A TUI plane carrying 300 passengers had to issue an alert and make an emergency landing after coming within 20 minutes of running out of fuel. The Boeing 787 from Mexico to Manchester had to cut the flight short and land at Birmingham.
The pilot had loaded extra fuel before take-of because of the weather conditions, but the aircraft was 35 per cent under the recommended final reserve fuel limit by the time it touched down.
Flight TOM173 took off from Cancun at 5.50pm local time on December 20, 2023, for an overnight flight to Manchester. The crew were informed of strong winds in the UK but believed they would dissipate at around 6am, with the aircraft due to land at 7.35am.
They chose to load an additional 2,170lbs of fuel as a precaution, equivalent to around 15 minutes of flying, the Mirror reports. They first contacted Manchester Air Traffic Control at 7.18am where they were told to circle above the airport, behind seven planes already waiting.
The controller told the pilot that it was not possible to provide a landing time since the delay was unknown. The wind speed was around 32mph, with gusts of up to 47mph. At 7.28am the pilot called East Midlands Radar advising that they may need to divert there, but three minutes later they were told ‘we cannot accept your size aircraft’.
At 7.41am – six minutes after their scheduled landing time – the plane diverted to Birmingham Airport. The pilot said: “We are gonna be on minimum fuel”.
At 8.05am the plane was cleared to land and started to descend but had to abandon the landing due to wind speeds, which were gusting at 43mph. During the climb out, the crew contacted Birmingham radar saying ‘TOM173 MAYDAY MAYDAY MAYDAY, TOM173 MAYDAY FUEL’.
After being instructed to climb to 4,000ft and then come into land, the plane arrived in Birmingham at 8.26am with 2,750lbs of fuel, equivalent to around 20 minutes of flight time. The flight was supposed to last eight hours and 45 minutes, but instead lasted nine hours and 36 minutes. There were 301 people on the flight, 10 of whom were crew.
A report now released by the Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) into the incident found that the air traffic controller at Birmingham should have prioritised the flight sooner. The investigation concluded that the controller was faced with a ‘complex and high workload scenario’ which resulted in the opportunity to prioritise TOM173 while repositioning a Whizz Air plane being missed.
This resulted in TOM173 flying an extended track even though it had declared a fuel emergency, the report states. The AAIB report concluded: “While allowing for the contingencies required by the regulations, operators seek to minimise the carriage of fuel necessary for the flight, owing to the fuel burn penalty from carrying excess fuel.
“Nevertheless, the crew identified a threat of high winds and the potential for delays on arrival at MAN.(Manchester). Incorrectly believing that the winds would dissipate from 0600 hrs, the commander requested some extra fuel, equivalent to about an additional 15 minutes of fuel. Given the aircraft weights, the crew had the option to load significantly more fuel.
“The consequential reduction in fuel remaining had the effect of reducing the options available to achieve a safe landing, if the aircraft had encountered wind shear on the second approach. The serious incident was the result of strong winds generating difficult conditions at the time of the arrival of the flight into the UK.
“Safety action has been taken to clarify the process for determining and communicating airport capacity for diversions, and for the prioritisation of aircraft that have declared an emergency.”