Wow! Ist schon ein paar Tage her aber irgendwie an mir vorbei gegangen ...
Das war wohl mehr als ein "Close Call" ... 270KG Remaining Fuel ... Das macht 135kg in jeder Wing. Das dürfte schon sehr nah am "unusable fuel" gewesen sein und damit Sekunden vor Feierabend.
Unfassbar.
A Jet Airways Boeing 737-800, registration VT-JFA performing flight 9W-555 (dep Aug 17th) from Doha (Qatar) to Cochin (India) with 142 passengers and 8 crew, was on approach to Cochin and went around three times due to weather. Following the third go-around the crew declared fuel emergency and diverted to Thiruvananthapuram (in India often also referred to as short "Trivandrum"), located about 95nm south of Cochin, where the aircraft again needed to go around three times before managing a safe landing on the fourth approach.
On Aug 21st 2015 India's Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) reported the aircraft landed with just 270kg/600lbs of fuel left, where the required minimum fuel reserve would have been around 1500kg/3300lbs. The aircraft had gone around 3 times in Cochin due to bad weather, the crew then decided to divert to Trivandrum, which had poor weather conditions, too, and managed a landing there only on the 4th attempt. Both pilots have been suspended pending investigation. The DGCA reported they are looking into the airline's fueling policy as well as into the weather reports and why the crew diverted to Trivandrum.
On Oct 13th 2015 the French BEA reported in their weekly bulletin, that the aircraft attempted three approaches to Cochin but needed to go around three times due to bad weather. The crew subsequently diverted to Trivandrum declaring Mayday due to low fuel. The aircraft needed to go around two times due to low cloud which prevented the runway to become visible at minimum descent altitude. The third time the aircraft flew the approach for runway 32, received a GPWS terrain warning, went around again and managed to land on the fourth approach. The occurrence was rated a serious incident and is being investigated by India's DGCA.
