Ryanair confirms its planes made three mayday calls on same day to Spanish air traffic control

SCARY STUFF,thinking you are limited to a schedule and any unforseen diversion can cause you to run out of fuel.bit of dramatized reporting here though,the incidents of aircraft actually running out are very rare.

Irishpjk: Thank you for that information. While I do not for a second claim to be an expert in these matters, it is pretty obvious that the ground handlers bear responsibility as well as the guys in the cockpit. Indeed I seem to remember that Avianca sued the FAA and had a partial victory. I accept that the primary culpability lies with the cockpit crew, they were too passive and gentlemanly at a time that called for shouting and expletives.

Avianca was under the control of New York approach TRACON, some of the best controllers in the world. From there they would be handed off to JFK, no slouches there either.

irishpjk: So who was controlling the Avianca flight?

Another hype story that is insignificant in Aviation circles. Unusual that it affected three of the same airline is about it but not hardly newsworthy,. chalk it up as sensationalized journalism looking for the reaction. If the average and uninformed new the reality this story...it becomes a non event.

wtf It makes me wonder when I read comments that let you know the writer knows nothing about the subject at hand yet will name call and place blame. When an aircraft runs out of fuel without any mechanical faults it is the crews fault. The controller on the ground will have no way of knowing how long fuel onboard will last, he must be told, hinting that you don’t have much fuel is a tactic some pilots use hoping to get down a little quicker. So declare your emergence and they will bring you down. By the way the Avianca flight over long Island had not been handed off to JFK so he was not under their control.

M'Aidez as in Me Aidez or Aidez moi = Help Me. Mayday is a bank holiday in Spain, no aviation fuel for sale. Not a good call. But for Searlit, Aer Lingus is a dangerous airline and the sky would be a safer place without them. Remember Tusker Rock, a broad daylight head on collision with a light house and everyone killed. Ryan Air and Qantas have the two best records in aviation.

stay of those nigh free bees

I hope Ryanair doesn't takeover Aer Lingus.

There was sad case a decade or two ago when an Avianca plane coming up from Colombia met a series of delays, bad weather induced mostly. Plus they were being handled by an incompetent flight controller, out of JFK (?). The Avianca crew were at fault also for not screaming EMERGENCY and throwing in a few expletives to wake up the dopey flight controller. The result of all of this? The plane ran out of fuel and came down in Long Island.

As if everyone doesn't have enough to worry about these days. Ryanair feels comfortable frightening passengers away.

As a counterpoint, it's worth pointing out that despite being the biggest or at least one of the biggest airlines in the world, with more flights per day than just about anyone else, and definitely more landings and take-offs than anyone else, RyanAir has never had a fatality or even serious injury.

wtf Not unusual in bad weather to have pilots declare low fuel emergence after being diverted and put on hold, you can only hold for so long then it’s time to declare. It becomes a problem when a pilot decides to stay in hold until he is too low on fuel to land somewhere else. Regulations require pilots to carry a fuel load that will give them a certain amount of hold time at their destination, plus enough to reach their required alternate airport and arrive over the field with a certain amount fuel remaining. Some pilots add a little more fuel just in case, but takeoff and landing fuel loads will limit how much leeway they have with that option. Smart pilots declare and land safely, which is what seems to be the case here, all declared emergences are investigated.

I'm sure an accountant precisely calculated the normal amount of fuel these trips should have taken. And I suppose now those pilots will now be investigated by the company for wasting their fuel and potentially placing passengers at risk.