B772, en-route, northern Indian Ocean, 2014

B772, en-route, northern Indian Ocean, 2014

Summary

On 16 April 2014, a pre-flight concern about whether a Boeing 777-200ER about to depart Singapore had been overfuelled was resolved by a manual check but an en-route fuel system alert led to close monitoring of the fuel system. When a divergent discrepancy between the two independent fuel remaining sources became apparent, an uneventful precautionary air turnback was made and overfuelling subsequently confirmed. The Investigation found that a system fault had caused overfuelling and that the manual check carried out to confirm the actual fuel load had failed to detect it because it had been not been performed correctly.

Description

On 16 April 2014, the crew of a Boeing 777-200ER (9V-SWC) being operated by Singapore Airlines on a flight from Singapore to Johannesburg at night and level at FL320 were presented with an EICAS fuel system annunciation which highlighted a discrepancy between the fuel remaining figure derived from fuel used assuming the departure fuel had been as indicated and the figure derived by directly measuring the fuel remaining in tanks. The crew had been assured prior to departure that despite evidence of an excessive fuel uplift, the required fuel load was onboard. When the difference in flight was observed to be increasing, a precautionary and uneventful return to Singapore was made and a manual check of fuel on board revealed that there had been a 41 tonne overload.

Investigation

An Investigation was commenced by the Singapore Air Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) and subsequently completed and published under the auspices of the Singapore Transport Safety Investigation Bureau (TSIB) who took over responsibility for the Air Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) from August 2016.

The full content of this page is available to registered users only.
Please Log in or Register

SKYbrary Partners:

Safety knowledge contributed by: