Flights sometimes take longer than planned, and that’s why airlines always have fuel reserves, planned diversion points, etc. The aviation industry operates with an incredible focus on having a safety margin, but sometimes things don’t go as planned. Along those lines, a Ryanair flight recently had what can only be described as a very close…
Continue reading: Yikes: Ryanair Boeing 737 Comes Dangerously Close To Running Out Of Fuel
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Cant a plane glide when it runs out of fuel? I remember an incident where a BA 747 glided when both engines failed due to volcanic ash.
@ Andy -- Yes, sort of, but when you're at a low altitude, you don't have much vertical space between the plane and earth...
I'm not too familiar with UK airports but was there nothing in between that could have given them a shorter diversion, or was the weather covering everything in between Glasgow and Manchester where going to the latter would give them a better chance at landing then going to say Newcastle and risk another go around?
It’s not really Ryanair per se. It was a combination of factors caused by an extreme weather event. To give them their dues they carried almost 200 million passengers last year. I’ve flown them many times and always found them to be efficient.
One tech delay and comp was paid within 10 days.
I’ve also flown Concorde, AF La premiere and QR Qsuites, had delays and diversions on several carriers including a similar event many years ago.
FR flight crew are as highly qualified as any other carrier. In fact the last captain I chatted with in with had previously worked for BA for many years.
Admittedly it’s also a shock when you consider the amount of fuel left in this case
The weather was very bad in the north/ Scotland and across the Netherlands with gusts of over 100km/h , however the south east was spared. There are multiple airports such as Teesside, Newcastle, Leeds, Liverpool, Glasgow and Edinburgh. Leeds is especially prone to high wind given the geography. The viewpoint of a 737 pilot would be helpful here.
It was bad. Over the years it’s definitely become worse, with climate change. Coming from
the Atlantic they tend to take a trajectory over Scotland and then down over the North Sea towards the Netherlands. Amsterdam has far more wind events and air traffic restrictions nowadays than several years ago.
Newcastle and Leeds Bradford would have been closer but maybe not affected by the wind?
It would be interesting to know if similar aircraft were having similar problems landing at EDI & MAN around the same time that this flight was having issues.
If there were numerous diversions & go arounds due to aircraft having trouble landing safely due to storm Amy (around the time that this flight was attempting to land) that would suggest some very bad luck. If, however, other similar-sized aircraft were continuing to land without having to go around or divert, wouldn't that bring into question the crew's competence?
It's important to remember, though, that Charlie Kirk rejected the idea that climate change posed an existential threat to humanity, describing it as “complete gibberish, nonsense and balderdash” in December 2024 to members of Turning Point UK,
Nelson you are correct. Ryan Air loads limited fuel on its planes
From Google Ai overview:
Ryanair is known for loading limited fuel due to its cost-saving strategy, though it must always meet minimum safety requirements. This has resulted in past incidents where flights have had to make emergency landings due to low fuel, and recent events have shown a flight was within minutes of running out of fuel.
Lufthansa and Norwegian both diverted flights from Edinburgh the same day
https://www.edinburghlive.co.uk/news/edinburgh-news/edinburgh-flights-diverted-storm-amy-32609365
The weather was pretty rough, the storm was worst than we expected. With hindsight, Manchester would've have been a better first choice as EDI, ABZ, GLA, PIK and Belfast all had it pretty bad.
Ben, a minor detail but the fuel remaining would have been in the wing tanks, not held in the engines.
This is especially interesting because nearly a third of their total flight time in holding was conducted at 3-10,000 feet, where engines burn MUCH more fuel than at cruise altitude. This indicates they loaded more than enough fuel for multiple diversion points. I wasn’t there, but I wonder how much pressure they were under (if any) from the company to land at their intended destination, leading to the long hold at EDI. Diversions in non-emergency situations, typically have a back-and-forth with dispatchers. FR has been criticized in the past for trying to undermine-load fuel, but this appears to be more of a problem with crew decision making than anything else.
I think the more important question might be how early did other diversions happen as well. With the conditions what they were, I’m a little surprised how often the crew tried to land/put into holding patterns over their intended destination instead of diverting much, much, earlier, when it was apparent how bad the weather was. At the latest, after one go around.
Ben, did the pilots declare a fuel emergency? It's unclear because you don't say specifically whether they did or not (unless I missed it).
If they did declare a fuel emergency, I'm not sure what else could have been done.
If they didn't, the question becomes, were the pilots aware of the low fuel situation (and just somehow didn't have time to declare it)? Or were they oblivious to it? And if so, why?
@ Timtramtrak; Fuel load, amongst others is ALWAYS a decision of the flight crew!
Every airline does this. No airline will completely load a plane to completely full tanks unless it's absolutely required. It doesn't make economic sense to do so for any airline.
Pre-departure, fuel is a collaboration with the flight dispatcher and the crew, but after takeoff fuel management is the sole responsibility of the pilots.
@ Dylan;
It's clear that you don't know much about Airliners. Some Airlines even load up for a return flight.
Long time US major airline dispatcher. First for domestic flights reserve fuel is 45 minutes. I don’t know what the TAF and METAR were but I would have had two alternates, with one being a solid one, good TAF and METAR. Together with the captain I would have come up with a plan that hopefully would have avoided this situation, including landing enroute if the situation called for it. If the situation deteriorated enroute I would have urged the flight to divert or land enroute. If they went missed at PIK I would have strongly recommended diverting rather than holding. I would have figured out their fuel numbers and make sure the crew understood the situation. I don’t know the pressure Ryan Air pilots operate under but in 30 years of dispatching I never saw a flight land with that little fuel on board.
Nelson, Dylan is right. Airlines won’t tanker unless they need to (e.g. fueling issues at the destination airport). No airline in the world is ‘loading up for return flights’ as a matter of policy. It’s only as Dylan puts when ‘absolutely necessary’.
What should have been done, considering the extreme wind conditions at the landing site, was to have delayed or cancelled the flight at its starting point.
Being Ryanair, you can bet O'Leary will tweet that it was all the pax fault (and he'll mean it too).
You’re exactly right. This blogger is an aviation fan not an operations guy. You and I both know this story is BS but what’s the point of trying to correct.
@ Nelson;
"It's clear that you don't know much about Airliners." Fuel costs money to carry. NO major airline is sitting there filling every plane to the top like it's a pickup truck, not to mention the problem of max landing weights. Airlines will only bring return to places fuel is unavailable or so expensive it's cheaper to tanker the fuel partially or fully.
But what influence should reality have when you can be confidently incorrect because you just *don't like* an airline?
I live in Edinburgh and drove to Glasgow in the midst of this storm on Friday night. The wind and rain were bad but the gusts were utterly insane. Had several moments where staying in lane on the motorway took all my physical strength as the car was just being pushed horizontally 2-3m at a time. I’d stab a guess the gusts were just insane here.
That being said gusts up to 100mph were advised 4 days in advance so it shouldn’t have been a surprise.
In terms of questions of diversion airport id suggest MAN was selected as it was outside the storm path and other northern airports risks another go around and then no forth option. Fuel to land and go around is way higher than during flight.
That said. Squeaky bum time.
I think he'll say that the government better compensate Ryanair for the expense of flying to airports that have this kind of bad weather, or they'll pull out of the country.
A butterfly flapping it's wings near LBA is enough to make landing difficult. Humberside might have been an option but unsure what the weather was like there. Certainly where I live (in North Yorkshire) it was horrific.
good summary.
Ryanair does have a pretty good safety culture so I am not sure that there is as much operational pressure as some might presume.
All pilots understand that aeronautical governing bodies can and do have the potential to come after pilot licenses with far greater impact than what could happen to a company - so the incentive is to do what is best from the perspective of the pilot.
It is most likely that the pilots simply waited too long to pull the ripcord and get out of that part of the country and to an area where they could safely land.
A couple of missed approaches and a diversion is all most fuel planning prepares for - not missed approaches, holding and then a diversion.
When in holding check your alternate weather. They left holding then; 1. visually checked their alternate then 2. Declared fuel emergency then 3. easy straight in to Manchester. The luck of the Irish saved the poor planning!!!
Several years ago I read Ryanair always flew with minimal fuel for cost efficiency reasons ( weight of fuel etc) . If one googles you will see articles criticizing this airline for this. One day it will be a real disaster for reasons like this I suppose. I still fly them because they’ve never had an incident yet and cheap for a short flight.
And this is why storms can cause preemptive flight cancellations - to prevent the risk of exactly this happening.
Of course Ryanair were the ones flying into a storm and evidently being overly determined to land at the scheduled airport. Dislocated planes and crew cause costs, and it's their entire MO to reduce those as far as possible... And, apparently, further.