AvTalk Episode 312: It’s good to have balloon insurance

AVT 312 Transcript
EPISODE 312
[EPISODE]
[0:00:07] IP: Hello, and welcome to Episode 312 of AvTalk. I am Ian Petchenik. Jason is off this
week, and filling in on the podcast this week is my colleague, Chris Lomas, saying hello from
London, I believe, Chris. Welcome back to the show.
[0:00:23] CL: Great to be back on the podcast. And yes, hello from London.
[0:00:27] IP: It's been a busy week. Jason, I think, picked, actually, any week these days is a
good week to be off. But Jason's down in Mexico City, focusing on rail transportation pursuits
this week, rather than aviation. So, good luck to him and he'll be back next week.
Chris, thanks so much for filling in. We've got a pretty healthy show this week. A lot of updates
on things that we've talked about in the past couple weeks, and then some new stuff that's
happening, and some old stuff that's new again.
Let's go to Washington, D.C. where last week we talked about the preliminary report from the
NTSB and the urgent safety recommendations made by the NTSB to the FAA regarding the
helicopter routes in the Washington, D.C. area. The FAA took that advice to heart, I say, and
they have now permanently closed the helicopter routes that passed along DCA, along the
Potomac's edge, as well as the route that passed directly over DCA.
These are helicopter routes four and six. Route four was the helicopter route that the U.S. Army
Blackhawk was following when it collided with the PSA CRJ. Route six is the one that passes
directly over the airfield at about 1,500 feet. The FAA has recharted those, closing them off so
the route four just no longer exists along the edge of the Potomac from about Haynes Point, all
the way through to the follow-on bridge. Then route six, just that section that passes over the
airfield has been deleted.
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We'll put a link in the show notes to the actual re-charting so you can take a look at exactly
where the new routes are. But this is a quick change, following recommendations. But also, why
didn't this get looked at before, Chris?
[0:02:29] CL: Well, exactly. I feel like the way this chart looks now, it feels like this is probably
how it should have looked from the start. I mean, just speaking from experience of working
around London Airspace, we deal with separating a fair amount of helicopters traffic in the
London area as well in London TMA. But we would not have a fairly busy helicopter pathway
that tracks directly across the final approach course of a major airport. It just feels like
something that probably should have been dealt with a lot sooner and it's such a shame that it
had to take this for it to be dealt with. But hopefully, the airspace around D.C., a hell of a lot
safer now as a result.
[0:03:01] IP: Yes. It remains to be seen how this will continue to affect both helicopter traffic and
traffic coming into DCA, but this definitely seems like a much safer setup regardless. Let's head
to Denver, where an American airline 737 caught fire after diverting to Denver. It was on its way
from Colorado Springs to Dallas when the aircraft turned back and landed in Denver. After
landing successfully and making it all the way to the gate, the aircraft caught fire. It appears that
the fire either began or spread under the right engine.
So, this is a 737-800, not a MAX, just getting that one out of the way. The aircraft diverted due to
engine vibrations, so they turned back. They wanted to land in Denver where they had more
equipment and longer runways just in case, and then made it all the way to the gate. So, this is
one of those interesting situations where you end up in the twilight zone of evacuations where
the aircraft is parked, the jet bridge is attached to the aircraft. You have passengers in the aisle
removing their bags and things like that. And the passengers are the one who noticed the fire on
the right side of the aircraft.
So, it's unclear if the evacuation was commanded by the crew or if passengers just busted
through the exits and tried to get out. But what ended up happening is you have dozens of
people standing on the left wing of a 737 with basically nowhere to go.
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AVT 312 Transcript
[0:04:45] CL: Yes. It seems like that kind of no man's land between the taxi phase and between
the deep landing phase, is an interesting place to be and it makes me think, what would I do?
The first thing I can think of in that situation, if we've got people already getting their bags, I
mean, we already have a problem with people trying to take their bags with them during
emergency evacuations that are out on the runway. So, that already adds a sort of a layer of
complexity to it. But I think another part of it would be perhaps we might suggest that some
passengers don't always read the safety card in the seatback pocket. If they did, they would see
that the 737 doesn't have those overwing emergency slides that you see on taller aircraft like
the A320, and might not have that understanding of how to use the flap-in to slide down onto the
floor, which, granted, doesn't sound like a particularly appealing prospect. I certainly wouldn't
want to do it, but it would certainly get you out of the way.
Of course, in this case, where you have passengers on the side of the aircraft where the fire is,
that would perhaps suggest something that's been a bit more spontaneous rather than
something that's been commanded by the crew or someone with an awareness of the situation
because then, of course, they would have ordered to evacuate by the right-hand side only, one
would assume.
[0:05:48] IP: They evacuated away from the fire. But what's interesting here is, well, I mean,
you bring up the fact that the 737 doesn't have overwing exit sides. In a commanded
evacuation, the procedure would be to lower the flaps entirely. So, you've created a large
aluminum slide for the passengers to use. But here, again, it's kind of like that Twilight Zone
issue where they're at the gate, so the flaps have all been raised. And if the crew hasn't
commanded an evacuation, then the flaps haven't been lowered and so you just have people
out there standing on the wing. Thankfully, no one was injured in this particular event. The fire
was contained to the engine area and the investigations underway to understand exactly what
happened.
It looked like there was fire on the ramp, so possibly some sort of oil or fuel leak from the
engine, but the passengers were uninjured. But yes, it leads to some interesting conversations
about what you're supposed to do in a situation where there is a reason to get off the plane as
quickly as possible, but the crew doesn't necessarily have a handle on things quite yet because
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AVT 312 Transcript
everything's happening in that kind of intermediate period where everyone's trying to get their
bags and get off the aircraft in a normal way.
[0:07:00] CL: Yes, absolutely. I doubt the investigation will give us some key takeaways that the
airlines and potentially, the aircraft manufacturer as well can start to get into procedures for
those kinds of things. Because I feel like we never really have a procedure until we figure out we
need one. So, this is perhaps a great opportunity to enhance what we already have there and
come up with something a bit more specific.
[0:07:19] IP: Yes, absolutely. Let's come to Chicago now, because we have a preliminary report
from the NTSB on the runway incursion involving a FlexJet Challenger and a Southwest Airlines
737. The NTSB preliminary report goes into some detail on the relative distances between the
aircraft both vertically and horizontally. They passed at the closest point within 200 feet laterally
where the Southwest Airlines 737 during its go-around was crossing the Runway 4 Left as it
conducted the go-around down Runway 31 Center. They were 200 feet laterally, and they were
just a few hundred feet in the air, vertically at 175 feet.
So, close, very, very close. But the most interesting part for me is from the post-incident
statements made by the FlexJet pilots. I'm going to read a little bit from the NTSB report. The
crew indicated that as they turned left on the Runway 4 Left to 2 Right, the sun was impeding
visibility from the right side of the aircraft. I'm going to make an editor's note here and say that
this was also the direction from which the Southwest 737 was approaching, so that's something
to keep in mind.
Back to the report, “However they did not recall seeing any hold short line pavement markings
or any other signs for the 31 Left intersection as they taxied onto runway 4 Left, to 2 Right. They
stated that taxiway F and Runway 13 Right, 31 Left were in close proximity to each other, and
by the time the nose wheel had straightened out, they were likely halfway across the Runway 13
Right, 31 Left. They further stated that runway 13 Right, 31 Left appeared to have been very
similar with the taxiways, and they had not recognized it as a runway. The captain stated that as
he approached Runway 13 Center, 31 Center, he had thought it was Runway 13 Right, 31 Left.”
[0:09:31] CL: I mean, there's a lot going on here, right?
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AVT 312 Transcript
[0:09:32] IP: Yes. I mean, that statement to me looking at the diagram of the airport, looking at
the satellite imagery. I understand how that could happen. But then the report further goes on to
provide imagery of the hold short bars and the signage delineating Runway 13 Center, 31
Center. So, there's both the understanding, on my part, how this could happen. But then I'm also
a little concerned and confused why the hold short bars and the signage was missed for the
follow-on runway.
[0:10:14] CL: Yes, for sure. And I think there's an interesting angle here we have to visit in
terms of workload. I think it's really interesting as well. They talk about the width of the taxiway
and the we're being very similar. I think we see that a lot of major airports, particularly in the US.
But I guess it's just so easy when you're being given a lot of instructions and essentially taking
some more complicated taxi routines, just to get a little bit behind and just to confuse things. I've
been in a similar situation myself in a taxi. So, it does happen. But it is a little bit of a strange
one to kind of miss so many big signs that clearly say where they are.
[0:10:48] IP: Yes. The confusion about the runway versus taxiway, yes, that's true. They are
roughly the same size, that part I understand. But the crossing of the whole short line, I mean,
that to me seems a little bit of a lack of awareness there and then operating at such a busy
airport like Midway. I mean, I think there's definitely some lessons to learn and I'm going to be
interested to see what the NTSB kind of digs into here about what procedures there should be
to make sure that these kinds of things don't happen again.
It's also interesting to me that there aren't – Runway 31 Left is not really used by major carriers.
So, I guess I can understand, well, we're not going to spend money to put in hold short bars
there. But maybe it's time to put in some hold short bars there.
[0:11:38] CL: If it's a runway, it's a runway.
[0:11:41] IP: I'm not against extra paint. So, an interesting one to follow on, but glad to see that
the go-around is always the right call.
[0:11:47] CL: Absolutely.
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AVT 312 Transcript
[0:11:49] IP: This is a bit of an interesting one. So, back in January, we talked about a United
787 that suffered what at the time was perhaps turbulence. There was some talk because the
same aircraft had diverted in a flight just previous to that, that was completely unrelated
because it was a passenger medical issue. This turned out to not be turbulence at all. The
NTSB is investigating this event because it was delegated by the Ivory Coast's BEA to take over
the investigation, because it was a United flight and the NTSB requested that they receive the
delegated authority.
The Ivory Coast said, “Sure, it's all yours,” and the NTSB is out with their preliminary report this
week as well. The interesting part is that both inertial reference units on this United 787-8 failed.
That led to the autopilot and autothrottle disconnecting. It seems that that led to some altitude
excursions from the assigned altitude of 36,000 feet, deviating to a maximum altitude of 36,203
feet and a minimum altitude of 35,577 feet.
That might not seem like a lot in absolute terms. I mean, we're talking about 200 feet up and
almost 500 than 400 feet down. But especially when you have cabin crew serving dinner, that's
not a good thing to have happen.
[0:13:32] CL: Absolutely. I think United is going to be picking up a few dry-cleaning bills in the
next few weeks as part of coming back from this. It's interesting. Do we know if the diversion of
this aircraft previously was caused by a similar failure or do we not know about that?
[0:13:42] IP: No. So, the diversion, that was the passenger medical emergency. They were
completely unrelated. That's not to say that maybe, I'm sure the NTSB is investigating whether
or not this happened before, because to have dual IRU failure, not unheard of, but also not
super common to my knowledge. So, it'll be interesting to see what the full investigation
uncovers as to why and how this happened.
So, both of those failed, autopilot disconnects, autothrottle disconnects. There are altitude
excursions for about 10 minutes. After that, the pilots level things out and divert back to Lagos in
Nigeria. The whole thing lasted roughly 10 minutes.
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The other interesting thing here is that the CVR was overwritten, because the CVR on this
particular aircraft, like most aircraft these days, still only records two hours of audio. So, you
have the flight after the incident was just over two hours longer.
[0:14:51] CL: We come back to our old gripe about the CVR once again.
[0:14:55] IP: So, all of the audio from the incident period didn't anything to do with it. They didn't
pull the breaker or anything like that in this particular case. It was just, they had two more hours
to fly and that's how it ended. No CVR, but they do have all of the actual equipment that has
been sent to the NTSB in Washington DC.
[0:15:14] CL: Nice. I feel like we really need to get pushing that through. I can't lost count of the
amount of stories recently where we could have done with hearing about that.
[0:15:22] IP: Yes. I mean, it's always the same refrain. It's coming. we're getting to the point
where the 25-hour rule is coming. It's being implemented on a lot of aircraft. However, it's just
not there yet. This person might be dealing with the implementation of that rule, because Bryan
Bedford has been nominated to head the FAA as permanent administrator. Bedford has worked
in the airline industry for more than 30 years. He's currently president and CEO of regional
Airline, Republic Airways and has been since 1999, so no stranger to the airline industry.
Strong support across the industry. His nomination was announced on social media, but the first
kind of official confirmation that it had happened was a  statement from United Airlines corporate
communications praising the nomination. So, it was a bit of an odd rollout. Bedford has received
strong support from across the industry. Regional Airline Association is obviously behind his
nomination, as well as most other players in the industry.
The only bit of light chop, so to speak, from anyone in the industry has been the pilot unions.
So, The Air Current, Jon Ostrower over The Air Current reporting that the pilots' unions are a
little unhappy about this nomination as Bedford, in their minds, is anti-pilot and his dealings with
the unions over the years have left a bad taste in their mouth. I don't think at this point that that's
going to really impact things, but it'll be interesting to see how and where they registered their
displeasure.
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[0:17:01] CL: Yes. I think any pulsive change at the FAA right now is a good thing, and let's
hope those relationships aren't affected too badly by that. I don't think they will be.
[0:17:08] IP: Having a permanent administrator, especially at this moment, is going to be
critical. The judge overseeing the plea deal between the U.S. government and Boeing has once
again delayed the deadline for reaching a revised plea deal. This is the third roughly month-long
delay that Reed O'Connor has approved. So, this goes back to both Boeing and the
government. So, the plea deal got rejected for a variety of reasons.
Then, the Trump administration came in, so they said, "Give us time to let us work with the new
administration at the DOJ." That seemed to make perfect sense. Different DOJ, different
probabilities, probably going to look a bit different. Then, they said, "No, we still need more
time." Then, this week, they said, "We still need more time." But it seems that the patients of the
families of the crash victims is running out.
Speaking after this latest delay to April 11th, the attorney for the families said in a filing earlier
week, quote, "The parties have had nearly 10 months to report to the court how they wish to
proceed on appropriate arrangements for Boeing to plead guilty. But at some point, delays
become unreasonable. The families hereby give notice that any further delay in negotiating plea
agreement beyond April 11th, 2025 is in their view presumptively unreasonable." Which I don't
think is outside of the realm of a reasonable thing to say. They've waited for so long, and now,
it's just a rolling delay. I mean, if nothing, it's kind of apropos of the airline industry, you just get
into a rolling delay and then never get out. So, we'll see what happens in April.
[0:18:59] CL: Absolutely. I feel like it's the law, right? Things take time, but this is taking a lot of
time, and I think it's not a great position to put those families in. So, let's hope there's some
movement on that.
[0:19:09] IP: In what's old as new again news, we have the very first A380 back in the air, after
undergoing months of preparations. MSN001 took back to the air this time for the first time in
three years as Airbus is looking to bring improvements to the in-service A380 fleet. And using
this particular aircraft as the test bed to get all of that certified, so that they can install it into the
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active A380 fleet. So, no hydrogen engines being mounted on the fuselage, nothing like that. It's
just, we're testing upgrades to regular old A380s and we need an A380 to do it. Nothing terribly
exciting for now.
[0:19:59] CL: What better way to test upgrades to old A380s by installing them on an old A380.
[0:20:06] IP: Exactly.
[0:20:07] CL: I think a lot of people might be surprised that that aircraft actually is actually still
airworthy. I think we had quite a few people reach out to us on social media saying, "Hey, isn't
this in a museum?"
[0:20:15] IP: Yes. I mean, not that particular one, but Airbus said it did take them months to get
this thing ready to go. So, I can only imagine how long they've been working on this in order to
get it back in the air. In Russia, we've had the first flight of the re-engined Superjet. So, United
Aircraft is on a program to domesticate the Superjet. The Superjet was originally one of those
aircraft that was supposed to be a model of international cooperation. Various parts of the
structure, the avionics, the engines, all of these things were designed in concert with a Russian
organization as well as a non-Russian company. For instance, the engines were a combination
Russian and French design and built.
As sanctions have taken hold and the Russians are seeking to not rely on creating basically
counterfeit parts for Airbus and Boeing aircraft. They've embarked on this project to domesticate
the Superjet, as well as restart production of other aircraft. For this week, the Superjet flew for
the first time with the PD-8 engines, which are entirely domestic Russian creations. So, it was a
35 minute and 37 second flight flying over eastern Russia. Everything seems to have gone well
and they proceed to pace. They also need to replace the avionics, most of the landing gear
assembly, air conditioning, the APU, among other things. There's quite a bit of work that goes
into turning this into a purely Russian aircraft, but the engines were definitely a big one.
[0:22:04] CL: The question is, once you've replaced every single part, is it still the same
airplane?
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[0:22:09] IP: Ah, yes. The aircraft enthusiast, we'll never know. You'll have to call it something
else, the Ultrajet or the SuperDuperjet.
[0:22:17] CL: I like SuperDuperjet. Let's go with that. It sounds that international cooperation
wasn't the long-term game plan after all. So, we shall see how long it takes them to get all that
stuff produced domestically, I guess.
[0:22:27] IP: Yes. This was an interesting story that I hadn't heard about, and now, it's going to
cost Jazeera Airways quite a bit of money, kind of. In 2017, Jazeera Airways flight was landing
in Kuwait when it was on the downwind leg for landing at Kuwait International Airport and was
vectored over an area away from the airport in order to join the final approach. In so doing, they
flew low enough that they basically caught the wire of a quick military aerostat balloon.
Thankfully, no one was injured. The aircraft was fine and landed safely. But now, in 2025, they
have been $236 million.
[0:23:23] CL: That's a lot of money.
[0:23:24] IP: That's a lot of money. How expensive was that balloon?
[0:23:29] CL: I mean, I guess we're just not dealing with the average eight-year-old party
balloon here. The kind of one that gets stuck at the top of the church roof.
[0:23:36] IP: Yes, decidedly not. So, a lot of money being paid into the Kuwait Ministry of
Defense. But Chris, you looked into this and there's some fine print here.
[0:23:50] CL: There is some fine print. The fine print being that the airline isn't actually going to
take most of the financial hit for this. It's pretty much all going to be covered by insurance. So,
the moral of the story is, if you thought you didn't need balloon insurance, you probably do need
balloon insurance.
[0:24:04] IP: After we're done recording, I'm looking into balloon insurance just to make sure
that I'm covered.
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[0:24:08] CL: It was a good idea.
[0:24:10] IP: That's important. Also important, and as regular listeners to the podcast know that
both Jason and I are coffee aficionados. Jason, since he's not here to defend himself this week,
drinks the wrong kind of coffee, which is cold coffee, or I should say ice, it's not just cold, but it's
still the wrong kind of coffee.
[0:24:27] CL: That's pretty unforgivable.
[0:24:28] IP: However, Eurowings has a new coffee cart coming to some of its aircraft. And
Chris, you have my attention.
[0:24:36] CL: Yes. So, this is probably my favorite story of the week. New coffee machine,
which is basically built into one of your kind of your average food carts you take up and down
the aisle. Imagine a typical food trolley and out of the top emerges a coffee machine, like
electric kind of rises out the top. This is a coffee machine that can make you a cappuccino, it
grinds beans, it warms the milk, it does all the good stuff.
Now, Eurowings is saying, they're doing this, A, to offer wide range of coffee, and B, to save
time. Now, the first one, I can get behind. The second one, I'm not entirely sure that pushing the
button, waiting for it to grind the beans, waiting for it to warm the milk, getting into the cup. I'm
not sure that's really going to save much more time than pouring some directly into a cup from a
pot. But I do think that this is a big improvement for what is frankly the terrible state of airborne
coffee.
I think we're all familiar with the kind of options we have now. So, we've got the instant stuff,
which is never great. We've got the powdered cappuccino, which is pretty awful. And of course,
we've got the main offender, which is the coffee bag. Nothing worse than that. So, I guess that
this will be a nice addition to the low-cost experience, and probably only set you back five euros
per coffee.
[0:25:43] IP: Yes, exactly. Let's be honest with what this is. This is a way to make things easier
to charge more money, which I don't fault them for. But yes, I don't see how that saves any time.
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I mean, wouldn't it necessarily by definition take longer to do this, than to just pour a cup of
coffee?
[0:25:58] CL: I think so, because I feel like we're going to be pushing that button and everyone
is going to be staring at that machine, and listening to it as it grinds the beans, making that
grinding noise.
[0:26:06] IP: That's going to be so odd.
[0:26:07] CL: Squirts out all kinds of liquid. I think it's a great option. I do have one further
criticism which is, having looked at the video preview of this trolley. The menu is printed on the
side of the machine, and there is no flat whites on there as a middle-class hipster from London.
That's pretty disappointing for me, but it's better than nothing.
[0:26:23] IP: How dare. And finally, we're getting a slew of retirements of aviation industry
professionals lately, and this one is a big one. Steven Udvar-Házyis retiring from Air Lease
Corporation. So, If you had to pick a person who had more influence on the design purchase,
delivery, construction, financing of aircraft over the last few decades, I don't think you could
come up with anyone more important than this man. Having a deep, deep, deep knowledge of
the industry. He has done, I think, more than anyone to guide not only the leasing industry, but
the aviation industry, especially the commercial aviation industry as a whole. Just an incredible
career. And finally, retiring.
Retiring on May 2nd, following Air Lease Corporation's 2025 annual meeting, and then, will
continue to serve on the company's board of directors until next year's annual meeting. So,
congratulations on an incredible career and a lengthy one at that. I don't think you can overstate
his impact on the industry.
[0:27:45] CL: Absolutely. On the industry and essentially, one of the founding fathers of aircraft
leasing, which is pretty much one of the most definitive models we have for commercial airlines
and aircraft fleet management these days. So, what an amazing career, happy retirement.
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[0:27:57] IP: There you go. Chris, thank you so much for filling in and on short notice. I knew
Jason was going to be gone, but unfortunately, the person who is going to step in to Jason's
shoes this week is dealing with a sick child. So, unfortunately, they were unable to join. And
Chris stepped onto the breach very ably, and I appreciate that so very much.
[0:28:16] CL: Anytime. I got to talk about coffee, so always good.
[0:28:20] IP: Yes, as long as there's a coffee story in the podcast, then –
[0:28:23] CL: We're happy.
[0:28:23] IP: – you'll be able to join. I appreciate that.
[0:28:25] CL: Thanks for having me.
[0:28:26] IP: This has been episode 312 of AvTalk. I am Ian Petchenik here with sometimes –
[0:28:34] CL: Chris Lomas. Thanks for listening, everybody.
[END]
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