HOW could they let it GO THIS FAR?!

- Few things will be more terrifying for a pilot than the prospect of running out of fuel mid-flight. But that's exactly what's about to happen to

this

Boeing 737 crew after making six harrowing approaches and making their seventh. How it was possible and what led to it is what I am going to tell you today. So stay tuned. The story I'm going to tell you today is the story of Jet Airways Flight 555, and it's actually one of the craziest stories I've ever known. It is a story about communication; to some extent, about bad luck and bad timing, but also about decision making, and how a single decision can have potentially devastating consequences down the line.

The incident took place on August 18, 2015. And the plane involved is a Boeing 737-800, the same as the type I am flying. The crew was quite experienced. The captain was 40 years old and had just under 6,700 hours, most of which he had flown in the 737. He was assisted by a somewhat less experienced first officer. He had just under 1,500 hours total time and about 580 on type. The two had operated together the day before, on August 17, when

they

flew from Cochin in India to Doha. And then

they

made a night stop there. They rested completely on August 18, which is the day of the incident.

The flight they were about to operate was a night flight. So they met at 18:30 UTC, around midnight local time, and started doing their pre-flight preparation. The weather along the way seemed absolutely fine. But the weather at their destination potentially seemed a little foggy. However, the climate they had available for their planning was quite old. It was issued at 09:00 UTC, that is, almost 15 hours earlier, but it was still valid. It indicated visibility at its destination, Cochin, of about 4,000 meters with light winds from the north direction, and scattered clouds at 1,500 feet and scattered clouds at 9,000 feet. So the weather is pretty good.

Its alternate airport, Bangalore, had even better weather with visibility of 8,000 meters, winds of 290 to 10 knots and some scattered clouds at 1,200 feet and scattered clouds at 8,000 feet. So the weather situation was perfectly good for that time. When we have a weather forecast that tells us that at the time of our arrival, plus one hour before and one hour after, the weather will be good enough for us to land via the available routes at our destination, then we only need an alternative airport. . Now, the alternate airport needs to have slightly better weather than our destination just to give us a little better cushion in case we have to detour.

What we do is look for the best possible approach aids at our alternate airport, and then we move on to the second best approach aid, and make sure the weather is still good enough to be able to take it. In

this

case, the team looked at the weather and thought, yeah, this is good enough, we don't need two alternatives, we don't need to do too much research. Therefore, we

could

potentially consume minimal fuel to get here. But the captain looked a little more closely at the weather and saw that, although it was better than the minimum required, it was still not excellent.

There was still some fog there. And whenever there is fog, there is always the chance that that fog will turn into fog or be worse than expected. So he thought, let's take a little more fuel to enable us to hold on a little when we reach Cochin. So that's what they did. They looked at their flight plan and began to calculate how much fuel they were actually going to carry, taking this into account. Now, it is very important that you understand how we actually calculate our minimum fuel before dispatching. So in the case of Jet Airways, they started by adding fuel for taxis.

The fuel for the taxis was about 180 kilos and was calculated on a fuel consumption of about 12 kilos per minute, which gives them 15 minutes of taxi time, which is reasonable. The next thing they added was fuel for the trip, and the fuel for the trip is calculated from releasing the brakes for takeoff, climb, standard instrument departure, then climb to cruise level, all the flight to the top of the descent, the descent to, and including the standard arrival route. And then 240 kilos for the approach phase, until landing. In this case, the fuel for the trip was 11,112 kilos or four hours and seven minutes.

On top of this, we also added something called contingency fuel, and it's exactly what it sounds like. It's a contingency. Then maybe there's a storm on the way that we need to detour or something. It is usually a minimum of 5% of the fuel for the trip. In this case it was 556 kilos or 14 minutes. And then we add the alternative fuel which includes the missed approach to our destination, climb to 1,500 feet initially, then standard instrument departure, climb, cruise and then descent to our alternative and an additional approach. In this case, the fuel went to Bangalore and for this they needed 2,178 kilos.

It was about 44 minutes of flight. Now, the last amount of fuel that we need to add to find our minimum legal delivery fuel is our final reserve fuel. And the final reserve of fuel necessary to be able to fly at 1,500 feet above our alternative for a minimum of 30 minutes, in this case, was 1,128 kilos. Jet Airways then also added one hour of APU consumption, i.e. 105 kilos, and in total, this led to an absolute minimum fuel, according to Jet Airways, of 15,295 kilos for this flight. As I mentioned before, the captain decided to add another 750 kilos of fuel, approximately 19 additional minutes of flight time, and then rounded the total fuel to the nearest 100, ending up at 16,100 kilos of fuel, which was well above the minimum required. for this flight.

Once the crew decided on the fuel they were going to carry, they began researching the rest of the preparation material as well. And the first officer became quite interested in the NOTAMs. These are documents that indicate whether something is working or not at the destination, and the alternate airport and also the airports en route. And his attention to detail will be important in this story. Once the pilots were satisfied with their pre-flight preparation, they approached the six cabin crew members who would be flying with them that day. And then everyone together walked to the plane and began to prepare it for departure.

They boarded the 142 passengers who were scheduled for the flight to Cochin, and the captain would be the pilot of the flight and the first officer would be the follow-on pilot. The plane itself was a three-year-old 737-800, which was in perfect working order, there was nothing wrong with it. The pilots completed their preflight preparation, received pushback and takeoff clearance, and then began taxiing for takeoff. At 19:37 UTC, approximately 10 minutes after one o'clock local time, the plane took off from Doha and began flying towards Cochin in India. The climb and cruise phase of this flight were uneventful. And at 23:00 UTC, approximately 04:30 in the morning in Cochin, the flight crew contacted Cochin ATC to get the latest weather.

ATC responded and reported that the weather was quite good in Cochin. There were 3,500 meters of fog, a few clouds at 1,500 feet and light winds. So this was more or less exactly what the pilots expected. The captain then began preparing a standard ILS approach to runway 27 at Cochin. And that approach is something we call the full procedure approach. This means that instead of getting the radar vector on final approach before landing, the crew would have to fly over a NAVAID VOR that was situated near the airfield, and then they would have to fly a specific distance before they

could

hand over and join. to ILS procedures.

Approximately 48 minutes later, at 23:48, the aircraft arrived above the Cochin VOR and began flying towards the approach. At that time, they had around 4,844 kilos of fuel available, much more than their minimum diversion fuel towards Bengaluru. The crew began slowing the aircraft according to procedure, began extending their flaps, and completed their landing checklists. The minimum visibility for this approach was 650 meters and the minimum, the lowest point they could fly to before having to make a missed approach, was 320 feet. And the crew wasn't expecting any problems with this, given the weather they had just received. But as they descended the glide slope, it became increasingly obvious that the weather was actually much worse than expected.

And when the captain reached the minimums, 320 feet, he couldn't see anything. Then, he executed the first lap. After the maneuver, the crew entered a holding pattern over Cochin VOR and now began discussing how to proceed. They had 4,699 kilos of fuel on board, and the minimum diversion fuel to Bangalore was 3,306, so they still had a lot of fuel left. They knew that the weather in Bangalore was good and that they had a functional ILS approach there, but now they started looking at other alternatives that were a little closer to see if maybe they could change their alternative to one of them, to be able to give them even more fuel margin to possibly make one or two more approaches to Cochin.

The two alternatives they were investigating now were Coimbatore, which was the closest, and Thiruvananthapuram, which was a little further away. But when they were discussing this, the first officer told the captain that actually in Thiruvananthapuram, we have to be a little careful because although there is normally an ILS approach there, the ILS approach was down for maintenance for about a week. So they only have non-precision approaches, a VOR approach available, at Thiruvananthapuram. The captain recognized it and they checked the weather at Thiruvananthapuram, and they gave about 3,000 meters, which was well above the minimum requirement for a VOR approach there.

So the captain felt pretty sure about it. As they discussed this and prepared for their second approach to runway 272, the Air India Express Boeing 737s were ahead of them in the final. The first managed to land and reported that he could see the runway at about 1,400 feet, but that there were low clouds moving around the airport. The second Air India Express had to turn around. So, as Jet Airways Flight 555 began its second approach, Cochin ATC came in and told them that visibility was now 2,500 meters and there were low clouds at about 600 feet. The second approach developed exactly the same as the first, with the pilots reaching minimums without having any sign of the runway ahead.

They now executed their second round and once again entered a holding pattern over Cochin. The fuel was now 3,919 kilos, an amount even higher than the minimum of 3,306 kilos they needed to divert to Bangalore. But the captain now wanted to redesignate his alternative to Thiruvananthapuram, because if he did so, it would give him about 20 more minutes, which he could use to make a third approach towards Cochin. The first officer was not very happy about this. He pointed out to the captain that the weather was actually getting worse, not better, and that the sun was about to rise, and that would make it even more difficult to see through the fog.

The captain countered that argument with the fact that they had Coimbatore as an alternative airport which was even closer than Thiruvananthapuram if they needed it. But they never took time for Coimbatore. At 00:20:06, the crew of Jet Airways Flight 555 informed air traffic control that they were now redesignating Thiruvananthapuram as their primary alternative. And this is where you have to pay special attention in terms of decision making, because up to this point, the decision making that these two pilots have made is like that of any other flight crew. They decided to carry some extra fuel because they saw that the weather was a bit iffy in Cochin, then they made the flight, executed a go-around on their first approach attempt, went into hold, discussed the fuel status.

They made a second approach which also led to a round trip. And now they're in the holding pattern arguing about what to do next. And you can see how the Captain reasons, right? He has spoken, listened to air traffic control, they have given him good weather, he has also heard some reports from pilots of both planes that have been on approach and on the runway, saying that visibility in general is about 3,000 meters, but there are some clouds moving. Then you probably think they were just unlucky on their first two attempts, okay? They managed to reach those few clouds and on the third try, they will get this plane to land.

But while he thinks like this, he is also painting himself into a corner. You have fewer and fewer options available. And that's going to lead to some pretty crazy stuff next, so after this quick message from my sponsor, I'll tell you all about it. Did you know that every time you access a public WiFi network, theCould hackers access your data and steal your identity? Scary, right? That's why I use NordVPN, today's sponsor, because I want to make sure that every time I browse the web, my personal emails, banking details, and everything else are safe. It only takes one click.

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And you have nothing to lose, because NordVPN offers a 30-day full money-back guarantee. Now, let's go back to the video. The crew now began preparing for their third approach to Runway 27, and as they did so, another flight, a Kuwait Flight 329, passed in front of them. That prompted air traffic control to update the weather to visibility of 2,000 meters and scattered clouds at 400 feet. Air traffic control asked the Jet Airways crew what their intentions were and the captain informed them that in case of a missed approach, they would request a diversion directly to Thiruvananthapuram. ATC then told them that the latest weather they had for Thiruvananthapuram was visibility of 3,000 meters and overcast clouds at 1,500 feet.

It's still perfectly fine for the VOR approach. The crew then began their third approach with exactly the same result. They hit their minimums, saw nothing, and executed their third missed approach of the day. As they began flying their missed approach procedure, air traffic control told them to climb straight up to 4,000 feet and then turn left to join the Cochin radial 180 and continue towards Thiruvananthapuram. The crew recognized it and began flying according to the authorized route. And at this point, they had a fuel of about 2,644 kilos, and the minimum diversion fuel towards Thiruvananthapuram was 2,614 kilos. So basically they are taking advantage of their minimum diversion fuel.

They requested to climb to 21,000 feet, flight level 210. And when they were cleared to climb, they received an updated weather report from Thiruvananthapuram, where visibility had now started to drop to 2,500 meters. At 01:02 UTC i.e. 06:30 local time, the Jet Airways crew contacted the Thiruvananthapuram ATC. Thiruvananthapuram ATC told them that they could wait for runway 14 for the VOR approach and that visibility had now been reduced to 1,500 metres. And that is a problem because the minimum visibility to begin the VOR approach on that runway was 2,100 meters. When the captain heard this, he asked if there were high intensity approach lights and runway lights available to him, because he wanted to use something called converted weather visibility to initiate the approach.

Now, converted weather visibility is basically a tool that we pilots have when we fly and we don't have access to the proper RVR, we have only reported weather visibility. And that was the case here. Because if, for example, you can see a normal visibility of 500 meters, but you are looking at a very strong light, it is very likely that you can see that light at a much greater distance. So, especially during the hours of darkness, we can use a table to convert the reported visibility into converted meteorological visibility to obtain a higher visibility number to allow us to initiate an approach.

And that's what the captain was trying to do here. Unfortunately, on this track that was not available. Then air traffic control told him no, we just have a simple, high-intensity approach lighting system. But anyway, the captain made the conversion anyway, allowing him to start the approach, and this is where things start to get a little complicated. The crew now begins to descend towards Thiruvananthapuram, but when they are about 25 miles from the airport, the captain realizes that he is too high to begin this approach. That could be because he was expected to perform a full arrival procedure and he actually began obtaining radar vectors for the approach.

But in any case he had to do a 360 degree turn to lose a little altitude which, of course, also consumed a little fuel. After this, the crew declares the minimum fuel to air traffic control. Minimum fuel is the first step in a multi-step process that indicates they have a fuel problem, and minimum fuel is not an emergency call, but tells air traffic control that this aircraft has reduced its available airport to one, and that any change to its current authorization could lead to this aircraft landing with less fuel than the final reserve. And every time an aircrew sees that they are going to land with less than the final reserve, they have to declare an emergency, which is the next step in that process.

Air Traffic Control recognized the message and cleared the crew for a VOR approach, Runway 14, and also cleared them to land on Runway 14, with a visibility of 2,000 meters. At 01:19 UTC, Jet Airways Flight 555 reaches its minimum descent altitude on the VOR approach without being able to see the runway. This now means that they have to execute their fourth lap of the day, and when they press the TOGA buttons, they are left with 1,324 kilos of fuel. And remember that the final fuel reserve is only about 1,300 kilos. And that means that 40 seconds into the turn, they now say, "Mayday, mayday, mayday, fuel, Jet Airways Flight 555." Every time a fuel emergency is announced, all available runways, airports and accesses are opened for the aircraft that has declared the emergency.

This also includes military airports. So, having declared the emergency, the captain now asks air traffic control if he can fly a visual approach to runway 14. And this is where things start to get really crazy, because remember, they just made a VOR approach. to runway 14, they did not see enough to land from that approach. So in order to do a visual approach, as the name suggests, you're doing it visually, you need to see the entire runway and the runway environment clearly, to be able to do a visual approach safely, that's not backed up. by any NAVAID. Now, a visual approach is something we would do to make a little bit closer approach to save some time and fuel, but you have to have very, very good weather to be able to do this, and they don't have this. climate.

Now, I understand that the captain, at this point, is probably starting to panic. He doesn't believe he has enough fuel to safely fly a full procedural VOR approach and just wants to get the plane down to the ground. But on the other hand, he doesn't see the clue, so it doesn't make any sense. Anyway, he levels the plane at about 1,000 feet above ground level, which is lower than we would normally do during a visual approach. It then flies downwind until it is approximately abeam the threshold of Runway 14, and when they pass the abeam point, they call air traffic control and tell them that they are now turning base toward Runway 14.

Air traffic control Air traffic tells them that "You are passing the crossing point. Confirm that you can see the runway", indicating that air traffic control believes they are too close to make the 90-degree turn to begin reaching the end. The crew reads this, descends to 500 feet, and then turns toward the airport. But because they can't see the airport properly, they end up to the right of the center line and too low. And once they realize this, when they finally see the runway, the captain turns sharply to the left, causing a bank angle warning, and when he hears the bank angle, he now turns around for the fifth time.

Now they have only 898 kilos on board and the captain asks again if he can make another visual approach to runway 14. Since he is in an emergency, air control approves it. Once again, he levels out at 1000 feet and receives an updated visibility report from Thiruvananthapuram ATC that says they now have a visibility of 2000 meters, which is too low for what he is doing. He continues down once again, starts his base turn too early, descending to 500 feet at the base and once again ends up in a position where he is not aligned with the runway and is too high, causing an incredible sixth turn for El day.

Fuel is now at 662 kilos and things are starting to get really critical. Unless they manage to land this plane in the next 10 to 12 minutes, they will run out of fuel and the captain knows this very well. Because of this, he now tells air traffic control and his colleague that he intends, instead of making another circuit around Runway 14, he wants to make a 180-degree turn to land on the opposite runway, Runway 32, which It would be slightly faster. The problem is, of course, that he is still in the cloud; he doesn't see anything. Thus, he takes control of the aircraft, turns slightly to the left to slightly widen the turn and then begins to turn to the right to join the final approach.

As he does this, the first EGPWS warning sounds, saying, "Terrain! Terrain!" followed by a second saying: "Terrain! Terrain! Get up!" The pilots respond to both warnings by saying loudly that they can see the terrain below them and the first officer approaches and inhibits the ground proximity warning system. At 01:38:06, the first officer looks at the captain and asks, "Do you know where he is?" And the captain simply replies: "Just flying blind." They then continue descending towards the track. The lean angle warning activates several times, the last occurring at 50 feet above the runway. And at 01:39 they manage to land safely on runway 32.

The plane is fine, the passengers and crew are fine and they taxi to the airport. The final total fuel recorded on board after the engines were shut down at the gate was 349 kilos. Just to give you some perspective, the plane typically burns between 40 and 50 kilos per minute and about double that if in climb thrust. Because the pilots had declared an emergency, the cockpit voice recording was preserved and sent to the investigation team. And that, along with the safety report that the crew submitted, laid the foundation for the incident report that I just told you about. But after removing and replacing the cockpit voice recorder, the crew of this flight simply refueled and flew back to Cochin that same day.

And that's something that I personally can't understand because what they just went through is basically a near-death experience, okay? His adrenaline levels must have been through the roof. And to think that after something like this they will be able to fly a second flight on the same day is simply unfathomable. The results of the investigation showed that the weather was obviously a factor that led the pilots to this situation. But it also showed that there was not enough guidance from the company, Jet Airways, on how the pilot should think when making multiple approaches to an airport where the weather was marginal.

And just to give you an example, the airline I work for has a rule that says you can make two approaches to the same airport in the same weather. But to be able to make a third approach, it is necessary that the climate has doubled. If that's not the case, then if you're hanging around the same kind of marginal weather as during the first two approaches, well, then you need to detour. And obviously you want to divert to an airport where you're reasonably sure you can get off. Specifically, you want to fly to an airport, where you have, if possible, a precision approach to flying.

Going to an alternate airport where the weather is equally marginal as the airport you just left behind but where the approach aids are worse, you are setting yourself up for a potentially very, very bad situation, which this crew definitely experienced. Now, the final report also states that the pilots violated several rules and regulations during this flight, which ultimately jeopardized the safety of the crew, passengers and aircraft. But I don't know what happened to them. I don't know if they lost their jobs or continue flying, and I don't really care because these videos aren't about assigning blame.

It's about learning something. It's about knowing what has happened and how the industry has learned from it and become safer. That's all I want to do. However, one thing I can say is that this final report was very poorly written. He left out many details. I would have loved to know what kind of discussions,There were communications between the flight crew and the cabin crew and also with the passengers, because I can't even begin to imagine the amount of discomfort and potentially fear that the passengers would have. direction during this flight, having to make six turns in a single flight.

And if you were a passenger on this flight, please feel free to contact me by email. I would love to hear from you about this experience. Now, if you want to see a video that I think you'll really enjoy, watch this one, or maybe this one. If you want to support the work I do here on the channel, consider becoming part of my lovely Patreon team and join my next weekly Hangout. I'd love to see you there. And you can also buy some merchandising. Have an absolutely fantastic day and we'll see you next time. Bye bye.