> So this controller, knowing the plane was near a fuel emergency, gave the pilots the option to either crash their plane with 240 people on board, or to divert

> So this controller, knowing the plane was near a fuel emergency, gave the pilots the option to either crash their plane with 240 people on board, or to divert to Oakland. This is tough for me to wrap my head around. They weren't even close to a fuel emergency (about to become unable land with less than the 45 minute reserve fuel amount), considering they didn't even declare minimum fuel, which is the stage before emergency (enough to fly to your alternate and land there without going below reserve). IMO the only mistake by the controller was giving them a 10 minute delay (which I didn't hear in the video, maybe it was skipped?) instead of telling them about an indefinite delay (which was in the video) without having a plan to actually slot them in. Bay Area airspace is incredibly crowded and you have traffic pipelined in all over the place, so it's pretty difficult for the controllers to increase separation for one flight without causing a cascading traffic jam. > I don't want to blame this one controller for what is obviously a pattern of systematic failures at SFO, but I'm going to seriously consider flying into Oakland or San Jose next time if this is the attitude of the controllers there. Considering NorCal Approach controls the sequencing for SFO, SJC, and OAK, I don't think that's going to do what you think it does.