Don’t Hold Your Breath in the Lavatory

Rest assured we still have opinions, and believe this important stuff should be widely published and easily accessible but we probably won’t be posting too many press releases any more since Google tends to frown on that. So we didn’t update the news about Docket No. FAA-2011-0157

This reminds me of one of those “THIS IS HOW YOUR TAX DOLLARS ARE SPENT” parodies.

They’ve ruled on oxygen generators in airline bathrooms. It’s just important to remember now, if you happen to be in the bathroom during an aviation crisis, if there’s an oxygen crisis, you better get back to your seat pronto, at least if you are fond of breathing. They’re taking the oxygen mask out of the lavatory. So is it a security threat, a warning, or has there been chatter? At the Nolan Law Group website, David Evans (Aviation Safety Journal) speculates about
EMERGENCY OXYGEN ORDERED REMOVED FROM LAVATORIES

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    Foreign Airliner Leasing & Financing Un-Deserving Operators

    Arik Air Ltd., and Aero Contractors Co. of Nigeria Ltd., Nigeria’s top two airlines, have been banned from getting loans by Nigeria’s Central Bank due to the massive debt they have accrued. Arik Air owes Asset Management Corp. of Nigeria more than $534 million. Aero Contractors owes more than $203 million. A bank that loans money to these airlines will face “serious fines from the government.” Air Nigeria recently collapsed owing crew a debt of four months’ pay, in addition to $175 million in loans to Nicon Investments Ltd..

    Only three Nigerian airlines remain in operation. Arik Air has not published a date when it will resume flying.

    Officially, according to the BBC, the carrier resumed domestic flights on Sunday Sept 24. However we did get anonymous input from Monrovia that as of Saturday, Sept 22nd, Arik Air was flying.

    In George’s Point of View

    Before making a loan, banks need to look past the uncertainties in airline survival, aircraft value, interest rates and the airline’s credit worthiness.

    This is what the aircraft leasing companies should do:

    Stop leasing planes to operators that are careless in their maintenance and pilot training.

    Leasing companies should not look only at credit worthiness. Yes, that is one factor, but it is only part of the picture. Leasing companies must also make judgements based on the history of the airline operator performance, and maintenance.

    If credit and performance history all checks out, the oversight is not over. The leasing company should monitor every single plane they have leased out to foreign operators.

    If monitoring reveals any problems whatsoever, that pilots are not being trained, that they are not getting enough sleep, that the operator or aircraft goes on a black list, that the operator is shown to be negligent in any way, then the lessor should endeavor immediately to pickup/repossess that plane.

    Maintaining every aspect of the plane’s maintenance, flight operations, crew resource management, and crew training is as crucial to the contract agreement as payments. Failure to keep everything up to date is as much a breach of contract and cause for action as is failure to pay.

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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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    The Ironic Tragedy of Germanwings Flight 9525

    mountain

    Cockpit door designed to lock trouble out locks in Suicidal Pilot

    Pasadena, CA — (ReleaseWire) — 04/02/2015 — As an advocate (not a lawyer) of fair compensation for the victims of plane crashes, I have been closely following the story behind the crash of Germanwings Flight 9525 and the now notorious 27-year-old co-pilot, Andreas Lubitz. As is always the case, a team of expert investigators will dig out the facts to determine the most likely scenario behind the crash. That careful investigation will take a year at the very least. In this Germanwings accident, the one factor that stands out already is the role played by the pilot’s state of mind in what appears now to be his deliberate collision course with the French Alps. It is now common knowledge that the plane disintegrated on impact with the Massif des Trois-Évêchés. Imagine how horrified the families were when the transcript of the CVR (Cockpit Voice Recorder) was quickly leaked by tabloids. Journalists have been shouldering each other out of the way to get to the front of the line, “scooping” each with another “leaked” nugget. A girlfriend’s interview. A medical report here. A video there. TV commentators and newspapers from CNN and the venerable New York Times to the most scurrilous tabloids are spouting “the facts” faster than investigators can have gotten to the information. Tweeting the news as I do results in loads of source-checking, and plenty of on-going head-scratching moments while weeding out wild supposition masquerading as news in sources one would normally consider impeccable. When one source says “the plane is blue,” another says “the plane is red.” Sometimes I can determine which is the truth, but sometimes I have to leave it to readers to puzzle out.

    I have been working Wrongful Death cases for some forty-seven years now. I am a consultant to attorneys across the globe who represent the families of Wrongful Death victims. Each investigation is exactly the same in terms of the emotional impact of the accident. Devastating. Whether the case may or may not end up in court, whether or not the accident catches the media’s attention, every aspect is always impossibly difficult for the families. Some accidents seem similar because they share a factor, whether it be similar weather conditions, mechanical difficulties, or a particular flaw in a particular model of plane.

    Some aviation accidents personify extremes. Consider that while there is always some degree of speculation as to an accident’s cause, MH370 brought as many conspiracy theorists out of the woodwork in this past twelve months as Amelia Earhart’s disappearance has in the past 87 years. Everything seems plausible when people are desperate for an explanation. Because in this age of cell phones and satellites, there is simply no explanation for a plane to vanish, MH370 has become the “poster child” for speculation. I expect MH370 will continue to spawn new theories and will endure as a mystery until, at some point, the wreckage will be found and examined.

    If I were comparing MH370 and Germanwings 9525, I could write a whole piece examining the conflict of government transparency vs. individual confidentiality, but that was not my intent today. I was just thinking of aviation safety, and how 9/11 became the catalyst for upgraded multifaceted flight deck security. One outcome of 9/11 is the impregnable, indestructible cockpit door, the brain child of countless engineering hours, security and scientific research. Passengers since 9/11 have flown safe in the knowledge that no intruder could again gain entry to the cockpit and overpower the pilot thanks to redundant enhanced security precautions and a door designed to keep the dangerous people out. Now there’s a cockpit voice recording that appears to show that same safe cockpit door is the barrier that kept the PIC from being able to save everyone aboard. Captain Patrick Sondenheimer died trying to get that door open.

    The impregnable cockpit door, the terrible irony of Germanwings Flight 9525.

    About Air Crash Consultants

    A division of Wrongful Death Consultants, Air Crash Consultants was established to network between lawyers and their clients, bridging the gaps, especially in regard to International clients, freeing and enabling the lawyer to concentrate on higher priority commitments. Air Crash Consultant services might also be designated as an umbrella, because the company’s functions encompass a variety of problem-solving areas in support of the lawyer-client relationship as needed. Services are not limited to finding experts, developing translation teams, client support, document handling, drafting demand letters, client interviews, etc. Visit the company websites at”
    http://aircrashconsultants.com
    http://wrongfuldeathnews.com
    http://wrongfuldeathconsultants.com

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    Air France Moving Forward: Obfuscating the Issue and Consumer Politics

    George’s Point of View

    While we are waiting for news of where Air France Flight 447 disappeared to, somewhere in the ocean (and no one can really say with any great specificity anything more specific than somewhere between Rio de Janeiro and Paris France because everywhere they apparently believe it was, they looked, and it wasn’t) Air France is coming out with a report.

    An Air France assessment initiated by Chairman Jean-Cyril Spinetta in 2009 and performed by an international panel of eight aviation experts dubbed the Independent Safety Review Team is due to be released Jan 24, 2011.

    Its inception was timed, not too surprisingly, six months after the fatal crash, and although officially having nothing to do with the fatal event, its timing alone suggests an optimistic attempt on the part of Air France’s media team to counterbalance the lack of consumer confidence in the airline after they lost a whole plane and 228 lives.

    The report will cover training, technical and flight-safety issues, though the not-too-hidden agenda may be to reflect changes made since the crash of Air France Flight 447, (whose wreckage we all know has still not been located.) The report is a beginning of the “New Transparancy” proposed by Air France. There are people who would like to see that transparency extend to some old news, such as what is going on with the search for the wreckage of the worst accident in French aviation history.

    The last (02:10) ACARS transmission from Flight 477 contained a set of coordinates indicating the location as 2°59?N 30°35?W officially the last known position, (when the twelve warning messages with the same time code indicated autopilot and auto-thrust system had disengaged, TCAS was in fault mode, and flight mode changed from ‘normal law’ to ‘alternate law’) but one wonders if the instrumentation was already in disagreement at that point, i.e. if that location data could be as faulty as the frozen pitot tubes.

    So the report will be out today. The Assessment of Air France training, technical and flight-safety issues is bound to be a big event, but as the media and airline waves these initiatives in the public face, there are a lot of people still staring out to sea, looking for that lost wreckage, who won’t be distracted by any (see-here-look-at-this-news-see-how-much-we-are-improving) sleight of hand.

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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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  • One Mangalore Crash Question: The Wreckage

    A plane wreckage is not simply trash. The wreckage is the story of the crash transcribed in twisted metal and broken gears, legible to experts who can read from it details that the layman can not determine. The wreckage is concrete evidence. Because damaged mechanics reflect forces that have acted on the plane, its legal and historical value is in its very tangibility: it is an actual record that can reveal the course of events, as well as being an important factor in determining the culpability of those involved.

    Imagine, if you will, what would happen to paper records left to the mercy of passersby, out in the sun and wind and rain for fifty days. If the paper survives, anything written on it will be degraded by exposure to the elements. If anyone attempts to read it, their task will be 50 times more difficult. This is true whether the record is written on paper–or on crushed metal.

    So why is it that the evidence in the Mangelore crash–the wreckage–was left to the elements for 50 days? Whose responsibility is it to maintain the evidence at its most accurate condition? What can be said about leaving evidence on the scene, in an area where the public has access, and/or allowing it to sit exposed to the elements for 50 days following the event?

    This is not a crash like Air France Flight 447 where the greater mass of the wreckage is lost at sea, and if and when any evidence is found, it will have been inadvertently degraded by exposure that is beyond anyone’s control. In the causal relationship between conduct and result, in the Mangalore crash, who is responsible for maintaining the quality of the evidence so that it maintains its forensic value, especially in a crash within meters of the runway in a known and navigable area? Is there a chain of responsibility? Is that responsibility safeguarded from possible intrusion, alteration or negligence by vested parties? Is safeguarding the forensics the responsibility of the airline or its insurers? Because, while the airline has hardly any experience dealing with such details, its insurers have a long history of dealing with evidence in aviation cases. Is there not an obligation in the vested parties to maintain the forensic value of the evidence?

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