listen to your disembodied robotic voice warn me of I would already know about if I were, you know, a "pilot".
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I just thought of hearing sham-wow boy's voice on all the AWOS systems nationwide. What a depressing feeling.
 
What baffles me is how they got into that situation in the first place, since they had to have learned the airport was closed some distance out.

The alternate the controller mentions (GFK) is only 70 miles north of Fargo, so I can't think of a good reason why they apparently decided that spending the time and fuel trying to talk their way into the airport was a better option than just asking ATC "what's the closest alternate?" and diverting before they had no other options. If we assume the crew didn't spend any time trying to talk their way into Fargo (although the tape makes it sound like they did), it then turns into a question of how they managed to dispatch a flight that ended up with less than 20 minutes of fuel at it's destination.

Either way, I'm guessing this isn't the kind of thing the FAA is going to take lightly, and I'm sure Allegiant is frantically trying to pin the entire thing on a dispatcher rather than admit their management seriously screwed up.
 
Cal Goat said:
This whole conversation brings up a bunch of sore spots for me though including annoying ATIS things and NOTAMS.

My ATIS list includes: "Bird activity" has this note ever affected anyone's decision making? It's like some BS legal disclaimer that's maybe supoosed to alleviate liability? Maybe?
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If it's a joint use field or one which the military uses for transition training, military aircraft are required to know bird activity level, as that limits certain pattern activities, and in higher cases, requires higher approval for flight ops.

Just because you may not happen to know what a specific part of the ATIS might be for, doesn't necessarily mean it's useless info. The ATIS is for a wide range of flight operations.

Like guys who complain about things like a 600' tower or multiple towers 5 miles from the airport with obstruction lights inop. Someone would be concerned about that.
 
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ndakcfi said:
The alternate the controller mentions (GFK) is only 70 miles north of Fargo, so I can't think of a good reason why they apparently decided that spending the time and fuel trying to talk their way into the airport was a better option than just asking ATC "what's the closest alternate?" and diverting before they had no other options.

.
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If they would have diverted they might not have made it home that night, the horror of staying in an out station, and all the hassle that comes with it.
 
Luigi said:
Personally I love reading through 30+ inactive NOTAMs that Sabre has decided to hold on to for some reason. That and the 100 lines of text about a TFR that will be in effect next week.
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Any flight plan to AMS is going to have three laser-printed pages about NAV/RAD/DIST to various fireworks shows happening once per week.

But you land in the morning and depart in the morning.

And if we're delayed that much, all that flight planning material is out of date anyway.
 
MikeD said:
If it's a joint use field or one which the military uses for transition training, military aircraft are required to know bird activity level, as that limits certain pattern activities, and in higher cases, requires higher approval for flight ops.

Just because you may not happen to know what a specific part of the ATIS might be for, doesn't necessarily mean it's useless info. The ATIS is for a wide range of flight operations.

Like guys who complain about things like a 600' tower or multiple towers 5 miles from the airport with obstruction lights inop. Someone would be concerned about that.
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Fair nuff...

But bird activity via ATIS doesn't ever provide a scale that I've heard.
 
Cal Goat said:
Fair nuff...

But bird activity via ATIS doesn't ever provide a scale that I've heard.
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Sometimes yes, sometimes no, depending on how steady the activity is. Low/Moderate/High is the scale, and if not given, then the crew has to query the status. Just gives them a heads up to expect it. The USAF especially, has been very wary of birds, especially after the crash of the E-3 Sentry, Yukla 27, in Sept 1995 with 24 fatal at Elmendorf.

So yes, it has and does affect decisionmaking.
 
Cal Goat said:
We still fly to a surprising amount of airports that lack D-ATIS.

This whole conversation brings up a bunch of sore spots for me though including annoying ATIS things and NOTAMS.

My ATIS list includes: "Bird activity" has this note ever affected anyone's decision making? It's like some BS legal disclaimer that's maybe supoosed to alleviate liability? Maybe?
Also, it really grinds my gears when ATC asks if you have the new ATIS on a clear VFR day. It's like, "Why don't you just tell me what the new altimeter is and we'll keep focused on taxiing?"
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So do I. But those airports generally don't have the annoyingly slow robo voice reading the METAR.

Like Mike said, the bird activity actually matters to certain types of operations.

Finally, they are asking because, even on a VFR day, there may be important information in the ATIS (like taxiway closures) that would effect your approach and landing and taxi to the gate.

Boris Badenov said:
Any truth to the rumor that it was two management pilots who'd just poopcanned a C/A for evacuating the airplane after smoke in the cabin and an evac? Ahahahahhaah.
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My sources say yes.
 
Flagship_dxer said:
Do you mean just using the fuel to get to an alternate or amending a release with an alternate using just the 45 min FAR fuel? One is legal under unplanned circumstances and the other is not under any circumstances.
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At no point in there was I talking about using reserve fuel for "planned" burn. My only point is that in the air, fuel is fuel, as long as you never planned to use it in the original flight plan then you're in the clear.
 
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