Airliner Runs Out of Fuel & Can't Land 

I thought so, too. very communicative. clear, and intelligent. Very good aviation.

The pilot was running out of fuel. He initially lied to ATC about the cause of missed approach. They didn’t load enough fuel on takeoff. They had to have information dragged out of them by ATC. They didn’t declare an emergency to not lose face. Apart from that he was great - and he got lucky.

@@hugolindum7728 lol don't talk such nonsense. It was a 15hr flight, fueling is calculated by the airline program. They had enough fuel for a go-around and divert and due to instrument failures were burning this extra fuel.

You sure? This pilot could have (should have) given vital information about his situation tot he controller much sooner.

​@LazerDon271 that's one excuse.. how about the other ten issues?

Same. Im fascinated by the radio chatter.

Me too. Drone pilot only.

Like many, I have flown hundreds of times on many airlines that are long gone and many that I doubt I would fly on now (Avianca, Aeroflot). I wonder now, in my old age how many times something similar like this situation happened on a flight i was on and never knew a thing!

yea but I bet you fly wit all dem trees feel me 69 420 blaze it.

Cold blooded? …. More like Drunk. A lot of Pilots drink when they drive ….that includes Planes. It’s a”Brotherhood” like Doctors and Police. They cover each other’s Butt when they are drinking heavily.

Winter east coast US commonly has low ceilings under 1000’ for thousands of miles in every direction, lasting days or weeks at a time. Flying in there w no ILS is like flying in w no landing gear, and then pretending to do something while calling atc w ‘we are working the problem’.

not to be picky, but thousands would be all the way to california at least.

It's an "Emergency" the pilots created. Having flown for 15 hours already. They should have requested weather info earlier. They then could have declared a low fuel situation earlier to have more options to divert to. They have to remember that take offs are optional. Landing is inevitable.

​@@hhr1985how's that armchair Mr quarterback? How's the back seat working out for you?

It's do or die really. No reason to become anxious. You train for these kind of situaitons. It's a good thing nobody got injured.

they had four pilots that day, but thats not to take away from the amazing job all 4 pilots did that day

He gave us a slight suggestion at the beginning that things would end out okay. Even though I did not know for sure, I was hanging on to that so I did not get too caught up in WHETHER it would turn out of okay, but just HOW it would happen.

They should be made an example of, lose their license to fly in US airspace. Perhaps in future pilots will be more willing to declare an emergency when an emergency exists, if they knew they'd face consequences for not doing so.

@@isbestlizard Under the circumstance who cares ... They got a a sh_t hand dealt to them and made the best of it and everyone was ok as well as the crippled plane...

LMFAO.. professional pilots are all educated... esp retired 40+ year airline pilots and Phobia is spelled PHOBIA not fobia. Look dude, they got on the ground safely and the passengers on the ground safely, they delt with a changing environment the best they could, and it worked. I'd say they did alright. Nothing worse than armchair pilots, esp retired has-beens who think they know everything.

fobia.. Phobia. 👍😊

Yeah, I was going to ask about that. It was obviously an emergency but they never declared it. Would this be a fuel emergency or some other emergency that ended up in a fuel emergency? (Not a pilot here, excuse my ignorance).

Agreed. This is what I appreciate about his videos. He's not just repeating what's happening with no useful information. He's actually explaining things and he also often makes suggestions of how pilots can learn from the incident covered.

It's the best one I've seen, and I've seen many. He put in layman's terms what was going on. Almost a miracle that they landed safely.

@@Void-Realmyes, and he’s a retired US fighter pilot and currently a commercial pilot. Debriefs are a common occurrence. Consider the simple question - “what could you have done differently?”

They do NOW!

Passengers had no idea how close they came.

Yep! Hats off to all these pilots, crews, controllers, mechanics, and engineers. They are valued much more than they know…

Ive got several mates who were ground crew for SAA. Sadly, our national Airline is a mere shadow of its former excellence. You're right, it takes many souls and many hours of intense preparation to fly us around the world safely. This is why I can't understand entitled passengers who think the sun sets when they sit down. @@panhead55

I can tell you that sometimes it is way more than most people imagine. And on almost all of those times people in the back have no idea anything was out of the ordinary. It doesn't take a situationa as extraordinary as this one to increase the stress levels.

I.L.S. system? So it's part of the Instrument Landing System System.

I highly disagree... this was extremely painful to listen to.

What was in the cargo hold, diamonds?

People. The precious cargo was/were his passengers. I agree, amazing job keeping his..stuff..together.

@@dmsheckler you dont know what you are talking about

@@on3sh0t81 Agree. He's a moron.

Bird?

​@@Silent_RunningWWII slang for airplane

bird dam sir it f air plane w up kid be man

@@francisbeaudry8598 Bro did you have a stroke?

@@krummja4823 krumlajamat 🤣🤣

Yeah, no chance doing that when the pucker factor is above a million! 😂

Lol

Maybe that was one of the problems.

That help a lot 🎉

eric..simple u should know bc FAA Suckkkks.. can't even fix simple stuff out of action down lots airport equip navaids etc Everywhere... FAA could care less total incompetent clowns 🤡 in bed w Boeing...duhhh

This wasn't that. The pilots reported multiple instrumentation failures.

Shocking that a localiser was not maintained well enough

What?! That’s unreal! The aircraft in this video ended up executing the VNAV approach at Newark and not the ILS approach correct?

With redundancy being the saving grace of airliners, couldn't JFK (or other airports) put in multiple localizers?

The plane should be able to convert the pounds or gallons to minutes

He was obscure

In reality, death's door is almost always near you. Just think about all the things you count on to operate (or be operated by someone else) correctly around you to avoid potential injury or death. You must also depend on your body itself to operate correctly when eating, walking, running, driving, etc.

@@FrankAnzalone Gallons is a useless measure in big airplane aviation. First off, U.S vs. Imperial and EU uses liters. Pounds onboard eliminates density variables and easily converts to time in a standard everyone understands (ATC, emergency responders, pilot and dispatchers). The G.E.-90 engines burn about 6,000 pounds per engine per hour, slightly more for the bigger airframes of the -227ER and the -300. The math is hardly a problem for the pilots.

I think when brain fatigue sets in it's difficult to be how you might be when relaxed and calm. -if you listen to other such incidents-Mentour Pilot I think, you hear of pilots after 9 hours going into various brain fatigue, loss of touch with reality especially early hours of the morning ( forgot the word to describe it) etc situations -so despite me agreeing with you-I cannot blame them for the mere reason of facing all at once mind you, the over all stress, frightening alarm sounds and long haul flight hours! They were brilliant keeping it cool!

Same here. I used to fly a lot for work, I'm glad I don't now!

I’ve never heard that people say that.

I travel often for recreation and would be totally fine with Pilots making double what they currently make. Full disclosure, I watch this channel often and have no pilot flight experience.

​@@sunnygirl9691I have.

Nobody has ever said Pilots are overpaid 🙄.

...Nobody who has half a functioning brain cell would or has ever said that. Stop lying. Its an impossibly rare phrase cause no person who understands how planes work has ever said that....and seeing as how most humans understand how complex it is to fly and land airplanes?... Well then what does that leave us with?...

No. They don’t. That plane should never have left Delhi and they knew it.

@@wallyballou7417 I agree with you on the fuel reserve but the fact they kept it together when it became a crisis deserved some form of respect. They could have reacted differently and wound up with a terrible outcome.

@@wallyballou7417 Help me understand why you said that, please.

​@@garrettswoodworx1873 Because the flight took off with several critical systems malfunctioning. Moreover, it was obvious there was a cascading system problem while the plane was enroute. They should have never taken off. And having taken off, they should never have continued into IFR conditions with only 1 radar altimeter functioning. Incredibly irresponsible.

@@wallyballou7417 What comic book did you read that in. It must be an exclusive issue.

Once again, NOT a hero. A person doing his job.

@@sweynforkbeardtraindude piss off troll

And managed to be polite throughout this ordeal

What impresses me are the critical mistakes they committed as a crew, the poor judgement and lack of capacity to make better decisions for those souls on board under their care. Their communication in English with air traffic controllers really suck, and the unproper instrumentation maintenance by the company became evident turning into a serious liability. I can go all day! They exhibited poor flight planning skills that kill, nonsensical alternate sequencing and negligent control to destination. Poor navigation, weather briefing and forecasting. Frankly, it's a miracle they landed that triple 7 and passengers walk off that plane.

I live not too far from Lakenheath & it's major road (approach of runway) the main road named the "A.1065" I used to go on base, regularly, right up until they retired the F.111's there sometime in 1994 (replaced w/F.15's) I found your comment interesting, as we DO often get fog & damp weather in Suffolk and of course besides.... New Mexico is one helluva long long way away - I now have a few diecast metal 1/72 models of the F.111-F's

I doubt it was just one beer!

Oh man. We were stationed at both Cannon and Lakenheath when I was a kid. F-111's ❤

Scary. Too bad commercial airliners don't have an ejection option. Maybe a river or ocean if they're lucky.

Good pilot. But that is expected from you guys.

Agree they would know a while back they were running out of gas

It was not, yet, any kind of emergency. 25% of those long flights land with less than an hour of fuel remaining. It is VERY common. The 777 in the video still had 45 minutes of fuel left. (7500kg/hr cruising; or 8200kg/hr landing; so I figured it at 9000kg/hr consumption rate just to be on the safe side.) Their main problem was finding a long runway with good enough visibility for a VFR landing within a short range. IMO, they could have looked a little farther inland, farther from the marine effects -- fog, mist, etc. They had enough fuel to fly for 45 more minutes. But it didn't look as though local conditions were improving fast enough to hang around. They had another 15 minutes to decide what to do? Should I stay or should I go?

@@sailor-rickProblem is they couldn’t land

@@effkay3691 Really?

Wow! Nice & clear description.

@@Pohonesty That was some cool-headed panic.

​@@Pohonestyhe sounds good to me. I have seen complete panic.

​@@Pohonestyracist much?

I’d say there was concern in his voice. He was always working his problem, which is what stops when panic sets in.

@sandpiper9288 I agree. Little kids being murdered while sitting in classrooms is very mysterious.

Two bullshit pilots and if both ILS radios were out their airline also.

Instrument problems.

All after flying for 15 hours straight, communicating in a non-native language, crap visibility, with cockpit alarms sounding

@@MegaBoolaBoolaEnglish is not only the international air language, but also the national language of India.

@@stevehirjak7824 English is AN official language, but less than 10% speak it, and it's almost always as a second language. My point is, that makes it even more impressive that he was still able to aviate, navigate, and COMMUNICATE, during an emergency.

As a pilot, I would recommend that you read my post this morning.. I'm not being clever.. After a 35 year career l just know how all this Should work.

1100 hrs . Amazing pilots .

@@jamesgraham6122 There are 388 comments. I know you can see your own comment at the top of the screen on your own device, but other's cannot. Your comment is buried somewhere in the 388

There’s actually two complete flight and cabin crews on the long haulers. So they were probably into the 7th to 8th hour of wheels up. Now you can appreciate the dual crew concept. I’ve been a fatigued flightcrew member. We almost landed on a highway on a moonless night. This was going into Nice, Fr. All 3 of us were fatigued as we were on our fourth leg that day and we all saw the same illusion. I finally figured it out at the last minute and Captain Pat made a great high bank angle VFR recovery into the airport. This was truly scary, although when you’re in the moment doing your job, fear isn’t really an option. So considering all of the factors with AI 101, my educated guess is that if one flight crew were actually flying for 15 hours, this would have been a very bad outcome. Hats off to both the flightcrew and controllers. Well done.

@@CaptainRon1913 Here it is.. it was prompted by reading many posts praising the flight crew.. These guys came as close as to killing 370 people aboard the aircraft and goodness knows how many on the ground in a major urban area as makes no difference.. it was a disaster of immense proportions, no doubt it would have been the worst single aircraft aviation disaster in history.. it was literally minutes away and pure luck saved the day, that's the same as the disaster actually happening, except that there was no wreckage. In spite of this, at no time did the flight crew declare an emergency, fuel as an issue was only mentioned to ATC late on in the approach sequence, at no time did the controllers ask if the flight crew would like to declare an emergency.. had an emergency been declared it would have focused the minds of ATC to other options.. possibly a landing at a military airfield, it may have made no difference, but it was clearly a case of getting every possible bit of help from the ground. An alternate is normally chosen at a distance from the destination that could be expected to offer a different weather pattern.. it's clear that this flight plan wasn't chosen with that in mind. It's not unusual for the east coast to be engulfed in low cloud/low vis weather and an alternate several hundred miles inland may prove to be a necessity. The controller asked for fuel on board.. I've heard this several times during my career, in response the pilot gives a fuel quantity.. pretty pointless.. the question should be, fuel endurance? It's of little use to know that someone has 7000 kilos of fuel, this can represent different things to different aircraft. I would dearly love to know how the crew came to be faced with so many onboard failures.

A pilot once told me the difference between a pilot worth 100,000 a year and one worth 50,000 was one thunderstorm

And interestingly they said we're bring out the emergency equipment on the ground. This was a good read from the ATC. This was really amazing to watch. The attitude of the ground control and care they showed as well as the grit and skill the pilots displayed here is a lesson for all.

Were these failures real or due to mismanagement. A follow up after landing would be interesting, but no matter what the pilots should have declared an emergency after the first missed approach.

Now? Like right now? Like this instant?

​​@@thonatim5321The emphasis is not on the word "now". They mean, now that they've *seen the video*. It's a shorthand way in English of saying "That's what I want to know, now that I've seen the video".

The first big question is: why they were so low on fuel after just one missed approach, not having enough fuel even for the alternate plus contingency?

Because a lot of these countries have shitty maintenance and try and save money

It's Air INDIA... not the best maintenance around.

@@saito125 Not the worst either. For the record, the US/FAA does not let airlines with substandard maintenance even fly in their airspace, which is why Air India was actually prohibited from operating flights to US a few years ago. But they've been on the ball and match any US carrier's maintenance for a while since. Edit: So this might not necessarily have been a maintenance related issue at all. Tech and machines just fail sometimes.

@@charlie7masonA Double ILS failure is extremely rare.

It's a plane from INDIA! Have you ever watched some Indian YT videos? Even though I am skeptical about Indian tech I have to congratulate them on the moon landing. Luck?

​@@saito125completely ignorance speaking...

What? No he wasn’t. His accent was terrible, and a lot of problems would have been avoided if he spoke clearly.

I caught that too. Locust valley is correct.

GROW A paIr

@@Capecodham TROLL!!!

I was going to suggest the same, still waiting for the debrief!

@@vidpromjm I agree completely! This seems be pretty common on these videos - I do like them and just would like to get your views on lessons learned, suggestions for pilots or controllers, or other points for discussion and thought.

I agree that even just a sentence or 2 about "the plane landed safely with no injuries" would have helped, but I guess we can assume that's what happened. I even looked in the description because I thought it might be in there, to no avail, but this was very interesting to a couch pilot and your commentary is helpful. Good job! This video was in my recommended videos and I subscribed!

I noticed that as well, it's just not what I'm used to, usually people do a video ending segment, and he seems to be following so the other RU-vid formulae to get your attention and keep you watching the video.

Agreed! It seems like most of the videos simply end when I’m waiting for some kind of wrap up lol

What airline? Thx

AA

I know, the politeness throughout was just amazing to behold. Thats the kind of person you want in a stressful situation.

actually easier to work it out from kgs. Each engine burning 1litre / 1kg per second means 3600 seconds of fuel = 60 minutes. BUT then allowances for "heavy" and flying low / more drag etc.

Your right. History tells.

Somewhere

Military still doing GCAs

Made for an interesting day of training when tower would call asking if you would 'help' with GCA training they had going on.

How come? He should have stated an emergency (due to fuel) to get top priority from the ATC people.

Crap job

They pretended to be calm... and almost killed everyone. Not very professional. Stellar pilots from India ? You are dreaming. Incredible India...

@@miks564declaring emergency would have changed nothing. He communicated each of the events in a changing and worsening situation- cascading instrument issues, fuel issues and was decisive in choosing EWR. In the end he brought his ship safely home

@@rickbarrington It was a mistake. In the end he all the passengers were lucky

Nah, they should have never let it get that far.

That's kinda funny, they just flew 15 hrs. Go to land in and there beacon that centres their plane plus other electronics are not working, what could they have possibly done. They landed a difficult landing in low visibility with a few secondary electronics.@ a secondary airport they prob were not familiar with landing the plane in 200ft less vis than he stated he needed. That's good flying.

Sure an award for flying a totally broken aircraft around the world and almost crashing and killing 330 people in NJ.

@@dashcan8479 just not sure how they would have known there landing electronics were not working over the ocean, I have never heard of pilots checking those systems until needed, unfortunately for them it was the end of a long flight( low fuel) &low visibility, yet everyone is alive while landing in 400 ft visibility after requesting 600 with secondary electronic landing assistance only.

Definitely very challenging for the controller. He had to try and pull the info from the pilots to figure out what the problem really was. I think the pilot was fixated on trying to find a way to make it work at JFK but finally realized EWR was the better option. I would love to see a recording of the flight displays to see how they really flew the final approach, as I suspect there might be more to the story.

@@pilot-debrief I agree ✈️

LOL to OP. Long haul flights and jet legs aren't obstacles to safe flying. For long hauls, there's always a relief cockpit crew that takes over for some part of the flight to ensure original crew is fresh and well rested when landing.

Excellent , calm, composed controller support to the aircraft that helped them land . Aircraft should have been grounded and faults rectified .

Yes, the atc did an awesome job. It was obvious he was well versed in how planes operate and was doing everything the pilot asked him to do, even though it didn't make a whole lot of sense as to what the pilot was thinking.

❤

Are they handsomely paid, though?

Cultural issue. They don’t want to look stupid, it’s ingrained in them. Work out the solution and don’t show the struggle is how they are taught to be from infancy, . These pilots should be forced to do western training, so they can realise early communication is critical, and saving face has no place in piloting

The pilots were busy working out what the problem was and flying the plane.

​@@waffle_chair9269I was very much waiting for this comment. It's spot on. Right from the start of this video I could hear the cultural issue getting in the way of safety.

Sounded to me that they were pretty clear what the problems were.

They have explained ILS failure from start, WTF are you talking about mate.

I should’ve just read this first 😂

Not so sure that was "well done" by ATP standards. Sounds like the pilots were not well-versed at using their onboard weather systems, or even knowing the available approaches or the updated weather at their filed alternate. Something had to go wrong with their fuel planning as well, as are required to carry enough fuel to fly to their alternate and fly for at least an additional hour on top of that diversion. They were not communicating clearly enough and they were not being completely open with the controller with regard to their fuel status. There should be an investigation into what caused this close call.

@@mjl8197also you forget something , they were about to crash at the alternate airport ,they ve been too low ..fortunately the controllers warn them that they are very low

A god had nothing to do with it.

@@dongorrie1828: *Your opinions do NOT count with me. Have a life* .

grow a pair.