Commercial Fixed Wing
Situational Awareness; Time Pressure; Human-Machine Interface; Workload; Communication Breakdown; Distraction
Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Inflight Event / Encounter Fuel Issue
General Flight Cancelled / Delayed
Company Policy; Human Factors
I was the Captain for our ferry flight. As we were getting ready to descend through 10;000 feet I received a new brief on my iPhone via the airplane WIFI. The update still had our original leg but the next passenger leg was gone. It was replaced by a different trip. Because we were about to descend through 10;000 feet; I put my iPhone away and told my First Officer we would deal with it on the ground. I assumed we would land and a new ferry leg would be added. When we were about 10 miles north of the field and entering the traffic pattern we received an SMS through the airplane FMS. The message from said 'ENGINE: Please divert to … for recovery.There are several things that bothers me about this situation. The first is why is this diversion request sent as we entering the traffic pattern? The high work load environment of non-towered airports is not the time to go heads down to look up the diversion security password in your iPad. Second is the lack of information in the diversion request message. Why was an alternate required? What are the NOTAMs? What's the forecast weather; not just what is latest METAR? What is the landing performance numbers? But my biggest problem is the lack of fuel burn information. Dispatch can look at the flight tracker and see where we are and work out a fuel burn. If they would have done this they would have seen that I didn't have the fuel to divert. At the time of the diversion request I had 2250 lbs of fuel. Our minimum released fuel 2521; fuel burn was 900 lbs.; 500 lbs. for the alternate; and our Extra fuel was 369 pounds. Without considering that our new destination is further north or that the alternate was further north than that. Using our original flight plan fuel burn has us landing 1350 lbs. I would also guess the burn would be more like 1050-1150 [lbs] with the time it would have taken at a low altitude to coordinate with ATC for the diversion. We most likely of landed at or below the 1121 lb minimum reserve. So basically Dispatch was re-releasing us with below minimum fuel for a flight and not enough information for a crew make a good safe decision.Because of those three factors; I decided it was safer to land as we had planned and get the needed fuel for the next flight. I sent a quick message back saying we were landing. At my last job; over XX years ago; any time Dispatch requested a diversion we were given new fuel burn from present position to diversion destination. Since this is not the first time Dispatch has done this to me; I believe it is a safety problem that needs addressed ASAP. This issue could lead anther crew to divert without adequate fuel; pertinent safety information; or cause a crew to become distracted low to the ground.So; I recommend three things be done during a diversion request. First is a minimum distance for a plane to be from original destination airport for a diversion request. I suggest if a plane is within 50 miles of original destination then let the crew concentrate on landing and don't distract them. Second is include a minimum fuel necessary to go present position to new destination number. This number needs to consider the time it takes to coordinate diversion; real world route ATC would issue; plus 300-500lbs extra. Finally any diversion message contains same information as a release NOTAMs; landing performance; METAR; and TAF.
A Fractional pilot reported while on initial approach they received a destination change from Dispatch which did not include enough flight plan information so they landed at their original destination.