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Fuel starvation accident video

There are few things more embarrassing than running out of fuel but running out of fuel in an airplane can prove to be dangerous or downright deadly. Hence, Jason Schappert has recently created a video about a fuel starvation accident that happened to a pilot flying from Maryland to Florida.

While approaching Tallahassee, the plane lost power 3 miles short of the runway, hit power lines causing a blackout and landed nose first in the middle of a busy intersection. Ironically and luckily for the pilot, there was no fire as he was completely out of fuel. In fact, he told the FAA interviewer that he “rocked the wings to use every drop of fuel (60 gallons)”

Jason does not mention whether or not the plane had a faulty fuel gauge but this would be irrelevant as its still the responsibility of the pilot to properly calculate the amount of fuel needed and ensure everything is in proper order before takeoff and during the flight. In other words, the accident was caused by:

Poor preflight planning which was the most obvious and avoidable cause of the accident.
Not notifying ATC until it was to late as the pilot was no doubt a little embarrassed by the situation that was developing.

According to Jason, out of the 125 million hours flown over the last five years, there were only 238 fuel related accidents accounting for only 0.1% of all accidents. In other words, running out of fuel while in flight should be completely avoidable.

Fuel starvation – myths and reality

This is a guest post by Jason Schappert from the highly recommended M0A blog.

“Aviation officials say there’s a simple way to prevent hundreds of small plane crashes: fill up the gas tank.”

This is the statement I woke up to in my RSS reader the other morning. It’s this very “compelling” statement that has caught the eye and ear of many major newspapers and newscasts.

For some of us general aviation maybe a hobby for others it maybe a career. I can effectively speak for both departments. Regardless of our purpose in aviation we all have to do our part to shed the real light on general aviation.

I’m a huge advocate for general aviation and to see articles like this with headlines like above breaks my heart. It’s our job as pilots to conduct a proper preflight, calculate fuel burn, weight and balance etc…

However let’s defend our position. The very next line in that report states: “The National Transportation Safety Board says running out of fuel has been a cause or factor in 238 small plane crashes in the past five years.”

After some quick research I found that in 2008 alone there were over 26 million hours flown! That’s in 2008 alone. So assuming these “5 years” the article refers to the yearly hours flown would be quite similar.

In other words out of an estimated 125 million hours flown there were 238 crashes related to fuel exhaustion. That’s less than .1%!

Yet there are two sides to every story. Yes, fuel starvation related accidents are low. However couldn’t they be lower? What can we do to prevent them. After looking over several NTSB reports related to this topic they all end with “The loss of engine power due to fuel starvation as a result of the pilot’s failure to manage and monitor fuel usage.” Or something to that nature.

Pilots don’t go flying expecting to run out of fuel. Fuel management is the most preventable general aviation accident yet still year after year a handful of pilots turn their aircraft into impromptu gliders!

This situation won’t be solved by simply saying. “only leave the ground with full tanks” because we know that’s not possible. Rarely can I take a student, myself, full fuel, and flight bags on a flight in my little 150. It’s just not safe.

How do I avoid this problem, while still staying within my weight limits? I plan. Before each flight I say: “Okay, this will be an hour long instructional flight my 150 burns 4.5 gph during flight instruction. However I’d rather be safe and call it 6. During my instruction flights I require my students to have an hour reserve. (although the FAA only requires 30 mins) So we’ll tack on an additional 6 gallons. (Again rounding high). It looks like there is some weather to our south so just to be safe let’s add another 45 minutes and make sure we’re within our weight and CG limits.”

That is a typical conversation in the hanger while preflighting. Shouldn’t you be thinking of these things? Yes the FAA says 30 minutes additional fuel for VFR day. But why not tighten the rules? Why do just enough to get by?

My friends aviation is a wonderful thing, let’s defend it and stick up for it. We’ll always have nay-sayers. Be safe, fly your best, and remember, a good pilot is always learning.

Ethanol fuel for aircraft: A perspective from 1935

Alternative fuels like ethanol for both cars and aircraft are once again in the news in recent years but few people may realize that the debate over whether ethanol should be used as a fuel for aircraft is in fact, old news. Recently, the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) posted an article entitled “Will Alcohol Mixtures Rule?” that appeared in a June 1935 issue of Popular Aviation magazine. The article expressed concerns about the corrosive effects of alcohol based fuels and blends upon aircraft parts, the potential for price volatility due to fluctuating commodity prices and the various lobbyists and industry groups trying to influence the political decision making process. In other words, the same concerns that are expressed today – roughly 75 years later (to read more about these concerns, check out the General Aviation News’ GAFuels blog).

The 1935 article and debate is well worth reading for anyone one interested in alternative fuels for aircraft or the debate about their use.

Algae as aviation fuel?

Biofuels and biofuel for aircraft are a topics that periodically come up – especially whenever oil prices go through the roof (like last year). One of the potential fuels that sometimes gets promoted for mass production is algae because after all, its renewable and producing it won’t harm current food supplies (a BIG problem with other biofuels such as corn or sugar cane based ones).

Hence Brett, the blogger behind the Cranky Flier blog, recently had an interesting discussion with the President and CEO of OriginOil about their algae oil product and its potential use as aviation fuel. Apparently, algae oil is not all hype and its been proven that algae can be turned into oil. However, it usually takes a tremendous amount of energy and chemicals to produce the fuel. And although OriginOil uses a different process that takes a tremendous amount of water, Brett noted that on one acre:

You probably will have about 40% of it as actual tank capacity for growing. In that environment, you will turn out about 63,000 gallons per year for that acre. How many airplanes can that power?

It’ll keep a 747 in the air for about 18 hours. That’s it.

In other words, don’t expect to see algae-powered airplanes anytime in the immediate future. And while OriginOil believes that it will take about 5 years before a sustainable algae oil industry develops, the price of the fuel (at best, US$8 per gallon of oil and with some people thinking it will be more like US$12 or US$14 per gallon) will largely remain prohibitive for use by aviation.

Precautions against contaminated fuel

Aviatrix, the blogger behind the Cockpit Conversation blog, recently had a reader express concern about taking avgas from a relatively small facility that sells a fairly limited amount of avgas in a month. After all, the risk of contaminated or bad fuel is (at least in theory) probably greater with such facilities. Hence, Aviatrix pointed out some of the precautions they take when using it:

Whenever possible we fuel the night before and then check the fuel sumps in the morning, giving time for water and particulate matter to settle to the bottom of the tank where we can see it. During this operation I have never found appreciable water in the fuel system, and never found any that didn’t correlate with precipitation during fuelling.

Ironically though, Aviatrix also mentioned that the one time her company drew contaminated fuel, it was from a large operator in the USA and she further recounted a story about how much of Australia’s general aviation was grounded a few years ago due to contaminated fuel from another large operator.

Hence and perhaps the risk of contamination is actually equal or greater with large operators rather than with small ones who know their customers and have their personal reputations on the line.