Avianca Flight 52
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Persons being culpable/fault.
The first officer, the captain, air traffic controller and the engineer were culpable.
For the first officer, he misunderstood the word “priority”, he thought the air traffic controller was going to let his plane be the next plane to make the attempt but the word “priority” only means his plane has a better rank of making an attempt. The plane was actually in emergency need for making an attempt. Secondly, he did not show his concern of the running fuel to the air traffic controllers on time. He should tell the controller directly that “The plane is running out of fuel. They must make an attempt right now.” There was an air traffic jam and he should show his plane had to be the first to make the attempt, especially after the unsuccessful attempt.
For the Captain, he was very concern of the running of fuel. He was very calm and experienced. But he should keep asking advice from engineer about how to deal with the problem or may be the engineer would tell him the plane could only make one attempt.
For the air traffic controller, there are actually 2 air traffic controllers and the first one has is culpable. The first air traffic controller was aware the running of fuel of the plane only after the 77 minutes traffic jam the plane has suffered. This was very late. He did not tell the plane there is a low air shear which he should tell. This resulted to unsuccessful flight to the runway. Also, he could not sense the anxiety the first officer was having because of the running out of fuel. Later, when it was the time for him to handover, he did not report the whole situation of the plane to the new controller so the new officer did not understand the plane can no longer wait for another attempt.
For the engineer, he should have told the Captain the plane should only make one attempt because of the running of fuel before the first attempt but he did not. This made the situation even worse after the unsuccessful attempt.
To conclude, the first officer should be the first to blame. This is because he was the person having contact with the air traffic controller. He should have made a better conversation to show his needs. Nevertheless, you cannot put all the blame on him. The engineer, the captain and the air traffic controller were also responsible.