Allegiant Air flight runs low on fuel over closed airport, makes emergency landing

Because dispatch hands you a flight package, or you bring it up yourself at the ops office before departure. With the weather and the operational flight plan, there are maybe 58 pages (looking at my last package) Buried on page 36, there is a notam about the airport being closed during the following period "blah blah blah" When (if) you notice this, you check the arrival time and say "We get there beforehand…."

Then 6 things happen (which led to the hour delay, and the NOTAM has slipped your mind. When you level off in cruise, you check the arrival time and a bell goes off…….. you recheck the notam and call dispatch, let them know about the situation, and they PROMISE to arrange things for your arrival. So maybe you decide to cruise faster than usual to make up some of the time, and the winds are 15 knots off velocity and 35 degrees off direction, giving you a greater than expected headwind or less than expected tailwind. ….and of course you used fuel if the delay was partially after engine start in the line up for departure…..

Pucker factor is increasing, but you call dispatch a couple times and they "are working on it….."

So Kenneth, it is usually not one thing, accidents happen when the factors build up and any one thing would not have caused an accident, but together these little facts conspire against you.

Now, I am not an airline pilot, I am a VIP corporate sled pilot. I am not beholden to dispatch or operations and I can take the fuel I want. But I still get this tome of paper handed to me. Arrival at the airport 2 hours before departure sounds like enough, does´t it?

But the flight attendant calls, stuck in traffic or broken down, the fuel truck has you next on the list……but doesn´t have enough remaining and so has to go to the fuel farm and reload, the passenger´s driver calls and says they are 30 minutes early and he expects to be at the gate in 15 minutes. The catering just arrived, but remember the FA is missing…..

It can happen to the best of us, airline or executive charter, corporate, private. Try telling the boss that he cannot land due to storms in the area and he will accept that safety comes first. Try telling him you will be delayed 30 minutes in order to finish reading the notams and you might be looking for another job quick-like.

I am not trying to make an excuse for the pilot, he can explain it himself and undoubted will get the chance. But read Fate is the Hunter and report back.

Actually, the FAA has a NOTAM Improvement Panel in place at the moment to address issues like this. The current July 2015 ASRS Callback http://asrs.arc.nasa.gov/publications/callback/cb_426.html focuses on a few cases where controllers and pilots have missed NOTAMS, and what needs to be done to reduce these occurances.

To answer your questions Ken:
1. They shouldn't.
2. They shouldn't.
3.They could have had min. fuel on board and been hit with a gate return for whatever reason and Captain knowing what all he was up against and frustrated at the delay anyway, could have just simply forgot to take additional or though he could do it OK. He may have forgot about the closing. The only thing certain about this whole deal that has been made public is that he was basically out of gas.

Apparently, your USN flight team has priority but not for emergency landings. It's laughable if it wasn't so serious. Tower has a responsibility to land ER's now, not send them 70nm to Grand Forks.

They usually do not disrupt normal scheduled airline flights in and out only civilian AC. This is even during an airshow they shut it down long enough to accommodate scheduled airline traffic at all airshows I have been at. Also if they were doing practice usually its off airport and the airliner would not be circling close in during it if it was at the airport. Something screwed up bad as they should not have been that low on fuel due to the requirements if an alternate airport is needed.

Sorry, I meant...didn't require Alternate fuel...you always have to have Reserve fuel

Oy - he burned his reserve sitting on the ground for an hour! Prolly waiting on the VIP's to arrive.

It's the DM - don't believe everything you read from them. After all they hired Piers Morgan as one of their online editors.

I heard the recording and he actually did say "3 minutes of fuel left"

Well, we'll probably never know. I guess it could be fabricated up on the gate return but the fact remains that at takeoff there is the requirement for 45 minutes reserve fuel.

Them or the FAA one will be looking at it.

Well, during all that time of talking to the tower, listen to the tapes on the story and while it may be splitting hairs, he never declared an Emergency. As noted below, BINGO fuel probably didn't mean anything to ATC unless there was an ex military controller in there and tower told the pilot that they had an opening in about 20 mins. It is at that point that Emergency was declared and he landed.

This track doesn't show anything I would call "circling the airport." Sure, there's what appears to be a longer than normal downwind leg, but to be running that low on fuel at that point shows a lack of planning somewhere.

An it may have been a factor with the Captain. He may have had a gate return for mx or whatever and went on, forgetting the NOTAM, and figuring a light traffic airport, no problem. As you say, we can speculate on this thing until hell freezes over and very doubtful we'll ever know why. Although, this thing has made all the National News broadcasts so we may hear more about it. We'll see.

Well, boiling everything down, how come with a one hour delay on departure, were they cleared in the 1st place. Somebody besides Allegiant had to know about that closing.

Yep. That's what I said. Its not like Fargo was an alternate -- it was their destination. And they certainly wouldn't have to close an airport for refueling. We may never hear "the real story" and Allegiant doesn't need any more media attention.