What to Know
- An American Eagle regional jet declared a fuel emergency and diverted to Evansville, Indiana, after three failed landing attempts at Lexington and Louisville during severe thunderstorms.
In This Article
- How the crew squawked 7700 with just 30 minutes of fuel left after three go-arounds across two airports.
- Why pilots attempted two different runways at Louisville before giving up and heading to Evansville.
- The difference between a “Pan, Pan” call and a full “Mayday,” and what declaring a fuel emergency actually means.
- How airlines calculate how much extra fuel to carry in case of a weather diversion like this one.
Show 4 more points +
The pilots of an American Airlines regional jet operated by the carrier’s wholly owned subsidiary Envoy Air under the American Eagle brand declared a fuel emergency on Tuesday afternoon after three failed landing attempts at two different airports due to severe thunderstorms.
Flight AA-3927 from Dallas Fort Worth (DFW) to Lexington (LEX) was operated by an Embraer E175LR regional aircraft (registration: N285NN), which can carry up to 76 passengers and around three crew members.
The flight departed DFW at around 2:09 pm on August 11 for what should have been a very mundane two-hour flight to Lexington. But as the plane reached around 2,200 feet on approach to Lexington, the pilots opted to discontinue their approach due to bad weather across the airfield…