AvTalk Episode 191: What happened in Lima?

AVT 191 Transcript
EPISODE 191
[INTRO]
[00:00:00] IP: Hello and welcome to episode 191 of AvTalk. I am Ian Petchenik here, as always
with –
[00:00:16] JR: Jason Rabinowitz. How are you, Ian? Happy Thanksgiving.
[00:00:20] IP: Happy Thanksgiving to you, Jason. I'm doing well. I'm doing well. I've heard tell
that you're a little under the weather, so I hope you're on the upswing.
[00:00:27] JR: Yeah. I don't sound quite as bad as you did the last couple of weeks, but I don't
feel so great. But we're going to power through this episode, this special episode, actually.
[00:00:36] IP: This is a special episode because this is the first episode that we have real
players playing our AvTalk trivia game. Kira and Ganning will be on the show later to play the
game, and I hope everyone enjoys it, and we'll keep doing it. Thanks to everyone who has
reached out and said, “Yeah, I want to play the game.” There's been quite a bit of you, so we're
going to figure out the best way to make sure everybody can play because I want this to be a
fun thing for everybody. We'll start off with this week a bit later in the show.
As Jason mentioned, it is Thanksgiving week. We're recording on Wednesday, the 23rd of
November. The podcast will come out on Friday the 25th. So we'll just skip over Thanksgiving
and say that everyone had a great one. But I will also say that everything, knock on wood,
seems to be going okay in the National Airspace System so far.
[00:01:28] JR: Yeah. At least here where it's relevant right now in the US because it's only a
holiday week here, I assume.
[00:01:35] IP: Right, right.
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AVT 191 Transcript
[00:01:35] JR: It could not be better. There is no significant weather anywhere in the country
that I haven't even seen a blip of air traffic control delays or anything. Everything is running as it
should, so good job, everyone. Take a break at some point. It's well deserved. Not probably
going to be the same story later this week because Sunday, which is actually the busiest travel
day, I believe, when everyone tries to go home at the same time. Well, they're not looking so
great for that particular day. So we might have used all our luck today, but we'll take it where we
can get it.
[00:02:07] IP: Yeah. It's been a beautiful week after the weather's been mostly quiet
everywhere, except for Buffalo, which got, I think, 19,000 feet of snow over the past couple
days.
[00:02:16] JR: But not at the airport.
[00:02:17] IP: But not at the airport. I saw some people were plane spotting at the airport, and I
was like, “Oh, that doesn't seem like that much snow.”
[00:02:23] JR: No. That’s the beauty of lake effect snow. Two miles to the South, they've got
infinite number of snow. But up at the airport, Delta never stopped flying.
[00:02:31] IP: But everywhere else, things have been going well. So yesterday, the 22nd of
November, there were 49,019 scheduled flights in the United States. Jason, how many of those
do you think were canceled yesterday?
[00:02:44] JR: 62.
[00:02:46] IP: A few more than that. 219 flights in total were canceled out of 49, 000. So that's
fantastic. Today, that number is even less. 168 flights so far have been canceled out of 49,124.
So not bad, not bad at all.
[00:03:07] JR: Yeah. I think I even saw United touting that they went the whole day without a
single mainline or regional cancellation, which is seriously impressive stuff.
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AVT 191 Transcript
[00:03:16] IP: Yeah. They did a very nice job yesterday. Is United the new Delta?
[00:03:21] JR: Wow. I've been saying that for about a year now, but I think so.
[00:03:25] IP: I think so. So, yeah, Thanksgiving is underway, the busy travel season, especially
this week and then throughout the rest of the year. So here's hoping things go just as smoothly
for the rest of the days, and we're not back next week going, “What happened over the
weekend?” But we do turn to a story where we can say what happened.
Last Friday afternoon in Lima, Peru, a LATAM Peru flight was attempting to depart the airport.
Flight 2213 was trying to depart Lima when about a third of the way through its departure role, it
struck an aircraft rescue and firefighting rig that had driven on to the runway. Very sadly, two of
the three firefighters who were in the rescue rig were killed. The third, I believe, is still in the
hospital. We haven't really seen an update on his condition yet. We're still looking out for that.
But no one on board the aircraft was seriously injured. Everyone was able to make it off.
Photos and videos from the scene are just, I think, some of the most bizarre. It's the most
bizarre incident I have ever seen. When you first saw it, it was very unclear what had happened,
and then multiple camera angles showed exactly what happened, and it was just almost
unbelievable. It was just –
[00:04:57] JR: A lot of video from many different angles came out very quickly all on Twitter.
Ironically, it was the same day everyone was tweeting their goodbyes on Twitter, thinking it was
going to disappear overnight. Then like one of those defining events occurs that everyone
tweets about, and all these different camera angles come out, and every video we got
subsequently gave us a better and better idea of what happened. It was just every video we
saw, we just kept saying, “This doesn't make any sense. What just happened?”
[00:05:25] IP: It also becomes clear, looking at the video and some of the photos from inside
the aircraft that shows the fuel spill igniting on the wing and the aircraft's wing on fire as it slides
down the runway to a stop. It becomes clear that the aircraft hit the rig on the right side, and it
ripped off the aircraft's right engine and collapsed the right main landing gear. Looking at the
photos, it becomes extremely clear that a few feet to the inside of the aircraft, we would be
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AVT 191 Transcript
having a much, much different conversation about how many people were killed and what
happened.
[00:06:11] JR: Did we give the stats of the aircraft? If not, I don't think we –
[00:06:14] IP: No, no. We can do that. Yeah.
[00:06:14] JR: LATAM Peru flight 2213, just a five-year-old Airbus A320neo, registration CC-
BHB. So this was a relatively new aircraft. If this is indeed scrapped, I believe it is the first whole
loss incident of an A320neo series aircraft. I'd imagine this aircraft likely will be scrapped, but
we've seen some strange recoveries in the past.
Yeah, to your point, Ian, about an inch to the left, an inch to the right to a millimeter here, this
would be a very different story, as this aircraft is very, very nearly at the speed of rotation and
any matter of second’s difference. If the fire truck had entered the runway maybe the farther
down taxiway, it could have been an incident where it collided with the aircraft, but the aircraft
still had to rotate and take to the air and physically missing an engine and landing gear and all
the other issues associated with that impact. This could have been an absolutely catastrophic
issue or, in this case, it lost the engine to land of gear. It just kind of almost gracefully skidded to
a stop at the end of the runway, thankfully.
I know we talked about this recently, where usually there's some number of injuries during the
evacuation. It seems like not even that happened at this point. It was quite miraculous that,
unfortunately, two firefighters were killed, but nobody on the aircraft was so much as injured as
far as we could tell.
[00:07:41] IP: Yeah. The impact was – I mean, the trucks are – They're heavy, both by design to
be heavy, and then you fill them with a lot of water and firefighting agent like a foam or
something like that. Those are heavy, heavy trucks. I was kind of surprised by the fact, and I
guess this makes sense because it hit the engine. If there's an impact to the engine, they're
designed to come off.
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AVT 191 Transcript
[00:08:13] JR: Yeah. I don't know if it's an impact to the engine, I guess, or if there's certain g-
load stresses on the aircraft. It's probably either way, but I don't think anyone at Airbus or
Boeing or Bombardier ever ran a simulation on what happens if a fire truck drives into the
engine of the aircraft while it's speeding down the runway at 127 knots. That simulation has
probably never been run, so I'm assuming this incident will be studied quite a bit moving
forward.
[00:08:41] IP: Yeah, yeah. I'm sure.
[00:08:43] JR: It's just some data that you'd never think to obtain before something like this
actually happens in the real world. But everything, I guess, aircraft-wise worked as expected
and, yeah, there was a fire. But I don't think that's avoidable, given what actually happened.
[00:08:58] IP: No. So the kind of precipitating event for what happened is the Lima Airport's
been under a massive amount of construction for a few years now, as they build a new runway,
a new control tower, and expand to the airport. What was happening at the time was an
exercise by the firefighting crews to prove that they can get from their emergency base to
anywhere on the airfield in less than three minutes. So they were moving at full speed and
entering the runway area.
The airport authority has put out some information about the incident, and I'm going to quote it
here. Then we can kind of talk about what's happening. This is from, let's see, the 20th of
November from the Lima Airport Authority. “It is important to recall that this operation was
previously coordinated between the airport operator and the air traffic authority, meaning the air
traffic controllers, as on previous occasions.”
“In this case, coordination started on November 17th, and [inaudible 00:10:18], which is the air
traffic authority, proposed to carry out the exercise between 1500 and 1600 hours the following
day. On November 18th, during the morning and until the beginning of the exercise, the
firefighting team made all the necessary arrangements to execute the maneuver. The control
tower confirmed the start time of 15:10. It being the time fixed for the beginning of the
maneuver, and the impact with the time aircraft occurred at 15:11.”
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AVT 191 Transcript
So what the airport is saying is that this was previously coordinated, and that very well may be
true. But what they're not saying, what they haven't said is if these aircraft rescue firefighting
rigs had air traffic control permission to enter the active runway area. This is where I'm leaning
on the good folks who listen to this podcast and who may know more about this than I do. It is
my understanding that nothing, not nothing enters a runway, unless it is specifically and exactly
cleared to enter the runway by air traffic control.
Not, “We talked about this, so we're going to do it.” Not, “We scheduled this, so we're going to
do it.” But you ask and they either say enter or they say don't enter. That is my understanding,
and I could be wrong here. So hopefully, if somebody has more – If air traffic controllers are
listening, or if you're an airport firefighter and you're listening, or if you're just someone who
works anywhere in the field, please correct me if I'm wrong, but that's my understanding.
[00:11:54] JR: Yep, same as me. As I've ever known in the past, nothing enters the active
runway, unless they get explicit permission from ATC. At that moment, I guess it could have
been that when the ARFF trucks were dispatched out of their base, maybe they were given a
set of instructions and permission to enter the active runway. Then there was some
miscommunication where the aircraft was given permission to take off when it shouldn't have
been. But nothing enters the runway without explicit permission from air traffic control to do so.
If we're wrong about that, I don't think we are, feel free to reach out and tell us such. But what
the airport really did not say was who had permission to be on the runway at that moment since,
of course, there can only be one thing happening at a time. Either the aircraft is taking off or the
firefighting trucks are crossing the runway. There seems to be some miscommunication or
missing information about who exactly was supposed to be there.
What we do know at this point and what, thankfully, has been, I would, say, corrected at this
point was that the Peruvian authorities actually arrested the flight crew after the crash, which is
wholly ridiculous that that is a thing that would happen. It takes having a criminal spin to an air
crash investigation to a whole new level that they would just arrest the fight crew after such a
traumatic incident like that, where probably the flight crew is not even the ones that did anything
wrong, really kind of outrageous behavior. Thankfully, they had been released, but I'm really
disappointed that that would have been allowed to happen in the first place.
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AVT 191 Transcript
[00:13:25] IP: Yeah. I mean, generally, unless there's clear criminality, these are safety
investigations. The whole point of an incident investigation, an accident investigation by Aviation
Safety Authorities is to ensure it doesn't happen again. Find out what happened and fix
whatever happened. Fix whatever led to this happening, so it never happens again. This is,
yeah, not great. But as Jason said, they, thankfully, have been – After being detained, they've
now been released.
But this is certainly an investigation that will be closely following to understand a little bit more
about what happened and why it happened and, again, so that it never happens again. But just
a truly maddening set of circumstances at this point.
Jason, you brought this to my attention. I had missed this particular bit of information published
earlier today. But A220 operators are being instructed to, I mean, basically ensure that they
press the right button, so the plane does what it's supposed to do.
[00:14:27] JR: Yeah. That's kind of the gist of it.
[00:14:29] IP: Okay. Fill me in.
[00:14:31] JR: This article comes from FlightGlobal published today actually. US regulators
have disclosed two nearly catastrophic events that were among 38 takeoff incidents involving
inadvertent A220 autopilot engagements, and they're taking additional action to prevent that
reoccurrence. What happened basically is that on the used to be Bomabardier C Series, now
the Airbus A220, the autopilot and auto throttle buttons are in the center of the control panel
right in front of the pilots, and the two buttons are basically right on top of each other.
There's been apparently 38 incidents, where the auto throttle was disconnected, and the pilots
go to hit the auto throttle button to re-engage auto throttle. Accidentally, they press auto pilot
instead. In that case, what happens there is that autopilot's going to do whatever it is set to do,
and that could be either it rotates the aircraft below the rotation speed. Or if you're on approach,
it makes a turn unexpected or climbs to an altitude not expected, just really not great behavior.
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AVT 191 Transcript
The article goes on to specify that aircraft aren't actually supposed to be on autopilot below 400
feet, so this is definitely something that's not an expected action flying the aircraft, and there's
no real changes coming to the aircraft. But basically, the FAA would like operators of the aircraft
to put this in their flight manuals, I guess, or their training materials to press the right button.
[00:16:00] IP: Always good to press the right button.
[00:16:02] JR: Yes. Maybe in the future, Airbus will take that back. Maybe on the upcoming
A22500, which may or may not ever happen, they won't place the autopilot and auto throttle
buttons a little farther away from each other.
[00:16:15] IP: So when Russia invaded Ukraine and one of the aviation – One of the things that
happened in aviation was that Airlines in Russia began basically keeping aircraft that they did
not own. We predicted that there would be a long and messy shakeout between lessors that
had lost their aircraft to Russian Airlines and the insurance companies that would be on the
hook and then try and not to be on the hook for these planes.
[00:16:49] JR: And they are –
[00:16:49] IP: Now, it would be a long process, and that's exactly what's happened. Certain
lessors have sued certain insurance companies. At the moment, the total is 65 billion in this
particular lawsuit.
[00:17:03] JR: More than 400 aircraft.
[00:17:03] IP: That’s a lot of money. Yeah. That's a lot of money and a lot of planes. So more
than 400 aircraft. This is a according to Reuters, the figures. 400 leased aircraft worth around 10
billion are unable to leave Russia after sanctions by European Union and others. The lessors
are saying that they're covered by policies that include wartime insurance or someone stole our
planes. The insurers are arguing the planes aren't physically damaged, and so they might get
them back. So we are not paying.
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AVT 191 Transcript
[00:17:41] JR: Man, that's a hell of a plane, a very insurance company angle to take. On the
one hand, you have billions and billions of dollars on the table from these leasing companies.
Then, obviously, the insurance companies are going to want to pay as little to nothing as
possible but taking the stance that these aircraft are undamaged, don't know that, and they
might yet be returned really unlikely at this point. That's a really interesting angle to take, and I
would love to see how this plays out in court, where it inevitably will probably end up. Unless it
goes to arbitration or something like that, we'll never see the details.
But I would argue that even if the aircraft are undamaged, which they're probably not at this
point, and even if they are returned in the future, it's going to be very difficult for any leasing
company to place these 400 aircraft with an airline outside of Russia, since this industry is built
on paperwork and regulations and tracking parts and maintenance. None of which is probably
happening all that accurately with these aircraft that were re-registered in Russia, since there's
embargoes, and they can't get the parts. They can't even get the software to update and keep
these aircrafts running properly.
I can't imagine there's a market for these aircraft anywhere outside of Russia, so I'd have to
imagine the insurance company's argument here is really, really grasping at straws to come up
with any legitimate defense.
[00:19:02] IP: Yeah. I mean, I get the legal maneuvering. They don't want to pay billions of
dollars. What insurance company does?
[00:19:08] JR: I mean, who does? I don't.
[00:19:09] IP: But it'll be interesting to see how much water that argument carries.
[00:19:13] JR: Yeah. I'm assuming when they took out these insurance policies, nobody really
thought that 400 airplanes would just be stolen all at once.
[00:19:20] IP: Right, right.
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AVT 191 Transcript
[00:19:21] JR: It’s just not a thing that anyone ever considered would be a possibility, but here
we are.
[00:19:26] IP: Here we are. A couple quick notes before we move on to our aviation trivia game.
One, there's a BelugaXL stuck in the mud somewhere in France. So if anyone has a big enough
tow truck, please help.
[00:19:40] JR: Did they get it out of the mud? Is it still stuck there? I don't know.
[00:19:43] IP: I think it's out of the mud.
[00:19:44] JR: It’s still at the airport and it's –
[00:19:46] IP: It’s for the airport.
[00:19:46] JR: For all we know, it was the BelugaXL’s maybe first ever visit at this particular
airport on its way up to Toulouse, I think. BYF, I'd never even heard of this airport. But
apparently, in the past, it has been served by the Beluga, the regular Beluga, not the XL. So if
this was indeed the BelugaXL’s first visit to this particular Airbus manufacturing facility, that's
one heck of an entrance.
[00:20:12] IP: Yeah. We'll put the answer to that question in the show notes. Then finally, before
we get to the game, the Swiss shipping concern, MSC, has dropped out of the Lufthansa
Group’s bid for ITA Airways. So who knows what that's going to do, but there's still hope for
[inaudible 00:20:30].
[00:20:32] JR: Any day now.
[00:20:33] IP: Any day now. Okay, we're going to take a quick break. And when we come back,
we are going to play our first real human being, Jason excluded –
[00:20:43] JR: I was going to say, come on. Give me some credit.
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AVT 191 Transcript
[00:20:44] IP: Aviation trivia game. I think it's going to be fun, so stay with us. We'll be right
back.
Welcome back. It is now time for the inaugural version of the AvTalk trivia game or the inaugural
real version. If you listened to last week's episode, I surprised Jason with a little AvTalk trivia
game, and he did pretty well.
[00:21:13] JR: Thank you.
[00:21:13] IP: Considering that I thoroughly surprised him with what was about to befall him.
00:21:19 JR: Yeah. That was a good beta test, and now we've got the real shipping product
ready to go.
[00:21:26] IP: Mostly ready to go. But Ganning and Kira are here to join us for the first real
version, and they have agreed to be, I guess, guinea pig versions 2.0. So Ganning and Kira,
thank you so much for coming on the show.
[00:21:41] G: Yeah. Thanks for having us.
[00:21:43] K: Thanks so much.
[00:21:44] IP: So before we get to the game, and I'll explain all those rules, the thing we do with
most of our guests is ask them when we talk about their jobs what their favorite part of their jobs
are. When we talk generally with them, we always ask them about their favorite aircraft or
airport. So I'll let you both choose which one you want to answer, but I will put the question to
you.
[00:22:05] G: Kira, you want to go first?
[00:22:06] K: Yeah. I think it's probably recency bias because I had a shocking turn of events
an actually nice layover in JFK by three weeks ago.
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AVT 191 Transcript
[00:22:16] JR: Wow. Okay, that's a rare answer.
[00:22:19] K: My previous JFK layover involved a 35-minute window to get from T4 to T2. I
made it. My bags did not. So this time, I had like six hours to chill. It was much better, so I'm
going to go with JFK for some crazy, crazy reason.
[00:22:33] JR: Wow, unexpected answer. Beat that, Ganning.
[00:22:36] G: Oh, okay. Well, I mean, my home airport is RDU, so I have to say that's my
favorite. They have a dedicated observation deck, which I've been there so much like when I
was little, but it hasn't been as much recently. I don't really have a crazy story about RDU. It's
just my opinion, which is my favorite.
[00:22:55] IP: I mean, you had made observation data.
[00:22:57] JR: Yup, there’s –
[00:22:58] IP: I mean, really you can't beat that. So here's how the game is going to work
moving forward. We've modified it a little bit because we have two players playing against each
other, and we're going to play three mini games. Then the overall winner of those games will
come back on a later episode after we've played a bunch and play for some bigger prizes. So
anyone that plays in any episode going to get a keychain, anybody who wins in a particular
episode going to get a T-shirt, and maybe we'll have some special stuff thrown in.
The way the three mini games are going to work is the winner of each mini game is going to get
a point, and then whoever has the most points wins. We're not going to reinvent that particular
wheel. The games are – The first game is going to be airport codes like we played last week.
The second game is going to be airline IKO call sign prefixes. Then the third game is going to
be a little bit more open-ended, with some general aviation history and trivia that I hope is fun
for everyone. If it's not, I apologize. We'll keep working on it until we will get this right, and it will
be fun for everyone.
Ganning and Kira, are you ready?
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AVT 191 Transcript
[00:24:13] G: I am ready.
[00:24:14] K: I'm ready.
[00:24:15] IP: Okay. We flipped a coin before we hit record. So Ganning is going to start.
Ganning is going to get the first question, and this is the three-letter airport IATA code, and you
give me the city name that the airport serves. The first one is PRG.
[00:24:35] G: Oh, PRG. I'm not going to lie. I don't know.
[00:24:41] IP: Okay. So I have hints for all of these. I'll give you one hint. Then if you still don't
get it, Kira, you can steal. Ganning, you should really check out this airport.
[00:24:51] G: I should really check out – Okay. I feel like it's going to be something with the
Czech Republic because you said that.
[00:25:01] IP: Give you three more seconds.
[00:25:04] G: Can I have another hint or –
[00:25:06] IP: No, you cannot. Kira, can you steal it?
[00:25:10] K: I can't steal it because I've actually –
[00:25:11] IP: PRG.
[00:25:11] K: I’ve actually flown through here twice. It's Prague.
[00:25:14] JR: Hey. All right.
[00:25:15] IP: Okay. Kira is sticking with UCPH.
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AVT 191 Transcript
[00:25:20] K: Copenhagen.
[00:25:21] IP: Yes, nicely done.
[00:25:23] K: Suddenly, living in Europe is working to my advantage. This is the first time that's
happened in a while.
[00:25:29] IP: Ganning, back to you, TFS.
[00:25:33] G: I know this. Tenerife.
[00:25:35] IP: Which one?
[00:25:38] G: South.
[00:25:38] IP: TFS. South. That’s right. Well done. Kira, CUN.
[00:25:46] K: Cancun.
[00:25:48] IP: Very good.
[00:25:50] K: Okay. That was a guess. I'm happy.
[00:25:55] IP: Ganning, FLL.
[00:25:57] G: This one's Fort Lauderdale, I think.
[00:25:59] IP: Very good. Kira, FAI?
[00:26:05] K: Oh! Can I have a hint?
[00:26:08] IP: It's fair to say that this airport sees a lot of snow.
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AVT 191 Transcript
[00:26:12] K: Fairbanks?
[00:26:13] JR: Yes.
[00:26:14] IP: Very good.
[00:26:15] JR: Dug deep to get that one.
[00:26:16] K: The clue gave it to me. I'm not going to lie.
[00:26:17] IP: Ganning – The clues are hopefully giveaways, I hope. Ganning, GMP?
[00:26:28] G: Oh, can I get a hit for this one?
[00:26:33] IP: This airport is the second airport that serves the city. It's the secondary airport
that serves the city serving mostly domestic flights. It is one half of the busiest domestic route in
the world.
[00:26:47] G: Oh, okay. Yeah, I don't know this one.
[00:26:51] IP: Kira, can you steal for the game?
[00:26:53] K: Oh, I know one of the airports on the route. And I know where it is and I can't – is
it – I'm probably going to put – Is it Gimpo? Gampo?
[00:27:03] IP: Give us the city.
[00:27:05] K: Seoul.
[00:27:06] JR: Yes.
[00:27:06] IP: You got it.
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AVT 191 Transcript
[00:27:06] JR: And just for our sake, what was the other city? What's the other half of the
world's busiest domestic route?
[00:27:12] K: Oh, I can't remember the other half. You're lucky I got the Seoul part.
[00:27:17] IP: Jason, what is it?
[00:27:19] JR: Jeju Island.
[00:27:21] IP: There you go. Where are we? We're on – Back to Kira. KTM?
[00:27:28] K: Can I have a hint?
[00:27:29] IP: This airport is the major airport that you would fly into from anywhere else in the
world if you were going to climb Mount Everest.
[00:27:38] K: Yeah, Katmandu.
[00:27:40] JR: Yes.
[00:27:40] IP: Katmandu. Ganning, DSS?
[00:27:46] G: Can I have a hint?
[00:27:48] IP: You could rally to this airport from Paris.
[00:27:52] G: Ooh! I'm going to say I don't know on this one either.
[00:27:57] IP: I'll give you another hint. It's also the last airport you see flying south from Europe
to South America.
[00:28:05] G: The thing is I don't know many European airports. I know more in the US. So –
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AVT 191 Transcript
[00:28:11] IP: Kira, do you want to steal?
[00:28:13] K: I have no idea, whatsoever.
[00:28:15] IP: Jason?
[00:28:15] JR: Well, fortunately, I have the answer sheet in front of me. And it is [inaudible
00:28:19] Senegal. That's a tricky one. Even the hint there, the rally. You have to have some
deep knowledge that there's a vehicle rally between Paris and Descartes to get that one.
[00:28:30] IP: They get harder as we go, I think. And then let's see. Kira, back to you for the last
one. TUN?
[00:28:38] K: Tunis?
[00:28:40] IP: Yes. Tunis. There it is. Kira is ahead one to nothing. With the first airport code
trivia game done, we move on to Airlines. We will give you the ICAO call sign prefix, the three
letter one. Not the radio call sign. For instance, if I said ANA, you would say All Nippon Airways.
Or if I said AAL, you would say American Airlines.
Let's see. Ganning, you went first in the first game. Kira, it is your turn to go first. This one might
be easy. EIN.
[00:29:22] K: Yeah, slightly easy for me. It's Aer Lingus.
[00:29:26] JR: All right. We'd have to disqualify you if you got that one wrong. I'm happy we
don't have to go through that.
[00:29:30] K: If I got that one wrong, I'd have to hand my passport back, I think.
[00:29:33] JR: You'd only be able to fly Ryanair after that.
[00:29:36] K: Please don't do that to me. Please, don't do that to me.
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[00:29:41] IP: Ganning, ROU?
[00:29:45] G: ROU. Air Canada – oh, I don't know how to say this last word. Is it Rogue?
Rouge?
[00:29:53] IP: Rouge.
[00:29:53] JR: Very good. I’ll accept Rogue though.
[00:29:54] IP: Yeah. They have rogue. Let's see, Kira, KOR.
[00:30:04] K: Korean Airlines?
[00:30:05] JR: No.
[00:30:07] IP: I'm sorry. Ganning, you want to steal that one?
[00:30:12] K: K – I would have guessed Korean as well. I don't know it.
[00:30:16] IP: Partial, but no credit. It's Air Koryo. The North Korean Airline.
[00:30:20] JR: And there is a big distinction between those two airlines.
[00:30:26] IP: Let's see. Ganning. ASA.
[00:30:28] K: Oh, I think this is Alaska Airlines.
[00:30:32] JR: You are correct.
[00:30:33] IP: Correct. Kira, CMP.
[00:30:38] K: I don't know.
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[00:30:40] IP: Would you like the hint?
[00:30:41] K: Yeah, what's the hint?
[00:30:44] IP: This airline's livery bears a strikingly close resemblance to another airline on the
same side of the globe.
[00:30:52] K: Is it that? Oh, I'm going to butcher it. Is that La company? The like fancy French
one?
[00:31:00] JR: Unfortunately, not.
[00:31:00] IP: It is not.
[00:31:01] JR: It is Copa. Copa Airlines has a strikingly similar if not a knockoff tale of United or
Continental. I guess it would really be Continental.
[00:31:11] IP: Yeah, the continental – the globe. They both have –
[00:31:14] JR: That's an argument we're not going to have on this podcast.
[00:31:17] IP: Yeah. Ganning, ENT.
[00:31:22] G: Can I have a hint for this one?
[00:31:24] IP: Just finish the word.
[00:31:27] G: ENT. I want to say Enter Air.
[00:31:32] IP: Very good.
[00:31:33] JR: Which is correct. Wow! I even I couldn't get that one after the hint.
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[00:31:38] IP: Kira, VLG.
[00:31:42] K: Vueling?
[00:31:42] IP: Yup. Ganning, THY.
[00:31:47] G: Oh, I don't know this one. THY. Can I get a hint as well?
[00:31:55] IP: This airline, you should expect to be delighted.
[00:31:59] G: Delighted.
[00:32:01] IP: This is pulling on your culinary knowledge.
[00:32:04] G: I have no clue.
[00:32:05] IP: THY.
[00:32:08] G: I don't know this one.
[00:32:09] IP: Kira?
[00:32:11] K: Purely from like Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe knowledge is a Turkish?
[00:32:16] JR: It is.
[00:32:17] IP: It's Turkish.
[00:32:19] JR: Well done.
[00:32:19] IP: We are tied moving into the back half of the airline codes. Kira, back to you, or
staying with you, FPY.
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[00:32:30] K: Oh, can I get a hint?
[00:32:31] IP: Wow! This Airline looks suspiciously and act suspiciously like another airline that
came before it.
[00:32:40] K: Um, Norse?
[00:32:44] JR: Oh, good guess.
[00:32:46] IP: Good thinking. But not Norse.
[00:32:47] JR: [inaudible 00:32:47] airlines. Coming up from the ashes, I guess, of WOW
Airlines in Iceland.
[00:32:56] K: Oh, I should have gotten it from the wild. Oh, well.
[00:32:59] IP: Ganning, NCA.
[00:33:04] G: Can I get a hit for this one?
[00:33:06] IP: The call sign is an acronym.
[00:33:09] G: It's an acronym? Okay. I don't know this.
[00:33:19] IP: Kira, for the steal?
[00:33:20] K: I have no idea.
[00:33:22] IP: This one is Nippon Cargo Airlines.
[00:33:25] JR: And that was for the win, right? I think we need the tiebreaker?
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[00:33:28] IP: So, we need the tie breaker. We go to the tie breaker. Okay, for the tiebreaker,
whoever answers first gets the point.
[00:33:36] G: Okay.
[00:33:36] K: Okay.
[00:33:36] IP: Ready? KQA.
[00:33:42] K: Kuwait?
[00:33:44] IP: Not Kuwait. Ganning, for the win?
[00:33:48] K: I want to say Kenya, but I don't know.
[00:33:51] JR: Wow! Kenya is correct.
[00:33:51] IP: You got it.
[00:33:53] K: Well, done.
[00:33:54] JR: Didn't even know it. But you were right.
[00:33:57] IP: Well done.
[00:33:56] G: I just knew it was something that started with a K.
[00:34:02] JR: Nicely done for that one.
[00:34:02] IP: Sometimes that's all you need.
[00:34:03] K: That's why I went for Kuwait.
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AVT 191 Transcript
[00:34:06] JR: Yeah, that ties it up going into the back half of the –
[00:34:11] IP: It's 1-1 with the third game to go. What we have now is it's a combination of
aviation knowledge and a little bit of geography. Listen carefully to the questions, because there
is a hint in the question that leads you to each answer. And Jason, do you want to go ahead and
go with the first one?
[00:34:35] JR: Yeah, I'll help out a little bit here are. Are we all ready to go?
[00:34:39] G: Yeah.
[00:34:39] K: Yeah, I'm ready.
[00:34:40] JR: Who are we going to first, Ian?
[00:34:42] IP: Let's see. We're tied. Hold on.
[00:34:44] JR: We don't actually. We're tied. We need to flip a coin.
[00:34:44] IP: We'll do another coin flip. We'll do another coin flip. Ganning is going to go first.
[00:34:50] JR: All right, Ganning. Here we go. First question, if I were to fly from CDG to EZE,
on which airline could I find nonstop?
[00:35:01] G: Oh, do I get a hit for this one at all? Or are there no hints?
[00:35:07] IP: The hint is in the question.
[00:35:07] G: The hint is in the question. Okay.
[00:35:11] JR: CDG to EZE, who could I fly nonstop?
[00:35:17] G: CDG is Paris. EZE, I don't know. So, I'm not really sure.
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AVT 191 Transcript
[00:35:25] IP: Three seconds? Two, one. Kira, for the steal?
[00:35:31] JR: CDG to EZE, who could you fly nonstop?
[00:35:34] K: I'm going to go for the super obvious. Is it Air France?
[00:35:38] JR: It is.
[00:35:38] IP: It is Air France.
[00:35:40] JR: The only Airline, I believe, flying from Paris to Buenos Aires nonstop. All right.
Second question. This is keeping on with you, Kira. If you flew on the longest passenger flight
operated by a four-engine aircraft, over which ocean would you fly?
[00:35:58] K: Oh.
[00:35:59] JR: Longest passenger flight operated by a four-engine aircraft, which ocean would
you fly over?
[00:36:06] K: I'm going to say the Atlantic?
[00:36:08] JR: No. Unfortunately, it is not the Atlantic. Good guess, though. Ganning, you want
to steal this one?
[00:36:15] G: I want to say Arctic. I don't know.
[00:36:18] JR: Unfortunately, not. Do we give this one away, Ian? Or should we reuse it next
time?
[00:36:23] IP: I think we – Actually, you know what? If you're listening to this show, write in,
podcastfr24.com, with the correct answer to, "If you flew on the longest passenger flight
operated by a four-engine aircraft, over which ocean would you fly?"
© 2022 AV Talk 24
AVT 191 Transcript
[00:36:38] JR: All right. We'll save that one. We'll tell two of you when we're done recording. We
don't want to leave you hanging. Third question, and this is back to Ganning, I believe, right?
[00:36:47] G: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
[00:36:49] JR: Most airports around the world are busiest during the summer. But these two US
airports also see large increases in flight operations in late November and December. Give us
the airports or cities.
[00:37:02] G: Okay. This is going to be a wild guess. Atlanta and Los Angeles?
[00:37:10] JR: No. I'm not going to say which. May or may not be wrong, or both. But, Kira, can
you steal?
[00:37:17] K: I'm going to say New York and L.A.?
[00:37:20] JR: No. Unfortunately, not. Ian, do we want to save this one, too?
[00:37:24] IP: No. I think we can give this one away.
[00:37:25] JR: All right. We'll give this away. Memphis and Louisville, both the super hubs for
freight shippers, UPS and FedEx. Yeah, it makes sense when you think about it. But probably
not going to come to the top of the mind when you hear that question.
[00:37:42] K: You said late November, and my mind immediately went to Thanksgiving travel.
[00:37:46] JR: Yeah, I guess that does make sense for this week, doesn't it?
[00:37:51] IP: I had moved past the Thanksgiving and moved on to Black Friday.
[00:37:55] JR: Almost there. Almost there.
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[00:37:56] IP: Yeah, we're almost there with the question.
[00:37:57] JR: Next. Oh, let's see if we can get one of these out. SAS recently celebrated the
70th anniversary –
[00:38:03] IP: This is for Kira, by the way.
[00:38:04] JR: Kira. Thank you. SAS recently celebrated the 70th anniversary of this aviation
first. What was it?
[00:38:12] K: Oh, was it – this is a completely wild guess. Was it the first polar flight?
[00:38:19] JR: I don't even know, because Ian didn't put the answer in here. But that sounds
like it would be correct. And it is.
[00:38:25] IP: That is correct.
[00:38:27] JR: Good guess.
[00:38:28] K: That was purely on the fact that they're Scandinavian Airlines.
[00:38:31] IP: There you go. Well, with that at the last question, Kira comes in with the win. Two
games to one. She comes out on top and earns the keychain and T-shirt on this very first AV
Talk Aviation trivia game. I want to thank you all so much for playing. Everyone who wrote in
saying that they wanted to play, thank you so much. We will get to all of you. And Ganning and
Kira, I want to thank you both for being great sports and coming on the program. I thank you so
much.
[00:39:06] JR: Yeah, thank you both so much.
[00:39:07] K: That was so much fun. Thank you.
[00:39:08] G: Yeah, it was really fun.
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AVT 191 Transcript
[00:39:14] IP: Welcome back. I thought that went surprisingly well. we made through it.
[00:39:18] JR: Yeah. We're going to take back what we've learned today and tighten things up a
little bit. Maybe add in some sound effects if we ever figure out how to do that. And I think this is
going to be a reoccurring segment.
[00:39:28] IP: Absolutely. Absolutely. I think it'll be fun. Again, if you want to play, email us at
podcast.fr24.com. And if you know the answer to the question that no one got on this week's
episode, email us, podcast.fr24.com, with your answer, and we'll choose one of the correct
answers from those emails for a special prize. Lots of prizes going out the door on this week's
podcast. I'm in a thankful and giving mood. So, we're going with that.
Before we end the show today, we're going to talk about something that Jason's been on about,
which is the World Cup. And we're going to put an aviation angle on it because there's all recent
aviation angle.
So, we've talked about some of the more interesting flights happening because of the World
Cup in Qatar. And the KLM kind of triangle route being chief among them. And we got the
answer why. And we expand that lack of hotel and parking space to other Airlines. And they're
now operating flights between Dubai and Doha as well. Jason, I'll let you take it from there, and
I'll become the numbers guy.
[00:40:48] JR: All right. Well, ordinarily, at Dubai's other airport, Dubai World Central, I think,
there's usually zero passenger flights per day. Maybe there's one or two on some random days.
But typically, the average hovers around zero passenger flights. Not exactly the global hub they
envisioned yet at this point.
But because of the lack of hotel space, and I guess other things to do in Qatar, Qatar Airways
and Fly Dubai are running basically shuttle buses at this point between DWC and both of
Doha's airport. Qatar is flying to Doha's current airport. And Fly Dubai is flying to the old Doha
airport now named DIA. So, the old base that I think is now primarily used by private aviation
and also the military actually there, which is interesting.
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But I knew there were going to be some flights between the two. And there are far more than I
anticipated and far more that is actually in the schedule since it looks like any flight that Qatar
had planned to operate, they're operating multiple segments 10 minutes apart because I guess
demand for these flights is really high.
The other day, there was a Qatar flight at 5:40 a.m., and then 6:40, and then 6:50, and then
7:35, and then 7:40. These are not all in the schedule. But these are added segments basically.
And these are not small aircraft. These are 777-300ERs and mostly A330-300s, which are large
aircraft. I counted 30 on one particular day. But, Ian, the numbers are actually quite a bit more
than that isn't it?
[00:42:23] IP: Yeah. The commercial airline flights I guess belie the fact that because it's a
World Cup, there are also a large number of private aviation sites. Just sticking with commercial
fights for a moment.
From Dubai World Center to both Doha airports, you've got Fly Dubai operating on the 21st of
November. They operated 27 flights over to Doha. Just one way. This is not back and forth. This
is just one way. 27 flights on the 21st. And then yesterday, the 22nd, they operated 30 flights.
More than an hourly shuttle.
And then you've got – and this is just Dubai World Center. This is not both Dubai airports. Those
numbers are even more astronomical. But then you have Qatar going 15 flights on the 21st, and
then 19 flights on the 22nd and. As you mentioned, these are large aircraft. I mean, the Fly
Dubai are 737s. But the Qatar Airways flights are large wide body aircraft operating roughly 40-
minute flight. So, lots and lots of aviation and transport moving through. 107 total flights over the
past week from – over the past few weeks from Dubai World Center to both Doha airports. And
43 to DIA. And then 43 to Doha Hamad. I mean, lots and lots of – a huge increase in fights.
We'll see how that goes over the next couple weeks throughout the World Cup. But something
to keep an eye on if you're following a bit of the aviation angle.
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[00:44:10] JR: Yeah, maybe at the end of the World Cup we'll give you a total number of flights
between Doha and Dubai at the end. Because it's going to be a number that makes me upset, I
think.
[00:44:21] IP: I mean, at this point, we're running hourly shuttles.
[00:44:26] JR: More so, they used to actually run an hourly shuttle between Doha and Dubai.
Where, much like today, they would throw any available aircraft that could do a two-hour turn.
But this is even more than that. It's wild. Not a good thing, by the way. I don't like this
happening. I'm just particularly interested by it.
[00:44:44] IP: If only there was some sort of mode of transportation that could carry a lot of
people a slightly longer distance, perhaps two pieces of steel that you could put on – maybe call
it a track or something.
[00:44:59] JR: Ah. You're talking crazy.
[00:45:01] IP: All right. We'll figure it out for next week.
[00:45:02] JR: It can't be done.
[00:45:04] IP: I hope everyone enjoyed the trivia game. We're going to keep refining it and
hopefully um get as many people as we can to play it because it'll be fun. Hopefully, we can do
some special episodes of the trivia game elsewhere. Starting to plot that a little in my head and
uh find out where we can go and what we can do. And then we'll be back next week after the
Thanksgiving break for another episode, and hopefully another game.
Thank you all so very much for listening to episode 191. If you're in the US or celebrating just
because, happy Thanksgiving. We hope you have a wonderful week. And we'll see you next
time. I am Ian Petchenik. Here as always with –
[00:45:46] JR: Jason Rabinowitz. Thanks for listening.
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AVT 191 Transcript
© 2022 AV Talk 30