Colombia plane crash: Jet ran out of fuel, pilot said

[brooklynite]

Source: CNN

The pilot of LAMIA Flight 2933, which crashed near Medellin, Colombia, said, "The plane is in total electric failure and without fuel," according to two sources familiar with the investigation who heard audio recordings of conversations between the flight crew and air traffic control.

The audio was published in Colombian media. Seventy-one people were killed in the crash, including members of a Brazilian soccer team.

Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/29/americas/colombia-plane-crash-investigation/index.html

[Renew Deal]

1. Did it run out of gas because of an electrical problem or was the electrical problem a symptom

of running out of gas? Running out of gas would be criminal negligence.

[AtheistCrusader]

2. Couple non-negligent ways that could happen.

Pretty unusual though.

The lack of fire in the wreckage does tend to suggest the fuel was gone, rather than say, all fuel pumps failing simultaneously.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

9. Airliners.net has a thread on this.

Apparently one of the pilots was part owner of the charter company. AND they skipped a scheduled refueling stop and pushed through.

Also, it appears there was another aircraft that requested priority do to some emergency. The crash aircraft was bumped in priority and put in a holding pattern.

#88
20 hours ago

In a interview to El Tiempo website (newspaper from Colombia) a director of LaMia, Gustavo Vargas, stated some interesting facts:

1. The original flight plan included a stop for refueling in Cobija (Bolivia) but the pilots preferred to go directly to Colombia and do the refueling in Bogota. For some reason pilots continued to Medellin without the refueling stop.

2. The pilot is one of the two owners of the airline.

The interview is freely available in El Tiempo website.

[canetoad]

3. This is a post

From the PPRUNE forum;

If a jet engine is starved of fuel, because the fuel tank is nearly empty, then it can flame out and begin to run down. A first symptom of this is the associated electrical generator dropping off line as insufficient rpm is being produced at the accessory drive to keep it producing electrical power.

Thus the electrical problems reported by the crew may not be a cause of the crash but a symptom of the problem of lack of fuel.......

Post #88 in this thread: http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/587574-colombian-jet-72-board-goes-down-its-way-medellin.html

There's a fair bit of discussion that the flight was at the very extent of its fuel capability.

[Renew Deal]

5. Terrible

Thanks for sharing

[ReverendHeretic]

7. Airlines limit how much they put on to save weight. they hate

flying around with extra fuel because it costs money. They add just enough, plus a tad, to save weight, cost, improve efficiency, and increase profits. Looks like they got caught short here.

Even a major wind shift can cause an emergency. But they never tell you it is because they didn't load enough fuel. it was due to weather issues. Which might be technically true, but also false.

[rickford66]

4. They would have had a few minutes warning.

There is fuel below the pump intakes. The fuel pumps would run dry and low pressure warnings would illuminate. The engines would still run on suction until the fuel was used up or was below the intakes. I've simulated this for a number of aircraft. The pilots could get a few extra miles of flight by adjusting pitch. They also could have been caught by simple error. Reading aircraft disaster reports, shows a number of pilots have inadvertently shut off fuel. It's happened on large commercial jets as well as small private aircraft.

[jpak]

6. Charter company

expect law suits

yup

[SCVDem]

8. The pilot had time to radio his status

He could have fired up the apu for electric.

Unless they were out of fuel.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

10. Here is the ATC communications

RIP