Narrative:

Flight was normal until approximately 30-45 miles from touchdown. While descending from 15;000 ft to 10;000 ft; we experienced several contradictory fuel-related ecams. I was the flying pilot; so the bulk of my attention was spent managing the aircraft; while the captain worked the ecams. It was a high-workload environment with crossing restrictions and speed reductions; but I made my best attempt at staying in the loop with the ECAM progress. The ECAM first showed an outer wing fuel transfer; then it turned briefly into a fuel left+right wing low qty indication with a land as soon as possible message. This ECAM was very brief and went away after about a minute. Next; I remember seeing a fuel (left or right; I don't remember) wing low qty ECAM. The ecams kept changing and the information presented did not make sense based on the fuel readings. Throughout; it appeared as if the outer wing valves had opened; but the fuel did not flow into the inner tanks. The total fuel onboard was about 9000 pounds according to all the sources we could scan. We were led to believe we had plenty of fuel. Things happened quickly and we were cleared for the visual runway 19C. The landing and taxi were uneventful. We wrote up the fuel quantity system and asked for a mechanic to meet us at the aircraft. We briefed him and headed for the hotel. Later; the captain of the outbound flight called my captain and informed him that maintenance had dripsticked the tanks and found only 2000 pounds of fuel. We were stunned because there was absolutely no indication of that. The fob at touchdown read 9000 pounds. Whatever redundant systems that are built into the airbus fuel system completely failed. If we had any indication of our actual fuel state; we would have declared an emergency and landed short. I'm just thankful that it was a VFR day; short flight; with direct routing. As I mentioned previously; I was the flying pilot; so my version of events may not be as accurate as the captain's version. As a side note; I learned a valuable lesson about my air carrier's fuel policies. If we had attempted to save a few pennies and planned to land with 4-5 thousand pounds of fuel; we made not have made it.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: An A320 flight crew on approach noticed some fuel-related ECAM messages; but none seemed critical; and their totalizer showed 9000 LBS total fuel quantity. After landing; maintenance discovered they actually had only 2150 LBS onboard.

Narrative: Flight was normal until approximately 30-45 miles from touchdown. While descending from 15;000 FT to 10;000 FT; we experienced several contradictory fuel-related ECAMS. I was the flying pilot; so the bulk of my attention was spent managing the aircraft; while the Captain worked the ECAMS. It was a high-workload environment with crossing restrictions and speed reductions; but I made my best attempt at staying in the loop with the ECAM progress. The ECAM first showed an outer wing fuel transfer; then it turned briefly into a FUEL L+R WING LOW QTY indication with a land as soon as possible message. This ECAM was very brief and went away after about a minute. Next; I remember seeing a FUEL (left or right; I don't remember) WING LOW QTY ECAM. The ECAMS kept changing and the information presented did not make sense based on the fuel readings. Throughout; it appeared as if the outer wing valves had opened; but the fuel did not flow into the inner tanks. The total fuel onboard was about 9000 pounds according to all the sources we could scan. We were led to believe we had plenty of fuel. Things happened quickly and we were cleared for the visual Runway 19C. The landing and taxi were uneventful. We wrote up the fuel quantity system and asked for a Mechanic to meet us at the aircraft. We briefed him and headed for the hotel. Later; the Captain of the outbound flight called my Captain and informed him that Maintenance had dripsticked the tanks and found only 2000 pounds of fuel. We were stunned because there was absolutely no indication of that. The FOB at touchdown read 9000 pounds. Whatever redundant systems that are built into the Airbus fuel system completely failed. If we had any indication of our actual fuel state; we would have declared an emergency and landed short. I'm just thankful that it was a VFR day; short flight; with direct routing. As I mentioned previously; I was the flying pilot; so my version of events may not be as accurate as the Captain's version. As a side note; I learned a valuable lesson about my air carrier's fuel policies. If we had attempted to save a few pennies and planned to land with 4-5 thousand pounds of fuel; we made not have made it.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of April 2012 and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.