Quote:
Originally Posted by Lubicon
I had actually not thought of that factor, controllers obviously would be concerned with endurance. I had always assumed is was for ARFF as (to me) it seems like the primary concern would be quantity and what they would potentially be dealing with on the ground.
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Yeah ARFF is definitely a factor; something I definitely don't know is exactly how they would change their approach to firefighting a crash landing based on the amount of fuel they are told on board. To me, the fuel
distribution within the airplane is perhaps even more critical information.
Airliners generally have one fuel tank in each wing that runs mostly the entire length of the wings, and then a big centre tank down between the main landing gear. The centre tank fuel is burned first. So if I'm the ARFF team at that Korean airport with a 737 inbound for a belly landing (not that they had time for this in this accident, but just hypothetically) I would immediately want to know if they have more than 7.8t of fuel on board, because that would mean there is fuel in the centre tank which could potentially increase the likelihood of a post landing fire. I can't imgaine airport fire crews know the tank capacity of various airliners.
Another thing I've heard in recordings being passed onto ARFF is whether or not there are dangerous goods on board, which obviously makes sense.