BeaglePilot

No worries here, declaring is the same paperwork as a go-around.

I hope both parties learn from the incident, and the folks at JFK Tower get briefed.

mwa1

pilots need to get the big picture in all things aviation. hopefully, someone will get it, share it here and then reduce it to a wallet size for all of us to see and carry with us.

gettinbumped

You guys crack me up. We have no idea what went on to lead up to this point. The crew did it exactly right. I've declared emergencies before and been vectored around. I've declared min fuel and basically been ignored, regardless of how many times I've stated it. Sometimes, it gets to the point where YOU start telling THEM what you are going to do and let them deal with it. These guys did a great job in my book. The airplane arrived at the gate safely. Quit second guessing guys working hard and doing their jobs when you don't have all the information. Geesh.

Swedish Blender

In a couple months, I'll look down from the second floor and call the AA2 a light twin.

ryguy

It is not unusual in the NY area to be fine on fuel at TOD. Then approach gets ahold of you and your options just went out the window. I think the guys did the right thing here. I don't know what the normal pod clearance is on the 767 but in the 744 you will probably strike #2 or #3 if you push past 30 kts x-wind.

As an aside, if this type of thing or another type of emergency happens outside the USA, saying you are declaring an emergency most likely will not compute. "Mayday, Mayday, Mayday" gets attention a lot faster than a half hearted emergency declaration.

CommutR4Life

Just got back from flying up the east coast: Everyone was holding for JFK. reason; single runway operations/wind. Poor Aero Mexico declared min fuel after bring told to hold a third time for JFK. I'm wondering if this incident had anything to do with all the delays/holding tonight

captjns

Too much speculation without all the facts... especially from the DCVR. That would probably shed a great deal of light on what the situation was. Perhaps the transcripts from the recorder will be made available if the NTSB holds hearings on this incident.

Proabably the most important thing to bear in mind that no fatalities occured.

After how many have puckered up at the approached TOD after a long journey with unexpected ground delays at the departure airport, stronger than forecast head winds, longer than usual sequence vectoring?

kt61

What we don't know is the conversation this crew had with the NY TRACON. I'd lay money that they communicated their need for 31R and the controller responded by telling them they'd have to get at the end of the (very long) line for 22L, including arrivals that weren't even in NY's airspace. In other words, they'd hold until they'd have to divert. And then when they divert and refuel and go back to JFK, instead of getting priority as a diversion, they'd be holding again for 31R. So why would the crew want to talk to the TRACON again? They know they'll be treated as a "paper" emergency and won't get the priority an emergency should receive.

While this seems pretty high-handed, it's pretty sad that the options available to this pilot, if he wished to land his flight at his intended destination, were to accept a direct crosswind of 35 gusting or declare an emergency to get the appropriate runway and fly his own traffic pattern.

Sink r8

Whether anything comes of this will not hinge on conversations with center or approach controllers, but on examining actual block-in fuel.

Being somehwat familiar with a fairly similar case, I can tell you that the crew will be scrutinized by the FAA, which will not easily back down if/once it issues some sort of enforcement action. None of this will have to do with the runway the aircraft landed on (all of us here agree he rightfully demanded 31R), but whether he was correct to land there as quickly as he forced it. So the only question will be whether his actual fuel status justified the manner in which he used emergency authority. Remember: the CFR's allow the PIC to use such authority to the extent required to meet the emergency.

Fear not, however: the crew will eventually be exonerated. In the case I know about, it only took a few short years of appeals, and a few hundred grand in legal fees by one of the pilots, and they won. They won the right to return to status quo. Not financial status quo. Not time lost. Not financial loss. They only won the right not to be suspended, and to retain the same clean record they had prior to that flight.

The lesson I took away is that I will not crash to please a controller or a lawyer, and I will not fail to use emergency authority if I find it to be the best course of action. But I will do so deliberately and not to make a point.

So, as long as they indeed landed with very low fuel, I think they're fine. Either way, they will get their kudos. Either now or in a few years.

shfo

The problem is low fuel is subjective.

What pilots might feel is not enough, management feels is just right. Management, especially at AMR, is pressuring flight crews and dispatchers to load only the bare minimum amount of fuel. Dispatchers whose arrival fuel is above the status quo get focus training. Anyone who has flown for more than a couple of days in today's IFR world knows a flight never goes exactly as planned and forecasts aren't always right. How many times has ATC said expect 330 for a final instead of 370? How many times have they said maintain max forward then slow to 250 then max forward? The FARs in respect to fuel requirements are also about as safe as the current flight time/ duty time regs. They were probably written when the DC3 was the primary transport aircraft. The regs say: "Complete the flight to the first airport of intended landing, fly to the most distant alternate fly after that for 45 minutes at normal cruising speed". That might work for a 152 where the difference between idle and max power is a gallon or two per hour, but with a turbine engine that uses exponentially more fuel at takeoff, climb, and go around power than at cruise it doesn't work. I can't tell you how many times I've seen JFK as an Alternate for LGA or EWR with an extra 2 minutes and a couple of hundred extra pounds of fuel added. That is just not a realistic plan for an alternate.

Then there is the weather that requires alternates. The majority of the time you need the extra gas it has nothing to do with low visability and ceilings which require more gas per the regs. You don't need an alternate if there are thunderstorms in the area or high winds. That doesn't make much sense does it? Just last week I heard an AA 737 divert to TPA because of thunderstorms at MCO. They were forecasted to be in the area but not at the airport. The pilots said over the radio that they had no add fuel for holding or delay vectors and needed to go to TPA. It really doesn't make a lot of sense not to plan for pop up thunderstorms in FL in the spring. The closest I came to running out of gas was on a beautiful calm/clear day in ORD. ANA blew a tire on the intersection of 22R/27R and dropped the airport down to 27L only arrivals. We had no alternate because it was a beautiful day. But why didn't we have an alternate? I think in the 121 world you should always have an out. What do you do if you are going into SAN and the guy in front of you blows a tire? There aren't many civilian airports to go to big enough to handle most commercial airliners.

Bottom line I think the crew did a great job and I hope the airline realizes running planes low on fuel is NOT a SAFE way to run an airline.