Fuel Exhaustion - Are We Set Up To Fail

Our expectations are so low for aircraft fuel level gauging systems, They are hardly ever relied on.

In fact when we educate new pilots this is typically what is said.

• The first one is taken from the AIM

FUEL REMAINING—A phrase used by either pilots or controllers when relating to the fuel remaining on board until actual fuel exhaustion. When transmitting such information in response to either a controller question or pilot initiated cautionary advisory to air traffic control, pilots will state the APPROXIMATE NUMBER OF MINUTES the flight can continue with the fuel remaining.

All reserve fuel SHOULD BE INCLUDED in the time stated, as should an allowance for established fuel gauge system error.

• The second one from the Irish Aviation Authority

Aircraft fuel gauges can be notoriously inaccurate so it more reliable to “dip” the tanks to establish how much fuel is onboard. However, make sure that your dipstick is calibrated to suit your aircraft type, the aircraft is parked on level ground and the fuel level has been allowed to stabilise before you dip.

• The final one from AOPA  Flight Training Magazine

Use the clock - not the fuel quantity indicators on the panel - as your fuel gauge. In other words, plan and track your fuel consumption based on endurance, not range. Unlike range, endurance is not at the mercy of winds. Besides, those fuel gauge indicators probably won't be very accurate except when they read empty - a setting you should never see. 

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In fact the pilot mantra given to prevent Fuel Starvation and Exhaustion is  "PREFLIGHT, PREFLIGHT, PREFLIGHT  

So what do we normally look for in a PREFLIGHT inspection - tires, brakes, oil level, security of the flight controls, condition of the prop, security of the fuel caps.   Basically all the stuff you can't check in flight.

The implication here is - you have only one chance per flight to check your fuel level - & that one chance is at your PREFLIGHT inspection.  - If you avoid that critical step, you are flying on borrowed time buddy.

Here is the rub  - you are supposed to be able to monitor your fuel level throughout your time in the air.

Another Pilot Mantra could just as easily be be "INFLIGHT, INFLIGHT, INFLIGHT.  That INFLIGHT scenario would be the pilot comparing anticipated fuel level, to actual indicated fuel level.  This would be the pilot vigilance stuff, you know the cross checks of fuel remaining from the calculations to what is onboard.  

Fuel Gauges are required instruments and found on all powered aircraft - So yes the FAA actually expected them to work.  ---  I bet you are surprised.

You are, by design, supposed to be able to see how much fuel you have at any time while you are in the air.   It is the law, it really is, and it really is a good idea.

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In 1974 (yes that long ago) the NTSB initiated a study on Fuel Starvation,  in this study,  they found that there were some aircraft that rarely had a fuel starvation event,  and they also found some aircraft that were prone to the issue - Most aircraft as you might guess were average in this regard.

SO what this study pointed out, it didn't really come right out and say it,  but it was pretty clear that fuel exhaustion wasn't just a pilot thing  - 

If it were, pilots being human - some good, some bad & most of them average would equally suffer fuel starvation in any aircraft.  It would not matter which aircraft you flew.

An average pilot in an average aircraft might have a fuel starvation event - but not really that likely.

An average pilot might never experience a fuel starvation in "X" model aircraft, but that same pilot might be assured of a high probability of fuel starvation if he flew "Y" model aircraft 

As General Aviation is slow to change - some of those aircraft are still in production.  In fact some of those aircraft in the study are still flying.

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So what did the Aircraft Manufacturers recommend in the 1974 Report:

• Two manufacturers recommended a separate Low Fuel warning system. 

• One manufacturer recommended that a more accurate and reliable fuel level system be developed. 

• One manufacturer believed that a "one tank system" would be beneficial.

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So what did the NTSB recommend in the 1974 Report:

• Specification for a low fuel level warning that would operate independently of the existing fuel gauging system.

• Specification for a more accurate type fuel quantity gauging system. 

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That was 40 years ago - so 

Where Are We Now! 

I am guessing from the picture,  that we are still on the road to find a solution.

PA28 - Lands in Field - Out of Fuel

May 05, 2014 

PRINCESS ANNE, Md.- Maryland State Police say a plane coming from West Point, Va., was forced to make an emergency landing Sunday night in Somerset County.

At around 8  p.m., the MSP Princess Anne barrack received a report of a plane in distress. Police said the plane, piloted by 65-year-old Randolph Lee Beauchamp of Berlin, Md., was heading to the Salisbury-Ocean City: Wicomico Regional Airport.

Police said a short time later, the barrack received information that the plane had made an emergency landing in a field in the 31000 block of West Post Office Road in Princess Anne. Troopers responded to the scene and made contact with the pilot.

Police said the plane encountered strong head winds over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel, which caused Beauchamp to use more fuel than expected. Police said because of this, the plane ran out of fuel about 10 miles from the Salisbury Airport.

Beauchamp was not injured in the emergency landing and the plane was not damaged.

Troopers were assisted by Somerset County Sheriff's Office, Princess Anne police, Maryland Natural Resources Police and the Princess Anne Fire Department.

WBOC 16

PA28 Piper Cherokee - Lands in a Field -

MAY 6, 2014

CHAMBERSBURG, Pa. — The pilot of a Piper PA-28 Cherokee with engine failure successfully managed an emergency landing at about 5 p.m. Tuesday on a Greene Township, Pa., field.

Northern Maine resident Brady Henderson, 35, walked away from the incident. He said he was a bit sore.

Henderson said he noticed the single-engine plane, which he has owned for six weeks, was having problems about six minutes before putting it down in a field across the road from Franklin County Regional Airport in Chambersburg.

The Federal Aviation Administration was on the scene investigating the incident.

Henderson said he was in communication with air-traffic controllers in Harrisburg, Pa., and attempting to land on the Chambersburg airport’s tarmac. Unable to set up the approach appropriately, Henderson opted for the field as an alternative.

Henderson, who has been flying for several years, is licensed for visual flying and has practiced grass field landings previously. While visiting family in the area, he decided to do a practice flight Tuesday afternoon.

The plane remained intact after the rough landing. Crews with a pickup truck hauled it to the airport.

Henderson said he was unsure why the engine failed and would hire a mechanic to evaluate the aircraft.

Jennifer Fitch/Staff Writer HM MEDIA 

PA28 Piper Archer - Out of Fuel - Land on Road in Hungary

Nov 14 2010  - Piper PA28 Archer III Lands on a Road 

A very lucky day tonight for a pilot of a D-registered Piper Archer who safely performed an emergency landing on a highway on the outskirts of Brno around 18.00 local time (after dark).

The aircraft was en route from Germany to Hungary when its French pilot reported shortage of fuel to the air traffic control and notified them of his intent to land on a highway. The crew sustained no injuries, but the aircraft badly damaged one of its wings by hitting a street lighting poles.

PA28 Hits the Road - Out of Fuel

Out of Fuel, Pilot Lands on Highway

Flying Magazine

By Stephen Pope / Published: Jul 16, 2013

Related Tags: Pilots, Adventures & More, News

Courtesy of WSOC

Enlarge Photo

A North Carolina pilot late last night successfully landed his single-engine Piper Cherokee between cars on Highway 321 a few miles short of Hickory Regional Airport after running out of fuel.

The pilot, Eric Klein, told a reporter for WSOC that when he ran out of fuel he was too low to make the airport and so he decided to set his airplane down on the northbound lanes of the highway, using the lights from the cars as a guide.

“I was coming back from Clarksburg, West Virginia, and should have had three hours of fuel left in the plane,” Klein told the news station. “I had excessive fuel burn for some reason and only had two hours and 10 minutes, and ran out of fuel about five miles short of the Hickory Airport.”

Klein managed to land his airplane without hitting anything, bringing it safely to a stop on the road in Granite Falls, North Carolina, at about 11 p.m.

No NTSB Action 

PA28 Lands on a Road

A 1968 Piper PA-28R-180 Cherokee single-engine aircraft with four persons on board made an emergency landing on southbound Interstate I-15 between Escondido, Calif., and El Norte Parkway on Sunday evening, July 22, 2012 at 11:25 p.m. PDT according to reports published on Monday, July 23 by KGTV 10News San Diego, the Los Angeles Times, the Kathryn's Report, the North County Times, and other media.

The pilot, 48-year-old Ken Gheysar of Orange, Calif., was en route from Mammoth Yosemite Airport (MMH) to McClellan-Palomar Airport (CLD) in Carlsbad, Calif., but ran out of fuel and decided to put down on the freeway.

According to CHP officer Jim Bettencourt, "Since traffic was light at that hour he was able to land safely and make it to the right shoulder of the freeway just north of El Norte Road."

The plane landed safely and was undamaged, until the tip of the left wing was clipped by 74-year-old Milton Loy of Poway, who was driving a 1995 Dodge Dakota, causing minor damage to the aircraft and pickup truck.

Joel Siegfried

Airport Examiner

NO NTSB Action

PA28 Lands on a Parkway

Instructor-Pilot Lands Stalled Single Engine Plane Safely on Palm Coast Parkway

FLAGLERLIVE | MARCH 13, 2013

The Piper after it had been pushed off Palm Coast Parkway, sitting in the setting sun as onlookers took in the scene. Click on the image for larger view. (© FlaglerLive)

Phoenix East flight school’s Raul d’Souza is a hero: the young instructor was piloting a plane late this afternoon, practicing emergency landings with a student, when the plane ran into engine troubles–and forced D’Souza, 34, to execute an emergency landing in the heart of Palm Coast. He did so nearly flawlessly.

Raul d’Souza, a new Sully Sullenberger, immediately after the landing. Click on the image for larger view. (© FlaglerLive)

With him was Joo Lee, 33, who looked distinctly shaken from the experience. They both smoked, paced, sat, and smoked again soon after the landing. They’re both based at Phoenix East Aviation, on Pearl Harbor Drive in Daytona Beach. D’Souza, who’s been at the flight school since at least 2004, maintains a YouTube page of favorites that includes several video clips from the flight school.

An SUV–or at least a large white car–had to do an evasive maneuver as the eastbound plane negotiated the two rather narrow lanes of Palm Coast Parkway west, and a huge semi, carrying cars, was also on the road; the plane faintly clipped the truck, but managed to land on the road. The truck had been parked on the shoulder, having just picked up a Mercedes from Parkway Self Storage. The plane clipped its left-front guide-pole with the marker light on its left wing, which shattered, leaving tiny and still-visible fragments on the fender above the truck’s left-front-tire. The plane also clipped the air cleaner, which was dented.

The single-engine Piper, built in 1968, landed safely at 6:45 p.m. on Palm Coast Parkway, just west of Belle Terre. The plane sat on the road for less than 20 minutes before authorities and one of the two occupants of the plane pushed it off the road and parked it at the entrance of Parkway Self Storage. The wesbound lanes of Palm Coast Parkway were shut down only briefly.

The plane belongs to Daytona Aircraft Leasing Inc., based at the same address as the flight school. D’Souza had reported engine trouble to the Daytona airport’s tower just after 6:30 p.m. Authorities in Flagler got the call of a plane in distress at 6:37 p.m., when dispatch announced an airplane emergency, describing a plane approaching Palm Coast Parkway from the west, toward the east, and possibly looking to land there. Shortly afterward, the landing took place.

The pilot and his passenger declined to be interviewed, referring questions to their safety supervisor, who was on his way from Daytona Beach. The Florida Highway Patrol was investigating the incident, which it categorized as a crash the moment the plane struck the truck.

Hayden Gordon, whose truck the plane clipped on its landing approach. Click on the image for larger view. (© FlaglerLive)

Hayden Gordon, 52, has owned the truck since 1999, and said he’d never had any road incident resembling his experience Wednesday afternoon. He’s based in Port St. Lucie. He was on his way to New York City, after starting to pick up cars in Miami. He had three on the truck. “I didn’t really see it,” Gordon said of the plane’s approach. “I was parked here, I’d just put the car up, and I was right here, getting ready to chain it” he said, describing his position to the right of the truck, with the truck blocking his view of the parkway. “Then I hear the sound, I hear it go boom. So when I spin around I saw the plane. There was a car coming. The car went right under. The car went right under it, yeah?” It was a white car. “And I saw the plane hit the ground and run out.”

Gordon ran down to see the pilots, who had immediately bailed from the plane and run to the south shoulder of the road, on the grass. “It kind of scared me a bit, you know,” Gordon continued, after he’d realized what had unfolded, but “they were fine,” he said of the plane’s occupants. “The guy said his engine went out, he tried to start it but it wouldn’t start.”

No NTSB Action 

Fuel Exhaustion - Another PA28 Finds a Road

Plane makes emergency landing on Watterson

Posted: Oct 07, 2010 8:22 PM PDTUpdated: Oct 08, 2010 8:08 AM PDT

 

 

 

By Marisela Burgos - bio | email
Posted by Charles Gazaway - email 

LOUISVILLE, KY (WAVE) - Early Friday morning, emergency crews remained on the scene of a small plane that made an emergency landing on the Watterson Expressway near Taylorsville Road.

The plane, a Piper PA-28, landed in the westbound lanes of the Watterson just west of the Taylorsville Road ramp shortly after 11 p.m. Thursday. Four people were reported to be onboard, but no injuries were reported.

The aircraft came to a stop on the grassy shoulder of the interstate off the driving lane. Traffic on westbound Watterson was flowing using the outside lanes.

According the FAA website, the registered owner of the plane is Benjamin Price of Fisherville, KY. It is not known if Price was onboard the aircraft at the time of the emergency landing.

Kathleen Bergan, communications manager of the FAA Southern region, said initial reports indicate Bowman Field was the plane's intended destination. Bergan said the FAA is investigating and the National Transportation Safety Board has notified of the crash.

NTSB Report 

The pilot stated that he estimated the airplane's fuel supply during his preflight planning by calculating the fuel consumed during the two previous flights. The pilot departed for his destination and planned to land with 45 minutes of fuel reserve. During the flight, the airplane encountered wind stronger than forecast and the airplane consumed more fuel than he had estimated. On descent for landing, the airplane experienced a total loss of engine power and the pilot attempted to glide to the runway. As the airplane's airspeed and altitude decreased, the pilot opted to land on the freeway below. The airplane touched down in the middle lanes, skidded along the pavement, and came to rest in a ditch. During the accident sequence the airplane incurred damage to the right wing and horizontal stabilizer. Post-accident examination of the airplane by a Federal Aviation Administration inspector revealed that both tanks were absent of fuel and that there was no evidence of a preimpact mechanical anomaly.

159 Piper PA28's - Have Suffered Fuel Exhaustion in the last 20 yrs.

COVINGTON, TN -

(WMC) – The small plane that went missing around 11 a.m. on Wednesday was found crashed in a wooded area two hours later.

"I really don't understand how he could survive something like that. People are resilient. It just wasn't his time," said pilot Ben Baker, who helped in the search

According to the Tipton County sheriff, the pilot's name is Kent Wingate, 62. Firefighters on the scene say Wingate was unconscious, but his heart rate and blood pressure were stable. He was taken to Regional Medical Center in critical condition.

Wingate and his Piper Archer single engine plane were found near the Hatchie River in Lauderdale County.

The plane went missing as it prepared to land at Covington Municipal Airport. The airport's manager said that Wingate told him he was out of fuel and was going to land the plane; it never landed.
Images from Chopper 5 show the plane wedged in thick trees about two miles north of the airport. The crash site was located by tracking the emergency signal being transmitted from the plane.

"It was so thick back there in the area of the backwater ... Some of the slews, the foliage really thick," said Tipton County Sheriff Pancho Chumley.
A boater on the Hatchie River was flagged down by emergency personnel to take them across the river to the wreckage.


Wingate was flying into town for a funeral. He retired from the United States Air Force where he was an aeronautical engineer.

.According to our NBC affiliate, WDTN, Wingate lives in Xenia, Ohio, which is a suburb of Dayton. He works at Sinclair Community College.

"Kent Wingate is the chair of the Aviation Technology department," Sinclair spokesman Adam Murka said in a written statement. "

Copyright 2014 WMC Action News 5. All rights reserved.  

When Kent left Dayton Wright Brothers airport on Wednesday morning he had calculated his fuel to include the average 20 knot headwind to Covington, TN. 

He stated he would have 13 gallons left in his tanks when he landed which would provide approx. 1.5 hours of available fuel remaining. He topped of the airplane before departure. He flew 3.9 hours at an average fuel burn of 8.5 gallons an hour.

As anyone who’s flown the older Piper aircraft know, the fuel gauges are usually worthless below 1/2 tanks.

So what gives here - & why is this narrative is typical. 

159 Piper Pa28's & 18 Fatalities as a Result of Fuel Starvation

No AD's ........ No Action items - 

Is the FAA and NTSB doing their job or are they just on their way to the crash site to investigate,  According to the NTSB, why bother.

"I think that there are things that should never happen, really the easy things...," NTSB Chairperson Hersman said. "And I think that among the things in the bucket that are easy ... fuel starvation. How many times do our investigators need to investigate an accident like that."

Press Coverage of NTSB Chairperson Barbara Hersman 

If they do look and check,  chances are they would find a fuel sender like this one - and wonder why this belongs in an airworthy aircraft.

What it Looks Like - Aircraft Fuel Sender - Mark Twombly AOPA

What It Looks Like Fuel sender - Variable Potentiometer  By Mark Twombly How do you know with confidence how much fuel is in the tanks when you taxi for takeoff? The same way you do in your car: Check the fuel quantity indicators. As every new pilot eventually comes to realize, however, fuel quantity indicators in the typical light aircraft are notoriously inaccurate except, perhaps, when they read Empty. Fuel quantity needles bounce in turbulence, often lag in indicating a depleting supply of fuel, and then seem to speed up their descent as they near the big E. This is why we visually check the fuel quantity as part of our preflight inspection. A big reason for the temperamental behavior of analog fuel quantity gauges is the fuel sender, the mechanism buried within the fuel tank that measures fuel level. Although there are several different types of analog and digital fuel senders, the type found in most light single-engine aircraft is based on a simple float system. The lightweight float is attached to one end of a thin metal arm, the other end of which pivots inside a sealed housing. The housing, which is submerged in the fuel, contains a resistance element and contact system. The float arm contacts a coil or winding inside the housing that is energized with current sent from the fuel quantity indicator on the instrument panel. Different positions on the winding represent different resistance levels. As fuel is consumed and the float descends in the tank, the float arm contact slowly moves along the winding, gradually changing the resistance in the current read by the gauge. The current reading is translated into an analog needle indication. So what happens if the electrical current somehow shorts and "leaks" into the fuel tank? No worries -- the current is too weak to ignite the fuel or even fuel vapors. One manufacturer of resistance type float fuel senders says the design life is 100,000 empty-full-empty cycles but includes this important caveat: "Actual service life may be less because of wear caused by vibration and fuel movement." Add to that the ravages of time and infrequent use that no doubt accelerate the aging process of a fuel sender . So, along with learning to take off with sufficient fuel in the tanks to complete the intended mission plus some, we soon learn to treat fuel gauges with a healthy skepticism. The best bet is to back up the fuel quantity indicators with another simple measuring device: a watch.