Pilot told Colombia air traffic controllers 'no fuel' before crash

That type of aircraft had no ability to dump fuel, apparently, even if they had any left to dump. Every spare drop would have been valuable.

A total tragedy and another hugely expensive accident investigation when the causes would seem to be human frailty.

If there is any good here, it is the fact that several people survived. This alone is a miracle, and despite all the negatives, the captain must be given a little credit for this at the end.

The old mantra holds true. Let us hope that we can learn something and move forward toward greater aircraft safety.

Our prayers and condolences to all...

Lessons learned... but an extremely sad and devastating cost.

I watched them play... now I can only pray. May all the survivors and the surviving families continue to live on bravely and as strong as those players and others that lost their lives in this tragic event.

The aircraft's max. range was shorter than the distance of the route?!?! The controller still wouldn't let the aircraft land after the pilot shouted he was running out of fuel?!?!

Remind me to never to take a domestic flight in South America.

This was a chartered flight. Commercial flights in South America are fine and appear to follow normal safety regulations from my experience. Though it is odd that the exit rows were always empty unless English speakers asked for them. On a flight inside Argentina it was a French couple and me in the exit row of an A320; 3 people for 2 full rows of seats. Seeing the empty sees, a Chinese traveler decided to relocated. The flight crew asked if he spoke English, which he ignored. A few minutes later, he was forcibly removed from that seat and police were waiting for him when we arrived. He didn't speak Spanish either.

This wasn't a tiny plane. It holds about 70-95 passengers normally and has 4 jet engines. The maximum range is if there aren't any issues. The pilot should have seen this issue and raised concerns with the company logistics team. Of course, if they had made the flight before, with less weight, perhaps they felt the risks were worth the income? I dunno.

https://www.flightradar24.com/data/aircraft/cp-2933#bbef1b9 will show the flight path, including the 2 circles outside Medellin. The track is probably truncated, but shows the plane at 15K ft. That link will break in a few days.

"Commercial flights in South America are fine...."

As long as the ground controllers don't respond to mayday transmissions but putting the distressed aircraft.... in a holding pattern.

Well, here's what's on TV news nowç: 1) The plane should not be allowed to take off, because the flight plan was wrong. Not enough fuel to cover the distance. 2) The carrier had been heavily criticised before, for flying on low levels of fuel. 3) The pilot was aware of this 4) The Medellin tower "senorita" mentioned in the dialogues is under fire, for it's surfacing that she denied emergency landing out of stubborn - believe it or not, that's exactly what TVs are reporting.

As TheFu said above, commercial flights in South America are safe. This one was a chartered one and it took off from Bolivia, a country no one should even get on a bus.

There is too much ill informed comment.

He never issued a MAYDAY or a PAN, his flight plan showed enroute time of 4 hours 22 minutes and his aircraft endurance was put at 4.22 minutes. IN other words he had no margin of error, and should have had 30 minutes "spare".

He did not warn the poor airtraffic controller, who was dealing with another aircraft incident ahead, that he had a problem when he should have known an hour away from Medellin that his position was at best marginal.

If the tapes are a full record, the pilot allowed the aircraft to be put into a holding pattern without issuing an warning and it appears from the tapes that even when he actually ran out of fuel he did not declare an emergency, continuing calmly to call the lady "senorita". No real sense of urgency until too late. Air Traffic controllers cannot read the minds of the pilots or the instruments of the plane and this lady was kept in the dark until it was too late to attempt to rescue a stricken plane. As soon as the gravity of the situation became apparent you hear her vectoring other aircraft out of the way, but the pilot had gambled and lost.

The plane should never have taken off in that condition.

One of many unanswered questions is why a MAYDAY call was not made 30 - 45 minutes out of Medellin. Some psychological or regulatory issue perhaps ? The the arrival could have been expedited and prioritised.

I feel desperately sorry for the passengers whose trust was betrayed by incompetence and for the ATC lady who seems to be blamed for the accident. The tapes if complete suggest that she worked in an exemplary fashion given the information she had at the time and the the other incident she had to deal with.