[REAL ATC] Emirates B777 with EMERGENCY FUEL at Vancouver! 

The professionalism and calm of the controllers and pilots always impresses me.

The mic quality of atc is amazing!

The "number of souls on board" question is always a bit chilling. I understand it's just SOP in any emergency situation, but it does add a certain gravity to the situation when the question is asked.

If the everyone’s mic would be as clear as these two, aviation would be a hell of a lot easier

You are required to declare mayday fuel when calculations indicate than the landing will ocurr with less than 30 minutes of fuel remaining (at a fuel flow that corresponds to holding speed at 1500ft agl).

I guess these are all the things the passengers never know about? Scary stuff.

Some people have said, "if it's really an emergency, why not go to the closest airport?". I think in this case, Vancouver was probably the right call, even if we ignore the inconvenience of landing a 777 full of passengers in Victoria and focus purely on safety. They were no doubt high and fast at the time. They say the only thing a jet does quickly is cruise. It was going to take them a long time to get low and slow for landing wherever they went. A closer airport may not be practically closer if your speed and altitude are what's keeping you away, not the map distance. 30 minutes of fuel should be plenty to reach Vancouver. They would have been part way through the checklist to land there already. It's their alternate, so they know something about it and are well prepared for that landing already. They're in the right position to land there most easily. Vancouver is the biggest airport around there, with the longest runway and best emergency services. For many reasons, it's the place to land if you have the choice, and with 30 minutes of fuel they certainly did. In an emergency, a controller should offer options, which he did, but he's not in the cockpit, and often not even a pilot. He doesn't know their situation or what's best for them. Did they need to declare an emergency? Maybe not, but I don't know their airline procedures. They may have been required to. Not declaring an emergency isn't necessarily doing the controllers any favours either. 30 minutes is not a lot of fuel in any plane, let alone a big jet. If they don't declare an emergency, but say they're low on fuel, now the controller has to deal with a lot of ambiguity. Declaring an emergency makes things very clear to everyone. The controller now knows exactly what to do. Mayday isn't a four letter word. It exists for a reason, and your wings don't have to fall off before you use it.

super professional communication

Imagine the guy filling up the fuel tank afterwards lol probably like oh man they were pretty low

The emirates pilot was really planning a head when he asked for right down wind for another approach in case of missed approach 👍

imagine all the things that happen in the cockpit while you’re probably in the back chilling , enjoying a movie and sipping apple martinis 🍸

-Flying an airplane running on fumes while carrying 367 souls -Still tells tower operator to have a good day What a G

The communication between the pilots and the Controllers was so amazing! I also love how they always repeat the 'command' and the plane number "Emirates 229", of course it is to ensure no confusion occurs between the pilots and ATC, but it's so cool to see as an outsider.

For people that keep saying: "30mins fuel shouldn't be a mayday call but panpan" or "I think that 30mins fuel is not an emergency" ...... You are wrong! Once you reach the reserve fuel which are the last 30mins of fuel... You ("have to") should declare emergency.

This is why standards in English language in aviation is necessary.

Amazing professionalism and calm by both Control and the Emirates flight!

I fly out of Victoria Regularly, Usually its on Dash-8's with connections in either Vancouver or Seattle. Its a very small International Airport(its only international because of its proximity and select routes into the states). I cant imagine them trying to process a 777 full of passengers. 737 are about the largest aircraft regularly serviced in Victoria.

The phraseology is strong with this one :)

Thanks everyone for your birthday wishes today! I'm so pleased and greatful to have so many people supporting me and my job here in RU-vid! :) As asked via Twitter, this Emirates video was the most voted one and here it is! Hope you enjoy it and LIKE it!! :D

Something about radio conversation that keeps you listening.

Perfect communication and animation.

I salute the professionalism in both the pilots and ATC crew. If I was a passenger and somehow aware of the situation I would have 10 less finger nails.

What amazes me is how pilots and co-pilots can communicate with various ATC Controllers having to remember and repeat all of the settings spoken, performing the functions the settings call for, yet still pay attention to the already difficult task of actually flying the plane. This does not even include the dizzying task of performing all of this when things go south and systems break down or shutdown. I wonder how many pilots are on edge most of the time even though I guess one gets used to these things in training and through experience.

The reason for the mayday is it shows the gravity of the situation. Too many times there are crashes when the pilots don’t and they’re just put “in line”.

Excellent professionalism on both ends. Congrats to all involved!

Perfect emergency landing. Calm and professional

Ive fallen in love woth this channel. Never would have thought just listening would be so insightful

The graphic shows the aircraft missing approach and turning right downwind 08R but that didn't happen, it was just discussed.

This kind of reminds me of Avianca flight 052 (i think) where they never did declare a state a emergency when they had only minutes left of fuel and ended up crashing very badly after a missed approach. This is why standard communications are so important. I'm actually going over language and communications on the international scale at school right now so this is very relevant

I've been listening to ATCs from US, Canada and Australia and noticed that the ATCs from US speak faster and is less clear than those from the other two countries. I can understanding Canadian ATCs perfectly fine, but sometimes I struggling listening to American ones.

Emirates pilots handled the emergency better than most other emergencies I've noticed

"When you have a minute, can I have your souls on board and fuel remaining?" "Too many and not enough..." (light-hearted comment from someone who was 'in the job' for 30 odd years - yes, they were really odd!!!) 😉

Great people, great system and it works beautifully.

canadians are polite

Thank you VASAviation another great video, every word spoken between pilot and air traffic could be heard clearly, but my most favourite video has to be your (Aer Lingus) one.

Excellent communication. Things could go south fast but the crew didn't ponce around, declared a fuel emergency and everyone helped to get the plane down in good order.

happy brithday man great video

I flew on Emirates once, safe to say it was the best airline I've been in. Nice videos btw.

I love how they declared mayday right away. There was a terrible crash in the past where pilots were put in a hold and were hesitant to declare fuel emergency.

my ex wife was on that flight so -1 soul and +1 hazard ;)

These videos are so good!

very professional work!

Atc's mic quality is really nice

Currently flying back & forth between DCA & Dubai Monthly due to spouse military deployment on Emirates. By far one of the best flights Ive been on internationally. That's saying alot since I am now on my 3rd double book passport, so I have done alot of flying.

At 2:11 I believe the ATC says "one half hour fuel". In the on-screen captions this is transcribed as "1h30", which I don't think is correct (this would be pronounced "one _and a_ half hour fuel"). Of course, the wording is unclear, which is why the pilot clarifies "half an hour; 30 minutes".

Absolute professionalism in this video. Tough situation to get to Seattle and not be able to land. Going to Vancouver was the right call. Switching to Victoria would have been a more difficult move although closer. They would have had to fly a bit further to set up for runway 09 in Victoria anyways. Abbotsford was an option but with the current fuel level Vancouver was a perfect choice. Well done in my opinion. And YVR ATC was their typical professional selves.

This was excellent communication and team work.

Out of all the reasons for a mayday call this is probably the best case scenario - everything's still together, nothing's on fire, and they just need to land right now...

i remeber that day i was the ground handling lead hand for this flight that day.operations couldnt get a gate for it so they had to land on the westpad that day.

0:24 this is the calmest "mayday" i ever heard while an emergency situation..

Wow these guys did an awesome job handling that. They didn't miss a beat through the whole thing.

Disliking a vid does not cover “ I don’t like this”. Nice presentation, appreciate your time getting us this.

Great video. Everyone kept a cool head in a serious situation. Did the flight end up refueling and make its final to Seattle?

“Attention crews at stations” the PA from the flight deck I was eager and afraid of hearing. I wonder if they made a NITS for the crew or just a “guys, secure now!”

The calmness under pressure always impresses me , it reminds me of my sub days.

Very very good comms. One of the best I've ever heard.

Think bout how crazy calm and cool they are with 367 on-board, 12k elev and to land within bout 2.5 min of the elevation change. Everyone had their shit together on this day. With the exception of whom ever planned the amount of fuel... This shot of whiskey is for you!!!

I've been to all three airports mentioned here. I used to live in Langley, BC which is next to Abbotsford. I miss going to the annual Abbotsford airshow. Good memories.

Happy birthday and as always an amazing video

what a calmness between the pilot and the ATC are very very impressive to the point of impressive the should teach the nxt gens of pilot how to be calm like this in emergency situations. + must be case study (at all flight schools around the globe )

lol the graphic shows a missed approach but they were saying incase of one

MINIMUM FUEL: landing fuel be very close to final reserve fuel. Any change in routing may result in fuel emergency. MAYDAY FUEL : landing will be less than the planned final reserve fuel (typically 30 minutes).

OMG... I was on that flight!!!! It was very windy in Seattle. Diverted to Vancouver then flew back to Seattle after refueling and weather improving.

Seeing Captain Over, Roger Murdoch or Stryker going up the forward ladder is a Definite Mayday...

I bet those pilots had some forms to fill in.

Today, airlines replace weight of fuel with weight of passengers more sharply than did before the 1980s.

They just violated their reserve fuel a bit. They need a reserve of 45 minutes. They said they had 30 mins fuel left c5 mins before landing. So they were short 20 mins of fuel and landed with 25 mins fuel. ie they used about half their reserve - which is of itself a serious issue. But as far as being a "you are all about to die emergency" they had 6x the fuel they needed to land.

altimeter 29.22 explains the strong winds, sounds like a concentrated low pressure in the west coast areas.

They did not do a downwind missed approach as illustrated in the video. They only pre-secured permission to do that just-in-case because the official missed approach for ils08r would have required more fuel burn before a second attempt at landing.

In responses to "souls on board?" query, I would love to hear a pilot give a number and then add "plus four red-heads." But I guess humor would be low on the list in such situations.

I don't know much about a/c ATC communications - but everyone here sounded impressively professional at least to me. Nice video thanks.

Professional crew for sure.

A few thoughts: First, fuel requirements are a justifiable plan based on weather on getting to destination, from destination to alternate, and still having 45 minutes in the tanks. I see nothing in this video which suggests that such a plan was not in place. Secondly, every airline has its own different regulations on what a certain aircraft can and cannot do in situations where there is an alternative. Having held for a while at Seattle before their missed approach, the conclusion was probably that they would have to declare a fuel emergency before being able to land in the conditions at Seattle, and therefore it was sensible to divert to calmer winds and make the emergency landing there. Thirdly, the fact that they were insistent on going to Vancouver during this segment, and by the looks of it were declaring an emergency for the first time during this video, suggests to me that they were simply at the point where they would be below 45 minutes on touchdown even with priority handling, rather than the 30 minutes remaining stated. It might equally have been a desire to touch down on the longest runway possible (perfectly sensible with a strong tailwind). Victoria was obviously too short for a 777 even in ideal conditions, Abbotsford a good 600 metres shorter than Vancouver or Seattle).

We have a MAYDAY fuel condition but we still want Vancouver so we can get to the bar at our hotel a little sooner. Thanks for the alternates though.

Ahh cool, your b'day is one day after mine. Happy b'day!

WELL DONE!! 🛫✈️🛬

Hearing a pilot say “mayday” gives me chills. But kudos to these people esp Capt and F.O. Was the reason Miscalculation? Or something?

2:11 Vancouver Approach says "one half hour" (i.e., half an hour, 30 minutes), not "1h30" (i.e., one and a half hours, i.e., 90 minutes).

Watching air crash investigations of planes crashing because they were too low on fuel, makes me feel a lot better when I see stuff like this when pilots are acutely aware and properly declare emergencies to get landed.

Hey will you ever do a QnA? Because your channel is so interesting I have a few questions to ask

I wonder how often this sort of emergency actually happens and passengers are never told?

I bet you will not understand what they're saying if there's no subtitle there

Nice job ... the controller did his job.. gave them optio the pilots did their jobs knowing their speed and altitude that possibly a smaller airport would not have been a smart move and they knew to take everything in consideration and continue to go to a bigger airport.. so nice job all of them

Very nice job of all involved.

from my understanding declaring the mayday is necessary as they have now started into their emergency reserve is that correct?

Would the passengers have been aware that their flight was a Mayday scenario? Obviously they knew they had been diverted. They probably would not need to know that, unless they did have to go around, in which case there may have been a danger if fuel became an issue.

Victoria airport's longest runway is 7,000 feet. I'm guessing enough for a 777 to land on but not much room for error hence, a higher possibility for a go-around.

Wilco..... Always makes me think of Marcus Fenix...lol!

If they had a fuel emergency, why did they decline the nearest airport possible?

I would so love to be an ATC but apparently you have to have both eyes working properly. I live for high pressure situations.

ive seen how low fuel some intl jets are when they come in. Im a aircraft refueler at MSP. A flight i fueled a few days ago from MSP-AMS came in from AMS, A333 N807NW, had about 25,000 lbs remaining before i started fueling. I put on 117,800 lbs 13,465 gal of fuel for the flight back. 25,000 lbs is 3,731 gallons left at 6.7 lbs per gallon

Emirates pilots are very professional... this one both ATC and Pilots must be commended.

So they really went around and proceed to the right downwind back to 08R?

ATC "Fuel remaining?" Pilot "Fuel remaining, NONE!"

AAL would sometimes barely make it from DFW to NRT (Japan) in MD-11s. In that circumstance, a pilot I knew would request direct and if they tried to put him in the pattern, he would counter with direct or IFE.

Canadians are such sweet people, just north of a rowdy neighbour! Jokes apart, the sheer skills and professionalism of Aviation professionals (Pilots, ATC) is humbling

1:19 "Vancouver desu"

UAE229: MAAAAAYDAAAAY. NEED TO LAND RIGHT NOW. Approach: Ok. We've got Victoria and Abbotsford for you. UAE229: Nah. Vancouver is fine. We wouldn't be caught dead on hippie island or cowfartville.

Seemed like a very similar situation to Avianca 52 - thank God this one had a much better outcome.

I love how they refer to passengers as souls 🤟🏽