For those into probability and stats, 1x10-7 is frequently used as a mathematical qualifier for risk assessments such as ETOPS emergency situations quantified as acceptable/very low/improbable. We wouldn’t want to over-regulate...

 

1x10-7 events per flight, per year, per passenger trip??

What units are you talking about here? I grant you that whatever the answer it is well within the bounds of what most rational people would consider safe, but if that is truly the number used there should be some units attached to it - for those of us into probability and statistics.

 

Yeah, right! You might as well heard from a flight attendant. Do you really believe a pilot would operate under those conditions?

GF

 

And I’ll add for clarification that the engine failure and decompression are planned at equal time point. Blow an engine and lose cabin pressure just as you arrive at the ETP, descend to 10,000’ and fly on one engine all the way to your ETOPS alternates.

 

Absolutely.

When they will get fired for speaking out.

What do you think those individual contracts are for?

 

Having flown here for nearly a decade I can quickly refute this claim. I have never been chastised nor threatened for adding fuel/changing ETOPS alternates.

It's also important to remember that ETOPS is a legality for dispatch, and what is planned and what is uplifted are two different things.

Once airborne the entry into ETOPS becomes a more mechanical/equipment/status issue. Once inside an ETOPS segment, the diversion plan is an emergency situation and up to the flight crew.

Airmanship and route experience dictate my fuel requirements at the dispatch stage. Typically ETOPS is considered as decision point between to airports over water, but I've had routes with a single alternate, and even ETOPS over land in Africa and China.

Dispatchers do consider economy/legality in their panning, but I ultimately decide what fuel is appropriate.

 

I’ll dispute the original remark concerning ETOPs requirements. Other then when mutually agreed upon by the flight crew and dispatch/flight following, reducing taxi fuel, and increasing contingency fuel, I don’t know how a flight plan’s fuel summary, unless manually altered, could show such less than minimum fuel. Who in their right mind would sign such a release?

Friends and colleagues, nor myself, flying ETOPs operations, have never been called into management’s office for tea and biscuits, for leaving cargo behind for the sake of uplifting extra fuel.

There is no airman worth their salt that would take less than legal fuel. Fuel is directly proportionate the the life expectancy of an operation venturing over the water, with no suitable/adequate airport within 180/210 minutes of an ETP... especially transiting the ITZ, during cyclone season, dodging large areas of thunderstorms.

Non ICAO Member carriers? May be a different story.

 

No others, other than you and Joe Country...

Now this is just a stretch... a flight plan/release, without the attached re-release may tally up to insufficient fuel. But that’s a partial picture without the full story.

 

When you have pilots at the ME3 “legally” flying 126 block hours in a single month, you begin to wonder about other aspects of the operation as well.

 

Perhaps, the uplift is greater than FPL?

GF