Peter Bruce

The fuel indication system, flight management system and Airbus are all racist!

We must reintroduce the dipping system for cattle in rural South Africa.

‼️ Warning ‼️ DO NOT FLY SAA!!! “This story is care of a highly experienced Airline Captain & its true & accurate and even if you have no aviation knowledge, you can still understand the severity of what occurred, and yet people still fly SAA ...NOT ME ! This is a big one. The story needs to be told. I’ll tell you why once I’m done. It’s so big and raises such concern that this account really needs to have been researched and related by a respected investigative journalist. But there is a level of understanding which is needed to relate this story. I’m not a journalist. But I have around 7,000 hours flying modern generation Airbus Fly-by-Wire (FBW) airliners, so here goes. I’ll let the journo’s take over, once I’ve said what I need to. Last Monday, 11th May ‘26 was forecast to be hellish weather in the South-Western Cape. A huge cold-front was curling in from the deep southern Atlantic Ocean. Any self-disrespecting pilot who had any doubt in their abilities (there are many when considering such conditions) should have booked off sick if they’d seen this forecast. Neither Mother Nature, nor the forecasters disappointed and by mid-morning last Monday a perfect storm was howling over the Cape Town area, with driving rain, visibility reduced to 2,000 metres and overcast clouds at 700’ at Cape Town International Airport. But that’s not the worst of it. The brutal wind was blowing at 37 knots, gusting up to 53 knots from the North West. That’s 68 km/h, gusting to 98 kilometres per hour. Now that in itself would be enough to send chills down the spine of the most seasoned, experienced pilot. But North-West of Cape Town International airport sits the massif of Table Mountain. The turbulence coming off Table Mountain was hurtling straight towards Cape Town’s airport and the Instrument Landing System (ILS) approach for Runway 01. But the wind wasn’t blowing down that soaking wet runway, it was blowing across the runway. The crosswind component was 34 knots, with a headwind component of 40 knots. The maximum demonstrated crosswind for an Airbus A320 airliner is 38 knots. Numerous airliners attempted approaches in these hellish conditions. When the wind was at its strongest, mid-morning, there were far more go-around missed approaches being conducted than successful landings. That’s the safe option - if the crew are not satisfied that they can safely fly and land the aircraft then go-around; try again if you’re brave enough (and have sufficient fuel to do so) or divert to an airport where the weather is better. A few airliners were, quite remarkably, able to land without incident in these gut-wrenching conditions. To do so required above-average piloting skills; only a superb, natural, gifted pilot could use all of the capabilities of his or her aircraft, coupled with his or her skills and experience, in order to get their aircraft to the runway and then land it on a wet runway, in reduced visibility, at what was right on the maximum demonstrated (by test pilot) crosswind for these aircraft. Springbok 313 (SAA 313) was inbound from Johannesburg for Cape Town. The aircraft, an Airbus A320, registration ZS-SZH, had a full load on board. The Captain had had a tough choice prior to departure from Johannesburg - she had eight non-revenue staff on board as passengers. Her mandated destination alternate airport was George. Her flightplan provided for sufficient fuel for engine start, fuel for taxi out in Joburg, the takeoff, climb, flight to Cape Town, plus a 5% contingency, an approach at Cape Town, missed approach and diversion to the nominated alternate (George in her case) plus 5% contingency for the diversion and then sufficient fuel to hold at 1,500’ above George airport for 30 minutes. That’s it; that’s the legal requirement. The engines on an Airbus A320 use about 2,500 litres of Jet A1 fuel per hour, for both engines. That’s a rough estimate; a ball-park amount.

Proud to congratulate every farmer, farm worker, and value-chain partner whose tireless dedication has enabled South Africa to officially overtake Spain as the world’s largest exporter of citrus by volume, with 2.9 million tons exported in 2025. 🇿🇦🍊