DA42 Twin Star
Flight Crew Commercial; Flight Crew Flight Instructor; Flight Crew Instrument; Flight Crew Multiengine
Flight Crew Last 90 Days 290; Flight Crew Total 1140; Flight Crew Type 150
Time Pressure; Training / Qualification; Situational Awareness
Inflight Event / Encounter Fuel Issue
General None Reported / Taken
Aircraft; Human Factors
While flying back from a long cross-country flight and due to poor planning on my side; we landed with minimum fuel in the tanks. This event could have been easily fixed if I had followed the original flight plan and stopped for refueling as planned. The flight was planned by me; the flight instructor; and [included] a stop for fuel.Approximately 30 minutes after takeoff I saw that we probably wouldn't make it on time back to our original point of departure; so I decided to proceed direct without a fuel stop. During the entire flight back my student and I kept monitoring our fuel level and decided that if by any chance we couldn't comply with the regulations (because of any unforecasted weather; ATC delays; etc) we would stop and refuel. I made the decision to continue since our fuel level indicated that we have enough to get to [destination] and for an extra 1 hour of flight time. Two days after the flight; while the airplane was being refueled; it came to my attention that the airplane was refueled with 75 gallons of fuel. The total usable fuel for 76.4; which means that we landed with only 1.4 gallons although the fuel indication showed us that we had almost 3 gallons in each tank.
DA-42 instructor and student landed with minimum fuel after electing to bypass a planned fuel stop in order to return to departure airport on time.