Channeling the Weather

George’s Point of View

So, it took the Air France Airbus Flight 447 flying into the eye of the storm and never coming out for storm alerts to come of age.

The US FAA has had a system in development which is (as they term it) a “satellite-based upgrade of air-traffic management” which can send climate pictures through satellite access. This is a vast improvement of the current system, apparently. I have to take someone’s word on it since I just use the weather channel on tv, and haven’t spent a whole lot of time checking out cockpit weather access.

It just seems like such a practical and obvious technology for aviation, I wonder why it has not been in place for years. Maybe it’s the $22 billion bill that is the stopping point, but sometimes you just have to pay the piper. Or in this case, ITT Corp, which is developing “NextGen.” The Next Generation Air Transportation System task force has meetings that are open to the public.

I wonder if this is the same technology where they’re planning to live-stream aviation black box contents via satellite to air traffic control. That could save billions of dollars in searches such as the current hunt for the Air France Airbus black boxes, where they have a little more than a week to find a needle in the haystack…(black box in the Atlantic Ocean) before the “ping power” runs out.

Who knows if this technology would have warned

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    Singapore Airlines Emergency Landing

    The Singapore Airlines Airbus A330-300 en route from Singapore Dhaka with 105 passengers and 12 crew aboard diverted to Bangkok when they got an internal flight warning. There were no injuries.

    In spite of the cargo fire suppression system, there was a burning smell and a fire.

    The plane made a safe landing in Bangkok. The plane taxied to the gate, and passengers disembarked and were provided hotel accommodations, meals and transferred to another airline.

    An investigation is underway.

    Singapore Airlines’ spokesman, Nicholas Ionides said that “Flight SQ446 operating between Singapore and Dhaka diverted to Bangkok as a result of indications of smoke from the aircraft’s rear cargo hold.”

    When Thai authorities clear the Airbus, it will be flown back to Singapore.

    In George’s Point of View


    It has been well documented that Airbus and Boeing are taking different paths regarding their approach on batteries.

    But still, it is one of my least favorite things to read (especially while I’m halfway to Singapore) that there has been yet another cargo fire at all, regardless of what kind of plane it is on.

    At least I had time to jot down some thoughts.

    I hope that the media shines as bright a light on this airbus cargo fire as it has recently on the Dreamliner battery situation. Sure, the Dreamliner is developing new technology and Boeing is responsible for going the distance to keep new developments safe. The Dreamliner battery issue is new. But the fact that Boeing is developing new technologies and new solutions does not provide Airbus and an established plane like a A330-300 a free ticket when it comes to combustion.

    Hopefully Airbus is paying attention to all problems and not getting too cocky. It should remember and respect that a plane is still an air-filled bubble hundreds of feet in the air. Until people develop their own wings, random combustion situations like cargo fires on an Airbus A330 are just as potentially hazardous situation–if not more so–than any battery incident that actually occurred on the ground.

    Let us please see a fix for this problem.

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    The Delaminating 787: Causing Problems and Recalls


    The Boeing 787’s composite skin is under the eye now, with the carbon fiber structure deconstructing after improperly joined structural stiffeners fail. Longerons are installed on a wound carbon fibre barrel, frames and longerons are secured to the skin to strengthen the structure, and reinforced by shims. Without shims making a tight fit, damage incurs to the carbon fiber.

    The problem has been located on an All Nippon Airways (56), and two Qatar Airways airframes (57 and 58), all of which originate in Everett Washington.

    More 787s are expected to turn up with the same problem.

    The structural stiffeners are failing in the location of the Alenia Aeronotica-built horizontal stabiliser.

    Boeing confirms that the problem is a “straightforward repair that should cause no short-term safety concern.”

    Inspections are already underway, and strategic plans for repairs are on the drawing board. A 2010 problem involved the teardown and reinstallation of some Alenia Aeronautica-built horizontal stabilisers which had been assembled without adequate shims.

    In George’s Point of View

    updated


    According to a Reuters article, Boeing is saying publicly that this will not affect production.

    It SHOULD affect production.

    Boeing needs to slow down and get it right. Thousands of souls will fly in these “things.” Boeing’s got to have it right. Instead of ramping up, slow down production. What good is an ambitious target rate if the planes come out needing SAFOs (Safety Alerts for Operators)?

    Too fast reminds me of Airbus.

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  • Continental Ships Minors to Wrong Destination. 2x

    George’s Point of View

    Oops. And Oops again.

    Taylor Williams of College Station got on a plane to go to Charlotte North Carolina. Only the plane ended up in Fayetteville, Ark., instead of Charlotte, N.C. She got to see a little more of the country than she’d bargained for. But then they figured out the mistake and sent her to Houston, and then to Charlotte, where she finally ended up with her father who was no doubt going crazy with worry.

    Did I mention she is eight years old?

    Then there’s Miriam Kamens. Miriam took off from Logan Airport in Boston to go to Cleveland to visit her grandparents. But SHE ended up in Newark NJ. And Miriam isn’t 8. She’s 10.

    Apparently Continental Airlines has a little problem getting unaccompanied minors to their exact destinations.

    There was a time when children flying alone on a plane had to do something really embarrassing, like wear a notebook sized placard around their neck with their destination written on it.

    Maybe they should start doing that again. On the other hand…there’s no actual proof that airline staff can actually read.

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    Taban Air Emergency Landing

    What: Taban Air Tupolev TU-154M en route from Mashhad to Kish Island in the Persian Gulf
    Where: emergency landing in Mashhad
    When: August 7 2009
    Who: 150 passengers
    Why: 40 minutes into the flight, the plane had a technical “glitch” (electrical problems affecting several systems) forcing the pilot to declare an emergency.

    George’s Point of View

    This incident follows the death of 17 and the injury of 30 in Mashhad on July 24, 2009. At that time, an Ilyushin jet with skidded off the runway and struck a wall.

    And a little more than a week before that, on Wednesday July 15 a Tu-154M went down 16 minutes after takeoff from Imam Khomeini International Airport in Tehran.

    No airline named “Taban Air” is listed under the IATA membership website.

    Although this flight did land without death or injury, it appears that Tehran has some airline safety issues to work out.

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    Policy Changes

    In George’s Point of View


    What does it mean that the Indian Civil Aviation Ministry is formulating new policies?

    The existing policies are not working, but we wonder if the new policies are being rewritten to fit in better with the workings of business and the status quo. Will the changes begin to address safety issues, pilot training, and crucial concerns of passengers rather than stakeholders in the business end?

    Will the policies be conceived and written by people involved in the mechanics of planes and technology, or will they reflect an infrastructure concerned only about maintaining a “bottom line?”

    The current perspective has resulted in dangerous new rest rules. (Pilots are not allowed to get fatigued till they have completed 10 hours of flying during the night; and the airline’s director of operations can extend that time another hour and a half.) The work ceiling for Indian pilots is 25% higher than that set for US or British pilots.

    Committees of experts should be based on expertise in successful operations, have proper credentials and their input should reflect current legitimate data and scientific findings. Otherwise, the changes will be reflected inevitably in more fatal crashes.

    So we wonder what does it mean? We have to wait until February when results are released.

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    ATR De-Icing


    Ice is the friend of no plane.

    But there was no excuse for the icing problem on the UTAir flight that we are calling the Tyumen crash.

    On that flight, both Pratt & Whitney Canada PW124 engines were operating till impact. The plane reached 690 feet and banked 35 degrees to the right, then rolled left banking at 50 degrees, demonstrating instability in the roll axis. Why? Ice.

    The ATR 72 had a decent safety record until the 1993 icing incident that caused a fatal crash. This problem was handled by Avions de Transport Regional, the planes designers, by adapting the icing characteristics of the aircraft. They added icing boot extensions to the wing leading edges. (A deicing boot is a ice protection system installed on aircraft surfaces to permit a mechanical deicing in flight.)

    The UTAIr 72 was not de-iced at Tyumen before the fatal flight. There’s not much benefit to adding a safety feature if it is ignored.

    The ATR 72-210 is equipped with PW 127 engines with a maximum certified takeoff rating of 2750 SHP, and a normal power rating of 2475 SHP. The ATR 72 employs a four bladed propeller. The engine has a reduction gearbox assembly . Because the ATR 72-210 is “stretched” ( much longer than the 42s) ATR 42 pilots are warned about taking off an ATR 72 with too excessive a takeoff pitch angle, which would cause the tail would strike the runway. The ATR 72 has a maximum takeoff weight of 47,465 lbs., and carries 11,020 lbs. of fuel. The engine noise and vibration from the props can get uncomfortable.

    Most pilots would not need to be reminded that de-icing is essential when the conditions for ice are likely.

    The NTSB has investigated fifty icing accidents and 202 fatalities from 1998 to 2007. We might be able to conjecture that at least some of these incidents would not have happened if the planes had been properly de-iced to begin with, though for some this is too simplistic an assumption.

    There were fatal consequences to ATRs which ignored de-icing as demonstrated by the UTair ATR 72 that crashed after taking off from Tyumen in Siberia, killing 31 and mangling 12.

    After the disaster, UTAir said that all UTAir planes would henceforth have mandatory de-icing, a change from allowing the pilot to decide whether or not to deice.

    Icing has also been determined as the as cause of two earlier fatal ATR 72 crashes:

    • -Aerocaribbean Flight 883 crashed near Sancti Spiritus November 2010 killing 68 when the plane encountered extreme meteorological conditions that caused it to ice up at 6,100 meters.
    • -American Eagle Flight 4184 crashed killing 68 when in a holding pattern over Chicago encountering a supercooled cloud and rain causing ice which had built up on the wings.

    Icing can take place in a temperature band from minus 12 to plus 4 Celsius.

    We have seen a dozen ATR 72 accidents caused by other events:

    • July 2011-The Eurolot ATR 72 collided with a baggage truck in Warszawa-Frédéric Chopin Airport in Poland.
    • Nov 2009-The Kingfisher ATR 72 skidded off the runway on landing at Mumbai-Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport in India.
    • August 2009-The Bangkok Airways ATR 72 that skidded off the runway and struck the Koh Samui Airport ATC tower in Thailand.
    • Feb 2008-The Air Bagan ATR 72 that skidded off the runway on takeoff from Putao Airport in Myanmar.
    • July 2007-The Jet Airways ATR 72 made a heavy landing before the mid-point of the runway and bounced a couple of times before going off the runway at Indore Airport, India.
    • March 2006-The Air Deccan ATR 72 that made a landing at Bangalore Airport that was so hard, the new plane had to be sold as spare parts.
    • Aug 2005-The Tuninter ATR 72 ran out of fuel, both engines quit and the plane ditched in the sea killing 16.
    • March 2004-The American Eagle ATR 72 that made a bounced landing before skidded off the runway injuring 13 while landing at Luis Munoz International Airport, Puerto Rico.
    • Dec 2002-The Transasia Airways cargo flight that crashed into the ocean killing 2 crew.
    • Jan 1995-The cargo ATR 72 that crashed in Taiwan killing 4 crew.
    • Dec 1994-The Air Gabon ATR 72 skidded off the runway and struck trees while landing at Oyem Airport.
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