A flight crew arrived at their destination with minimum fuel but failed to declare a fuel emergency. Inclement weather and associated ATC delays enroute contributed to a landing with less than FAR reserve fuel.
Synopsis
A flight crew arrived at their destination with minimum fuel but failed to declare a fuel emergency. Inclement weather and associated ATC delays enroute contributed to a landing with less than FAR reserve fuel.
Narrative
While planning this flight I looked to see what flights were departing towards ZZZ. I saw another carrier's flight that was going to this same destination. I took their route and built a route to avoid weather. The Captain called and stated that ATC was going to reroute the flight a little south out over HCT; then direct ONL. I got a call about 10 minutes later saying that they got 'as filed'. Then when the flight got off the gate they sent an ACARS message to state that there was a long line for departure. I asked them to keep me updated as to their FOB. At one point I asked how hard it would be to return to the gate and I was told 30 minutes wait. Fourteen minutes later they were airborne with 8.6. DEN ATC had both arrivals and departures crossing through the same airspace. Over GLD I asked what their FOB was and got 5.6. I tried to run numbers and got 'unusable route' from the dispatch monitor. A few minutes later I got an ACARS that said that ATC wouldn't let them climb. When they got to their destination the Captain called to add that ATC kept vectoring them even though they had declared minimum; fuel eating into their reserve. Flight landed with 1.9 and arrived at the gate with 1.8.The issues with ATC; I don't have objections to; but the dispatch monitor needs to have the bugs worked out so any request for numbers will yield results.
Second reporter narrative
[The weather was bad and we had been rerouted from our canned route.] We did not have the time to deliberate over taking on extra gas. We were planned with only 1600 LBS of tanker fuel which did not seem like much; considering the conditions. During taxi; we relayed as much info to Dispatch as possible. We think at one point the Dispatcher was considering sending us back to the gate for more fuel and a much different routing; but we were all discouraged by our 45+ minute taxi out. High winds in DEN had reduced the airport to only 2 runways. There were also high winds in our arrival city; and severe weather along our route. We departed Denver with the planned amount of fuel; 8600 LBS. Once airborne; we did not get cleared to climb to our cruise altitude for about 30 minutes. We were not able to safely navigate our way through the line of developing storms at a much lower altitude and deviated south to avoid a direct encounter with the weather. The radio frequency was so busy we were unable to receive clearance to turn back toward our course in a reasonable amount of time or climb to our cruise altitude. Finally we were able to get through the line and received direct to the first fix of the arrival SID. Upon receiving the direct clearance; we realized we would be landing at our destination right at MIN fuel. We did everything we could to conserve fuel; but due to the windy conditions we were told to expect delay vectors into our arrival city due to the windy conditions there. We declared MIN fuel when we received delay vectors and airspeed restrictions. These delays caused us to consume additional fuel. When we checked on with Approach; we reminded the Controller we were MIN fuel and their response was for us to expect vectors to join the downwind leg for a 20 mile final. We then were vectored onto approximately a 30 mile final. We landed with about 2000 LBS less than planned and had consumed some of our reserve fuel. The company should not try to cut so much fuel out of our flight planning. The airspace near our departure airport seemed over saturated. The reduction in our ability to communicate effectively led us too far from our planned course which consumed much more fuel than planned. Controllers should not plan to vector aircraft for long final approaches when MIN fuel is declared. Pilots should not accept excessive vectors when they are tight on fuel. So many factors led to this event. Having a more liberal fuel load would have fixed this issue instantly.
Source: NASA Aviation Safety Reporting System (public domain). Reports are voluntary submissions and are not verified by NASA.