Flight Safety Information - April 22, 2021 No. 082 In This Issue : Incident: Anadolujet B738 at Ankara on Apr 21st 2021, burst tyre on landing : Incident: Red Wings A321 at Moscow on Apr 19th 2021, computer issue : Airbus A320-251N - Ground Collision (Maldives) : Wizz Air redundancies ‘dangerously influenced’ flight safety culture claims whistleblower : IndiGo to procure four freighter aircraft : This New Bio-Fuel Uses Old Cooking Oil to Fly Jets With 80% Less Carbon Emissions : Cathay Pacific to close pilot base in Canada, proposes shutting Australia, New Zealand : Airbus shakes up aero parts manufacturing : Etihad Airways to stop operating Boeing 777-300ER jets this year : NASA's Perseverance rover turns a tiny bit of Mars air into breathable oxygen : POSITION AVAILABLE: Manager, Internal Evaluation Program Incident: Anadolujet B738 at Ankara on Apr 21st 2021, burst tyre on landing An Anadolujet Boeing 737-800, registration TC-JZR performing flight TK-7083 from Van to Ankara (Turkey), landed on Ankara's runway 21R but burst its right hand outboard main tyre on landing. The aircraft taxied to the apron. The aircraft is still on the ground in Ankara about 11 hours after landing. https://avherald.com/h?article=4e6404f5&opt=0 Incident: Red Wings A321 at Moscow on Apr 19th 2021, computer issue A Red Wings Airbus A321-200, registration VP-BER performing flight WZ-425 from Moscow Domodedovo to Ekaterinburg (Russia) with 205 passengers and 6 crew, was climbing out of Moscow when the crew stopped the climb at FL140. The crew had retracted the landing gear, the gear indicators showed the gear retracted, however, the ECAM showed the message "FLT L/G DOWN". The captain decided to return to Moscow for a safe landing about 40 minutes after departure. A replacement A321-200 registration VP-BRM reached Ekaterinburg with a delay of about 3.5 hours. The occurrence aircraft returned to service about 40 hours after landing back. https://avherald.com/h?article=4e63e350&opt=0 Airbus A320-251N - Ground Collision (Maldives) Date: 21-APR-2021 Time: Type: Airbus A320-251N Owner/operator: SriLankan Airlines Registration: 4R-ANB C/n / msn: 7535 Fatalities: Fatalities: 0 / Occupants: Other fatalities: 0 Aircraft damage: Minor Location: Malé-Velana International Airport (MLE/VRMM) - Maldives Phase: Standing Nature: Passenger - Non-Scheduled/charter/Air Taxi Departure airport: Colombo-Bandaranaike International Airport (CMB/VCBI) Destination airport: Malé-Velana International Airport (MLE/VRMM) Narrative: SriLankan Airlines flight UL1115, an Airbus A320neo, was hit by a ground vehicle at Male, sustaining damage to the left-hand elevator. https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/253750 Wizz Air redundancies ‘dangerously influenced’ flight safety culture claims whistleblower Wizz Air came back down to earth with a bump this morning as the firm braced itself for a net loss of up to €590m for the full financial year. Covid-19-related redundancies at Wizz Air “dangerously influenced” flight safety culture, a whistleblower has claimed, after the way in which staff were selected for redundancy left them worried to call in sick. Last April London-listed Wizz Air laid off around 1,000 staff – around 20 per cent of its workforce – after a travel shutdown caused by the Covid-19 pandemic put financial pressure on the group. Pilots based in Austria, Bulgaria, Bosnia, Georgia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Romania were made redundant last April, with the majority of redundancies from Hungary. Despite the redundancies, the budget carrier is bracing itself for a net loss of up to €590m for the full financial year. However, Wizz said it still had €1.6bn in cash, having taken a number of steps to shore up its finances over the last quarter. A Wizz Air pilot told City A.M. that the basis for layoffs “dangerously influenced” flight safety culture across the Wizz Air Group. “People have been and are being pressured to work while sick, fatigued or extended duty periods in fear of sacking,” they said. “It is unacceptable and breaches regulations designed to ensure flight safety.” Earlier this month an audio clip from the previous April came to light, allegedly featuring Wizz Air’s former head of flight operations Darwin Triggs, telling staff to draw up target lists of which staff should be made redundant. Among Triggs’ suggestions for redundancy included those who called in sick, or those who refused to work on their days off. In the audio recording a man who is allegedly Triggs can be heard saying: “We start off with the bad apples, so anyone who has caused you grief on a routine basis.” He later suggests “anyone who is not Wizz culture” should be considered, along with those “constantly reporting sick, every time they’re sick” and those who decline to work on their days off. Following an internal investigation at the airline, Triggs earlier this month stepped down from his role. Letter to Wizz In August 2020 following the sackings, Mircea Constantin, a former Wizz Air employee and the president of Sindicatul Aerolimit Professional (SAP) and the Flight Personnel Union Romania (FPU), unions that represent flight staff, wrote to Diederik Pen, group chief operating officer at Wizz, to express concern about safety at the airline. “Our colleagues around the network are always sharing with us valuable information about the safety of the flight operations in Wizz Air that will most definitely be available to support the criticism served so far,” Constantin wrote in the letter, seen by City A.M. “Your crew is truly scared of discrimination and persecution around sick leave days, refusals to extend maximum FDP (flight duty period) under captain’s discretion, refusals to work from off days, and fatigue reports or e-mails in response to exhausting rosters, since the company will eventually find a way to retaliate by dismissing them.” Leaked messages from a Q&A session that took place on virtual interaction app Slido painted a similar picture: “Whether you want to see the truth of not, your staff are close to breaking point and becoming a flight safety risk. They deserve respect, not exploitation,” said one respondent. Another added: “New procedure for CC (cabin crew) in CLJ (Cluj-Napoca airport) to not report to OCC (operation control centre) when they’re sick. If they do a manager will decide whether it’s justified instead of a physician. Any comment?” The FTSE-listed company rejected any concerns around an alleged lack of safety at the airline. A spokesperson said: “Wizz Air has done and continues to do everything possible to secure the integrity of the business since the breakout of Covid-19. “The past year has been challenging for the airline, in particular when the pandemic hit Europe in March 2020, which created the need for a reduction in staff. Whilst it is true that some language was used at that time – under unprecedented circumstances – which was regrettable, Wizz Air has taken swift and comprehensive action to ensure that its flight operations structure is best suited to and optimised for supporting and developing its flight crews. “This includes new leadership of flight operations and a new, regional structure. Wizz Air categorically rejects any claims about lack of safety at the airline. Safety and security have always been paramount priorities for Wizz Air, which is exemplified by our exceptional safety track record and industry accreditations.” Wizz Air pointed out it had made no further redundancies since April 2020, despite second and third waves of Covid-19. “We continue to work tirelessly to upgrade pandemic impacted salaries, to implement our Pilot Peer Support Program, to invest in our pilot recency training and coaching program with focus on pilot competencies and to create new opportunities where they arise,” they continued. “Despite the significant operational challenges associated with the pandemic, the 81 per cent satisfaction rate of the employee satisfaction survey as well as the 77 per cent retention rate among our crew members all point into the same direction: Wizz Air is a great place to work, where employees are listened to and where employees remain the company’s biggest asset. “And we are in the process of hiring again in order to meet the demand expected post-Covid.” A spokesperson for the UK pilot union Balpa said: “We have identified ‘commercial pressure’ as the absolutely central issue in our recently-published ‘Most Wanted Flight Safety Improvements’. Any time that pilots are put under pressure to cut corners, not report sick, not declare when they are too fatigued to fly, this is commercial pressure being brought to bear on safety. “The situation report at Wizz Air [regarding the audio recording from April 2020] is extremely concerning. It is absolutely right that the manager in question has gone from his position, but serious questions remain about the airline’s commitment to a just safety culture given what has happened there. Other UK airlines work with Balpa to ensure the highest standards of safety and we would encourage Wizz to do the same.” The European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) declined to comment. https://www.cityam.com/wizz-air-redundancies-dangerously-influenced-flight-safety-culture-claims-whistleblower/ IndiGo to procure four freighter aircraft A Letter of Intent has been signed with a lessor for two aircraft already, and IndiGo expects to reach agreement for the next two shortly. The country’s largest domestic airline, IndiGo, which is operated by InterGlobe Aviation Ltd, on Wednesday said it is sourcing four Airbus A321ceo aircraft, each of which will be converted from passenger jets to a full freighter configuration. “A letter of intent has been signed with a lessor for two aircraft already and IndiGo expects to reach agreement for the next two shortly. The initiative will make best use of the natural synergies that IndiGo offers, using the same pool of pilots and engineers that fly and service its current fleet," IndiGo said. “The A321P2F (passenger-to-freighter conversion) is the most efficient narrow-bodied freighter available, offering 24 container positions and supporting a payload of up to 27 tonnes. These are being converted through a programme involving ST Engineering and Airbus with their joint venture, Elbe FlugzeugWerke (EFW)," it said. IndiGo is expected to take the delivery of its first freighter in the first half of 2022, which will be used for both domestic and regional missions. The remaining three aircraft in the initial commitment are expected to arrive within a year or so from the arrival of the first freighter and further aircraft may be sourced depending on market development. “Our investment in the Airbus Freighter Programme will help strengthen our product and services in the segment and not only help accelerate our own business recovery but also be a strong engine of economic growth for the country," said Ronojoy Dutta, chief executive officer and whole-time director, IndiGo. “CarGo has been a success story over the last year, scaling new heights and creating new records, but our belief in the cargo business goes beyond the special circumstances right now. IndiGo was already the largest carrier of cargo in India before covid-19 and we expect the market to continue to grow after the pandemic," Dutta said. https://www.livemint.com/companies/news/indigo-in-process-of-sourcing-four-a321ceo-aircraft-for-freighter-operations-11619016243883.html This New Bio-Fuel Uses Old Cooking Oil to Fly Jets With 80% Less Carbon Emissions Derived from municipal waste, Sustainable Aviation Fuel can replace traditional jet fuel, but with 1/5th the carbon emissions. A business jet that flies on converted cooking oil? Algae turned into Jet-A fuel to run supersonic aircraft at sound-barrier-breaking speeds? That type of conversion may sound like science fiction, but a new aviation biofuel is already being used on business jets around the world. Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) is made from waste materials, such as cooking oil or animal fats used in restaurants, as well as other municipal waste. But instead of ending up in landfills, the waste is turned into jet fuel. SAF cuts CO2 emissions by up to 80 percent, reduces particulate matter (that white tail in the sky) by 90 percent and eliminates sulfur oxide. It also can be used in any aircraft that uses fossil jet fuel, eliminating the need for any type of engine modification. “We are turning trash into treasure,” says Chris Cooper, Neste’s vice president for Renewable Aviation, one of a number of providers focused on the fledgling SAF market for business jets. Cooper notes that business aviation burns 1.8 billion gallons of fossil fuel each year. “That’s a deep, dark footprint,” he says. • SUSTAINABLE AVIATION FUEL can be used in business jets and cuts carbon emissions by 80 percent “The plane doesn’t notice the difference, but the environment does,” says Ed Bolen, president of the National Business Aviation Association, which represents the private aviation industry in Washington. The trade association has thrown its weight behind industrywide adoption of SAF. “After years of solutions that provide small percentage gains in sustainability, we’ve found the big thing,” he says. The “big thing” is just starting to take hold in the private-jet sector, with companies like Neste, Avfuel and WorldEnergy supplying jet-fuel companies in California and around the country. San Francisco’s Signature Flight Support is the first-fixed based operator to have a permanent supply of SAF for business aviation. They’ve already pumped a million gallons, using oil pipelines and existing fossil-fuel infrastructure to move the bio-fuel into San Francisco. Avfuel, in a supply agreement with Neste, is moving SAF to other California airports. Neste has formed strategic partnerships with both Avfuel and Signature Flight Support to create a nationwide distribution network. “We’re seeing Signature convert their entire supply to SAF,” says Cooper. “California is ahead of everyone else because of their early work with lowering carbon emissions in fuels. Oregon has followed, Washington state just approved SAF and New Mexico has joined the race.” Demand is also growing, with corporations as diverse as Microsoft, Deloitte, Amazon, Nike and many others making commitments to SAF. Jeff Bezos says that Amazon wants to run its cargo-jet fleet on SAF, while Microsoft founder Bill Gates says his company is the country’s largest consumer of SAF. Gates points out the current problem with SAF: It costs two to three times more than fossil jet fuel. “It’ll be interesting to see how we can scale that up and can you get that green premium down from 300 percent,” Gates said at a recent conference. NBAA and other business aviation companies are leading the charge behind the “blender’s tax credit” that has become part of President Joe Biden’s tax bill. The ten-year tax credit is designed to lower costs for providers as more facilities come online and supplies increase. Neste expects to produce 515 million gallons of sustainable aviation fuel in 2023, fifteen times its current production. NBAA says SAF production could reach 1 billion gallons by 2025. Traditional oil producers like Shell and BP have also jumped into the SAF sector, while NetJets, the world’s largest private jet company has committed to purchasing 100 million gallons of SAF over the next decade. To back that commitment, the Berkshire-Hathaway company announced it had become a major investor in a new SAF biofuel refinery in the Philippines with its supplier, WasteFuel, to turn municipal solid waste into SAF. Expected to go online in 2025, the facility will be joined by three others, also partly owned by NetJets. Business aviation in Europe is also pushing SAF as an environmental solution. The first-ever European Business Aviation SAF Summit concluded yesterday, with an industrywide push behind the ReFuelEU Aviation initiative, which includes incentivizing the SAF value chain, from production to distribution to foster growth, while prioritizing SAF for civil aviation. Private-aircraft manufacturers are also behind SAF—Gulfstream uses it to test its new aircraft—and many firms like VistaJet and NetJets are offering clients the ability to neutralize their flights’ CO2 output by paying fees. VistaJet says 80 percent of its clients have signed onto its carbon-offset program. “We’ve reached a critical point,” says Bolen. “We have the awareness and growing demand. The question is how do we get it widely available to meet that demand.” Cooper believes widespread SAF adoption is inevitable, because clients in private-jet cabins are demanding it. “We’re seeing the biggest movement in business aviation in a long time,” he says, “and the consumer is driving it.” https://robbreport.com/motors/aviation/bio-fuel-jets-80-percent-less-carbon-emissions-1234608908/ Cathay Pacific to close pilot base in Canada, proposes shutting Australia, New Zealand (Reuters) - Hong Kong's Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd will close its Canadian pilot base and has proposed to also shut its pilot bases in Australia and New Zealand, the airline said on Thursday. No decisions have been made on the fate of its pilots based in Europe and the United States, the airline said in a statement that noted all passenger fleet pilots on overseas bases had been stood down since May 2020. The decision to close the Canadian base is final, while Australia and New Zealand is a proposal at this stage and will involve a good-faith consultation process with employees, Cathay said. In Australia and New Zealand, employers must consult with staff before redundancies as part of union agreements but it is rare for publicly announced decisions to be reversed. Qantas Airways Ltd and Air New Zealand Ltd made similar announcements last year about consultations before proceeding with their planned staff cuts. Cathay's proposed closures were first reported by the South China Morning Post. Cathay had already closed overseas cabin crew bases and shut its regional airline Cathay Dragon to help it conserve cash during the pandemic, resulting in the loss of more than 5,900 jobs. The remaining Hong Kong-based pilots and cabin crew had to agree to permanent pay cuts to keep their jobs. Cathay, which lacks a domestic market at a time when international borders are largely shut, last month reported a record annual loss of HK$21.65 billion ($2.8 billion). It has been burning through as much as HK$1.9 billion of cash a month, though the carrier said last week that figure would begin to reduce slightly due to an easing of cargo crew quarantine requirements. https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/cathay-pacific-close-pilot-bases-043235940.html Airbus shakes up aero parts manufacturing By Tim Hepher PARIS (Reuters) -Airbus has launched the biggest shake-up of its manufacturing network in more than a decade, with large-parts activities reorganized in France and Germany and some small-parts production hived off ahead of a possible sale. The European planemaker said on Wednesday it would combine aerostructure assembly in France under one entity, bringing major fuselage parts plants in St Nazaire and Nantes together with the worldwide operations of its Stelia subsidiary. In Germany, its Premium Aerotec unit will be split, with part of it combined with manufacturing plants in Stade and some of the large Hamburg factory, and the rest folded into a new business specialising in small mass-produced "detail" parts. "We are in the process of reviewing different ownership structures to identify the best possible solution," a spokesman said, referring to the new Germany-based detail-parts spin-off. Those parts can range from small generic items like metal brackets costing a few dollars to complex machined items costing tens of thousands, such as those made in the highly automated Varel plant in Germany. Also included in the new spin-off are part of the Augsburg plant in Germany and the Brasov facility in Romania. The shake-up comes two months after Chief Executive Guillaume Faury declared aerostructures, which includes the manufacturing of fuselage parts, to be "core". Once considered the less valuable end of the aerospace spectrum, aerostructures are considered vital to the aerodynamically complex, decarbonised designs of the future. REVERSING POWER8 The rethink draws a line under efforts to sell the whole of Stelia and PremiumAerotec - both carved out in 2009 as part of a restructuring plan called Power8. Initial sale hopes were dashed by the financial crisis and few buyers have emerged since. However, some industry sources noted Airbus had backed away from reviewing the Bremen plant in Germany, whose future has long been the subject of internal debate as it handles aircraft wing work overlapping with operations in Britain. Stelia and PremiumAerotec have combined sales of 3.6 billion euros and 15,000 staff. Bringing them back under direct Airbus control could result in significant costs and investment, Jefferies analyst Sandy Morris wrote. The new industrial blueprint, which coincides with a broader restructuring involving up to 15,000 core Airbus jobs triggered by the coronavirus pandemic, is subject to talks with unions. It will go into effect at the start of next year and its implementation will be a priority for the company's new operations chief, Alberto Gutierrez, who moved up from running the military aircraft business in a reshuffle last week. Discussions continue about manufacturing operations in Spain, which has been hard hit by the halt of production of the A380 superjumbo and a slump in demand for wide-body aircraft. Airbus commercial jetmaking is spread out across a dozen or more plants in France, Germany, Britain and Spain, with final assembly outposts in China and the United States. The company has traditionally been forced to accommodate political demands from its core European backers to protect manufacturing sites under deals dating back decades. But the coronavirus crisis has forced it to cut costs while giving it the opportunity to reorganize at a time when output is 40% slower than usual due to the drop in air travel demand. The shake-up appears to shy away from factory closures but leaves the door open to greater internal competition whenever Airbus launches future projects, industry sources said. Airbus and U.S. rival Boeing are increasingly locked in a battle over production strategy after a long sales boom. https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/airbus-shakes-aero-parts-manufacturing-162536038.html Etihad Airways to stop operating Boeing 777-300ER jets this year DUBAI (Reuters) - Abu Dhabi's Etihad Airways will no longer operate Boeing 777-300ER jets after this year, its chief executive said on Wednesday, as it accelerates planes to become a smaller airline. State-owned Etihad is targeting to return profit in 2023 as part of a five-year restructuring plan that it has accelerated during the pandemic that has crippled the air travel industry. "You will see of us a very focused, a very disciplined operating model which is heavily built around the fleet of the (Boeing) 787 Dreamliner and (Airbus) A350-1000," CEO Tony Douglas told the online World Aviation Festival. Etihad operates 19 777s, some of which it has recently converted to cargo flights in response to increased demand. It has 39 787 Dreamliners in its fleet and has taken delivery of 5 of 20 A350s it ordered. Douglas said it was too early to comment as to how the Boeing 777X jet, which it has ordered, would fit into its future fleet plans. Boeing expects the larger version of the 777 to start entering service by late 2023, three years later than initially planned. https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/etihad-airways-stop-operating-boeing-103950068.html NASA's Perseverance rover turns a tiny bit of Mars air into breathable oxygen Using an instrument called MOXIE, it produced about five grams of oxygen. While the ultimate goal of Perseverance is to look for signs of ancient life on Mars, that hasn't stopped the rover from doing other scientific work. On April 20th, Perseverance successfully pulled carbon dioxide from the planet's atmosphere and converted it into oxygen, NASA announced on Wednesday. Along with a family portrait of its robotic siblings, NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab fitted the rover with an instrument called the Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment or MOXIE for short. The toaster-sized tool allowed Perseverance to separate oxygen atoms from carbon dioxide molecules by heating the gas at approximately 1,470 degrees Fahrenheit and creating carbon monoxide as a byproduct. During the instrument's first test, it produced about five grams of oxygen or about enough to give a lone astronaut approximately 10 minutes of breathable air in their suit. According to NASA, the experiment's success paves the way for future missions, particularly those involving human astronauts as both people and the rockets that will carry them to and from the Red Planet need oxygen to operate. The way NASA puts it, a single rocket carrying four astronauts will need about 55,000 pounds of oxygen to get off the ground. It's not feasible to transport that much oxygen to Mars. That's where future versions of the technology can help make exploring the planet viable. The successful experiment follows another historic first for Perseverance and NASA. Earlier this week, the agency flew an aircraft on another planet when it completed the Ingenuity Mars helicopter's first test flight. Like MOXIE, Ingenuity is mainly a proof of concept, but it opens the door for future aircraft to explore the Red Planet. https://www.engadget.com/nasa-perseverance-moxie-experiment-210143050.html Manager, Internal Evaluation Program 1. Minimum Qualifications a. At least 3 years of auditing experience with a Part 121 airline, in either maintenance or flight operations b. At least 2 years of supervisory/managerial experience c. US citizen or have the legal right to accept employment in the United States d. Proficiency with Microsoft Office Suite e. Possess strong leadership, written, verbal and interpersonal skills f. Must be able to work with a variety of personalities and conduct professional interviews g. Ability to organize own work, while working under pressure to meet tight deadlines h. Must be detail oriented i. Ability to maintain professional conduct at all times j. Ability to maintain confidentiality k. Must be a self-starter 2. Preferred Qualifications a. Bachelor’s degree or higher in aviation or safety-related field b. FAA license, such as a Commercial Pilot’s License, an Airframe and Powerplant License (A&P), or Dispatcher license c. IOSA familiarity d. Safety Management System (SMS) familiarity e. Technical writing experience f. Knowledge and/or experience with Q-Pulse 3. Authorities a. Develop and maintain processes for the Internal Evaluation Program, approved by the Director of Safety, to include authoring procedures in airline manuals b. Develop and maintain an IEP auditor training curriculum, approved by the Director of Safety, ensuring auditors are trained and qualified to conduct IEP audits as assigned 4. Duties and Responsibilities a. Coordinate with the Director of Safety to establish and maintain an auditing schedule and required checklists b. Assign IEP audits to trained and qualified IEP auditors to ensure completion of all audits in a timely and accurate manner c. Supplement the conduct of scheduled audits d. Conduct Special Audits as assigned by the Director of Safety e. Ensure the IEP Auditor position is staffed by an appropriately qualified individual f. Conduct initial and recurrent auditor training g. Develop and manage audit and finding processes within the Q-Pulse system h. Assist operational departments regarding responses to audit outputs in Q-Pulse i. Assist in the development of processes for IEP-related SMS activity j. Facilitate completion of the Swift Air IOSA Conformance Report according to IOSA requirements k. Participate in FAA, IOSA, and DoD audits as requested by the Director of Safety l. Attend industry meetings as appropriate to maintain currency with industry best practices related to the Internal Evaluation Program 5. Reporting Chain a. The Manager, IEP reports directly to the Director of Safety APPLY to Safety Director at: ecates@flyiaero.com Curt Lewis