Plane ‘carrying football team from Brazil’ crashes in Colombia.

[Dispatch Dog]

I think someone on here (Dispatch Dog??) mentioned that the RJ85 fuel gauges can be a bit unreliable, but that won't cause you to crash like this. Heres why: each engine has its own feed tank. The main fuel tanks constantly supply the feed tanks for each engine. When that stops happening and the feed tanks drop below a certain level, the pilots will get a FEED TANK LOW warning light. There is a procedure for this in the QRH. If the light continues on after the first steps, you must LAND IMMEDIATELY. At this point this is ample fuel in the feed tanks to divert to an airport within 30 mins flying time, and even to go-around once. So, no gauge necessary. When you get the light, it's time to land.

ANother example: the A320 that caused the LAMIA flight to go into a holding pattern apparently had a bad fuel reading. The crew took it seriously, declared emergency and landed ASAP. Turned out they had no fuel leak, just a bad reading. But that's how it's done.

Vectors are just instructions from ATC guiding you (vectoring you) along the appraoch, ex: "turn left heading 350, maintain 2,000 feet", as opposed to using internal navigation. The vectors on the ATC recording here didn't seem righ to me, but in any case, when she heard the altitude, without power, she must have known they were done for.

Not just the RJ but any/every fuel gauge. We are yet to design an accurate one, but as you mention, there are plenty of status warning systems and devices.

As fuel density varies all the time ( I seem to remember 0.833 as our notional density) even the fuel loaded by KG will produce a different volume so in theory, every time you brim the tanks you will have a slightly different loadsheet stated figure... if that makes sense. The gauges are a guide at best. Good procedures based on statistical performance and discipline are the best way.


Unpaid bills? For me that is the big red flag. Along with this billowing smoke from the gun, from experience I would expect to see a whole array of rules and regs that will have been stretched, then broken, then horribly abused until something like this happened.

When companies are struggling for survival, they can no longer be trusted to maintain reasonable levels of compliance... even the majors. Hell, even companies that are doing well can have pockets of the operation where greed overrides safety. I could name an ops manager that cut corners simply to impress his bosses and get promoted (I think I used the expression "standing on our balls to peek into the boardroom".

Jail is the right place for these people.

[Gabriel]

However, It come with a very expensive overweight landing inspection.

I know. Gabriel some slots above: "... they are all certified to land with more than the MLW, up to the MTOW (a special post-heavy-landing inspection may apply, though)".

Regarding the "very expensive" part. Not always. Sometimes it may involve reading out the QAR, look up for certain parameters at touchdown (like wight, vertical speed and vertical acceleration) and if these numbers are within a certain range, then you can check the box "overweight maintenance inspection completed".

Unless you were to have an AIRFRAME fire, it is not advisable.

Well, not in a 747, but in a twin, being overweight is no excuse to delay the landing at the closest airport in case of loosing an engine (and most twins don't have fuel jettisoning system). A critical medical condition that requires immediate medical attention to save someone's life could be a good reason too (that life will be more valuable that the cost of the inspection). Basically, anything that requires landing ASAP would be a good reason. Even if sometimes expensive, overweight landings are not a significant safety concern (although the risks are slightly higher than in a normal landing).

As a curious note, for any given vertical speed, a good part of the plane will be subject to higher stress when landing light than when landing heavy.

[Gabriel]

http://www.clarin.com/deportes/seleccion-nacional/Tragedia-Chapecoense-Seleccion-minutos-accidente_0_1700230012.html

(In Spansih)

Google translate of a fragment (slightly edited by me):

It was not the first time that LaMia used a bold criteria. It is recorded that the airline flew twice with this plane beyond its endurance of 4 hours and 22 minutes before the tragic accident, with trips between Cochabamba and Medellin (4 hours and 27 minutes) and Medellín and Santa Cruz (4 hours and 32 minutes). The last flight, which took the lives of 71 people, lasted 4 hours and 42 minutes.

[Evan]

http://www.clarin.com/deportes/selec...700230012.html
(In Spansih)

Google translate of a fragment (slightly edited by me):

It was not the first time that LaMia used a bold criteria. It is recorded that the airline flew twice with this plane beyond its endurance of 4 hours and 22 minutes before the tragic accident, with trips between Cochabamba and Medellin (4 hours and 27 minutes) and Medellín and Santa Cruz (4 hours and 32 minutes). The last flight, which took the lives of 71 people, lasted 4 hours and 42 minutes.

As I suspected.

[Gabriel]

As I suspected.

"Suspected" is a huge understatement. There is no way that a good pilot at a good company one day wakes up and decides to do a flight not only with less fuel that required, but with barely enough fuel for the trip (forget about the 10% contingency, the alternate, and the final reserve).

And also there is no way that flying with less fuel than required was the only violation they used to do. Required maintenance not done, MEL violations, no adherence to sterile cockpit or stabilized approaches, not being strict with the checklists, continuing the approach below minimums... Several of these things and other must have been common.

I mean, this was not a slight honest mistake. There was a will to operate in a reckless way. This company, its pilot included, and of curse the pilot who was also the owner of the company, must have been operating with a terrible culture for a long, long time.

[Evan]

I mean, this was not a slight honest mistake. There was a will to operate in a reckless way. This company, its pilot included, and of curse the pilot who was also the owner of the company, must have been operating with a terrible culture for a long, long time.

Absolutely. And this is the new norm of twisted business ethics in many industries, large and small. If you can get away with it, and it makes money, it is immoral not to do it. That is why regulation is so vital and it is so vital to keep the regulators empowered, trustworthy and completely in the game. Somebody signed off on this flight plan and the ones before it. Ka-ching, ka-ching, ka-ching, ka-ching (that last 'ka-ching' is the prison cell door closing behind them).

[Gabriel]

the new norm

New?

[Evan]

The AP adds that, according to Ferreira, the “aviation officials who signed off on” the LaMia jet’s “irregular flight plan would be prosecuted.”

From the BCC:

The Bolivian authorities have issued an arrest warrant for Celia Castedo, who also worked for the country's civil aviation authorities.

She had seen the plane's flight plan before it took off from Santa Cruz's airport in southern Bolivia and had warned that it barely had enough fuel to reach its destination in Colombia.
She has said she was pressured by her bosses into changing a flight report she made at the time and has fled the country, saying she fears she would not get a fair hearing by the judicial authorities.
Ms Castedo is in Brazil where she is seeking asylum.

She should have warned that it didn't have enough fuel to reach it's destination.

[sjwk]

BBC are quoting one of the survivors as saying the crew gave them no warning, not even told to put on seatbelts.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-38293253

[3WE]

New?

It's a subtle, gray-area thing. MBAs managers and marketing people and engineers have a new way of 'a continual search for effeciancy' along with rah rah consensus, and hiding behind the idea that 'diversity' (i.e. Non pilots) is much more open minded and creative with regard to 'novel ideas' like savings from fewer fuel stops and that excess fuel = wasted fuel to generate extra lift.

You and Evan are both right.

[Evan]

It's a subtle, gray-area thing. MBAs and engineers and marketing people and engineers have a new way of 'a continual search for effeciancy' along with rah rah consensus, and hiding behind the idea that 'diversity' (i.e. Non pilots) is much more open minded and creative with regard to 'novel ideas' like savings from fewer fuel stops and that excess fuel = wasted fuel to generate extra lift.

You and Evan are both right.

The eternal search for short-term 'efficiency' is a big part of it, but more apropos to this crash is the ever-widening gap of management-customer disconnection. Management once would have felt a repulsive sense of shame in cutting certain corners or pressuring employees to take certain calculated risks—because they felt a sense of civic connection and responsibility. That compunction began to die off after Reagan got hold of things and has since become a rare phenomena in global business ethics. Legions of lawyers formed an absolving wall between management and customers. Moraility shifted from civic decency to capitalist priority. If you can get away with it and you don't take that opportunity to increase profit, you are acting immoral. Not maximizing profit up to the very edge of legality is like not 'cleaning your plate', like wasting food. This is why regulations—and diligent enforcement—are so beneficial for everybody. If we didn't have it, the operators know they would be crashing planes everywhere. They need a leash and we need a watchdog.

[Gabriel]

... more apropos to this crash is the ever-widening gap of management-customer disconnection. Management once would have felt a repulsive sense of shame in cutting certain corners or pressuring employees to take certain calculated risks—because they felt a sense of civic connection and responsibility...

Was that after or before the Ford Pinto?

Don't take me wrong. I mostly agree with what you say, but I believe that this issue exists since forever. Think how many operators were injured or killed in the old factories.

[LH-B744]

Is Evan the most quoted jetphotos member? If even 3WE agrees, then I certainly don't have to use again a full quotation.

'Certain calculated risks' - I remember April 10th, 2010. A Polish Tu-154M crashed in an accident that was not survivable, due to CFIT. And I remember what I wrote in 2010. If the Donald and the President of Poland both sat behind me, and they as - only an assumption - men who don't have even heard of one aviation license
tried to tell me what to do,
I still tried to land safely. Which, in the 2010 case, clearly included a diversion.

Aviation was not safer when Bush Jr. ruled the USA. That's a widely spread assumption, but it is wrong.

'Capitalist priority' - Well, this is what the USA get, starting January 20th. The domestic hotelier (ie Non politician) attacked Boeing and Lockheed Martin, a fact that can only be explained with 'he wants to buy'. I still hope that in Germany, as long as I live here, no billionaire becomes chancellor. But back on topic.

Since my last entry here in this topic, I hoped I could've stayed as calm as Sully. 'You measure a heart beat of 110 directly after the Sully landing? That's bad. Normally it is 50.'

Why hadn't the Chapecoense not trusted an experienced commercial airline? Saving lives is not cheap, and I could guarantee that Sullenberger was never a bargain, as long as he was an active A320 captain.

Capitalism. Non pilots or capitalists sometimes don't know that if you fly very very very cheap (with an airline that has NO experience, neither at Guarulhos nor at Medellin),
you'll pay with your life.

It still does not fit into my head, a four engined jet with a lack of fuel. The oldest Chapecoense player was 35, three years younger than me. Now dead.

If it was not possible for Chapecoense to pay an experienced airline (there is one, est 1919!) for a regular 1 stop commercial flight, I'd said, we cancel the journey.

[Schwartz]

The eternal search for short-term 'efficiency' is a big part of it, but more apropos to this crash is the ever-widening gap of management-customer disconnection. Management once would have felt a repulsive sense of shame in cutting certain corners or pressuring employees to take certain calculated risks—because they felt a sense of civic connection and responsibility. That compunction began to die off after Reagan got hold of things and has since become a rare phenomena in global business ethics. Legions of lawyers formed an absolving wall between management and customers. Moraility shifted from civic decency to capitalist priority. If you can get away with it and you don't take that opportunity to increase profit, you are acting immoral. Not maximizing profit up to the very edge of legality is like not 'cleaning your plate', like wasting food. This is why regulations—and diligent enforcement—are so beneficial for everybody. If we didn't have it, the operators know they would be crashing planes everywhere. They need a leash and we need a watchdog.

Evan, there is a long history of corporate malfeasance resulting in death and disease of many people long before Reagan. Think Tobacco, Asbestos, Mining etc. Think about the banking crisis triggering the great depression. No, ethics have been a problem as long as civilization has been around.

[Evan]

Was that after or before the Ford Pinto?

Don't take me wrong. I mostly agree with what you say, but I believe that this issue exists since forever. Think how many operators were injured or killed in the old factories.

What I mean is that what once was the exception seems to have now become the rule.