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Brazil football team Chapecoense in Colombia plane crash

Re: Brazilian soccer team's plane crashes in Colombia; 76 dead

Nono said:
Plane ran out of fuel

One should always be wary of media reports about ... well about almost anything. Certainly air crashes, and certainly just a few days after they happen.

This article said they had a fuel emergency and electrical problems. Hmm.. How likely is that?

Anyway, "anger" should wait for some a reliable investigation finding ---- not rumour.
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Actually, the electrical problems were a result of the fuel problems, the plane had to go on battery power, also, that type of plane does not have a RAT (ram air turbine) which is a last resort power generator on most airliners (its a fan that is deployed out the bottom of the plane, the air turns the fan, produces electricity).

What happened here was a plane that was flying dangerously close to its range, for a bad airline that had existing mech issues, add in that the weather was't great, the approach is difficult, and it was an old plane type, and most likely didn't have very experienced pilots (I'm still finding info on that), and you have a recipe for failure.
 
Serenity said:
Just awful and thoughts and prayers are with all involved.
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There were videos shown of the team prior to leaving, some in the clubhouse, some even on the plane. They were all happy and gregarious. I couldn't help but think, "You're going to be dead in a few hours." I don't know why, but that always strikes me deeper than normal. :(
 
Re: Brazilian soccer team's plane crashes in Colombia; 76 dead

beefheart said:
Oh, so the Seattle Sounders with average attendance of 42,636 per match is less than tennis? Did you know that MLS has ha higher average attendance per game than the NBA or NHL? There are 20 MLS teams, and in 2016, average attendance was 21.692, with total attendance of 7,375,144. Now, that is just MLS, take in the USL and any of a number of exhibition games or the CONCAF Gold Cup which was held in the USA in 2016, and tell me again that soccer is less watched? As for TV ratings, with weekly MLS matches and Premier League games televised nationwide, tell me again how tennis beats soccer?

en.wikipediaorg/wiki/Major_League_Soccer_attendance
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u soccer guys are so funny.

"no one wants to watch a sport that everyone mastered by the age of 7"
-professor tosh
 
Re: Brazilian soccer team's plane crashes in Colombia; 76 dead

11Bravo said:
u soccer guys are so funny.

"no one wants to watch a sport that everyone mastered by the age of 7"
-professor tosh
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yawn....
 
Re: Brazilian soccer team's plane crashes in Colombia; 76 dead

11Bravo said:
u soccer guys are so funny.

"no one wants to watch a sport that everyone mastered by the age of 7"
-professor tosh
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That isn't an answer.

Rather it is a pathetic way to spin your way out of being completely wrong.
 
Re: Brazilian soccer team's plane crashes in Colombia; 76 dead

beefheart said:
Actually, the electrical problems were a result of the fuel problems, the plane had to go on battery power, also, that type of plane does not have a RAT (ram air turbine) which is a last resort power generator on most airliners (its a fan that is deployed out the bottom of the plane, the air turns the fan, produces electricity).
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Well, you don't have electrical problems before fuel exhaustion is complete. Then you're on your way down anyway, so "electrical problems" are beside the point. And no RAT is going to save you at night above rough terrain.

Barring a major fuel leak (and again I say that conclusions at this point are iffy indeed) I can't imagine how any sane crew can run out of fuel like that if they have followed regulations.

Apparently the captain was co-owner of the airline. Maybe he was afraid that declaring a fuel emergency would lead to legal trouble .... until it was too late.

What happened here was a plane that was flying dangerously close to its range, for a bad airline that had existing mech issues, add in that the weather was't great, the approach is difficult, and it was an old plane type, and most likely didn't have very experienced pilots (I'm still finding info on that), and you have a recipe for failure.
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Yes, well, fuel consumption is a question of time, not distance. Many approaches in that part of the world are tricky. If you're at max range then you can't afford the slightest weather or traffic issue. That's why regulations exist.

As for the plane's age, this type is flying safely all around the world. It isn't that old. And, properly maintained, an airplane can go on flying virtually forever. Consider the DC-3.
 
Re: Brazilian soccer team's plane crashes in Colombia; 76 dead

Nono said:
Well, you don't have electrical problems before fuel exhaustion is complete. Then you're on your way down anyway, so "electrical problems" are beside the point. And no RAT is going to save you at night above rough terrain.

Barring a major fuel leak (and again I say that conclusions at this point are iffy indeed) I can't imagine how any sane crew can run out of fuel like that if they have followed regulations.

Apparently the captain was co-owner of the airline. Maybe he was afraid that declaring a fuel emergency would lead to legal trouble .... until it was too late.



Yes, well, fuel consumption is a question of time, not distance. Many approaches in that part of the world are tricky. If you're at max range then you can't afford the slightest weather or traffic issue. That's why regulations exist.

As for the plane's age, this type is flying safely all around the world. It isn't that old. And, properly maintained, an airplane can go on flying virtually forever. Consider the DC-3.
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I know that fuel consumption is a question of time. Range however is a question of distance, which is why I used the word range. If you fly a plane outside of its range, you are also going to run out of time. Its splitting hairs a bit but I understand the concept. (I worked for a major airline for 14 years, and took early retirement with flight bennies, I'm an airline geek.

As for the plane type, the Avro RJ is not in use by many airlines, not many were made because the market for a 4 engine regional jet is very tiny, the operators of this plane are mostly small operators, who got the plane on the cheap. When an airline operates on the cheap, bad things happen. I've flown in the older variant, the BAE 146, I didn't care for the plane.

The fact that the distance between Santa Cruz and Medellin is 1605 nm, the range of the plane is 1600 nm, the Bolivian authorities should have never allowed that plane to file that routing. As a result, the plane had to go into a holding pattern and they exhausted their fuel supply. They have regulations about how much reserve fuel is needed and its clear that they broke that regulation.

I was surprised to see that the Avro didn't have a RAT, not that it would have mattered, without enough fuel. This reminds me of the Avianca 707 that crashed on approach to JFK (ironically flying from Medellin) due to exhausting all of its fuel.

This should have never happened, I hope that LaMia gets its operating permit revoked, there is no excuse for this level of incompetence.

ETA, I read that the flight duration in the plan was set for 4 hrs 22 min which is exactly the endurance time for that type of plane. That is criminal.
 
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Re: Brazilian soccer team's plane crashes in Colombia; 76 dead

beefheart said:
I know that fuel consumption is a question of time. Range however is a question of distance, which is why I used the word range. If you fly a plane outside of its range, you are also going to run out of time. Its splitting hairs a bit but I understand the concept. (I worked for a major airline for 14 years, and took early retirement with flight bennies, I'm an airline geek.

As for the plane type, the Avro RJ is not in use by many airlines, not many were made because the market for a 4 engine regional jet is very tiny, the operators of this plane are mostly small operators, who got the plane on the cheap. When an airline operates on the cheap, bad things happen. I've flown in the older variant, the BAE 146, I didn't care for the plane.

The fact that the distance between Santa Cruz and Medellin is 1605 nm, the range of the plane is 1600 nm, the Bolivian authorities should have never allowed that plane to file that routing. As a result, the plane had to go into a holding pattern and they exhausted their fuel supply. They have regulations about how much reserve fuel is needed and its clear that they broke that regulation.

I was surprised to see that the Avro didn't have a RAT, not that it would have mattered, without enough fuel. This reminds me of the Avianca 707 that crashed on approach to JFK (ironically flying from Medellin) due to exhausting all of its fuel.

This should have never happened, I hope that LaMia gets its operating permit revoked, there is no excuse for this level of incompetence.

ETA, I read that the flight duration in the plan was set for 4 hrs 22 min which is exactly the endurance time for that type of plane. That is criminal.
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This is South America, second only to Africa for continents which always under perform humanity.

For good reasons.
 
Re: Brazilian soccer team's plane crashes in Colombia; 76 dead

Hawkeye10 said:
This is South America, second only to Africa for continents which always under perform humanity.

For good reasons.
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Also, they could have misjudged the weight and balance numbers as well, meaning the plane took off with enough fuel, but above the maximum take off weight. Also, older plane, it could have a slightly higher fuel burn than the stated rate.

The pilot said he was out of fuel and lost electrical, which would happen if you were out of fuel. He may not have declared emergency early enough because he could have had big fines for flying a route that was too long (range and time).
 
Re: Brazilian soccer team's plane crashes in Colombia; 76 dead

beefheart said:
Also, they could have misjudged the weight and balance numbers as well, meaning the plane took off with enough fuel, but above the maximum take off weight. Also, older plane, it could have a slightly higher fuel burn than the stated rate.

The pilot said he was out of fuel and lost electrical, which would happen if you were out of fuel. He may not have declared emergency early enough because he could have had big fines for flying a route that was too long (range and time).
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Maybe you know the answer to this...why is everyone acting like there was an electrical problem? If the fuel is out the engines do not work and no electricity is made. Also, when you(F) are a pilot of a plane that is out of gas do you(F) really obey orders and crash rather than land? Me, I think I land, I tell the controller "**** you, I am out of gas, I am coming it....move everyone out of my way".


BTW I did read that this airport that they were trying to get to is very hard to land on, short runway, high elevation, requiring a fast approach....sounds like something that can not be done if the plane has become a glider.

Do we have any pilots or air traffic controllers here? I am very curious as to what was the critical error, I am thinking that I blame the pilot primarily but maybe I could be argued out of that position.
 
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Re: Brazilian soccer team's plane crashes in Colombia; 76 dead

Hawkeye10 said:
Maybe you know the answer to this...why is everyone acting like there was an electrical problem? If the fuel is out the engines do not work and no electricity is made. Also, when you(F) are a pilot of a plane that is out of gas do you(F) really obey orders and crash rather than land? Me, I think I land, I tell the controller "**** you, I am out of gas, I am coming it....move everyone out of my way".


BTW I did read that this airport that they were trying to get to is very hard to land on, short runway, high elevation, requiring a fast approach....sounds like something that can not be done if the plane has become a glider.

Do we have any pilots or air traffic controllers here? I am very curious as the what was the critical error, I am thinking that I blame the pilot primarily but maybe I could be argued out of that position.
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Well, without fuel, you don't have electrical. We know for a fact the plane had no fuel and the electrical was on back up batteries. At least that is what i read in the airlne employee forums. The flight plan should never have been filed, nor approved for that length of a flight...especially with bad weather. Its criminal.
 
Re: Brazilian soccer team's plane crashes in Colombia; 76 dead

beefheart said:
Well, without fuel, you don't have electrical. We know for a fact the plane had no fuel and the electrical was on back up batteries. At least that is what i read in the airlne employee forums. The flight plan should never have been filed, nor approved for that length of a flight...especially with bad weather. Its criminal.
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Brazil's O Globo reported that because of a delayed departure, a refuelling stop in Cobija - on the border between Brazil and Bolivia - was abandoned because the airport did not operate at night.
The pilot had the option to refuel in Bogota, but headed straight to Medellin.
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Chapecoense air crash: Colombia plane 'ran out of fuel' - BBC News

I still end up at pilot error, criminally so...
 
Re: Brazilian soccer team's plane crashes in Colombia; 76 dead

beefheart said:
Avro RJ is not in use by many airlines, not many were made because the market for a 4 engine regional jet is very tiny, the operators of this plane are mostly small operators, who got the plane on the cheap.
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It's in use all over Europe. Swiss International has 16 of the things. They're very good with short runways.

The Bolivian authorities should have never allowed that plane to file that routing.
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Agreed.

I hope that LaMia gets its operating permit revoked.
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Already happened. But I think they had just the one aircraft.
 
Re: Brazilian soccer team's plane crashes in Colombia; 76 dead

The pilot was listening to the radio and recalled that the crew of the LaMia aircraft did not declare to air traffic controllers a specific emergency regarding low fuel. In the audio, Upedgui said, “I remember that [my] commander asked, ‘They have fuel problems and are not declaring an emergency?'”
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Pilot in Colombian Crash Said Plane Was in ‘Total Electric Failure and Without Fuel,’ Recordings Show | KTLA

We still need to get to the bottom of exactly what the pilot told controllers, I have read that controller gave priority to a different flight, one that did declare an emergency, for leaking fuel.
 
Re: Brazilian soccer team's plane crashes in Colombia; 76 dead

Nono said:
It's in use all over Europe. Swiss International has 16 of the things. They're very good with short runways.



Agreed.



Already happened. But I think they had just the one aircraft.
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I flew the 146 on the old Sabena, I went from Copenhagen to Brussels to on to Chicago on a different plane, but my bags went to the Canary Islands for a week...
 
Re: Brazilian soccer team's plane crashes in Colombia; 76 dead

Hawkeye10 said:
[We still need to get to the bottom of exactly what the pilot told controllers, I have read that controller gave priority to a different flight, one that did declare an emergency, for leaking fuel.
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As I said in a previous post:

1) the media invariably get some -- or a lot of -- things wrong;

2) speculating a few days after a crash is, well, speculation.

One interesting tidbit for speculation is the apparent fact that the captain was co-owner of the company. Did that prevent him from declaring an emergency until it was too late?

Anyway, always best to wait for the investigators' report. Which can take a long time.
 
Re: Brazilian soccer team's plane crashes in Colombia; 76 dead

Nono said:
As I said in a previous post:

1) the media invariably get some -- or a lot of -- things wrong;

2) speculating a few days after a crash is, well, speculation.

One interesting tidbit for speculation is the apparent fact that the captain was co-owner of the company. Did that prevent him from declaring an emergency until it was too late?

Anyway, always best to wait for the investigators' report. Which can take a long time.
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I dont go that way, I like to speculate freely based upon the available information, and then look later to see how right I was.

It is a fun game, and it keeps my mind active, and it facilitates learning.
 
Re: Brazilian soccer team's plane crashes in Colombia; 76 dead

Hawkeye10 said:
I dont go that way, I like to speculate freely based upon the available information, and then look later to see how right I was.
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I don't say I don't. But I never forget that I don't have the whole picture. It's fun, as you say (provided you weren't in the crash), but a game, not a serious exercise.
 
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