EMB-145 pilot reported during arrival there was a disabled aircraft on runway resulting in a go-around. Flight crew diverted to a nearby airport due to low fuel.
Synopsis
EMB-145 pilot reported during arrival there was a disabled aircraft on runway resulting in a go-around. Flight crew diverted to a nearby airport due to low fuel.
Narrative
During approach into ZZZ; an EMB-145 that landed prior to us suffered some sort of hydraulic failure that left them unable to exit the runway. This prompted ATC to direct us to go around. At this point; we had approximately 3400 pounds of fuel onboard.We had no alternate; as the weather was VFR. I asked ATC how long they thought it would take to get a tug out to the disabled aircraft and they told us it would be at least half an hour; maybe more; but no guarantees. They also told us that if we needed to land on the closed runway; we could; however there would be no place for us to deplane our passengers; or even make it to a gate due to the taxiway construction.I immediately started looking for nearby airports within our fuel range and made the decision to divert to ZZZ1. At the time I requested to divert; we had approximately 3200 pounds of fuel. The distance that I calculated was approximately 114 nautical miles. I figured we would burn about 1200 pounds of fuel based on an average fuel burn of 100 pounds per 10 nautical miles. I elected to climb to 10;000 feet for better fuel economy based on my experience from flying shorter flights out of ZZZ2.I sent an ACARS to dispatch that we were diverting to ZZZ1 and they got back to me promptly with an amended release. I sent our distance from ZZZ1 with our fuel on board and new altitude. Dispatch sent back a message that had our burn off going into our reserve fuel. I declared minimum fuel with approach. Once we leveled off at 10;000 feet; I had the First Officer reduce the fuel flow to 1000 pph per side. We had approximately 2800 pounds of fuel and were about 25 minutes out. I calculated that we would land with about 1800 pounds of fuel. Our reserve fuel was 1641 pounds.I then notified the flight attendant of the diversion for the disabled aircraft and made an announcement to the passengers to let them know what was going on and that we would be landing soon and I would have more information on the ground.The First Officer did an excellent job of preparing the aircraft for approach into ZZZ1. He had set up for the approach and prepared his briefing while I was task saturated.As we got closer to ZZZ1 and began our flight idle descent; I declared emergency fuel. Our fuel burn was not indicating that we would land below our reserve of 1641 pounds but it was close enough that any deviation would put us there. We landed safely on runway XXR in ZZZ1 with 2000 pounds of fuel on board.Suggestion: Try to plan ahead for situations that could occur with only one runway available. We were lucky to be tankering on this flight to even have enough fuel to divert to a different airport. I'm glad we did end up diverting because that disabled aircraft didn't get off the runway until we had been parked for about 20 minutes in ZZZ1.
Source: NASA Aviation Safety Reporting System (public domain). Reports are voluntary submissions and are not verified by NASA.