Video - Avianca Airbus A330 fuel leak (lost 17 tons!!!)

[bizjets101]

An Avianca Airbus A330-200, registration N975AV performing flight AV-88 from Buenos Aires Ezeiza,BA (Argentina) to Bogota (Colombia) with 252 passengers and 10 crew, was enroute at FL380 near Santa Cruz (Bolivia) when the crew detected a fuel leak and decided to divert to Santa Cruz's Viru Viru Airport for a safe landing.

The airline confirmed the crew detected a fuel leak prompting the diversion, about 17 tons of the 42 tons of fuel on board were lost. An Airbus A320-200 was dispatched to Santa Cruz, whcih took about 150 passengers to Bogota in the night of Sep 14th, the remaining passengers were taken to hotels and were rebooked onto other flights the following day.

[ahramin]

Good discussion going on pprune. Sounds like the crew was unable to determine the location of the leak.

[justwork]

Looked more like a crop duster.

[Inverted2]

That was quite the leak! lucky it wasn't burning avgas or there could have been a big fire if the brakes let out a few sparks! Saw a mayday episode where the same company ran out of fuel in a 707 holding at NYC about 20 years ago.

[ScudRunner]

I was wondering when the fire trucks would get there, is Air Transat doing their maintenance these days ? (cmon you where all thinking it)

[swordfish]

Well, looking at this incident objectively, it's encouraging that the 330 industry has learned from the Air Transat incident some 12 years ago.

[Jim la Jungle]

I don't know what the guys in there were doing, but the QRH is pretty explicit regarding massive fuel leak. If the tank depletes more than 500 kgs in less than 30min compared to the other tank, it most likely comes from the engine. Then shut said engine down and "Do not use reversers". None of this was done.

Now, there might have been some other thing at play here, who knows. Time will tell.

[swordfish]

Wouldn't the ECAM actions point to that?

[Jim la Jungle]

Well, it depends on the failure. If you'd have a fuel pump problem, the ECAM would tell you. In a fuel leak situation (I mean just a fuel leak, no other crap going on), your warning would be the ECAM: Wing Tank Low Level, which is a bit "late" when you look at it. Bear in mind there is a lot of ecams for fuel, so each situation is different. I guess that's why we do fuel checks every 30 min.

The ECAM doesn't tell you "you have a fuel leak" but rather an abnormal situation as an imbalance, low level, transfer fault etc. Just by quickly looking at your "fuel on board" + "fuel used" gives you a pretty good idea where you stand on the matter.

I hope this answers your question Mr. S