CFC too much air in the tanks?

[Strega]

Just heard through the grapevine a CFC Katana landed in a field a couple of miles short of YBW... Rumor is too much air in the tanks.......

Anyone know anything else?

S

[Beefitarian]

Cancel that link.

2010. Sorry.

[Shiny Side Up]

I assume you're referring to this one?

http://www.globaltvcalgary.com/pages/st ... 6442740364

[grimey]

I'm sure if the cause was something stupid they'll get in more than enough shit for it. Good job getting it down safely regardless of the cause though, looks pretty much like a repeat of the Katana that landed in a field short of YOW a month or two ago.

[BTyyj]

http://wwwapps.tc.gc.ca/Saf-Sec-Sur/2/c ... srchtype=1

Glad everyone's okay.

[Colonel Sanders]

I personally find it hilarious that pilots are always
so concerned and upset about single-engine at
night, or over water.

Yet again and again and again and again we see
accidents in SEL aircraft which are frankly self-
inflicted wounds. Like this one.

I suspect that at least 95% of light aircraft accidents
are directly caused by the pilot. These can be easily
attributed to

1) poor decisions - e.g. don't refuel, push the range,
vfr into IMC, let's buzz the house, etc.

2) poor aircraft handling skills - e.g. inability to succesfully
take off and land, under not very challenging circumstances.

It's really very simple. If you don't want to crash, make
better decisions and improve your aircraft handling skills.

Depressingly, I don't think this has changed in the last 100 years.

[burhead1]

I personally find it hilarious that pilots are always
so concerned and upset about single-engine at
night, or over water.

Yet again and again and again and again we see
accidents in SEL aircraft which are frankly self-
inflicted wounds. Like this one.

I suspect that at least 95% of light aircraft accidents
are directly caused by the pilot. These can be easily
attributed to

1) poor decisions - e.g. don't refuel, push the range,
vfr into IMC, let's buzz the house, etc.

2) poor aircraft handling skills - e.g. inability to succesfully
take off and land, under not very challenging circumstances.

It's really very simple. If you don't want to crash, make
better decisions and improve your aircraft handling skills.

Depressingly, I don't think this has changed in the last 100 years.

It will not change, why? Because we are not all perfect.

[Shiny Side Up]

It's really very simple. If you don't want to crash, make
better decisions and improve your aircraft handling skills.

What I always find puzzling though is how often I find that pilots will have one or the other, but rarely both. How is it that some one, to use the example of this incident, can apparently learn to be a reasonable enough stick to conduct a engine out approach to a safe landing but not be clever enough to check their fuel quantity, or keep track of it?

[CpnCrunch]

The strange (or perhaps not) thing is that there was an instructor on board.

[Shiny Side Up]

Ten to one then, no one checked the fuel at all. Hopefully both learned from their mistake.

[Colonel Sanders]

The strange (or perhaps not) thing is that there was an instructor on board

Not strange. Instructors run out of gas all the time, at least around here.

[Shiny Side Up]

Well it usually takes two to play that game though. Students always answer "yes" when you ask them if they checked their fuel as part of the pre-flight briefing. A student who says they did but didn't is a daily occurance around here, and a few think they're clever and make up a number. That said though, the instructors are too wound up in getting going that they assume the students are always doing what they're supposed to, though once or twice I'd guess that the instructor knew their student wasn't truthful (purposefully or otherwise) and for some reason decided to risk it anyways. Having a smaller operation its been easier to catch these potential incidents and end them, but since it seems like such an ongoing battle, I don't know how larger schools manage to combat this sort of issue without pulling one's hair out. I suspect the main means is a gross ammount of checklisted procedure.

Like I said, hopefully some good came of this and two people learned a valuable lesson. Sometimes people only learn them the hard way.

[Beefitarian]

I've been trying not to post in this one. It feels kind of personal so I'm about to fail. How could you do this?

I have flown at the club quite a bit. They make you write fuel quantity on a sign out sheet and initial to confirm you did a walk around then initial to confirm your calculated weight. The only way around dipping the tanks I can imagine is to lie. Why would anyone do that?

Why would anyone trust that a plane someone else flew had fuel put back in it? Why would anyone not want to know the weight and balance of the plane calculated with actual fuel quantity on board? I'm paranoid and usually do a second no fuel calculation to make sure the center of gravity cannot go outside the limits as fuel is burned.

When I first read "dual flight" in the report, I thought, "How did the instructor let that happen." I now think that was very unfair to them. There are possibly ten planes and a similar amount of instructors there. Between switching planes, late bookings and the potential for someone to lie to you and insist, "Oh yes, of course I checked for fuel." Unless they have a policy to dip the tanks themselves each flight. You have to trust the students. I don't know if I could after this.

Funny thing to me is I have had at least one instructor there dip the tanks or watch me dip them a second time because they did not trust me. The amount of fuel I found in the plane did not sound right so they wanted to verify. At the time I was amused. Now I'm surprised they don't do that every flight.

Sorry to be blunt and I intend no offense but, I can only think of two ways to find out a plane is low on fuel, with a stick of some sort preflight or like they did on that flight.

I know, talking like this raises the potential for it to happen to me significantly, feel free to make fun of me. I'll make a real name account and take full blame if it ever does. I just can't imagine flying a plane without physically checking the fuel level first.

I want to believe they did check and somehow lost the fuel but it sure doesn't look like it.

[Shiny Side Up]

You have to trust the students. I don't know if I could after this.

I've learned not to. Though I do realise it sometimes hurts their feelings if you make a show of not trusting them. This still falls chiefly on the instructor though. To this end I usually go about monitoring the airplanes' fuel covertly. I check it before they show up, and directly see to all the fuelling. Like the cowboys say, trust everyone, but tie up your horse. Fuel in tanks, students and private pilots is unfortunately always going to be an issue. People end up with too much air in the tanks for a whole host of silly reasons which would take too much time and bytes to completely list.

[CFR]

I've been trying not to post in this one. It feels kind of personal so I'm about to fail. How could you do this?

I have flown at the club quite a bit. They make you write fuel quantity on a sign out sheet and initial to confirm you did a walk around then initial to confirm your calculated weight. The only way around dipping the tanks I can imagine is to lie. Why would anyone do that?

Why would anyone trust that a plane someone else flew had fuel put back in it? Why would anyone not want to know the weight and balance of the plane calculated with actual fuel quantity on board? I'm paranoid and usually do a second no fuel calculation to make sure the center of gravity cannot go outside the limits as fuel is burned.

When I first read "dual flight" in the report, I thought, "How did the instructor let that happen." I now think that was very unfair to them. There are possibly ten planes and a similar amount of instructors there. Between switching planes, late bookings and the potential for someone to lie to you and insist, "Oh yes, of course I checked for fuel." Unless they have a policy to dip the tanks themselves each flight. You have to trust the students. I don't know if I could after this.

Funny thing to me is I have had at least one instructor there dip the tanks or watch me dip them a second time because they did not trust me. The amount of fuel I found in the plane did not sound right so they wanted to verify. At the time I was amused. Now I'm surprised they don't do that every flight.

Sorry to be blunt and I intend no offense but, I can only think of two ways to find out a plane is low on fuel, with a stick of some sort preflight or like they did on that flight.

I know, talking like this raises the potential for it to happen to me significantly, feel free to make fun of me. I'll make a real name account and take full blame if it ever does. I just can't imagine flying a plane without physically checking the fuel level first.

I want to believe they did check and somehow lost the fuel but it sure doesn't look like it.

One of the best bit of somewhat tongue in cheek advice I ever recieved, was to fly as if everyone is trying to kill you! Check everything yourself.

I can see why this happens at a busy club and in fact some time ago I did a mock case study to illustrate how something like this could occur ...

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A student pilot on a solo cross country runs out of fuel and makes a successful forced approach to a farmers field. The immediate reaction from most people is that the pilot failed to ensure there was enough fuel to make the flight, and the fault and fix are solely the pilot’s responsibility . A cursory examination of the event shows that the FTU has a rule in place requiring pilots to visually inspect the fuel level in the tanks, and there are fuel sticks and sample cups available for every aircraft. So the conclusion is that the defenses are good, clearly the pilot made his own “hole” in the swiss cheese model. With no injury or damage the occurrence is considered minor and the pilot is cautioned, a review of preflight requirements take place, and operations carry on.

However a more detailed examination of a case of this nature might uncover more contributing factors such as:

- The aircraft was filled first thing in the morning with its only booking being the x-country.

- A snag in another aircraft caused this one to be used for two flights before the x-country.

- The booking changes were done by instructors to meet their immediate requirement without looking at the remaining flights for the day. When the dispatcher was asked by the student pilot if the A/C was fueled he replied it was full as he was unaware of the extra two flights.

- Student pilot did not dip tanks himself as the fuel stick was not in the aircraft. He relied on the dispatchers assertion that the tanks were full. While the gauges showed between ½ and ¾ full everyone knows they are inaccurate.

- Supervising instructor asked student pilot how much fuel on board to which he replied “full”, without mentioning that he had not dipped the tanks.

- Winds at the departure airport required a lengthy taxi to the active runway.

- Changes in winds aloft cause some delays in arriving at destination and while the gauges showing 1/3 full causes the pilot some concerns, the missing fuel stick and the fact that he does not have a credit card to allow him to put some fuel in (plus there is reluctance since he must pay the out of pocket difference between the FTU purchase price and what he pays at other aerodromes) leads him to decide that the gauges are wrong (they are ALWAYS wrong) and that he has sufficient fuel to return.

A failure analysis approach to this occurrence would identify numerous issues that on this day, lined up to cause the occurrence including:

- While there is a company policy to dip tanks on every pre-flight, in reality this is not always practiced, especially in winter months. Since most flights are local, the practice has become to fly three bookings and then refuel prior to the fourth.

- Once trained in the proper pre-flight procedures, students rarely, if ever get monitored again, until their flight test. Many students have come to believe that since the previous pilot has done a pre-flight, there is little likelihood that anything will have changed.

- Bookings can be changed by any of the staff without considering the ripple effects. This, coupled with a lack of awareness by the dispatcher led him to erroneously advise the pilot that the A/C was full.

- The common sense statement that “fuel gauges should not be relied upon as the sole means of confirming fuel on board” has become the myth that “gauges are not reliable and should never be trusted”.

- Fuel sticks differ from A/C to A/C or are missing. “Borrowing” from plane to plane is the local solution. While occasionally the missing fuel sticks are mentioned, no one officially brings it to managements attention.

- Students regularly conduct cross country flights without there being a requirement to carry emergency funds.

It is interesting to note that often in cases like this, where there is no injury or damage the occurrence is treated as minor, and little detailed investigation is taken. The fact is that the outcome of the occurrence is usually only a result of chance. In the sample case study, the result could have been a fatal crash. Too often the “result” of an occurrence is used to determine the level of effort used to examine the occurrence.

Studies have shown that on average an organization has a serious event for every 600 instances where hazardous conditions result in no significant negative outcome.

In our hypothetical scenario, further investigation showed that on a number of occasions after cross country flights, dispatchers had noticed that aircraft had returned with less than the minimum fuel requirements left on board, but did not report the issue as they did not want to get anyone in trouble.

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[Duncan Idaho]

An audible fuel warning horn couldn't be that expensive to rig up, maybe people should think about installing them into light single-engine airplanes. Not because we all need it but, all the larger aircraft are being loaded up with regs on aircraft equipment, when I think it would be better put to use on smaller aircraft that are having the most accidents.

[Duncan Idaho]

It is interesting to note that often in cases like this, where there is no injury or damage the occurrence is treated as minor, and little detailed investigation is taken.

That's true, and it would be nice to have a full investigation done for every incident. But even if that was a fatal crash it would not be investigated. The TSB normally spends most of their time investigating incidents that they'll learn new information from and this would not qualify for a full teardown and accident report I don't think. It happens too often. They want to focus their time on areas where they can put out AD's and publications to improve aviation safety. This incident was due to carelessness and poor training, which unfortunately we're all already aware of, so you can't blame them.

- The common sense statement that “fuel gauges should not be relied upon as the sole means of confirming fuel on board” has become the myth that “gauges are not reliable and should never be trusted”.

This is true! I agree. I had a similar incident 5 years ago that really scared me straight. I checked the tanks and did a quick DI on a light single-engine plane I had been shuffled into immediately after a previous charter and was trying to work quick to get the trip away on time. It was cold out though, maybe -15, so when I checked one fuel tank with the dipstick, the fuel reading on the wooden stick didn't evaporate before I checked the other tank. Be careful of this.. I wound up departing on a 1.5 hr return trip thinking I had 2.2 hours of fuel on board, but the other tank was actually quite lower and I had only 1.5 or so. When I got to my destination and fired back up for the return leg, the fuel gauges were reading so low that I taxied off to park it on more level ground, shut down to dip the tanks again. One side was way lower than the other and I don't know if I would have ever made it back had I left.

The gauges in light singles aren't very good, but spend some time learning where they sit at relative fuel levels, it's all good information and nothing you should ignore.

[Shiny Side Up]

I can see why this happens at a busy club and in fact some time ago I did a mock case study to illustrate how something like this could occur ...

At the end of the day though, there is one person's ass on the line for a flight - or two in the case of a student under supervision. While one could consider all sorts of "contributing factors" one person directly failed at their task. 'nuff said. Seriously people, take responsibility for yourselves.

[CpnCrunch]

I think you just need to be paranoid - basically assume that if either your calculations OR the gauges are reading low, you better get on the ground.

[teacher]

2 things I used to always tell students. "Pretend everyone is trying to kill you" and "trust no one." I've told them to not even trust me because I don't trust you. Always double check. It works even when flying 2 crew outside of instructing

Edited for annoying auto correct!

[Rookie50]

You have to trust the students. I don't know if I could after this.

I've learned not to. Though I do realise it sometimes hurts their feelings if you make a show of not trusting them. This still falls chiefly on the instructor though. To this end I usually go about monitoring the airplanes' fuel covertly. I check it before they show up, and directly see to all the fuelling. Like the cowboys say, trust everyone, but tie up your horse. Fuel in tanks, students and private pilots is unfortunately always going to be an issue. People end up with too much air in the tanks for a whole host of silly reasons which would take too much time and bytes to completely list.

It is the responsibility of the PIC. Period. Even when I was in my CPL training, after a long history with the club, I was asked by my instructor -- who knew me well -- the fuel and oil level before every flight. Of course I have checked it, before Every flight. Winter, summer, rain, whatever, told it was full or not. That's my responsibility. I can't imagine trusting someone elses word for it. It's
funny how this is not taken seriously. On the other hand, If I was teaching, and my student lied to me about fuel, I'd have a hard time continuing to work with that student.

On the other other hand, when I as an (advanced, licensed) student, happened to discuss a procedure or judgement error I felt I had made on a flight (not fuel!, we're talking grey area stuff many would'nt give a second thought) -- simply things I could have improved on --- with certian people at the FTU, the response was critical with a punitive attitude, while my attitude was, and is, to learn, even from subtle errors. As if none of these person(s) had ever made a single error while low time.

To the FTU's, this is the equivalent of brutally poor CRM. The captain isn't supposed to lay into an inexperienced FO for asking a question on how to conduct a flight better, and the same goes when your experienced CPL students ask questions to try to learn about safe real world Ops. What you teach them is not to ask questions that might better improve judgment.


Outside of the FTU, When I would discuss ways to improve, with multi - thousand hour other CPL's and PPL's, a productive learning conversation resulted. So perhaps the attitude of some people in FTU's needs to distinguish between the cowboys out there and those trying to improve on advanced procedures without getting stepped on.

I hesitate to post this. Of course likely none of the posters here have ever made any errors of any kind, on any flight. I must be the only one.

[Shiny Side Up]

with certian people at the FTU, the response was critical with a punitive attitude, while my attitude was, and is, to learn, even from subtle errors. As if none of these person(s) had ever made a single error while low time.

This is probably one of the tougher areas to manage in flight training. There's a point where you want to to be a learning experience, but also sometimes you need to remind them of the gravity of the mistake. Its tough to tell when you're hitting it home to the students and I would suspect many instructors go overboard on it as a matter of course to be safe rather than sorry. Its an unfortunate fact that people remember negative feelings far longer than they do positive ones.

On the other hand, If I was teaching, and my student lied to me about fuel, I'd have a hard time continuing to work with that student.

If that was the case, I'd probably would have had to quit flying with a majority of the students I've worked with. But there's lying and then there's lying if you catch my drift. Some you can give a gentle prod and the truth comes out. An unfortunate fact of the world is many people are accustomed to lying as a matter of course as an automated response to save themselves even the smallest discomfort or admittance of their own failure to do something. You don't have to always call them on it after all, there's other ways of getting the job done. I know, I know, getting soft and all that. Fortunately its only a very few students who are problematic with it where one has to bring out the big stick.

[CpnCrunch]

You have to trust the students. I don't know if I could after this.

I've learned not to. Though I do realise it sometimes hurts their feelings if you make a show of not trusting them. This still falls chiefly on the instructor though. .

It is the responsibility of the PIC. Period.

On a dual flight the instructor is the PIC, so the responsibility ultimately lies with them.

[Rookie50]

SSU, we are talking a Nazi - like attitude to a complex IFR question about accepting certain clearances from ATC, in defined situations, to a new IFR pilot. . This kind of decision making, which takes awhile to develop.

We are not talking forgetting to check fuel, oil, W and B, and a hundred other stupid things, nor are we talking about a cowboy, defiant attitude. This was well known, trust me.

It was a ridiculous response, to something only apparent because I ask a lot of questions of others with more experience.

Never again. I will get my counsel from those i respect -- without the jerk attitude, thanks very much. Learned my lesson.

Hours don't mean competence.

[Beefitarian]

Lots of good stuff here.

I think it must have been a case of both parties trusting the other must have made sure the fuel was there. I'd love to be able to say I could never do it but never say never.

Even if I were a student pilot and the instructor was fully held responsible I'd know it was my fault and that would be a terrible burden to carry. I feel bad for the guy.