This may not apply to all airlines, or apply to today’s world, but I was watching a video on Britannia 226A crash from 1999. In the video, they mentioned that the pilots were under pressure to land, so they wouldn’t have to explain to their bosses why they landed with less than the minimum amount of fuel required.
If a plane takes off, has to abandon a landing attempt, or complete an extra go around, or has to stay in a holding pattern, or has to divert… but they land safely without incident nor issue, why would that be an issue? What else could the pilots do?
Edit to add the answer (thank you for all of the replies, everyone! I misunderstood entirely what the video was attempting to convey): There are aviation safety boards with strict rules and landing with low fuel is grounds for a report and an investigation into the flight, so the safety boards can find the root cause for why the flight did not have an adequate amount of fuel on landing. The pilots may get into trouble if the investigation finds they were at fault, but it is more geared towards safety and attributing a root cause for the issue to make a low fuel event less likely in the future.
In: 707
That fuel is for absolute emergencies. It’s not that that fuel can’t be touched, but it is a last resort and for airline operations could require a declaration of an official emergency, and priority handling by air traffic control. Huge pain in the ass if you’re somewhere busy like NY or Chicago. And then paperwork, and yes if the pilots didn’t have a good reason for why it was unavoidable to touch that reserve fuel, they could get in trouble. Crazy unexpected things happen and that fuel sometimes does need to be touched, but you better hope things go smooth from that point forward. If the norm was to always land with close to zero lbs of fuel at your destination or even alternate for that matter, any thing like you mentioned (go around, holding, diversions) could result in engines flaming out. Those minimum fuel requirements over time have become law to protect the public.
Unexpected delays and go arounds happen significantly more frequently than people think. As does higher than normal fuel consumption enroute due to altitude changes, air traffic control slowing planes down, go arounds while coming in for landing, or deviations around storms for example. A place like Chicago O’Hare could see multiple go-arounds on a good weather day due to traffic spacing issues or pilots not complying properly with taxiing instructions. So there definitely should be some line drawn as to how much extra fuel is needed when you touch down at “plan A” airport and that line became law. That minimum number changes based on which type of operation you’re flying (private/commercial/domestic/international), but generally includes a go around at the destination, some amount of time flying enroute to a new planned alternate airport, and landing there. For some International flights it might include some brief holding fuel at this alternate or even an enroute buffer additive to the alternate airport. So the legal minimum offers these protections for what is somewhat of a normal plan B if I can’t get to plan A.
If you plan to land with this legal minimum amount, and then can’t all of a sudden and need to divert, you need to follow this plan B exactly. It is not nearly as much fuel to play with as you think. If something then happened at the alternate airport and you couldn’t get in, now you’re really in trouble. I’ll give you an example. You’re flying Madrid Spain to NY JFK. Your dispatcher starts planning your flight over 2 hrs before you’re even supposed to show up to the airport. The predicted weather in JFK (like 10-12 hrs in the future) shows a strong cold front coming in with rain and visibility is supposed to be good enough to get in but you’re given an alternate of Boston just in case. As you’re over the Atlantic you have to descend to a lower altitude for an hour because of unforecasted turbulence, and now you’re planning on landing right at your minimum fuel number. The cold front brought much stronger storms in NY and some to Boston as well. Turns out you can’t get to JFK due to the storms so you go towards your planned alternate of Boston. Boston right at your time of landing is really busy with numerous other diverting aircraft and makes you hold for an extra 10 min before clearing you in. You’re watching that fuel closely now. The weather is getting worse in Boston now, you think you’ll have the visibility to land, but now if you don’t…what now? After another go around you might only have, what, 45 min of fuel left? This is a widespread weather system, the whole Northeast coast sucks, where do you go? Just painting a scenario here. Realistically dispatch would probably be tracking that NY weather and if things looked hairy, might have you divert elsewhere besides Boston and commit to it earlier.
In commercial aviation if you run out of fuel in an airliner your options are extremely limited. You cannot just glide it to the nearest cornfield and expect to make somewhat of a “bumpy grass strip landing” as if you’re in a cessna. You can’t land a Boeing 767 on the nearest highway without some kind of catastrophe. It is very likely a dual engine flameout is talking loss of life. There have been cases of dual engine flameouts that did not result in lost life – these are miracles and are called such for a reason.
Hope this helps!
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