What is important is (if it was fuel exhaustion) how it happened.
Dodgy fuelling practices are endemic in flight training, IME, and from what I hear all kinds of stuff goes on in the paradropping business. It is basically normalisation of deviance, and it works for a very long time because those who do it are doing it all the time so they are very good at it… until something pushes things over the line.
The way it was somewhat covered in the media/rumours, the pilot was taking the skydivers up to FL120. While getting up there, the dropzone got covered by clouds. (I remember that day, there was bad weather coming over Latvia).
All Skydivers jumped, but one, who decided to stay (because of the dangers of jumping into the clouds?). The pilot then had to wait before proceeding to descent, because he could not see the skydivers in the cloud.
Then proceeded to descend through IMC, but could not break out bellow. Climbed back up. Then decided to divert to another airfield downwind ±10-15 min away. Tried the same, could not break out bellow again. Climbed back up. Decided to divert to Riga International. Almost made it, but engine died and could not reach the airport.
At least from FlightRadar, from the takeoff to crash-land, it’s about 1h duration.
I could see how they planned fuel for 30 min climb + 30 min reserve, which seems perfectly reasonable qty when you are above the airfield.
But in this case it seems the weather played a much bigger role and a lot of small delays (waiting for the descent, climbing again, diversion which did not work) got combined.
Perfectly reasonable story. I’m no judge and don’t have any interests in here.
Then what, the pilot is not an idiot but a hero for saving the live of the passenger onboard?
What makes me think is that they obviously had no plan B for such a case. Sounds rare that the sky gets overcast in 10 minutes, but not impossible.
By the way, now I understand why skydiver planes go to the fuel pump so often.
they obviously had no plan B
Even very experienced and knowledgable pilot might run out of plans B, C, D… when fate is against him
and what do we know at this time? it’s pure speculation
On another forum, there is this rule that accidents are not discussed until preliminary report is officially posted
Peter, maybe it would be beneficial here?
On another forum, there is this rule that accidents are not discussed until preliminary report is officially posted
Peter, maybe it would be beneficial here?
This has come up before.
One problem is that the report comes out after a long time. Some, like BEA, or when lawyers get involved and apply pressure on the investigators, take 2-3 years. And almost everybody will have forgotten about it. Whereas this way we can have a discussion which might save some lives, because experienced pilots learned most of that they know from other pilots, not from flight instruction.
Another is that a lot of useful stuff is airport rumour, may be true, but will almost never end up in an accident report. And a lot of accident reports are bland anyway (e.g. N2195B is one I know a bit more about; a poor quality BEA job) either because the investigators think “flying is dangerous, so what” or because of legal issues.
Lots of forums have weird mods and weird mod rules, but not here 
I agree with Peter. But, OTOH, pending the accident investigation we should refrain from passing judgement on pilots based on information that most likely is incomplete.
Saving lives is indeed distinct from pointing fingers, but it’s also a way to point fingers at ourselves when we go along with normalization of deviance.
If all of this is true, either OVC is very sudden and should trigger immediate emergency descent (given the very low fuel reserve) or it was already there and the planning did not account for it / did not have a plan B.
I think one lesson that could be learnt is to always put some hard barriers in advance, based on threats of the day. For example, in a trip if a turn back is a possibility (and en-route diversion is impractical), prepare in advance the time at which you need to turn back (adjusted by real engine start time of course, but it’s much easier to take your “prepared” 2h15 turn back limit and to add it to your start block time than to do all calculations in the air). This kind of preparation makes decision making a lot easier in flight.
Again assuming we have the correct info, why is this relevant to the example ? With such low reserves, your reserve needs to be for descent and landing / diversion. If you start burning the fuel for level flight or climb, you are potentially in big trouble. So with a set amount of reserve remaining (briefed in advance), you stop looking to drop divers even if they haven’t all jumped, and start descending. Briefing this makes decision making much easier including unexpected factors (divers dropped in 2 groups, weather etc.).
This principle IMO is very underrated and applies to a lot of risk factors (not just fuel but also visibility minima, night, takeoff in marginal runways etc.). The other day I was flying around sunset and briefed in advance (in terms of flight duration) and in flight (once I knew the exact takeoff time) at which point I had to turn back if I had not reached my T&G destination.
I wasn’t there, but flying from coastal airports in CA I know how amazingly quickly fog can form. At SMO you literally look up into clear blue skies and by the time you’ve reached the runup area it’s hard IFR. This marine layer defies predictions and is something you learn to live with here. Luckily, there are plenty of inland airports that remain CAVOK in these situations.
Same can happen in low lying areas with lots of water anywhere. I recall one flight I did many years ago in Austria. Sunset flight in fall, beautiful light and I was going to do a little alpine tour. Until I noticed fog forming below. Turned back and just about made it to LOWL. Totally fogged in by the time I had taxied to the stand.
You can prepare all you want, but sometimes nature just throws you a curveball.
Fog is a nasty one. A few years ago I was criticised for diverting into Lydd EGMD (departure LDLO) because of dodgy wx along the coast, but with maybe 20-25 USG in the tanks approaching EGMD it was good to be on the ground, and then, with full tanks, I flew to Shoreham, knowing I could divert to, say, Dubrovnik Did a nice video of it too.
If there is any suspicion of fog forming, one must act very fast. Forecasts of fog forming, or clearing, are rubbish, always have been, and probably always will be because its formation is according to small variations in two numbers.
