A330 runs out of fuel over the ocean: Toronto - Portugal ( 2001 ).

[Just a civilian pilot]

The accident was overshadowed by the events on 9/11 and many may not know about this one.

Very interesting.

Lessons Learned

This Lessons Learned From Transport Airplane Accidents Library is intended to provide information in order to aid in the continual improvement of the safety of commercial air travel.

lessonslearned.faa.gov

 

[tyman]

Interesting. When I first read the title and saw Toronto, I was thinking of the Gimli glider. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli_Glider

But entirely different situation and 20 years earlier.

 

[Just a civilian pilot]

Interesting. When I first read the title and saw Toronto, I was thinking of the Gimli glider. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli_Glider

But entirely different situation and 20 years earlier.

Both planes continued to fly for many years afterwards.

The A330 only stopped flying ( Azores fin ) due to the pandemic and was parked March 2020.

 

[wpod]

I wouldn't want to bear the responsibility of being a pilot. That being said most of the pilots I know seem to thrive on the flying the beasts.

 

[Astro14]

Truly brilliant airmanship.

Necessitated by truly abysmal fuel management.

 

[Just a civilian pilot]

Yep, those “dudes” were great glider pilots ....in a commercial jet.

IIRC, runway 33 has a big cliff ( 500 feet? ) if you go off the end ( they had no anti skid ).

 

[Creekside]

They got their money’s worth out of that landing gear. Time to jacket up and spin the tires 180. Only flat on the bottom.

 

[Just a civilian pilot]

They got their money’s worth out of that landing gear. Time to jacket up and spin the tires 180. Only flat on the bottom.

The plane was back in service 4 months later IIRC. The plane had some structural damage and the landing gear had to be replaced.

Must have been one helluva hard landing but easy to see how it could happen when landing at 200 knots ( much higher rate of descent ) and no automatic radar altitude calls.
normally get a “50, 30,20“ auto callout and the pilot starts to flare around thirty feet. The auto callout does not work when in electrical emergency configuration with the Rat out (below the aircraft only providing about 25% of normal electrics. ).

 

[Pelican]

The Gimli Glider and the Flight to Portugal problems were caused by fuel shortages due to confusion in refuelling between Lbs & Kg

 

[Just a civilian pilot]

The Gimli Glider ran out of fuel because it was short about 50% of the trip fuel due to a screw up with manual fuel calculations because of unserviceable cockpit/refuel panel fuel gauges ( metric calculation screw up ) IIRC.

The Air Transat flight boarded the correct amount of fuel but ran out because of a fuel leak exacerbated by the pilots not detecting it early enough and transferring fuel from the good side ( isolated wing tanks until you open the cross feed which they did ) to the leaking side.

First rule rule when you have a fuel imbalance ( why does one side have more than the other ) .....WHY do we have an imbalance.

 

[Just a civilian pilot]

The show “mayday” ( flying on empty ) has a good reenactment of the flight.

FYI: Airbus changed its fuel check policy after this , IIRC, to ensure fuel checks were done every 30 minutes ( used to be much longer before ) Max and Airbus manuals ( emergency/abnormal checklists ...” fuel imbalance“ )updated to emphasize to check for fuel leaks before opening cross feed to balance fuel to prevent the same problem.

Not sure about the A330 but the narrow body Airbus triggers a cockpit “caution” when the fuel imbalance reaches 1500 KGS.

Various places a fuel leak can come from and , actually, a leak from an engine is the best one if caught early because you can totally stop it by shutting down an engine ( o.k over ocean, not great if over high mountains but A330 has enough power one engine to remain over it versus narrow body Airbus ).

High fuel flow ( and low N1 ) are early indicators of a possible fuel leak if one is suspected.

 

[Quattro Pete]

The show “mayday” ( flying on empty ) has a good reenactment of the flight.

Link to the video, if anyone's interested:

 

[Just a civilian pilot]

Link to the video, if anyone's interested:

Thanks.

 

[PWMDMD]

Check the **** checklist!