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> and should not happen on well planned flights You make it sound like it is acceptable for a badly planned flight to have a fuel emergency. It is not. If the

by phire 13d ago

> and should not happen on well planned flights You make it sound like it is acceptable for a badly planned flight to have a fuel emergency. It is not. If there is a fuel emergency (or the plane lands with less than 30min of fuel) there will be an incident investigation that treats the situation as serious as if the plane had crashed. If the investigation discovers it was nothing more than bad planning, (at minimum) the planning procedures will be changed to ensure it never happens again.

bluGill 12d ago
Badly planned flights should not happen. Pilots who don't carefully plan their flights end up dead quickly. Lack of fuel is one of the easier to handle things that can go wrong from bad flight planning.
- throwaway2037 11d ago
  Can you give an example of a "badly planned flight"? And did local regulators agree with your opinion?
  - bluGill 11d ago
    My dad dreamed of being a pilot and when I was a kid he subscribed to the flying magazine (or something like that I don't remember that name.) every single issue had the last story being "I learned about flying from that" and nearly every single one was a case of bad planning, usually a case of flying into bad weather because of the bad planning.
  - phire 11d ago
    LaMia Flight 2933 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaMia_Flight_2933 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaMia_Flight_2933 The pilots took exactly enough fuel to reach their destination. They didn't have enough fuel to divert to an alternative airport. They didn't even have the mandatory 30min of reserve fuel. They did not account for a minor holding pattern just before landing (ironically, because another plane had a fuel leak). The crew failed to declare a fuel emergency, and crashed 18km from the airport. They had only been in the hold for 10 min when their engines ran out.. they were very short of fuel, the pilots knew they were short. They should have diverted (or declared a fuel emergency) almost an hour earlier, but they didn't want anyone to know how close they were cutting it.
kccqzy 12d ago
> there will be an incident investigation that treats the situation as serious as if the plane had crashed No the investigation isn’t as serious as if the plane had crashed. In July 2026 nine planes simultaneously had a fuel emergency in London. You bet it’s different from nine planes simultaneously crashing in London. It helps to understand different kinds of fuel emergency. Declaring a fuel emergency to get to a diversion airport is very very different from having 30 minutes of fuel left.
- phire 12d ago
  Well, obviously it's going to be a much easier investigation, especially when you can interview all the crew. But still very serious. 9 simultaneous fuel emergencies could have easily overwhelmed ATC and snowballed to worse issues. Something lead 10 different aircraft to make the exact same mistake and find themselves without enough fuel for a safe diversion. There will be recommendations to try and prevent it from happening again.

by phire 13d ago

bluGill 12d ago

Badly planned flights should not happen. Pilots who don't carefully plan their flights end up dead quickly. Lack of fuel is one of the easier to handle things that can go wrong from bad flight planning.

throwaway2037 11d ago
Can you give an example of a "badly planned flight"? And did local regulators agree with your opinion?
- bluGill 11d ago
  My dad dreamed of being a pilot and when I was a kid he subscribed to the flying magazine (or something like that I don't remember that name.) every single issue had the last story being "I learned about flying from that" and nearly every single one was a case of bad planning, usually a case of flying into bad weather because of the bad planning.
- phire 11d ago
  LaMia Flight 2933 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaMia_Flight_2933 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaMia_Flight_2933 The pilots took exactly enough fuel to reach their destination. They didn't have enough fuel to divert to an alternative airport. They didn't even have the mandatory 30min of reserve fuel. They did not account for a minor holding pattern just before landing (ironically, because another plane had a fuel leak). The crew failed to declare a fuel emergency, and crashed 18km from the airport. They had only been in the hold for 10 min when their engines ran out.. they were very short of fuel, the pilots knew they were short. They should have diverted (or declared a fuel emergency) almost an hour earlier, but they didn't want anyone to know how close they were cutting it.

kccqzy 12d ago

> there will be an incident investigation that treats the situation as serious as if the plane had crashed No the investigation isn’t as serious as if the plane had crashed. In July 2026 nine planes simultaneously had a fuel emergency in London. You bet it’s different from nine planes simultaneously crashing in London. It helps to understand different kinds of fuel emergency. Declaring a fuel emergency to get to a diversion airport is very very different from having 30 minutes of fuel left.

phire 12d ago
Well, obviously it's going to be a much easier investigation, especially when you can interview all the crew. But still very serious. 9 simultaneous fuel emergencies could have easily overwhelmed ATC and snowballed to worse issues. Something lead 10 different aircraft to make the exact same mistake and find themselves without enough fuel for a safe diversion. There will be recommendations to try and prevent it from happening again.