Tuninter Flight 1153

Synopsis

On 6th August 2005, Tuninter Flight 1153, an ATR-72 aircraft, was flying from Bari, Italy to Djerba, Tunisia, when the flight ran out of fuel, consequently losing power on all engines. Unable to reach Palermo, the captain attempted ditching the aircraft in the Mediterranean Sea; as a result 23 out of the 39 people on board survived.

The reason for running out of fuel was due to the incorrect installation of the wrong fuel quantity indicator (FQI) in the aircraft. Hence, ground crew loaded the aircraft with an inadequate amount of fuel, reflective of what the incorrect FQI was displaying for the fuel tanks.
The captain also failed to account for and check the erroneous amount of fuel levels displayed prior to departure. The incorrect FQI mislead the pilots into thinking they had sufficient amounts of fuel and they failed to detect the fuel exhaustion. This subsequently led to both engines shutting down and the aircraft began gliding. The flight crew failed to apply the correct emergency gliding procedures which would enable them to reach Palermo and proceeded with attempting to ditch the aircraft into the sea.