Originally Posted by
mosteam3985
It will be interesting to see what the cause of this was. It'll look pretty bad if it was something that could have been prevented on a thorough pre-flight.
I'm not a King Air pilot but is visually checking the fuel levels in the tanks standard procedure on the pre-flight for that bird or are the wings too high off the ground without having a ladder? If it's normal and good procedure to visually check the fuel levels of a King Air and he cut that corner it just causes me to wonder if he has a habit of cutting corners during critical times, possibly contributing to this unfortunate accident...
I fly a 350, and you can hardly see in the tanks. Maybe at night with a flashlight and you hold down the little flap door under the fuel cap. But during the day its near impossible to see inside. And yes, you need a ladder. The fuel gauges are very accurate in the King Airs. Is it normal procedure? As far as I know, no its not. Definitely seems like this guy just cuts corners if you ask me. The most foolish mistake one could make is running out of fuel... Especially not even half way through the flight...
NTSB report n the KA-http://www.ntsb.gov/aviationquery/brief2.aspx?ev_id=20001211X11244&ntsbno=DEN99LA014 &akey=1
He had mistaken the 600lbs indication for fuel in the aux tanks since they max out at 600. King air's take from the aux's first. The gauges go to zero and then back again to indicate the fuel in the other tanks when the toggle switch is chosen. He decided that meant he had fuel in the mains as well and didnt check further to confirm how much. Unfortunately, his first gauge check that had shown 600lbs, was actually the mains. King airs show the mains first, only when the toggle switch is held down do they show the aux's. He had mistaken this first indication for the aux's. And just assumed there was more fuel in the mains. But why he didnt check to make sure he had at least another hour of fuel plus reserves ontop of the 600lbs is beyond me.
So no fuel was actually in the aux's. I find it very alarming this guy was flying a King air and couldnt figure out how to read the fuel indication correctly or properly plan for fuel consumption. Day one at FSI would cover that. Did he even get any training in the king air?
King airs burn about 600lbs an hour during the first hour due to climb fuel burns. So dual failure at 60mins, makes perfect sense.
As for whether or not this has anything to do with the jet accident, only time will tell. But it wouldnt surprise me if some kind of pilot error or lack of preflight actions was the cause due to his past with the King air.