More on Fuel Management - and an Ethical Dilemma

Greg Farris wrote:

In the June AOPA Pilot "State of General Aviation" issue, Bruce
Landsberg gives a gold star to Cessna, for their new production singles,
which, according to the article, have not suffered a single fuel
mismanagement accident. Well, I know of one near-miss, which could have
broken that record, and presents an ethical dilemma as well.

It involves a flying club and an ATP rated pilot - in fact, a 767
Captain for a major. He took out a new C-182S on a personal trip, and
returned "uneventfully" under IFR, in IMC at night, with two passengers.
When the plane was refueled in the morning, it took 90GAL of 100LL -
useable fuel for that model is 88GAL, with total 92GAL. It is quite
possible that a missed approach that night would have resulted in three
fatalities.

When confronted discreetly about it, the pilot was nonchalant. He has
a career ahead of him, and a family, with two young children. Because of
his poor judgment, and even more because of his flippant attitude, some
people who know about this want to make a full-blown incident out of it.
Others feel it would damage or destroy his career - and we "hope" he has
learned his lesson.

If the flying club doesn't know how to deal with this, then they don't have
a very good charter and will sooner or later have other problems with pilots
who get out of line.

A well-organized flying club would document the facts, the board would meet
to assess the facts then, if the board deemed it warranted, they would serve
notice and require the member to appear and defend his actions. The result
could be anything from no action to suspension from the club.

None of that would affect his airline career but it would get he, and his
attitude, out of "Dodge" so to speak.