Not enough fuel for holding pattern
 

So I'm on UA891 from LAX to NRT yesterday and ran into foul weather at NRT and all the incoming flights were on a half hour holding pattern for landing. I was listening to the chatter on channel 9 and especially the conversation between NW1 and the NRT tower. NW1 was trying to request to jump the queue because it didn't have enough fuel for a 1/2 hour hold. That's kind of scary to think that an international flight over water didn't take on enough fuel for possible weather related delays! Are some of the airlines trying to save money by loading less fuel for flights? NW1 finally had to divert to Haneda because NRT flight control refused to let it land ahead of other holding flights. I don't think I would be taking any Northwest flights in the future.

Wow, that is scary, because that flight comes in from DTW, and continues onto MNL

i was on that plane into MNL in December, and the crowds in front of the gate was horrendous

and I could understand the problem, if they had a full jet, and had a delay out of DTW

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they also purposely left 60 bags in NRT as they had weight problems, and capacity problems. so NW needs to figure out how to get this fixed

Isn't Channel 9 great? :)

nwa.com shows that NW 1 diverted to OKO which is Yokoto Air Base... ?
I guess they didn't have enough reserve fuel as that plane was a B747-200 *yuck* and they could have taken on more fuel since LAX-NRT is well within the range of a fully-fueled B747-200.

yes, 747-200 is uck

range is never a problem. maybe the weight is a problem, and severe tail winds along with taking less fuel

If the aircraft was under its FAA diversion fuel loading minimums, NW will be written up for it. You may be able to see the incident online at faa.gov.

<G>

Keep in mind that the diversion happens well before the aircraft is "running on fumes." It happens at a point well before the aircraft has the minimum fuel to reach the alternate airport. (I think it's something like when there's only enough fuel to reach the alternate airport plus 30 minutes spare fuel after that.)

Kinda like a company will declare bankruptcy well before they have zeroed out their cash reserves. (Sorry, I've been spending too much time on the AA forum where we keep wishing for bankruptcy...)

It is certainly possible that an aircraft could load exactly the FAA required amount of fuel and still need to divert if there is excessive holding at the destination. My guess is that this is what happened here.

The same thing happened to me while flying into Japan on UA in 2000. It is not an airline specific issue, but one that is circumstantial. Its not like NWA is constantly taking more risks than UA.

Unforecast headwinds will also eat into reserves. Holding, even though it's at reduced throttle settings, will eat a lot of fuel as jet engines are very inefficient at low altitudes.

There is no requirement not to burn into reserves (the rules for international flights are much more complicated than the 30 minute VFR reserves for private pilots in the U.S.). Nor is there any reason that there would be something at an FAA site. There was simply no incident.

Simply because an airplane diverts does not mean it's all that low on fuel. We will divert at the point where the fuel to the alternate puts us at the minimum fuel we're comfortable landing with under the circumstances. Generally, that puts us on the ground at the alternate with somewhere between 30 and 60 minutes of fuel.

The fact that they couldn't hold simply means that they either didn't anticipate any delays, or that they burned more fuel enroute than expected.

Diverting due to no insufficient fuel reserves is not just a UA thing. ;)

Last year on ORD-IAD (777) we were put into a hold for IAD and wound up diverting to PIT to refuel.

While this problem can be dangerous, it's not terribly frightening since the flight crew is aware of the problem and can react in enough time. Really the only problem is the inconvenience of a delay.

I think the point most of the contributors to this thread have been making, is that the situation is actually not dangerous at all.

I always thought that the magic and fun of flying Northwest is never quite knowing if you'll get there. Some days a wing might fall off, or they might run out of fuel, but it's sure to always be some entertainment on NWA clunker-metal. ;)

As a pilot I can say this. While operating under IFR Regulations you must be able to fly to your destination with a 45 minute reserve. Now if you have to have an alternate, you must carry enough fuel to fly to your destination, then your alternate at a normal cruise speed and land with a 45 minute reserve. All airlines carry extra fuel reserves but there is a point when you will need to declare "min fuel" which means that any further delay could push you into your fuel reserves. The NWA crew probably declared min fuel at that time because they knew that they were going to have to divert and they wanted to divert and still have their reserve. This is more common than one would think. An airplane doesnt have an infinate number of fuel, at somepoint you are going to have to get more gas.

The big question isn't fuel but why ANYONE would choose to fly on NW to NRT. (or anywhere for that matter on old, decrepit aircraft) :D

I fly NWA now when the only UA flight is on TED, when I am going to places in the south where UA doesn't fly and apparently with the latest schedule change I'll be going NW to Seattle now because of a misconnect in DEN on my return flights. Regarding decrepit aircraft, the Mesaba ARJ85's are much newer and nicer than the Air Wis BAE146's and have first class too. The NW DC9's are nicer than the UA 737's especially the ex-shuttle ones.

NW A320's show more wear in the interior than UA's while the NW757's seem to be in equal or better condition inside than UA. I am mostly short or mid-con domestic so have not had the "pleasure" of a NW 747-200 or DC-10.

I can't comment on the mechanical decrepitness of NW vs. UA as I'm only a passenger.

I will still make 1K on UA and will use UA for international including NRT if I ever go there.

I'm not a pilot nor do I know the tecnicalities about FAA fuel requirements but in the 6 or 7 exchanges between NW1 and the flight controller, the gist was that NW1 could hold for 15 minutes and not the 30-35 minutes that was in effect. I was just surprised that the flight crew didn't know about the possibility of weather related problems at NRT before they took off and that they might have to take on extra fuel. I am surprised that the "window" was so short and what if Haneda was also having weather related problems? At one point, NW1 was asked whether they wanted to declare an emergency (or something to that effect). Japan is after all an island and isn't there a possibility that the weather could be affecting all the airports within range on the island? I think it would be logical to assume that if there was a real danger that NW1 would have been allowed to jump the queue and land. I wasn't thinking about the actual possibility of the plane running out of fuel and crashing but more of the inconveninece of some of the passengers on the plane missing their connections. I just found it hard to believe that an international flight over water would not have enough fuel for a 1/2 hold when I'm sure we've all been on flights that were in a holding pattern for more than 1/2 an hour. The head wind near Japan has always range from 150 to 200 mph and the airspeed can drop down to below 400 mph everytime I flew from LAX at this time if the year. Anyway, just my two cents worth.

This is a real interesting topic, yet its one that really isn't about United per se. Since it covers a NW flight and a potential issue lots of others might encounter, I'm going to redirect it to a board that will get more general FT users involved (Travel Buzz).


Craig6z
Moderator

Two flights come to mind, re the fuel issue. Several years ago, on a full (362/362) L-1011 from LGW to YYZ. Scheduled as a non-stop, but extremely strong headwinds, plus heavily loaded ac, coupled with a very long take-off roll (it was a hot July day in London), caused the captain to announce midway through the flight that we would make an unsked stop in YUL to take on fuel. The flight had started in MAN, and I don't think they topped up the tanks at LGW.
The other flight was on CP, from LHR to YYZ, a B767, on Y2K day (remember that?) Total pax was 60 (according to the purser), and what should have been at most a seven and a 1/2 hour flight turned into over nine hours because of severe headwinds. Actually, at one point, the captain came on and said that even though we were flying at almost 600 mph, because of the headwinds we were barely making headway. No refueling stop, but I'm sure the fuel load was very light when we finally landed at YYZ.
Neither of these flights was on NWA, but I'm just trying to show what headwinds can do to even the most carefully planned flightplans and fuel loads.

bj-21.

I beg to differ.

As someone who has been flying NW exclusively for more than a decade, I have only had 2 overnight delays due to weather.

Should UA have a hub city like DTW or MSP, how many snow delays will you have?

Again, those are domestic only regulations. Since the flight in question was an international flight to NRT, the regulations are quite different. They include a 10% reserve for the entire cruise fuel, but can get very complicated due to redispatching. Essentially, that is planning a flight to a closer destination (reducing the 10% figure), then redispatching enroute to the actual destination (at which point, the remaining 10% figure is much less).

And declaring minimum fuel does not mean that a further delay will push you into your fuel reserves. It simply means that you can accept no further delay, although you do not need any priority handling. That may or may not have anything to do with the planned reserve fuel, depending on the crew and the situation.

You mean they actually divert airplanes running low on fuel when high in a spiral holding pattern? Seems like it would be far simpler (?) let the affected plane skip to a lower level in the circling pattern.

Either way the pilot would likely be charged with an infraction if he hadn't loade the proper amount of fuel.

Travel tips:
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You can end up having to divert for fuel reasons even if you have loaded the proper amount of fuel onboard. Fuel uplift and use are as much arts as sciences - one of the reasons why you'd always watch your diversion options all the time whilst in flight.

And as for allowing aircraft to "skip" to a lower level in the hold, just one question for you: How woudl you go about deconflicting the aircraft with the low fuel with all the other aircraft in the intermediate levels in the stack below it? Or are you fond of aluminium sandwiches?

Nobody is taking off with less than the required fuel. In fact, you always have at least some amount of extra fuel above the minimum that is legally required for the flight. How much extra fuel will depend on the specifics of the flight, the weather enroute and at the destination and the price of fuel at each of the airports.

As a passenger I can say this. You are kidding us, right?

It's not the panic situation portrayed !
 

Don't worry. The crew would have been wanting to land with their 30 minutes of fuel reserves intact, those are for a real fuel problem. If they couldn't get to their destination with these reserves intact they will divert short, which is what they did here. However there's no harm in ASKING your destination if you can get in first rather than holding, and avoid the diversion. They might have said yes.

Happens not infrequently, all sorts of events conspire to increase fuel consumption (headwinds worse than forecast, lower flight level than expected, etc). If you are over water right to destination you take extra reserves, on the way from Detroit to Tokyo you recalculate all along, you can stop in Sapporo or even Anchorage if things look like they are going awry.

In a real fuel shortage a crew will declare a "Pan", which is an urgency message to ATC, and if things get more serious will declare a "Mayday". They will have in their Standard Operating Procedures at which stage they will do this. As they didn't declare either they were still within their limits.

One of the perils of Channel 9 and having untrained personnel listen in.