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From what I hear, it looks like it's a standard procedure that ATC asks about fuel on board whenever an aircraft declares an emergency. Do they need the information for their own planning purpose or just to pass it along to the fire crew so that they get prepared for possible emergency situations like a fire upon landing?

I thought the second was the correct reason, but the fact that some pilots report fuel in remaining time, not in pounds, gets me confused.

lemonincider
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    Some pilots may report fuel remaining in time because they do not have the remaining fuel volume to hand. A PA-28 fueled to the tabs will have 128 litres and that will give a flight time of 3.5 hours. If the emergency occurs 90 minutes in, the pilot will know that there are 2hrs of fuel left, but will have to calculate the remaining volume - not a distraction you want when you have an emergency – Dave Gremlin Aug 12 '17 at 10:14
  • @DaveGremlin At least on all of the PA-28s I've flown, the fuel gauges are marked in volume (which makes sense, considering fuel burn per time varies by throttle setting.) Granted, whether the fuel gauges on the PA-28 should be believed or not is another question... – reirab Aug 13 '17 at 05:40
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    In most light GA aircraft, the most accurate fuel gauge is your clock. – Mike Brass Apr 08 '18 at 09:19

1 Answers1

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It depends on the type of situation. If the aircraft is unable to land for some reason, we'll want to know the remaining fuel to get an idea of how long the aircraft can realistically stay airborne. For an aircraft coming in for an emergency landing - as you have already guessed - the reason we ask for remaining fuel is because the fire and rescue personel needs this information. We will also ask such an aircraft if they have any dangerous goods onboard, since we need to pass this info on to the fire crew as well.

During an emergency, we have a checklist to follow that reminds us which information we need to obtain, and who needs to know what is going on. For a tower position, it may look something like this:

enter image description here

As you can see, fuel and dangerous goods are grouped together, indicating that they are essentially the same thing - something that may cause fire, explode or otherwise cause danger during evacuation of the aircraft.

60levelchange
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    Why is there something blacked out on that sheet? – Polygnome Aug 12 '17 at 09:25
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    @Polygnome I'd imagine it's "Inform " and redacted as personal information. – ceejayoz Aug 12 '17 at 13:42
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    @polygnome Because it is not relevant in this context – 60levelchange Aug 12 '17 at 13:43
  • Great job on including the check-list, immediately turns this into a definitive answer. – Mast Aug 12 '17 at 19:49
  • @J.Hougaard is it a name? Just curious - why would that be a name, where the others are a position eg "Watch Supervisor" or "Rescue work leader"? – BruceWayne Aug 13 '17 at 03:30
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    @BruceWayne It's an intelligence agency. They have to make sure to clean up any evidence of the chemicals used for the chemtrails in case of a crash. :) – reirab Aug 13 '17 at 05:43
  • ATCs have checklists too? aviation loves its checklists ;) – cat Aug 13 '17 at 13:52
  • @cat Well, aviation put checklists into perfection! Even the order of items on most checklists there is well thought out. I wonder how many checklists of checklists are there. – yo' Aug 13 '17 at 14:03
  • Come to think of it, why have I never heard the tower relaying fuel information to the fire crew when they coordinate on the radio for arriving emergency aircraft? I have listened to many video clips on the emergencies on Youtube but never heard tower saying of the information. Why is that? Is it because the information relayed to the headquarters of the fire crew, not the fire engines? – lemonincider Aug 15 '17 at 02:39
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    @lemonincider Could be any number of reasons. Maybe they communicate on a different frequency or via telephone, or maybe the information was already relayed before the start of the recordings you have seen – 60levelchange Aug 15 '17 at 04:10
  • Could the blacked out part be "Clergy"? – Mike Brass Jan 20 '18 at 01:11
  • @MikeBrass It should be easy enough to tell. The redaction doesn't look like it was particularly well done. – forest Apr 15 '19 at 08:27