20 kilometers from the airport, the fuel ran out. They landed in a field. 23 years ago a pilot made a fatal decision

The accident happened on July 12, 2000. The A310-300 of the German airline Hapag-Lloyd (owned by TUI Group and later renamed TUI fly Deutschland) took off from Chania, Crete (Greece) to Hanover, Germany. It is a relatively short route of about 2,200 km, which should take about 3-3.5 hours to complete. For most passengers, it was a return flight from a holiday on a Greek island.

Successful start and first problem. And then a whole series of errors

The plane took off without any problems at 10:59 am Central European Time. Moments later, however, there was a problem with the landing gear. The “landing gear unsecured” and “landing gear door open” lights came on in the cockpit. The pilots: the extremely experienced, 56-year-old Captain Wolfgang Arminger and the young (age unknown), first officer Thorsten R., just starting his career, tried four times to extend and retract the landing gear, but it turned out to be impossible.

As they could not land immediately at the take-off airport due to the need to burn fuel (), they decided to leave the landing gear fully extended and continue their flight towards Germany. It is possible, but in such a situation the plane must fly at a limited speed. In addition, due to the significantly increased air resistance, it consumes more fuel. In Greece, the machine was refueled with enough fuel for the route with the landing gear retracted, so it was clear that the machine would not make it to Hannover without a refueling stop.

So the first officer tried to contact the airline’s dispatcher to arrange a new flight. Unfortunately, due to problems with the voice radio connection, the only option was to use ACARS (Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System). It is a system used to exchange short text messages between aircraft and ground staff. In this case, it was quite cumbersome to use, so Thorsten R. lost almost an hour to present the problem. Finally, the captain, in consultation with the dispatcher, decided to shorten the flight and land in Munich, where another, efficient machine was to be waiting for the passengers. Vienna has been designated as an alternate airport, where the Hapag-Lloyd line is also present.

According to the indications of the integrated Flight Management System (FMS), with the current level of filling the tanks at that time, the aircraft should easily reach the capital of Bavaria with the required fuel supply. However, the captain completely ignored the fact that the FMS does not take into account the additional air resistance caused by the extended landing gear in its calculations. However, the first officer quickly signaled to a very experienced colleague that the plane was burning fuel faster than expected. 61 minutes after takeoff, the captain decided to change the plan again and land in the “spare” Vienna.

They could have landed on the way, but the captain refused

The situation worsened shortly thereafter when the first officer conducted another fuel check. It turned out that the machine had already used half of all the fuel that was in the tanks before taking off from Crete. Meanwhile, the plane was just about to leave Greek airspace and was one-third of the way to Vienna. 1.5 hours after takeoff, the FMS system showed that 1.9 tons of fuel would remain in the tanks at the time of landing in Vienna, i.e. the minimum required by the regulations. Knowing that the fuel consumption is above average, the crew should have decided to land earlier, in Zagreb, which is about 10 minutes away, but the captain decided to continue the flight to Vienna. He must have been aware that the airline does not have a representative office in the capital of Croatia, so a stopover there will generate additional (not insignificant) costs.

It was only 9 minutes later that the captain decided to contact the tower in Vienna, requesting a priority and direct landing approach. When the estimated range calculated by the FMS fell below 1.9 tons, the first officer twice urged the master to make an emergency announcement, but the master refused twice. A few minutes later, exactly 122 minutes after takeoff, the low fuel indicator light came on because the range indicator dropped below 1,340 kg. The plane had already passed Zagreb and was 78 km away. He still had 243 km to Vienna, so the most reasonable option was to turn back to the Croatian capital or land in the city of Graz in southern Austria, 157 km away.

It wasn’t until six minutes later that the crew reported an emergency, but the captain indicated that he considered reaching Vienna as the best option. At this point, however, a change of direction to Graz was considered, but the problem turned out to be the lack of approach maps at this airport – which did not rule out a successful landing, because the visibility was very good. The first officer rightly observed that the FMS’s indications were wrong and they would not make it to Vienna, but the captain stubbornly believed that they would reach the capital’s airport with little fuel. He also instructed the first officer not to call emergency services after landing.

The engines died 22 km from the airport. They landed in a field

The engines died 14 minutes later, just 22 kilometers from Vienna Airport. In a normal situation, a passenger plane is able to travel over 100 kilometers in a gliding flight. In this case, not only did the crew lower the flight ceiling earlier, but they also flew with the landing gear extended, which is why the machine descended much faster. It eventually hit a field 660 meters from the runway. The nose leg bit into the soft ground and broke away from the fuselage, and the aircraft destroyed the row of lights and ILS antennas to aid the approach to landing, then came to rest just outside the end of the taxiway. Fortunately, no one was killed during the impact, and all passengers and crew hurriedly left the machine. During the evacuation, 26 people were slightly injured.

Austrian investigators soon discovered that the plane had not suddenly lost fuel near the airport as the captain had argued, but had been burning it steadily throughout the flight. They also determined that the crew could turn around and land safely in Zagreb, and the chances of reaching Vienna were slim. Half a year after the accident, Captain Wolfgang Arminger himself resigned from Hapag-Lloyd, and in 2004 a Hannover district court sentenced him to a suspended six-month prison sentence for endangering the lives of passengers.