Armchair quarterbacking it, but it was human error. They should have diverted sooner and been more aware of the weather.
Edit: there might also be part of Ryanair culture that contributed, but that's speculation.
Armchair quarterbacking it, but it was human error. They should have diverted sooner and been more aware of the weather.
Edit: there might also be part of Ryanair culture that contributed, but that's speculation.
That's one conclusion. But don't rule out a lot of other things that may have been a factor, for instance, they may have had a batch of bad fuel, they may have had less fuel to start with than they thought they had (this happens, it shouldn't but it does happen), the fuel indicators may have been off (you only know for sure after touch down), there may have been a leak, an engine may have been burning more than it should have. There are probably many others that I can't think of of the top off my head but there are a lot of reasons why the margins are as large as they are.
Those are all possibilities, but
https://www.flightaware.com/live/flight/RYR3418/history/2025...
They had at least an extra hour of fuel, and they landed at the third airport they tried.
Yes, that's how it should be. Something went badly wrong here. The big question is what.
I read and agree with all those options being possible. Except the "they may have had a batch of bad fuel". How would that work in your thinking? I can imagine a bad batch of fuel leading to engine damage or flameout and many other things, but it is hard for me to imagine how a bad batch would lead to not enough fuel remaining in the tank.
If you have more water in the fuel than you think you do (there always is some due to condensation in the tanks) then you might be able to reach your destination but you'll be burning more 'fuel' than your original estimate would have you believe because there is less power per unit weight of (contaminated) fuel.
This is fairly common in GA and there are cases where it has happened in scheduled flights as well. That's why fuel sampling is common practice.
Interesting. That makes sense. Thank you for the explanation!
It's supposed to be an extremely low amount and the fuel pick-ups are placed such that it should never be a problem but there have been cases where water in the fuel caused problems, including at least one notorious crash where the cause was identified to be fuel contamination.