The New York Times: Boeing and Airbus Waver on Reworking Planes

I just stumbled over this very interesting New York Times article from today. It basically states what I already wrote here in my post on July 30th.

Boeing and Airbus Waver on Reworking Planes
By CHRISTOPHER DREW and JAD MOUAWAD

The latest high-stakes maneuvering by Boeing and Airbus does not involve their top-of-the-line models, the 787 Dreamliner and the A380 jumbo jet, but instead their aging smaller workhorses.
The two companies have long been defined by their willingness to take big risks. But perhaps because of all the problems and costs involved with the bigger planes, they have turned more cautious in responding to pressure from the airlines to develop more fuel-efficient substitutes for their smaller planes, the 737 and A320.

Aviation experts say breakthroughs in engine technology offer a rare chance to re-engineer the two companies’ narrow 737s and A320s, which make up three-fourths of the fleets at the largest airlines. But while the new engines could save the airlines hundreds of millions of dollars a year, Airbus would have to invest $1.5 billion to $2 billion — and Boeing possibly twice that — to test and install them on the jets.

To continue reading, please click here.

Qantas Grounds all A380s

For decades, Australian flag carrier Qantas was known for great service, a young fleet and an unparalleled safety record. In the history of Qantas, one of the oldest airlines in the world, not one single plane has crashed. However, Qantas has had a lot of minor and even major incidents lately: 2008 - a Qantas 747-400 suffered rapid decompression after an explosion in air; 2008 - A330 suffered a rapid loss of altitude in two sudden uncommanded pitch down manoeuvres causing serious injuries; and, finally, November 4, 2010 - a Qantas A380 (the first A380 that was delivered to the airline) suffered an engine failure shortly after taking off from Singapore's Changi Airport.

Only a few minutes after take-off the inner left engine of the A380 with the tail number VH-OQA lost parts of its shell that slammed into the wing, causing a hole of several centimeters. Passengers reported they heard a slamming noise, followed by shaking of the plane. At this point, it is not clear, whether an explosion caused the engine shell to fall off or if the part that fell off caused the explosion by ripping apart cables and fuel injectors. The cockpit crew decided to dump fuel and circled above the Indonesian sea for over an hour before returning back to Singapore. Flight QF 32 safely landed at Changi about an hour and fifteen minutes after it took off to Sydney.

Soon after the incident, Qantas announced it would ground its entire Airbus A380 fleet indefinitely. In my opinion, this is not a very smart move and casts a negative light on Airbus and the A380 specifically, which they do not deserve. Obviously, the issue resulted from a problem with the engine and Airbus does not build aircraft engines. Experts agree that Airbus and the A380 did not really play a role in today's incident. The manufacturer of these engines, Rolls Royce, will have to play a major role in the upcoming investigations. There have already been several issues with these types of engines.

I also need to add here that the media totally blew up this story. The plane landed safely, nobody was really injured and three of the four engines were still running perfectly fine. There have been instances when planes crossed the entire Atlantic with only three out of four engines working. The plane was still in the air more than an hour after the incident! Had this been an emergency like the media pretended it was, the plane would have returned to Changi right away, without dumping fuel. At no point was there any chance the plane would crash. Obviously, it was very scary and uncomfortable for the passengers on board, but their lives were not in danger...

CNN: Secrets Pilots Won't Tell You

I was very excited today when I read the headline "Secrets Pilots Won't Tell You" on cnn.com. When I read through the article, I was very disappointed. I expected them to report on how, for example, fly-by-wire technology limits pilots in what they can do, or on poor maintenance or pilot salaries. Some "real" secrets. The secrets CNN mentions, however, are:

1) Pilots are tired and have 16-hour days. Who would have thought? Not a real secret to me! This is especially true for U.S. pilots, not so much for European ones. Is that really scary though? Just think about all the doctors in our hospitals who work 24-hour shifts.

2) Accommodations are bad. Apparently, some U.S. airlines let their pilots sleep in cheap hotels in bad areas. That is indeed something I did not know. But is that really such an important secret? Some pilots may actually live in bad areas or in neighborhoods that are loud. Again, I know that crews from European airlines usually stay at nice hotels.

3) Planes do not carry enough fuel. Well, this is something I would argue with. With fuel being the heaviest "item" on a plane on most flights, of course airlines need to carry as little reserves as possible. This is not a secret, but simple physics. If I fly from Miami to Orlando, I do not need to carry fuel for all the way up to New York with me! Landing a fuel-packed plane is much more dangerous and difficult than landing a light plane with hardly any fuel left.

4) Pilots like compliments about their performance. Really? For god's sake, please do NOT clap when a pilots lands a plane. This is ridiculous. It's his job! Do you applaud a teacher after your English course? Probably not. I do understand clapping after a really challenging landing during strong winds though (and have done it myself).

I think CNN should have titled this piece "U.S. airlines treat their pilots poorly compared to non-U.S. airlines" or something like that. There are no real secrets in this piece. It could have been such a nice article had they focused more on REAL secrets (power of fly-by-wire, flying through strong winds and how modern planes handle that, lightning, etc.). This article is just dull...

Southwest Airlines to Merge with AirTran

As you have probably learned already, Southwest Airlines is set to acquire AirTran for $1.4 billion. On September 27, Southwest Airlines announced the friendly take-over. Interesting is the fact that, for the first time, Southwest will then offer flights to destinations outside of the U.S. (continuing AirTran service to Mexico and the Caribbean).

The deal is in general an interesting move by Southwest, which has shied away from acquisitions for most of its 39-year history. The timing is also well chosen - since Continental's and United's stakeholders just approved their merger a few weeks ago. But why did Southwest consider the merger in the first place? Well, the two airlines competed at around 30 airports and the merger will give Southwest more access to important markets, such as New York, Orlando and Boston. It also gives Southwest more slots at Atlanta, Delta's main hub.

The fact that AirTran owns Boeing 717s as well as 737s will be a huge disadvantage and I would bet my money that Southwest will get rid of AirTran's 717 shortly. One of the key strategies of Southwest is owning only one aircraft type - the 737. This means that all pilots can fly all planes, all parts are the same for all planes and training for crew members is really simple. If they suddenly have two different planes, the costs will go up.

All in all, I think the merger will be good for the U.S. airline industry, but bad for most customers, since I predict that ticket prices will go up...

To read the Wall Street Journal Article, please click here.

Take-off in Thunderstorms Orlando

First of all, I need to apologize for not posting anything in almost a month. I moved from New York to Florida and started a new job, so I didn't have the time yet. But I promise to blog regularly again from now on. Below is a video from my take-off from MCO en route to CLT on a US Airways A321. It was a beautiful flight. There were thunderstorms all around us. It wasn't crazy bumpy, but it was great watching the sunset, the lightning and the city below.

Beautiful Landing at LaGuardia

My brother shot this beautiful video landing at LaGuardia on a US Airways Dash 8-100 last week:

Another Embraer E190 Overshoots Runway in China

Hardly anyone in the West even heard about this news: Within 24 hours of the Embraer E190 accident in Yichun, China, another E190 overshot the runway on Wednesday, this time in Nanning, in the southern Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region of China. The Tianjin Airlines aircraft was en route from Xi'an in the northwestern Shaanxi Province to Nanning and was about to head for Haikou in the southern island province of Hainan.

Though authorities have published no investigation results, Chinese aviation experts have taken the accidents as an alarm for the country's rapidly expanding, yet immature, regional aviation market.

To read the news.cn story, please click here.

U.S. Justice Department Clears United-Continental Merger

Good news for all fans of the United-Continental merger - the U.S. Department of Justice today cleared one of the last obstacles in the way to an on-time merger in early October of this year. The antitrust probe was closed after Continental and United agreed to transfer take-off and landing rights as well as other assets at Newark Liberty Airport to Southwest Airlines, the Justice Department said in a statement

The combined company, which will fly under the United name and the Continental logo (see picture on above), would be larger than Delta Air Lines, which became the country's largest airline when it merged with Northwest Airlines in 2008. The new United is expected to serve more than 144 million passengers per year and fly to 370 destinations in 59 countries.

Now, only the two airlines' shareholders will need to approve the merger. The vote will take place next month.

To read the CNN Money story, please click here.

JetBlue A320 Hard Landing in Sacramento

Passengers of a JetBlue A320 experienced a pretty hard landing yesterday when the plane blew four tires while landing at Sacramento airport. Four people suffered minor injuries during landing and about a dozen were injured while leaving the plane. JetBlue flight 262 was en route from Long Beach in south California to the state's capital with 86 passengers and five crew members on board when the cockpit crew reported problems with the plane's brakes.

What happened? Apparently, the brakes of the A320 were locked and wouldn't release. This means that the tires did not move/roll when the plane touched down on the runway. In turn, that caused the tires, and the air within, to heat up very quickly (because of friction) and, eventually, lead to the bursting of the tires (since air expands when it gets hot). The friction also caused minor flames on the tires and the brakes, so all passengers left the plane through emergency slides before the fire could spread to other parts of the plane (which would have been unlikely though).

The Aviation Insider will keep you posted on what the mechanical problem here was.

To read the CNN story, please click here. The followings is a video from a local FOX station:

Old, But Amazing Video

My brother just sent me this amazing (probably very old) video. What a crazy-a** pilot! Look how close the wingtip is to the ground. Either a very stupid pilot or an amazingly good one. Just wow!

Embraer E190 Crashes in China

For the first time ever, an Embraer E190 crashed at Yichun Lindu Airport in China today. The crash occurred at 10 pm local time. Henan Airlines flight 8387 departed from Harbin in northern China and was en route to Yichun (only approx. 360 km away) when the plane crashed upon approach into Yichun airport.

The plane had 91 passengers and 5 crew members on board. At this point, at least 47 people have been rescued. Why the fairly new plane crashed is not yet clear. CNN reports the Embraer 190 jet overshot the runway and caught fire when it was landing. However, heavy fog may have contributed to the crash. Yichun Lindu Airport is not equipped with ILS, making it even harder for pilots to land in foggy conditions.

The Aviation Insider will keep you posted on further developments.

To read the CNN story, please click here.

Did Lightning Really Bring Down a 737 in Colombia?

An AIRES 737-700 broke apart upon hitting the ground in San Andres, Colombia, yesterday night around 1.49 am local time. Flight 8250, which departed Bogotá's El Dorado International Airport at 0.07 am, did not report any problems during the flight.

The Boeing 737-700 with the tail number HK-4682, was built in 2003 and was originally delivered to European low-cost carrier EasyJet. AIRES took over the plane in March of this year. This is the first time ever a 737-700 needs to be written off because of an accident. Contrary to some reports, the plane did not "crash" into the runway. It made contact with the ground a few dozen meters before the runway started, but it later broke apart on the runway.

The question - as always - now is: What caused the accident? The two most prominent theories at this point are: A severe downdraft "pushed" the plane onto the ground or a lightning strike caused the accident. As usual, reporters and experts are cautious to blame the pilots. However, all signs point to the downdraft theory, together with poor reactions by the two pilots. A lightning strike as the cause of the accident can totally be ruled out in my opinion. And experts agree with that. To read why lightning cannot possible have caused the crash, please read this CNN interview with an expert. It is almost ridiculous that reporters over and over again claim that an airplane crashed because of lightning. They said that about the Air France A330 that crashed into the Atlantic last year, they said it about the Ethiopian 737 that crashed off of the coast of Lebanon in January and they are saying it again now. However, no commercial plane has crashed because of a lightning strike since the 1960s. Planes are built to withstand lightning strikes. Period!

In my opinion, this 737 crashed because of a very strong downdraft right in front of the runway and the pilots were not prepared to handle such a situation. The weather was pretty bad during the approach and changing wind directions make it hard to land in situations like these. However, pilots should be well trained to handle these tough approaches. But the pilots of this AIRES 737 apparently weren't. Severe downdrafts are not extremely rare events. They happen quite frequently and I have experienced them myself during landings several times. Whenever pilots need to land in stormy conditions they need to take possible downdrafts into consideration. And it's not like a plane is totally uncontrollable when it flies through downdrafts. The laws of aerodynamics still apply, the pilots just need to react quickly. And when they are only a couple of meters from the ground they need to react even more quickly. Sadly, the AIRES pilots did not do that.

According to a CNN story, at least one of the pilots still does not know what happened. He said: "We were caught in a great sinking as we reached the runway, as our wheels touched down. It threw us out. It threw us out. Nature is very strong. It grabbed us with everything it had. I said, 'Landing' and cut, and when I was cutting, I started to level off, and I felt that the plane was going straight (down). I pulled [on the yolk]. I pulled. I pulled. And the plane kept on going, kept on going. It was when we said, 'Landing.' When there's nothing left to do."

As tragic as this accident is, it shows us that pilots need better training. Planes are built to withstand the forces of nature pretty well. If a 737 can fly through a storm of more than 300 km/h (as several did during hurricane Kyrill in Europe a couple of years ago) without any damage, it can very well endure severe downdraft. However, the pilots need to be trained to handle that. If the pilots don't even know what's going on, how can they react properly?