Word: planes
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...unable to see much beyond the murk outside the windows. After the crash of Avianca Flight 52, which killed 73 passengers just 15 miles short of New York's Kennedy International Airport on Jan. 25, travelers have a disturbing new question to ponder while they wait: Is the plane running out of fuel...
...Boeing 707 had been delayed fully 89 minutes in various holding patterns on its scheduled five-hour flight from Medellin, Colombia, to New York. Bad weather had stalled 248 other planes heading for Kennedy that day; in the two hours before the Avianca disaster, 33 pilots chose to land at other airports. The Avianca crew reported it did not have enough fuel to reach its designated alternate, Boston. Apparently because of high winds and low clouds, the plane missed its first landing attempt at Kennedy. It crashed on its second approach when all four engines failed, almost certainly for lack...
Once in the air, the flight engineer must calculate the plane's fuel consumption mathematically and monitor gauges that show the rate of consumption and the level in each of the aircraft's tanks. Circling at low ; altitudes, as Flight 52 did, consumes more fuel than normal cruising, possibly throwing off the engineer's calculations, though not the gauges. Another source of trouble could have been the 707's abrupt climb after the aborted landing. Aviation experts say this could have sloshed what remained of the fuel to the back of the tanks, where the fuel pumps cannot reach...
...these controllers passed the information on to the local controllers. Tapes reveal that the Avianca crew informed the regional center that its fuel was insufficient to reach Boston, but this information apparently was not relayed in the "hand-off" between controllers. Still, the pilot did not object when the plane was then placed on a routine approach to Kennedy that, because of heavy traffic, took 38 minutes...
...simple declaration of "emergency" would have put the plane on a fast track for landing. But airline pilots, partly out of pride and the certainty of a follow-up investigation, are often reluctant to take that step. "Complacency in the cockpit, failure to recognize and deal with hazards, is the most dangerous threat to air safety," says Jerome Lederer, an internationally known expert on the subject...