Clunker Airlines

George’s Point of View

When times are hard, we drive clunkers. Our old cars get older and rattier, but they’re paid for. It takes more money and more maintenance to keep them going, but when we weigh the merits of getting a new car, the weight of the new car note comes along with it, along with more expensive insurance to cover a more expensive car. So, is it any wonder that we take a sigh over the new car commercial, even as we open the car door and climb into last year’s model? (Or for some of us, last decade’s model.) So what if the tires are maypops and the bumper is held on with twist ties and it takes more than rubbing compound to get the scratches out? It gets us down the road.

The problem is that airlines are having the same issues.

Profits are down, fuel costs are going up, and even airlines have to pay for new planes. And unlike this year’s Lexus, new planes cost millions, even billions. This wouldn’t be so bad if planes were like cars, and the likeliest outcome for a junker is an inevitable call to AAA for a tow. Because, obviously, airplanes don’t just stop rolling when they quit. They fall out of the sky. And of course there are the lesser things that happen. Pieces of the fuselage fall off, or magically sport holes the size of footballs. Landing gears fail. They get stuck open or shut. Windshields crack for no known reason. Mysterious electrical fires play hide and seek inside the myriad of separate systems inside the cabin.

So many airlines struggling to stay afloat are pushing their older aircraft to their maximum life span, saving the expense of a new note–but that is balanced with the greater expense of maintaining older planes. The cost of everything is going up. (Consider that the new airbags by themselves are going to cost well over $1000 per seat.) Fortunately the FAA is working harder at monitoring maintenance guidelines, and policing the skies. The future of the industry in fact, may be riding on FAA Reauthorization Act. (Take a look at our sidebar where we have links to the FAA Reauthorization Act

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    How to Freeze, Suffocate, or Brain Damage Yourself; Or Terror at 38,000 Feet

    Everyone following Aviation News by now has already heard of the sixteen-year-old boy who rode stowaway in the wheel well of a 767 from California to Kahului Airport in Maui Hawaii, surviving impossible conditions of 38,000 feet. Surviving outside of a plane is nothing short of a miracle. Conditions outside of a plane in flight are sub-human, making suffocation a certainty; and if one somehow were to manage the lack of air, then the trick would be surviving freezing conditions and decompression sickness. Hypoxia is almost a certainty at -80 degrees Fahrenheit, with no air.

    Most people who attempt such a feat end up frozen solid, or fall off. Plus, should I not mention that an emotional sixteen year old who ran away from home should not be able to breach airport security;

    Should not be able to survive the trip;and after he did, the story

    … should not be publicized in such a way that future idiots be inspired to follow in his idiocy. Newscasters may as well have posted an invitation to every idiot, prankster, and t-word in town.

    So all you stupids inspired to save yourself the cost of a plane ticket, if you are inspired to sneak on to a wheel well because you have a winter coat, and think you’re invincible, the truth is that this is how idiots die.

    In George’s Point of View

    Of course, the story is the breach of security not that the kid survived. Obviously in a real-life kind of way, it’s good the boy survived. Obviously in a real-life kind of way it is horrible and stupid that his survival is now going to be an idiot’s guide. But now let’s talk about what happened here.

    Security failed so many times and so many ways that it boggles the mind. The perimeter of the airport should not have been breached; the security of the plane should not have been breached; and on arrival, the boy should immediately have been discovered. At least the ground crew did eventually find the boy “wandering the tarmac, dazed and confused.” But then the news got ahold of the story and made it global. Good job, news people.

    In an interview at San Jose airport the spokesperson there said that no security is 100 percent fool proof.

    I disagree. Airport security, access to planes, especially those planes ready to board passengers and take off must be fool-proof.

    There are just too many fools out there.

    TSA security checks at airport are tedious and essential. Security cannot afford to have one single gun or nut job to get through their security wall, not a single one.

    Someone in California PLUS someone in Hawaii failed to do their job. Multiple someones. Aren’t security checks deliberately redundant? Surely someone at Hawaiian Airlines failed in a last-minute maintenance and/or security walk-around.

    I do find it ludicrous that all of these security experts and specialists interviewed for news programs about this security breach, industry professionals like the grounds operations coordinator at O’Hare, essentially post detailed “how to” instructions to climbing inside a wheel well.

    This is a wake-up call to security teams to plug the holes in their process, just as it is a wake—up call for idiots looking to die at 38,000 feet. Let’s hope the next one who tries this blunders into a security hole that has been filled with a smart security operative with some inescapable handcuffs in his pocket. Then let’s see how the news covers it.

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    Nigerian Flying Coffins

    It is no wonder that Nigerians worry that planes are flying coffins, after the Associated Airlines Embraer crashed on October third. It’s the one that flew the remains of former governor of Ondo State Olusegun Agagu into the ground on October 3, killing 15 people on board. Should I ignore the irony that the passengers of the flight were taking the remains of the governor home when they all joined him in death? It is still too early for the complete analysis of why the plane crashed, but early reports are saying that there was an engine failure that led to the accident.

    As the right engine developed problems, the first officer urged Captain Abdulraman Yakubu to abort the flight.

    Captain Abdulraman ignored the copilot. He ignored the alerts that the take-off flaps were not activated. The black box indicated the captain was flying.

    If he had aborted the flight, the passengers might still be alive. Thirty-one seconds after take-off, the aircraft stalled and nosedived.

    But let’s not all jump on the pilot. Because the plane wasn’t airworthy to begin with.
    The plane made its last flight on August 30 and had been grounded for about 33 days before the ill-fated flight on October 3, 2013. Someone needs to do their job and, dare I say it again….Maintenance, maintenance, maintenance!

    It’s no wonder Nigeria suspended Associated Airlines. “The suspension is to make room for maintenance and operational checks.”

    The Director General of NCAA said:
    “Associated Airlines operations have been suspended by the NCAA. Let me say for the purpose of clarity, I said their operations, I mean all their operations of Associated airlines have been suspended by the NCAA. I did not say any certification was cancelled but all operations.”

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    Fake Boeing Disaster at Harare Airport

    Although the head of Zimbabwe’s Civil Aviation Authority David Chawota confirmed with the BBC: “I can confirm that a 767 plane coming from London has had an accident at Harare airport,” the whole thing was a drill with paid actors.

    BBC’s Brian Hungwa reported seeing a large plume of smoke and helicopters over the runway.

    Apparently no one but a chosen few were informed it was a drill. Apparently seeing what the media would do was part of the Zimbabwe’s Civil Aviation Authority’s “exercise.”

    George’s Point of View

    Maybe I’m out of line here, but it seems to me a drill is supposed to test responses in-house.

    The fire drill at a school, for example, involves firemen arriving and evaluating the response time of those endangered.

    But if someone at the school sets off an alarm to see what would happen, or calls 911…they’re criminally liable. Okay, well maybe they were testing emergency services which for the CAA might be considered in house.

    But testing the media? Allowing the news to go out to the media that there was a disaster? As someone who deals with people suffering horrible loss from disasters that are real, this sounds more like a cruel joke than a drill. I wonder what the IATA and ICAO will have to say about this. At the very least, it is unethical.

    Chawota said “This was a usual drill for the period. We do this once every three years. This was for the benefit of our police personnel, security, aviation, medics, hospital — everyone was involved. This exercise helps the general preparedness of our facilities here.”

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  • Aviation Week

    George’s Point of View

    Thanks to Alexis Stevens of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, we know that this week Delta :

    • landed on the taxi way instead of the runway at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport.
    • flew 150 miles past their destination.
    • had a landing gear emergency.
    • posted a $161 million third quarter loss.

    However, I would like to point out that Delta’s tough week didn’t involve Delta losing a life. However, this week also:

    • Divi Divi lost a pilot in the Caribbean
    • Victoria Air DC3 lost a whole flight crew in a fiery crash into a warehouse.
    • Westjet had a member of the flight crew injured in turbulence
    • Indonesian National Transportation Safety Committee released their preliminary report on the Merpati DHC6 plane that flew into a mountain, killing 14
    • a part of a Lufthansa’s galley landed on someone unfortunate enough to be in falling distance

    And there were the usual bird strikes, unruly passengers, engine failures, cracked windshields, medical emergencies, flat tires, hydraulic failures, random burning smells, electrical fires, engine shut downs and a myriad of other emergencies that somehow managed to be non-catastrophic.

    So all in all, a week as usual. Well, maybe a slightly unusual week, what with Northwest overshooting its destination, and Air Asia delivering a baby….

    Or maybe in the immortal words of Walter Kornbluth (Eugene Levy, Splash) “Oy, what a week I’m having.”

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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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    Bhoja Air Flight 213

    In George’s Point of View


    It pains me to write this. I had just put down my pen from writing about an engine failure where the flight made it safely back to the airport, and heard the news of this. Bhoja Air Flight 213 down in Pakistan after losing contact with ATC. Another flight down in stormy weather. The loss is unique, but it has happened too many times.

    Again a plane, or pilot, or airline failed to bring its passengers safely home. That’s all we want—for the families to be reunited, for the father who just lost his daughters to have them back, for this to be a nightmare that will just go away. But the Bhoja crash is one of the nightmares that doesn’t go away.

    Soon the whole world will hear the names, see the faces, hear the stories behind the tragedy. Maybe it is the stories that make a disaster like this so hard to take for the rest of us. The stories bring life to the loss, take our imaginations from black and white to living color, carry us from the place where statistics rest on paper to where they mingle in our hearts with our own memories of love and loss. Soon we will hear the mourning of the families, the fathers, mothers, siblings, spouses, friends. The investigation will begin, and the experts will find whatever they find, but there’s always the one truth that remains.

    It is the families who will bear this, who will hereafter live their lives like shattered china pieced back together. And what is the glue? The chemistry will be different for every parent, every child, every sibling, but its ingredients are memories woven with grief and resilience, bitterness, hope, faith—and the support of friends. You will get through this. You already know that time will ease the pain, but for now, true as it is, it is only words. To the families, we can only say we grieve with you. Your loss is our loss.

    It is as true now as it was in 1624 when John Donne wrote it. “No man is an island…All mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language…” Your loss is our loss. To the families, we can only say we grieve with you and wish you peace.

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