AvTalk Episode 327: Overrun by squirrels

AVT 327 Transcript
EPISODE 327
[EPISODE]
[0:00:08] IP: Hello, and welcome to episode 327 of AvTalk. I am Ian Petchenik, here as always
with –
[0:00:16] JR: Jason Rabinowitz. Hello, Ian. What's going on?
[0:00:19] IP: Hello, Jason. Not as much as there has been, which is frankly, very welcome.
[0:00:24] JR: That's good, I guess.
[0:00:25] IP: Yeah. I mean, I've been able to catch up on things that I've been not necessarily
putting off, just haven't been able to get to for a few weeks. That's a little change.
[0:00:37] JR: I feel that. Also, for me, it's been a nice couple of days. We got details about
Cranky Dorkfest and Elliot's –
[0:00:44] IP: Absolutely, yes.
[0:00:46] JR: Congrats if you managed to grab a block room at the H Hotel. It went like that. If
your name is Jeremy Dwyer Lindgren, and if you're listening, you missed out, because you're on
the West Coast. Sorry about that.
[0:00:57] IP: We'll give him an extra change.
[0:00:58] JR: I grabbed your room. That's all that matters. Yeah. An extra punch. Not an extra
full sandwich, extra punch card. Extra punch on the punch card. I can't go to full sandwich, but I
booked some other stuff, I booked an easyJet flight today. I booked a Smartwings flight today,
booked a French bee flight the other day, Norse Atlantic flight the other day, so stuff is getting
interesting.
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AVT 327 Transcript
[0:01:21] IP: Let's talk about Cranky Dorkfest, because hopefully, a bunch of you can join us
again this year. Jason's going this year, so I'm looking forward to that. We'll have some of our
other friends there as well. It's shaping up to be a good one. Cranky Dorkfest/Spot LAX with
NYC Aviation is once again, the second weekend is September. We've got Saturday, September
13th will be the Cranky Dorkfest, 11 AM to 1 PM-ish. It just goes, until it's done. We'll have all
sorts of raffle prizes and things like that like we always do, but is doing it differently this year.
You will have to register in advance for the raffle when that information becomes available, we
will let everybody know, as well as link to that as soon as that gets set up so that you can all
partake in that.
Other than that, we've got the Friday party at the H Hotel sponsored by NYC Aviation, along with
airline videos live, so they'll be doing a live broadcast from the H Hotel's balcony, as they always
do. That will require tickets. Those will go on sale on the 19th of July and we’ll put a link to the
information from NYC Aviation about that if you want to go to that party. Then, of course, there's
dinner at The Proud Bird. That one is just a show up and eat some food and watch some planes
thing the way Dorkfest is.
As far as I know, there's no sign up or anything required for a raffle there this year, but we'll
keep everybody posted. Hopefully, you can join us on September 12th and 13th in Los Angeles.
Book your tickets early. Flights seem relatively reasonably priced at this point.
[0:03:13] JR: I'd say, downright cheap compared to years past.
[0:03:15] IP: Yes. Hotels are reasonable-ish.
[0:03:20] JR: Down right, not cheap.
[0:03:21] IP: Yeah.
[0:03:22] JR: Win some. Lose some. Certainly, losing the hotel battle this year.
[0:03:25] IP: Yeah. Do the best you can there. Find a buddy and bunk up, I guess. We hope to
see as many of you as we can that weekend. Looking forward to that one. Yeah, Jason, while
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we're talking about travel, Jason, you're traveling next week to very exciting DC. Have fun with
that.
[0:03:43] JR: Dulles. Not DC. Don’t oversell it.
[0:03:45] IP: I'm sorry. We will figure out the show there for next week. Then the week after, I
don't want to jinx myself, because when we've said this before, events have transpired that have
led us to recording anyway. As it stands right now, we will not have a show the following week.
That will be the week of, let's see, the date would be the 18th. We won't have a new episode on
the 18th. I will be on vacation, I very much hope, if all goes according to plan. Again, not wanting
to jinx anything and knocking on some wood here. We will not have a new show on July 18th.
[0:04:30] JR: I see how it is. When you go on vacation, we just skip the week. When I go on
vacation, I go out of my way to make sure we record.
[0:04:37] IP: You're more than welcome to produce the entire podcast and host it and find
somebody to co-host that week, and we will publish it. That's fine, Jason.
[0:04:45] JR: Well, I don't know how to do any of that, so that won't –
[0:04:47] IP: I rest my case.
[0:04:49] JR: All right. Moving on.
[0:04:50] IP: All right. Okay, let's get to the news. Right after we recorded, I think later that
evening –
[0:04:57] JR: As tradition.
[0:04:58] IP: Or just the very next morning, the investigators in India announced that they had
flown the flight recorders from Ahmedabad to Delhi and processed them the same day, where
they downloaded the data that very same day. The recorders from flight 171 have now been
downloaded. They were downloaded by Indian investigators with assistance from the US NTSB
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AVT 327 Transcript
on the ground. Data has been extracted and they are now analyzing it. Hopefully, hopefully,
hopefully, hopefully, we will have a preliminary report that it is my fervent wish that it puts to rest
all of the conspiracy theories, or conspiracy adjacent theories about this crash within a couple of
weeks, about 30 days after the crash, so about June 13th ish. We'll see if that comes to pass.
Good news, those are recorders have been downloaded. They are being analyzed. That was an
interesting delay that has been not explained thus far.
[0:06:06] JR: Yeah. Also, I think we had initially saw that India was not allowing the UN, ICAO to
join the investigation as it's really custom. Again, since then, that has changed and now India
has apparently changed its tune and has permitted ICAO to join as observers to the
investigation, which I don't know why it wouldn't have allowed in the first place. After a rocky
start to this investigation, things seem to have righted themselves. I guess, really seemed
unnecessary all those bits. Now it seems to be much more of a normal investigation, though we
still haven't really heard anything out of them, which I guess, is fine. Different countries handle
things differently, but at least things seem to be going in the correct direction at this point.
[0:06:52] IP: I mean, that's good. I don't think that anyone really thought there wouldn't be a
thorough investigation here. It was just confusing.
[0:07:01] JR: It was weird. It just seemed like complicated at the beginning.
[0:07:06] IP: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. It was very strange why things were happening the way
they were and what was happening. Now things, as Jason said, seem to be back on track.
Speaking of investigations that are a bit unusual, this week, or last week rather, the Chinese
government announced that it would not issue the required interim annual report on the
investigation into the crash of China Eastern Airlines Flight 5735.
This was the crash that occurred. The flight was on its way from Kunming to Guangzhou and
the aircraft very suddenly and very steeply went into a dive and crashed to the west of
Guangzhou, falling from, I think it was 30,000 feet in just a very short time. The announcement
this week was that the CAAC, which is similar to the US FAA, where it is both the regulator and
administrative body, they announced that they would withhold the interim annual report citing
threats to national security and social stability.
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AVT 327 Transcript
The annual interim report is required in the absence of a final report for any investigation that
extends beyond 12 months. Interim annual reports have been issued thus far. They haven't said
anything, but they've always been issued. Now, the CAAC is saying, “We're not going to do
that,” because the progress report, if released, “may endanger national security and social
stability.”
[0:08:53] JR: Before we started recording, I had chatting with Ian, I said, this closes the loop,
basically. We're never going to hear what happened. We're never going to get the final report.
You countered, Ian, and what did you say?
[0:09:04] IP: Well, you're half right. We will likely never see a final report, but it doesn't close the
loop necessarily. It creates an infinite loop. If they follow ICAO guidelines, I guess, they'll have to
announce that they're not releasing a required report every year.
[0:09:21] JR: Every year, annually, forever, basically.
[0:09:23] IP: Forever.
[0:09:24] JR: The loop will never be closed, because they will never – presumably, never
release this report.
[0:09:31] IP: Right. The reason that they're not releasing this report is unknown. However –
[0:09:37] JR: Officially, it's unknown. Anecdotally, we all know what happened and why.
[0:09:44] IP: Well, it's widely believed based on the evidence that we've seen, based on experts
that have analyzed both the evidence that's publicly available and some evidence that is not,
that this crash was caused deliberately by one of the pilots. That would be in line with the report
not being released.
[0:10:10] JR: Yeah. Very disappointing that China wouldn't release this report. Yes, there is a
degree of shame in this crash. Of course, you never want an incident like this to happen, but
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China wouldn't be alone here. This has happened before. This has happened to other major
Western countries, most notably in recent history, would be the German wings crash several
years ago. But just disappointing that China refuses to disclose this final report. It's not right to
do so, but at least they'll have to acknowledge it every year.
[0:10:41] IP: One would hope.
[0:10:42] JR: Presumably in [inaudible 0:10:42].
[0:10:44] IP: Yeah, one would hope. I have a feeling this might be the end of their public
pronouncements on the subject, but we'll see. In other report news, this one opens up a whole
new can of worms. The National Grid has completed its report into the Heathrow transformer
fire, and boy, oh boy, is it not good for them. What they found was that moisture entering
transformer bushings caused an electrical short and arching, which then ignited coolant oil,
which led to the fire that we all saw. That's bad and rather unfortunate.
[0:11:26] JR: But it gets worse, because that's just stuff that happened.
[0:11:29] IP: That's what happened. The bad part is that this particular fault at this particular
transformer, at this particular site, was first discovered in 2018.
[0:11:43] JR: If it was discovered in 2018, and nothing happened until it fell in 2025, it must
have been underrated, and the failure, they must have said like, “Oh, it's a 2% chance it's going
to happen, right?”
[0:11:54] IP: This particular failure was initially rated when discovered in 2018 as imminent.
Meaning that if it wasn't fixed, it was going to, well, do what it did quickly.
[0:12:07] JR: Well, hats off to that transformer for taking so very long, hanging in there for damn
near a decade after a critical fault was identified, and the UKS National Grid apparently did
nothing for the better part of a decade. Huh, that's not great.
[0:12:25] IP: They tried so very hard, apparently, to fix the problem and just never did it.
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[0:12:32] JR: They can't even blame COVID supply chain shortages. If it was discovered in
2018, they had two years before any of that fixing.
[0:12:41] IP: This was one of those things where they were like, “Well, it's going to be difficult,
because we're going to have to deal with switching power off to Heathrow in a particular way.”
Instead of figuring that out and doing it, it sounds like it just didn't. What ended up happening is
a massive fire at one of the three substations feeding Heathrow power. The fire resulted in more
than 100 diversions and nearly 1,300 cancellations. Therefore, Heathrow is now considering
legal action against National Grid.
[0:13:13] JR: I'm sure they were considering it regardless, but this is a good evidence to have,
in their case. That's bad. It's like all those stories you read about other pieces of infrastructure,
like bridges where bridges are inspected annually, at least here, theoretically in the U.S. They're
like, this bridge is structurally deficient. It's going to fail. Then it fails, and then it collapses. Why
didn't they replaced it? “Well, we just never got around to it.” This seems bad. But transformers
are big. They are expensive. They are difficult to replace, so it's not surprising that they didn't
immediately do it. Man, that's a long time to sit on something that could have impacts that
dramatic.
[0:13:53] IP: Yeah. I bet they'll move a little bit quicker next time.
[0:13:57] JR: Or not.
[0:13:58] IP: Or not. Switching gears completely and leaving fires behind, Boeing is getting a
new CFO. Jay Malave is taking over from Brian West. Malave was formerly the CEO of
Lockheed Martin until April, where he left to pursue new opportunities. We now know what the
new opportunity was. West is going to stay on as an advisor to CEO Kelly Ortberg to make the
transition as seamless as possible. It's news. I mean, obviously, anytime there's a major C-suite
transition at a company like Boeing or Airbus, we're going to talk about it. But it's not entirely
surprising. We knew that Ortberg was going to bring in his own people. Here's what Ortberg had
to say about the transition. “Brian and I believe this is the right time to hand the reins to a new
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leader, as we embark on the next chapter of our company's growth and development.? Makes
sense.
[0:14:55] JR: Okay. Sure.
[0:14:56] IP: He wants his money guy. That said, they've got some problems coming their way
that could be large, or could not be that much of a problem at all. We'll see in less than 40
working days, because UK competition regulators have launched a phase one probe into
Boeing's acquisition of Spirit AeroSystems.
[0:15:21] JR: Oh, come on. To what end?
[0:15:23] IP: That's entirely up to the CMA. The Competition and Markets Authority has
launched a phase one investigation, which gives them 40 working days to make a determination
whether to proceed. They say, “Hey, we want to look into this. We've got 40 working days to
decide whether or not we want to move on to phase two.” At that point, Boeing and Spirit can
say, “Hey, you've identified some things that are going to move us on to phase two. How about
we fix those problems and save us all some trouble?” I love this phrase. They can do what is
called undertakings in lieu. In lieu of moving forward to phase two, Boeing and Spirit can make
undertakings. They can undertake things to make this all go away.
[0:16:18] JR: Oh, love a good undertaking.
[0:16:19] IP: I think this is just – So, what this concerns is Spirit’s work at Prestwick and at
Belfast. I'm not really sure what the UK is upset about here. I mean, Spirit was part of Boeing at
one point. Now, most of Spirit is going to become part of Boeing again. Some of it will become
part of Airbus and some of it will be owned by Boeing, but be neither Boeing nor Airbus. I'm not
really sure what their goal is. What would be the remedy here? That's what I can't figure out.
[0:16:49] JR: I don't know. Could this possibly get down the road to the point where they block
Boeing from acquiring these bits and pieces of Spirit? I hope not, because no one else is going
to take it.
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[0:16:59] IP: Yeah. I don't see how any of this would end, other than –
[0:17:02] JR: I don't know.
[0:17:03] IP: There might be some concessions here, as far as work promises, or –
[0:17:06] JR: Remedies. Remedies.
[0:17:09] IP: Remedies. Undertakings even.
[0:17:11] JR: Undertakings. That's it.
[0:17:13] IP: I don't see this continuing into a phase two investigation, because I don't think
that's what anyone wants.
[0:17:19] JR: No. I don't think that makes any sense.
[0:17:21] IP: Interesting, though, that there's a phase one investigation. I'm a little confused by
this, but we'll see where it goes and see what they say at the end of 40 working days. Coming
up on that in just a couple of weeks now. So, I think the end of July is when the clock runs out
on this.
Let's talk about data breaches, because it's going around. Qantas is the most recent airline to
be affected by data breaches with 6 million customers affected due to a breach through one of
its call centers. Previously, within the last couple weeks, both WestJet and Hawaiian Airlines
have also been hit by data breaches. None of the breaches have affected the operational side
of the airline. It has all been customer-facing stuff, which is still rather unfortunate, but it's good
to know that things seem to be firewalled appropriately, so that none of the operational side of
things are being affected.
[0:18:21] JR: Yeah. Before I had heard about this spat of data breaches, got a really ominous
press release or press statement from the FAA just said, “We're aware of the incident at
Hawaiian Airlines and we assure that things are safe.” I'm like, what the hell happened?
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[0:18:40] IP: Yeah, right?
[0:18:41] JR: Was there a crash? Was there an incident? What happened?
[0:18:44] IP: It sent us all scrambling trying to figure out what happened.
[0:18:47] JR: They could have just mentioned data breach. I would have been like, “Oh, yeah. I
don't care.” Man, really could have used that context in that FAA release.
[0:18:55] IP: Yeah, I've totally forgot about that one. Yes, that was a bizarre release. It was very
matter-of-fact and very ominous. This is interesting in a couple of ways, because it's coming
through not just at the airlines, but airline IT vendors. One of the attack vectors is basically,
vendors who have contracts with airlines for customer support-related activities. That's how
they're getting into these airlines. It sounds like, this is unfortunately a new thing, for lack of a
better term, which is rather unfortunate, because there's no shortage of good data that the
airlines have on a lot of their loyal customers.
[0:19:38] JR: Yeah. Well, or claim to have. But whose credit card hasn't been breached? I
recently had my Alaska Airlines credit card become a victim of fraud. I never even use that card.
I don't even carry it with me. Yet, somehow that one was still compromised.
[0:19:55] IP: That doesn't bode a lot of confidence.
[0:19:57] JR: No, it doesn't. This stuff happens and it happens a lot. It happens to cards, you
might not even think. At least in my personal case, the bank caught it and declined all the
transactions. Just like, this stuff is that common that a credit card I never use, don't even carry
with me was still compromised. Update your passwords, use a password manager, use two-
factor authentication, use all of the stuff you're probably not using.
[0:20:21] IP: And some more.
[0:20:22] JR: Or whatever.
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[0:20:23] IP: Or whatever. Okay. Let's talk about good news. SAS has ordered 45 firm
examples and 10 options of the Embraer E195-E2. Deliveries are going to begin in 2027 and
they'll take about one aircraft a month over the next four years and change. The aircraft will
have around 136 seats and they will serve that too big for the CRJ-900, but too small for the
A320neo markets around Scandinavia.
[0:21:02] JR: Are these replacing the CRJ-900s? Or are they for fleet expansion?
[0:21:08] IP: These are for fleet expansion.
[0:21:09] JR: Ooh, that's exciting. So often, when we talk about aircraft orders, it's about fleet
replacement, especially for the smaller jets like this. But for it to be a fleet expansion, that's
exciting.
[0:21:19] IP: Yeah. They're planning on slotting these in between the CRJs and the A320neos.
they'll be opening up, hopefully, a few interesting new routes when these begin delivery in 2027.
[0:21:35] JR: It sounds like they'll also be mainline operated as well. These won't be SAS –
What do they call their regional operation?
[0:21:42] IP: There's SAS Connect, but there's also SAS Ireland.
[0:21:49] JR: Yeah. It's more complicated than you would think, but I think these are mainline
SAS aircraft.
[0:21:55] IP: I mean, I'm sure they will become part of a subsidiary somewhere, because of the
pilot and flight attendant pay scales somewhere. Yeah. I mean, they'll be SAS aircraft. there's
one more aspect to this order that we talked again quite a bit about –
[0:22:11] IP: At length.
[0:22:13] JR: At length. Too much at length, actually.
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[0:22:14] IP: Far too long.
[0:22:15] JR: Before we started recording, and that multiple times SAS quoted in its press
release its social post, that this was its largest direct aircraft order since 1996. we could not find
an aircraft order occurring from SAS in 1996. I'm pretty sure what did not occur. Back in 1995, I
believe, the airline ordered 4177-600s, which is a large order back then. it has been a long time
since SAS has placed a large direct-from-manufacturer order. Ian, you threw 737-800s in the
mix. I don't know how we are so uncertain about what they did or did not order.
[0:23:00] IP: I'm just telling you what Boeing's own order and delivery website says.
[0:23:06] JR: I'm telling you what's on the brilliantly formatted 1996 SAS corporate annual
report, which only mentions firm orders for the 737-600 and Dash 8 Q400, which is fun.
[0:23:20] IP: I don't know what to tell you, but neither Jason nor I could find an order in 1996.
While technically true, this is in fact their largest order since 1996 and ’97 and ’98, etc., etc., etc.
We couldn't find an order in 1d996. We assume, they mean the 737-600 order from 95, but who
knows?
[0:23:41] JR: Of which were only just recently retired.
[0:23:44] IP: Yes. That's true. They did stick around for quite some time. Those little baby 737s.
Where are we going next? We're going to Mexico, Jason.
[0:23:53] JR: That's nice.
[0:23:53] IP: But we're starting in Brazil and we're heading to Mexico, because Mexicana is
taking delivery, or has just taken delivery of its first E195-E2. This is not only the first E2 for the
newly reconstituted Mexicana, this is the first new aircraft for the airline. The other 737s and
ERJ-145s have come from elsewhere within Mexico's collection. These are new aircraft just
delivered, and they are the first of 10 E195-E2s that the airline will take, and they will also take a
further 10 E190-E2s. Good for them.
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[0:24:38] JR: Yeah. Somehow, this thing is still a thing, at least for now. Apparently, they've
scaled back their operation a little bit, because who would have foreseen that they're losing
money? But they're still trying, because it's state-backed. What's there to lose, except taxpayer
dollars?
[0:24:53] IP: State-backed and state-run.
[0:24:54] JR: No problem.
[0:24:56] IP: If you're looking to check out delivery on the aircraft, the registration is XAMX. Go
ahead and check that out. We'll toss a link in the show notes.
[0:25:07] JR: It’s a looker. If nothing else.
[0:25:10] IP: Yes, if nothing else. Speaking of deliveries, though, this one took a lot longer to get
home than Mexicana's E2. Qantas has taken delivery of its first A321-XLR. The aircraft departed
Hamburg, made a stop in Bangkok, and then made it all the way to Sydney on a total great
circle distance of 10,164 miles.
[0:25:37] JR: With only one stop.
[0:25:39] IP: With only one stop. Total track miles, 10,995. Nearly 11,000 miles in flight, or
17,694 kilometers for anyone listening to this podcast outside of the US. That's a way to stretch
the aircraft's legs. Obviously, empty for the most part, just some crew onboard, but still a pretty
impressive haul.
[0:26:08] JR: Yeah. These 321-XLRs, at least initially their new life at Qantas, doesn't see them
doing flights such as this, the super long haul for an hour, buddy. I think they're just directly
replacing the 737-800s in Qantas's fleet. They're not really going to stretch the XLR bit of the
321-XLR, but they certainly can and probably will in the future.
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[0:26:31] IP: Yes. Yes, exactly. This first batch is, yeah, as Jason said is basically 737
replacements, which is slightly disappointing, but hey, you've got to do what you've got to do.
Speaking of doing necessary things, Delta has been very busy this week, especially at the
beginning part of the week when they had to inspect more than 100 aircraft after severe storms
that included heavy hail moved through Atlanta.
At one point, Atlanta's control tower was even evacuated due to a microburst on the field. This
particular event also, we think, ends up being one of the greatest diversion events, because of
the time that it hit and the number of flights that were already in the air away from a single
airport. I think even besting the number of diversions away from Doha last week during the
Iranian missile attacks.
[0:27:30] JR: Yeah, because this is Atlanta. It's not just a wide-body long-haul operation. It's
Atlanta. They go everywhere. At least Delta goes everywhere from Atlanta, from super short-
haul to super long-haul. At one point, when I pulled up the jet-tip diversion tracker, it was
showing 115 diversions. I'm sure that number at some point went higher throughout the day. Ian,
do we know how many diversions there were in total? Or is it unknowable?
[0:27:56] IP: Not necessarily unknowable, but I didn't pull a final total. Though it ended up
being, I think, over 120.
[0:28:06] JR: It's a lot. A lot of them went to Nashville, Charlotte, Huntsville, Savannah,
Birmingham, Jacksonville, Raleigh, Durham, Charleston. It goes on and on. All the way down to
Florida, I guess a lot of flights actually returned to their origin. Man, how is not great? It's the
thing that's going to happen with increasing frequency, too. Really, one thing I picked up on
particular was how some non-Delta airlines that do have a presence in Atlanta were handling
the situation. I think the word poorly comes to mind, or not, until it was too late. Frontier, in
particular, has a nice little operation at Atlanta, and a number of its flights landed after the storm,
either before or after the storm rolled through and sat for hours and hours and hours, without
getting a gate up to four in excess of five hours, which by far exceeds the limitation for domestic
flights until the DOT gets involved and heavy fines start to get instituted, although maybe not in
this case, since it was a weather event.
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Only after a lot of these aircrafts were on the ground for four or five hours, did Frontier finally
start diverting flights away. I just cannot imagine being trapped on a Frontier aircraft for four, or
five hours after landing at an airport. That's just cruel and unusual. I feel bad for those people.
[0:29:27] IP: Yeah. I understand the ones that land just before the storm hits, or they're very
near the airport, and then they land right after. They continued to send aircraft to Atlanta,
knowing full well that there was no way they were going to get a gate anytime soon.
[0:29:45] JR: With a finite number of gates. This isn't some other airport where you can go to
any gate in a particular terminal. There are only a handful of gates that Frontier, I guess not
authorized to use, but is contracting out to use. Those are Frontier's gates. At some point, I
hope that Frontier was granted access to other gates. But at that point, I'm sure Delta was more
than short on its own gate.
[0:30:08] IP: Frontier only has X number of ground staff to bring those planes in, to make sure
that people can get off those planes, and then to make sure that if that plane's at the wrong
gate, it gets back to the right gate, eventually.
[0:30:22] JR: Being an airline is hard.
[0:30:23] IP: Being an airline is hard. The decision was interesting to me. I'm sure they thought
they were doing the best thing that they could at the moment. But it seemed like they were just
sending good planes after bad.
[0:30:36] JR: Yeah. Tough situation.
[0:30:41] IP: In Brazil, there is an interesting report that just came out from Brazilian
investigators on a flight that occurred in November of 2021. An Azul Airbus A320neo was taking
off from Cuiabá and had to reject the takeoff at 90 knots. They had a hydraulic system warning,
and so they decided to reject the takeoff well before V1. Not necessarily a low speed of board,
but certainly not the highest speed that we've ever seen of flight, hit the brakes on. However,
they hit the brakes hard enough that the smoke from the brakes, this was a nighttime flight, the
smoke from the brakes, along with the anti-collision beacons on the top and bottom of the
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aircraft that flash red, plus the white strobe lights, they quote, “May have given the impression
that the aircraft was on fire,” because passengers started freaking out. In turn, the flight
attendants freaked out.
The pilots made an emergency call to the flight attendants. The flight attendants assumed that
that emergency call, what the pilots were actually saying was everything's fine. Because it was
an emergency call, what the flight attendants assumed was the plane is on fire. They evacuated
the aircraft in an uncommanded fashion, which is not great. Even not greater is that the engines
were still running.
[0:32:23] JR: There is a lot wrong here. I don't know if this is poor training, or just nerves in the
moment, but this is all sorts of bad. It all went wrong.
[0:32:34] IP: Yeah, exactly. Part of what the report focuses on is the fact that the flight
attendants mistakenly thought that passengers had already begun evacuating the aircraft out
the overwing exits. When the pilots made the emergency call to the flight attendants, they
assumed, because that was not part of the standard procedure. They believed that that was a
cue to evacuate the aircraft.
[0:33:02] JR: Yikes.
[0:33:04] IP: Thankfully, the engines while on were only running at idle thrust, or at idle power.
[0:33:10] JR: I mean, idle thrust is enough. You've seen what happens to cones on the ramp at
even idle thrusts.
[0:33:17] IP: I'm just saying it could have been even worse than it was. Thankfully, no one was
injured by the engines. There were injuries during the evacuation, including one serious injury,
but no one got sucked into an engine.
[0:33:30] JR: That's good. Sure.
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[0:33:32] IP: 15 passengers injured, including one seriously. The worst part about all of this,
Jason –
[0:33:38] JR: How could it be worse?
[0:33:40] IP: The hydraulic system warning, the sensor had fallen into the oil reservoir.
[0:33:47] JR: Oh, that's hot.
[0:33:49] IP: It was just a broken sensor.
[0:33:52] JR: Oh, oh. Poor, poor sensor. What a way to go.
[0:33:56] IP: The United States Supreme Court has rejected American Airlines’ appeal on the
Northeast Alliance ruling that had invalidated the tie up between American Airlines and JetBlue.
Widely expected. I don't think they wanted to touch that. I don't think there was appetite for that.
Needless to say, I'm sure American is disappointed. I'm not sure if JetBlue is disappointed,
because that would have been weird for them to come back like, “Aa.”
[0:34:24] JR: We don't really want this, but we're here because we have to be.
[0:34:27] IP: We're here because we have to be. On the flip side of that, JetBlue, having
recently concluded its Blue Sky thing, not alliance agreement, well, Spirit Airlines, which had
previously been trying to merge with JetBlue, is now calling this Blue Sky thing anti-competitive
and possibly detrimental to smaller airlines. The language that they're using is as usual for these
types of filings, very flowery and over the top. Spirit calls JetBlue, says JetBlue will become a de
facto vassal of United. If United can do this to JetBlue, then what's to stop Delta, or American
from doing this to other airlines, and Spirit will be forced to acquiesce to their demands?
[0:35:26] JR: I'm not sure how to process any of that.
[0:35:28] IP: I don't think anybody is, but that's what Spirit's arguing to the DOT.
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[0:35:32] JR: Yeah. Spirit backed into a corner here, is lashing out, I guess, grasping at straws
to do anything here. Spirit doesn't seem to have much of a future. I'm not sure what the end
goal is here, because even with JetBlue not being tied up with United, Spirit itself seems to be in
a dire situation. I don't really see the Blue Sky not an alliance, whatever it is, thing really being
the thing that Spirit needs to look out for at this point. The thought that Delta would do this with
what Frontier is just laughable. Who is left to do this with?
American already has a very, very similar agreement with Alaska. Yeah, not really sure how this
could possibly be a thing that anyone really takes seriously. But if you're in Spirit’s situation, you
got to do whatever you can to attempt to stay afloat.
[0:36:30] IP: First of all, I get that they feel like they have to do something. I also don't
understand how attacking this particular arrangement, say the DOT agrees with them and
invalidates it, I'm not sure how that helps Spirit.
[0:36:46] JR: I don't know. I may feel like the best thing that could happen to Spirit right now is if
Delta walked up to and said, “Hey, Spirit, you want to do a thing with us and be partners, but not
really?” If I were Spirit, I would say, “Yes, absolutely, please.” yeah, strange situation.
[0:37:02] IP: We could rename Spirit’s song.
[0:37:04] JR: No.
[0:37:09] IP: Okay, maybe not. Caught Ted?
[0:37:12] JR: No.
[0:37:13] IP: Okay, fine. The European Union Aviation Safety Agency is proposing a takeoff
performance monitoring systems for large transport aircraft. What all that means is that IASA
has looked at the data from a number of investigations over the past few years and said, “Hey, it
seems to us that pilots keep putting data in wrong, that aircraft are misconfigured. If we can
solve that problem, we could prevent a whole bunch of incidents from happening.”
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[0:37:57] JR: Okay.
[0:37:58] IP: To do that, there are already certified pieces of software and systems that we can
put into aircraft. They've issued this proposal, that would include three requirements, two of
which would be mandatory for nearly all large aircraft and then the third one just for the largest
passenger aircraft. The first one would be a check and alert on errors in the airplane takeoff
performance parameters. This would be the input and selection within the flight management
system, or the equivalent across whatever that particular aircraft calls it. Did you put in the right
numbers? Are you making the right assumptions about temperature, thrust, derated thrust? Are
you sure of the aircraft center of gravity? Are you sure of the aircraft's weight? Are all of those
things correct and have you checked and double-checked those? That's number one.
Number two would be an alert on errors in airplane position and heading at the start of takeoff.
This would address intersection takeoffs. This would address, we lined up at the wrong taxiway.
This would address, we're on a taxiway. Things like that.
Then the third one is real-time performance monitoring and alerting. This is, in a sense, what is
happening onboard the aircraft during the takeoff roll? Are things as they should be? Are things
developing as they should? Is everything going as expected? If it's not, we're going to alert on
that. It would expand a lot of the alerts in what pilots are getting, that could help them either
reject the takeoff sooner, or reconfigure the aircraft as needed.
[0:39:54] JR: Correct me if I'm wrong, but the A350 has at least some of this baked in, right?
[0:40:00] IP: Yes. These requirements would be only for new build aircraft and large transport
aircraft. That comes out of some of these systems that are already designed and certified,
including stuff that's going into the A350.
[0:40:20] JR: Cool. IASA is proposing, doing what Airbus is already have been doing for 10
years. That's good.
[0:40:29] IP: Yes and no. They're proposing mandating across large transport aircraft. Not just
the A350.
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[0:40:34] JR: Of course. Yeah, that's good. I mean, in this case, Airbus, the large aircraft is the
A350. I guess, it would trickle down to the A330. But if this is only for new build –
[0:40:44] IP: No, no, no. Large transport aircraft. We're talking everything from A320, 737,
whatever.
[0:40:53] JR: Oh. Well, that changes then quite good.
[0:40:54] IP: Large category. Not just the biggest aircraft, but the category of large transport
aircraft. Sorry.
[0:40:58] JR: I see. I see. Okay, so then Airbus would have to trickle down what it has already
developed and rolled out for the A350 to all of the other airplanes.
[0:41:06] IP: Yes.
[0:41:07] JR: Seems like something doable for Airbus. Seems a lot harder for a Boeing-type
company, who can't get beyond literal bells and lights in the flight deck. Shout out to the 737-10
and 7. Yeah, Airbus is already doing a lot of this, but it would be great to see that trickle down to
every other thing they make.
[0:41:28] IP: Yeah. Jason, let's close the show with some squirrels.
[0:41:32] JR: Weird. Usually, we talk about raccoons.
[0:41:36] IP: This time we are talking about the ongoing and massive squirrel infestation at the
Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota.
[0:41:46] JR: Of course, of course.
[0:41:47] IP: This one's just great for all sorts of reasons, mostly because it includes the phrase
secret squirrel in a number of places. Task and purpose has a great article that is informative
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and it is in depth. It explains the problem that is occurring at the Air Force Base. It also includes
this paragraph.
[0:42:15] JR: Are you going to tell me about the three-phase effort?
[0:42:18] IP: I'm not.
[0:42:19] JR: Oh. Then I'll take that one.
[0:42:21] IP: Okay, Jason, explain the three-phase effort.
[0:42:23] JR: Well, apparently, this is not the first time they've dealt with this, because the
headline image of a raccoon in a trap is from 2019 due to “a previous infestation.” But there is a
three-phase effort to deal with the squirrels, because you love a good three-phase plan, right?
Especially when it’s squirrels. Well, the first phase involves families on the base housing setting
out traps, dealing with the immediate issue. Then, “The command is now initiating phase two.”
Well, that's a very strong sentence. Which is a two-week rollout of a comprehensive plan for
setting up traps and trying to capture the invasive critters. The third phase, which is a long-term
in nature, involves setting aside resources in the spring and fall to mitigate the number of deck
rats. They got a fancy word for squirrels.
[0:43:10] IP: They're actually referred to as deck rats. Yes.
[0:43:12] JR: Deck rats on the base and greater numbers. Not only is there a plan, but there is
a three-phase plan with very strong language on how to deal with squirrels.
[0:43:22] IP: I this story for a variety of reasons. Most of which is that the United States Air
Force is bringing in, “subject matter experts to assist.”
[0:43:34] JR: Cats?
[0:43:36] IP: I don't know. Exterminators? Cats? Yeah, column A, column B.
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[0:43:42] JR: Is this going to end up like that, the Simpsons gag from the Whacking Day
episode, where to get rid of the squirrels, they bring in cats. To get rid of cats, they bring in dogs.
To get rid of dogs, they bring in wolves. To get wolves, they bring in bears, so on and so on.
Then the end is just, well, that's the great part of the plan. Come winter, all the animals freeze to
death. Probably not.
[0:44:06] IP: That's exactly what this is, though.
[0:44:08] JR: I mean, it also is, isn't it?
[0:44:10] IP: It is. Hopefully, this will be the last time that the Air Force base has to deal with a
ground squirrel infestation.
[0:44:19] JR: What a story.
[0:44:20] IP: What a story. On that note, this has been episode 327 of AvTalk. Thank you all so
very much for listening. We'll be back next week with another episode and then a reminder that
we will be off the week that the show would come out on the 18th of July, barring anything but
really, just let's not do that this time, all right, Jason?
[0:44:41] JR: I can handle it myself. I don't know how to record, or publish, or edit.
[0:44:46] IP: We'll do it live then.
[0:44:47] JR: I'll talk to myself.
[0:44:48] IP: There you go. All right, that works. That works. This has been episode 327 of
AvTalk. I am Ian Petchenik, here, as always with –
[0:44:58] JR: Jason Rabinowitz. Thanks for listening.
[END]
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