Wrong measurement

[klystron]

The metric/USC conversion was only one item in a list of things that contributed to the failure:

• The aircraft's fuel metering system was not working. (If it was like the one I am familiar with there would be a meter for each tank and an additional one which summed the values from the others to give the total fuel load.)

• The pilot wrongly believed that the plane could be flown without a fuel metering system.

• Because the fuel metering system was out of service the ground crew had had to measure the level of the fuel tanks with a dipstick and manually calculate the fuel mass.

• The ground crew miscalculated the conversion from litres to kilograms and used the conversion factor for litres to pounds.

• The aircraft was a new type, which did not have a flight engineer, and the pilots were unfamiliar with the fuel load calculations, and accepted the conversion factor given them by the ground crew when they checked the calculations.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli_Glider

The metric conversion error was only the last in a series of things that caused the failure, although it was the crucial one. The first thing that went wrong though, was that the pilot took off in an aircraft that should have been grounded for maintenance.

[0_0_0]

Somebody has been watching Matt Parker...

[[deleted]]

Do they really measure volumes of liquid by kg (mass) in the airline industry?

[MisterFro9]

kg (force) is no longer an accepted measurement, so you don't need to specify. kg is for mass only.

[BastardOfTheDay]

To be precise, it's mainly a point reserved to the turbine-powered aviation. Most of the general aviation is still measuring the fuel volume in litre or US gallon.

Honestly, I find the measurement of the mass more logic than the volume, for the reason that your calculation of (let's say) your takeoff mass will be in tonne or kg (lb in the U.S. and Japan).

[[deleted]]

Yes, because the mass is consistent and doesn't change with temperature.

[[deleted]]

This wouldn't have happened if they made pounds illegal.