2025-10 · NASA ASRS report 2301503
Regional jet captain reported declaring minimum fuel with ATC after Tower initiated missed approach at PHL. Flight landed without issue.
Departing ZZZ reaching cruise we noticed the tailwind wasn't as strong and the Fuel Over Destination (FOD) was much lower than planned. With the high winds in PHL and the expectation of delays and go-arounds we wanted more extra fuel. We couldn't climb as we reached our ceiling based on weight so we decided to fly much slower than planned at Mach .72. This saved a few hundred pounds and gave us a FOD of 3.5 still 300lbs lower than planned but a comfortable amount. In our short cruise fuel was checked again and was matching the release just some 300lbs lower at planned fixes so it seemed the fuel savings was accurate from flying slow. After an early decent from Washington center and a long delay vector from Philadelphia approach because of congestion we finally turned final and were cleared the visual 27R. Around 500' AGL tower instructed us to go-around for traffic on the surface. Once we completed the go-around procedure and leveled via towers instructions I noticed we only had some 40lbs of extra fuel. I declared min fuel with departure and we were vectored around and given some priority on 27R keeping visual with traffic on 27L. We landed this time on 27R without issue with roughly 2;250lbs of fuel.High winds and inaccurate fuel planning due to changing weather conditions led to a situation where min fuel was declared. The crew used fuel saving techniques to reduce the likelihood of such and incident but a tower instructed to-around caused us to burn into our reserve.suggestion: Knowing the winds in PHL and the possibility of delays and go-arounds from possible wind shear; an alternate would have been a good idea.
Source: NASA Aviation Safety Reporting System (public domain). Reports are voluntary submissions and are not verified by NASA.
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