George’s Point of View

Commerce and business growth is the sign of a healthy economy. However, news that …“groundwork has started on a wing assembly facility for Airbus 320 aircraft in the northern municipality of Tianjin” brings up the question:

Do we really NEED more Airbuses in the world?

Whether it is A380 design flaws, rudder problems, Airbus wiring flaws, , faulty Airbus latching system, with all of these hidden flaws coming to light, do we really need another Airbus Factory?

OF course it is insulting to the Edsel to make this comparison, because the Edsel was a well designed vehicle of its time. It was marketed badly, but it was not a lemon. But the Airbus…

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Aviation Industry: Time for a Black Box Upgrade

Woodland Hills, CA — (ReleaseWire) — 07/07/2016 –No one is saying that aircraft tracking doesn’t need an overhaul. It does. Examination of plane crash events demands it.

Aviation experts have been asking for pinger battery improvements since a month after the crash of Air France 447 on 1 June 2009, when the pinger battery ran down in July. Air France 447 was not recovered from the ocean floor until May 2011, nearly two years after it was lost. Debris from the accident was recovered in the interim, but if the pinger had been louder, or the battery designed to last longer, then there’s a good chance that the plane would have been discovered sooner. One of the outcomes of this terrible event was a determination to design a pinger system with longer lasting batteries. EASA amended requirements for flight recorders and underwater locating devices in its 2013-26 amendment(RMT.0400 & RMT.0401 (OPS.090(A) & OPS.090(B)) — 20.12.2013) but implementing these requirements takes a prohibitively long time.

Aviation experts have been asking for better tracking technology since Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappeared on 8 March 2014 while flying from Kuala Lumpur International Airport, Malaysia, to Beijing Capital International Airport in China. Because this plane departed from its planned route, finding where it came down has been a unique challenge. Inmarsat’s satellite communications network concluded that the flight continued until at least 08:19 and flew south into the southern Indian Ocean. Triangulation of Inmarsat’s satellite communications has been the only credible source searchers depend on to develop the search area.

Aviation experts have been suggesting the blackbox be water-activated (or have water-activated duplicates) with flotation of some kind so the blackbox can be found faster. More recently, aviation experts have wondered about EgyptAir Flight 804 which crashed into the Mediterranean Sea on 19 May 2016. It was known fairly precisely where it came down, and yet salvage and rescue units were unable to be on the scene in time to help any survivors—if survivors there had been. We will never know because no one was there. And while tracking the location of the blackbox fell within the thirty day battery limit, if the technology had more power, it could have been located sooner. Finding the wreckage sooner means less money spent on the search, and a shorter time for the families agonizing over their losses.

So here is what is new: Inmarsat provides SwiftBroadband service for plane’s inflight Wi-Fi on many aircraft. Immarsat is developing a streaming system described as a “blackbox in the cloud.” This streaming system they are working on will allow crucial data to be streamed off a plane on the occasion of specified trigger events like a course deviation or disappearance from radar.

One only need consider a few factors to realize that a cloud-based system is a crucial development that current technology can easily handle. We need only to look at the cost of the search for a missing plane. According to France and Brazil, those two countries spent more than $40 million over two years to recover the black boxes from Air France Flight 447. Bloomberg reported the recovery cost of Air France 447 was $100 million. According to the South China Post, the cost of the (as yet unfound) MH370 will be as much as ten times more than AF447. Like the expense of MH370’s search, the cost of finding EgyptAir Flight 804 is still ongoing.

Even when Inmarsat’s streaming system will be available, the aviation industry is going to be resistant, mostly because it is going to be costly. Is this a cost that we must afford? I think it is.

Let me know your thoughts on this crucial topic at https://twitter.com/GeorgeHatcher

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Before US Airways Flight 1549–Update

  • US Airways ship number N106US flew on January 13, 2009, and January 15, 2009, with the same flight number of AWE 1549 from New York’s LaGuardia Airport to Charlotte Douglas [International] Airport in North Carolina.
  • Multiple passengers said that on a a different day, on the SAME plane, same flight, SAME location the SAME airbus experienced a series of compressor stalls on the right engine, punctuated by some backfires or explosions, with fire coming out of the engine. Although the pilot announced an emergency landing, he then continued on to Charlotte.
  • This was confirmed by one source to be the same Airbus A-320, which is N106US.
  • This prior incident could have also been caused by the engine ingesting a bird or birds. But…was it?
  • This brings up two questions: Could something else have been wrong with the engines on the N106US Airbus? OR can something be done to safeguard the engine intake to prevent the vacuum from sucking birds inside?

What: U.S. Airways passenger Airbus Flight 1549 enroute to Charlotte, N.C. taking off at t 3:26 p.m
Where: Hudson River off New York City
When: Thurs jan 15
Who: 155 on board scrambling onto rescue boat (50 passengers, three flight attendants and two pilots )
Why: Pilot hit a flock of geese after taking off from LaGuardia. (Two bird hits) Four minutes after takeoff passengers report hearing an explosion from the left side of the plane.

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Politics and the Art and Science of Crash Investigation

Should art be mentioned here? Art is the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination. Surely this applies to investigation. It is only through imagining the sequence of what happened that what actually happened can be determined. Theoretically, scientific experimentation takes place in a vacuum, or at least in a neutral area where the laws of nature can be observed to run in a natural fashion, after which, conclusions are drawn. Attempts are made for the hypothesis to be untainted by factors such as “opinion,” “bias,” and “prejudice.” But it could not exist without human imagination.

But imagination is far from “imaginary.” Accident investigation is not scientific experimentation, but it is supposed to be based, like science, on handling conclusions based on neutrally observed but hard facts. The problem of course, is that the accidents being investigated do not occur in the careful measured neutrality of a lab, but in the messy, busy, interactivity of the real world. The search for the truth is a crucial thing, one of interest not only to the victims or families of the victims, but also the insurance companies, banks, aircraft manufacturers, airlines, future airline passengers…the list grows. The climate in which investigations take place is far from neutral, in spite of attempts for investigators to be professional.

If you look at the Comoros crash you can see the effects of clashes between the governmental institutions of Comoros and France, replete with name-calling, bias, and politics. This is equally true in the Air France 447 case, where political pressures exert invisible pressures. Consider the stake the country has in Air France, and in Airbus. In any investigation, it may be that the lives and careers of some very powerful people hinge on how an investigation goes, and even more so when a country like France adds the aspect of criminal proceedings.

The well-known world regulatory organizations over aviation industry trade groups (IATA, ICAO, AEA, ATA) have developed highly regulated procedures for investigation. We can only hope that the highly regulated and complex process of investigations can continue in as even a keel as possible, in spite of the turbulence coming from all interested parties. The world waits for answers, but politics inevitably set the stage, and like the observed but unseen air currents in weather, play a part, whether invisible or obvious. While there are some protections in place, (for example, NTSB reports can not be used as evidence lest the integrity investigation be compromised), we can never fully know what goes on behind the scenes.

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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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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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Expert Opinion: Fatigue and Bad Choices

For some things, you don’t need experts.

Anyone who has ever attempted driving cross-country without taking an overnight knows the answer to the question of whether or not fatigue affects your judgment while driving. Of course fatigue has an affect on making serious assessments. It happens while driving on the nation’s highways, so why should it be any different on the nation’s skyways?

But of course the experts have to chime in. At least this time they agree with the rest of the real world that fatigue is hazardous to judgement. Furthermore, there is airline culpability here, since those low-wage pilots were flying cross-country just to get TO work, there’s no way they could start their shift fresh. Pilot Marvin Renslow had flown from his Florida residence to Newark and either had no hotel room, stayed up, or napped in the Newark crew lounge (which at Colgan Air is a fireable offense.) His abysmal training/test record stands as its own worst advocate. Co-pilot Rebecca Shaw who lived in Seattle had just pulled an all-nightter so she could get a free ride to work–and she was sick.

The pilot and co-pilot of the Colgan flight were facing multiple issues. The speed of the plane had dropped. Ice had gathered on the wings. The shaker stick had engaged. Neither pilot nor co-pilot appeared to be familiar with how to handle icing; neither were adequately grounded on emergency procedure; neither knew whether this was a wing or tail stall (which affected whether or not the nose should be down); and neither knew what to do with the shaker stick.

That the pilots were discussing subjects not related to flying is a “red herring.”

Admittedly, they could have been paying more attention to what was going on, but think of how many of us who have driven long distances use conversation to help us stay alert in similar circumstances. Even if they’d been speaking exclusively of the emergency, doing so would not have been the magic bullet that filled in the gaps left by inadequate training. They still would not have known what to do.

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