Air France: Out of gas? Ask passengers to pitch in

[Graham2001]

PARIS (AP) - An emergency layover in Syria's capital was bad enough. Then passengers on Air France Flight 562 were asked to open their wallets to check if they had enough cash to pay for more fuel.

http://www.9news.com/money/283558/34...rs-to-pitch-in


I'd also seen a similar story in an Air-Safety book:

In 1990, a Paraguayan flight to Brussels planned to refuel in Africa. Its crew mistook Conkaray for Dakar where the airlines credit card was unacceptable. The plane could only take off when the crew borrowed $7000 from a passenger to buy fuel.

The Final Call, Stephen Barlay, Arrow, 1990, pg210

[Peter Kesternich]

Sometimes I think that all journalists care about these days are headlines, no matter whether they have anything to do with the story or not.

The really interesting question in this incident is: Why did the flight not divert straight to Cyprus?

[Gabriel]

Originally Posted by Peter Kesternich

Sometimes I think that all journalists care about these days are headlines, no matter whether they have anything to do with the story or not.

The really interesting question in this incident is: Why did the flight not divert straight to Cyprus?

Some C-172 pilot called me names when I asked exactly that question in some other forum.

[Peter Kesternich]

Originally Posted by Gabriel

Some C-172 pilot called me names when I asked exactly that question in some other forum.

A C-172 pilot? *lol... What objections did the learnéd expert have to the question?

But seriously... The distance from Beirut to Larnaca is about twice the distance from Beirut to Damascus, so fuel might have been an issue. If that was the case, that information should have been in the article, because otherwise the uninformed public might think that the Air France pilots chose Damascus randomly as their alternate.

[Gabriel]

Originally Posted by Peter Kesternich

A C-172 pilot? *lol... What objections did the learnéd expert have to the question?

These ones:

Originally Posted by Some C-172 pilot

why don't you quit the expelitive arm-chair/Monday-morning QBing judgemental attitude...

You were not present and have no idea of the factors affecting these pilots.

Go do some stalls in your Tommahawk, and maybe the engine will fail and you can see how cool it is to crash under control.

Originally Posted by Peter

But seriously... The distance from Beirut to Larnaca is about twice the distance from Beirut to Damascus, so fuel might have been an issue. If that was the case, that information should have been in the article, because otherwise the uninformed public might think that the Air France pilots chose Damascus randomly as their alternate.

Well, twice the distance and all, it's still quite close.
I wonder what Air France filled as the "official" alternate, because they were supposed to have enough fuel to fly to Beirut + 10% + Full instrument approach procedure + Missing approach + Beirutr to alternate + 30 minutes. If that was not enough for the some 150 NM (less than half an hour) to Larnaca, they were in deep shit already.

And then, they had Ben Gurion (Tel Aviv, Israel) at about the same distance than Damascus. I understand that a flight bound for an arab country and then diverting to Israel might be a problem, but then Syria can only be a bigger problem.

[Peter Kesternich]

Originally Posted by Gabriel

(...)
I wonder what Air France filled as the "official" alternate, because they were supposed to have enough fuel to fly to Beirut + 10% + Full instrument approach procedure + Missing approach + Beirutr to alternate + 30 minutes. If that was not enough for the some 150 NM (less than half an hour) to Larnaca, they were in deep shit already.

Well - might also be possible that Larnaca had a weather problem precluding its use as an alternate.

Originally Posted by Gabriel

(...)And then, they had Ben Gurion (Tel Aviv, Israel) at about the same distance than Damascus. I understand that a flight bound for an arab country and then diverting to Israel might be a problem, but then Syria can only be a bigger problem.

Well, I honestly believe that flying a plane-load of people intended for Beirut to Tel Aviv instead would be a bigger problem than stopping in Damascus. Even these days.