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Comment by jsbg | Hacker News Reader

> That notification you got about the "20 minutes worth of fuel left" meant before they were forced to divert to the alternate.

I believe you but this is yet another reason why it was inappropriate for the pilot to mention this to passengers. Nearly everyone around me was visibly distressed as we "idled" to Pittsburgh.

> The flight may have been scary to the passengers, and people may not have wanted to get back on, but I'm sure it was quite routine to the people up front.

Maybe for the pilot/copilot but the flight attendants' facial expressions when I got off the plane did not suggest to me that this was routine.

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At some point you kind of need to assume the pilots aren’t suicidal nor are they complete idiots, and it would be ridiculous for them to simply circle around aimlessly until they run out of fuel. Being motivated for survival, they are going to fly to the nearest appropriate airport well in advance of an actual emergency situation.

Further consider that other than this story—where the aircraft ran out of fuel due to a wildly unlucky confluence of technical and human failures—you have never heard of a passenger jet running out of fuel midair. Through decades of storms, hurricanes, tornadoes, and every other natural disaster imaginable, we have found a way to get planes onto the ground with fuel to spare.

https://admiralcloudberg.medium.com/the-words-not-spoken-the...

That accident sparked a huge change in radio verbiage though, it was a total miscommunication..

It was totally avoidable had the crew been able to convey the message to ATC that they had zero fuel left.

Flight attendant likely does not know the minimum fuel requirements for IFR flight either, and was likely thinking the same thing the passengers were.

The flight attendants know that the pilot is not going to intentionally let the plane run out of fuel and will land before that happens, even if means declaring an emergency and diverting to any available airfield.

i'm sure they'd like to think that, but exactly that has happened in the past. Avianca Flight 52.

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