Fuel leak causes Thomas Cook flight to make emergency landing

ian_m

guardian.co.uk, Monday 22 February 2010



A holiday charter jet flying British skiers home from Italy was forced to make an emergency landing yesterdayafter gallons of fuel started spewing from its right wing.

Passengers panicked as they watched a thick, white trail of fuel fill the blue sky immediately after their Thomas Cook Boeing 757 took off from Turin's Caselle airport. Noticing the leak, the pilot alerted airport controllers who closed the airport and lined up fire engines along the runway as the plane circled before making an emergency landing.

"It was obvious we were losing fuel, particularly to those who were sat at the back on the right, and we are wondering if we would have enough to land," said one of the 231 passengers on board.

"We were worried at first, but then the pilot calmed us down and everything went smoothly and without a single bump."

Air traffic controllers closed the airport for over an hour to clean spilt fuel off the runways after the plane landed at 2.45pm, while Thomas Cook dispatched an engineer from the UK and arranged for passengers to spend the night at local hotels, a spokesman for the firm said.

"I can confirm that flight TCX127L to Birmingham experienced a fuel leak after takeoff from Turin airport," said the spokesman, who added that the leak was caused by a faulty valve. The engineer fixed the problem, allowing passengers to fly home on the same aircraft today, he said.

LINK Fuel leak causes Thomas Cook flight to make emergency landing

highlydebased

ian_m wrote: »

"It was obvious we were losing fuel, particularly to those who were sat at the back on the right, and we are wondering if we would have enough to land," said one of the 231 passengers on board.

They obviously dont realise the right wing is not the only place where fuel is carried :rolleyes:

cuterob

Neon-Circles wrote: »

They obviously dont realise the right wing is not the only place where fuel is carried :rolleyes:

wow massive shock!!, of the 231 passengers onboard some don't know the ins and outs of an aircraft!!!!! :rolleyes: ... seriously do people ever think before posting? or is everybody trying to look smarter by posting condescending replies?? if the plane was carrying 231 pilots and flight engineers then your reply might make some sense

Foggy43

From looking at the photo it appears there was too much fuel in the right wing tank and dumping through the vent tank. Normal operation provided it was just an overfill.
Question is what was the fuel load for Turin Manchester. From memory full wings is 13,000kgs approx. I would guess they were full for the trip.

John_Mc

Foggy43 wrote: »

From looking at the photo it appears there was too much fuel in the right wing tank and dumping through the vent tank. Normal operation provided it was just an overfill.
Question is what was the fuel load for Turin Manchester. From memory full wings is 13,000kgs approx. I would guess they were full for the trip.

That's normal behaviour for a cessna or SEP, but not for a jet. When required, they can carry full tanks. Provided they arent over MTOW and have a long enough runway they can fly - without having to deliberately dump fuel.

There's no way this is normal behaviour

Captain Chaos

If it was full on take off I'd say they would have to circle a while even with a fuel leak to get below landing weight.

John_Mc

Captain Chaos wrote: »

If it was full on take off I'd say they would have to circle a while even with a fuel leak to get below landing weight.

Maybe not, could be hard to keep the fuel balanced in both wings even with cross feed turned on. Could just have been safer to lander above MLW - I believe this is a decision left up to the captain.

fuelinjection

Between the hassle of landing and burning up into a cinder, I choose the landing.

Good work from the pilots who have to fill in a detailed report and have an investigation afterwards. Thats the guys/girls I want flying my plane.

Foggy43

John_Mc wrote: »

That's normal behaviour for a cessna or SEP, but not for a jet. When required, they can carry full tanks. Provided they arent over MTOW and have a long enough runway they can fly - without having to deliberately dump fuel.

There's no way this is normal behaviour

The B747s, B757, B767 and B777 have fuel vents. I can assure you when an over fuel takes place it will pour from the vent. From personal experience the fuel may not vent until taxing out for take off. Particularly the B747's. The wings start flexing up and down and the surge tank filling. When full the fuel can only exit through the vent. Solution is to physically check the contents of each tank and transfer the fuel out of the overfilled tank. It can take a while for the surge tank to drain. This can only be done on the ground.

highlydebased

cuterob wrote: »

wow massive shock!!, of the 231 passengers onboard some don't know the ins and outs of an aircraft!!!!! :rolleyes: ... seriously do people ever think before posting? or is everybody trying to look smarter by posting condescending replies?? if the plane was carrying 231 pilots and flight engineers then your reply might make some sense

Well this forum is generally used by people who know a thing or two about aviation so hence why I pointed it out.

cuterob wrote: »

. seriously do people ever think before posting? or is everybody trying to look smarter by posting condescending replies??

Think you answered that question yourself. :rolleyes:

cuterob

Neon-Circles wrote: »

Well this forum is generally used by people who know a thing or two about aviation so hence why I pointed it out.

yea so there is no need to point it out then.. pointless post.. and people obviously agree with my opinion or else we'd all be thanking your hilarious reply to the op

Skuxx

Foggy43 wrote: »

Question is what was the fuel load for Turin Manchester. From memory full wings is 13,000kgs approx. I would guess they were full for the trip.

Firstly the plane was flying to Bermingham, not manchester.
According to http://www.gpsvisualizer.com, the distance between Turin Airport and Bermingham Airport is 1057.7km and a basic 757-200 series aircraft will do approx 5,900km so unless fuel in Turin is fierce cheap I think its unlikely that the tanks would be filled to anywhere near overflow level!

Foggy43

A B757 will use between 7,500 and 11,000kgs of fuel on a 2 to 3 hour sector. A Turin Birmingham sector will fall between these. With current weather conditions more fuel will be carried in case of diversions. BHX was shut for a while due to snow 3 days ago.
Full wings is 13,000kgs. Full tanks will be 34,000kgs. Approximates depending on the fuels SG.

The finger is now pointing at a pressure relief valve in the surge tank which had to be manually reset on the ground.

zig

Neon-Circles wrote: »

They obviously dont realise the right wing is not the only place where fuel is carried :rolleyes:

Id imagine you could have all the knowledge in the world about airplanes, and still be sh1tting it if you saw fuel spilling out of a wing mid flight tbf .

pclancy

Neon and Cuterob can you guys stay on topic please. None of those posts were really needed so its time to just move on now.

Maxx123

Gentlemen, I was on both the aborted and re-scheduled flight. The engineer who flew out to fix the plane hitched a ride back with us and I overheard his explanation of the problem.

He explained that debris had blocked a vent which should allow air in to fill the space vacated as fuel is drawn from the tanks. He said that because it was blocked a valve was opened (automatically perhaps ?) which allowed the fuel to pour out.

Passengers on the ground reported a cloud (of fuel ?) coming out of the Starboard engine as we pushed back and the engines were fired up. I wonder whether this could have been the first evidence of the problem ? They then obvisouly saw the fuel gushing out as we accelerated down the runway !

We also had a French Mirage turn up and fly alongside us for 10-15 mins whilst over Paris on the second flight - see youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_R2hwbr_0jI - the Captain said that they had heard reports of us being in trouble and came to investigate. There was apparently then a delay in him figuring out which frequency to speak to him on ! - I speculate that maybe Turin had not updated French ATC (who are on and off strike this week) of our day-late schedule perhaps and they came to investigate ?

Maxx123

Our Parisian Escort!