Flight Safety Information - August 16, 2023 No. 158   In This Issue : Incident: Spirit A20N at Boston on Aug 14th 2023, runway incursion : Incident: China Eastern A332 near Wuhan on Aug 14th 2023, power bank began to smoke : Incident: LATAM B789 near Panama City on Aug 14th 2023, captain incapacitated : Incident: Delta A333 over Scotland on Aug 15th 2023, hydraulic failure : Boeing secrets in deadly 737 MAX crashes shield FAA ‘incompetence,’ critics say : Who wants to fly over Taliban-held Afghanistan? New FAA rules allow it, but planes largely avoid it : Fiji Airways takes delivery of new Airbus A350-900 aircraft : Dubai Aerospace Enterprise Buys 64 Boeing 737 MAX Orders From A Chinese Lessor : Air Force Pilots Have One Month to Extend Contracts for Up to $50,000 Per Year in Bonuses : USU researchers create jet fuel from juniper trees Incident: Spirit A20N at Boston on Aug 14th 2023, runway incursion A Spirit Airlines Airbus A320-200N, registration N923NK performing flight NK-1444 from Atlanta,GA to Boston,MA (USA), had landed on Boston's runway 22L and was taxiing towards the terminal being instructed to hold short of runway 22R. An American Airlines Boeing 737-800, registration N946AN performing flight AA-1457 from Boston,MA to Chicago O'Hare,IL (USA), had been cleared from takeoff from runway 22R when about a minute later tower cancelled their takeoff clearance and subsequently called Spirit Airlines NK-1444 instructing them to expedite their runway crossing of runway 22R and apologized to American mentioning "that Spirit". The FAA reported the controller cancelled takeoff clearance as precaution after the Spirit Airlines had come too close to the hold short line. The American Boeing returned to the apron and was able to depart again about 2:10 hours later reaching Chicago with a delay of 3 hours. https://www.avherald.com/h?article=50d1a2f4&opt=0 Incident: China Eastern A332 near Wuhan on Aug 14th 2023, power bank began to smoke A China Eastern Airlines Airbus A330-200, registration B-5930 performing flight MU-6958 from Lhasa to Shanghai Pudong (China), was enroute at 10,700 meters (about FL351) about 130nm west of Wuhan (China) when the crew decided to divert to Wuhan reporting a passenger's power bank had started to emit smoke having fallen between seats and being crushed. Cabin crew disassembled the first class seats, recovered the device, cooled it and put it into a secure container. The aircraft landed safely in Wuhan about 23 minutes later. The occurrence aircraft remained on the ground in Wuhan for about 17 hours, then positioned to Shanghai and resumed service. https://www.avherald.com/h?article=50d128ed&opt=0 Incident: LATAM B789 near Panama City on Aug 14th 2023, captain incapacitated A LATAM Boeing 787-9, registration CC-BGI performing flight LA-505 from Miami,FL (USA) to Santiago de Chile (Chile), was enroute at FL370 about 120nm north of Panama City (Panama) when the aircraft set course to divert to Panama City reporting one of the captain's on board had been incapacitated. The aircraft landed safely on Panama City's runway 03L about 28 minutes later. The captain was pronounced dead upon arrival. The aircraft is still on the ground in Panama City about 12 hours after landing. Passengers reported they were dropped off in Panama City with no LATAM staff around and left without information, apparently the captain had died. The Aviation Herald learned that one of the captains on board had become incapacitated in flight and was pronounced dead upon arrival. https://www.avherald.com/h?article=50d125d6&opt=0 Incident: Delta A333 over Scotland on Aug 15th 2023, hydraulic failure A Delta Airlines Airbus A330-300, registration N815NW performing flight DL-179 from Amsterdam (Netherlands) to Portland,OR (USA), was enroute at FL340 about 200nm northnorthwest of Edinburgh,SC (UK) when the crew decided to turn around and return to Amsterdam. The aircraft descended to FL330 for the return. Descending towards Amsterdam over the North Sea approach assigned runway 18R, the crew declared emergency at that point and requested runway 27 advising they had a hydraulics failure and needed the ILS approach for an autoland. The aircraft landed on runway 27 about 90 minutes after turning around. The aircraft is still on the ground in Amsterdam about 7 hours after landing back. https://www.avherald.com/h?article=50d134e1&opt=0 Boeing secrets in deadly 737 MAX crashes shield FAA ‘incompetence,’ critics say A US Court of Appeals ruled in June that documents with discourse between Boeing and FAA over MCAS flight control software used in 737 MAX planes should remain private. The MCAS was upgraded after two fatal crashes killing 346 people nearly five years ago. Airline safety continues to trouble the flying public, stemming lately from a court decision in June that keeps secret what Boeing told the FAA concerning fixes to MCAS flight control software after two fatal 737 MAX crashes killed 346 people nearly five years ago. “The court decision endorsing FAA/Boeing secrecy in safety regulation of the 737 MAX clearly harms air safety,” said Paul Hudson, president of FlyersRight.org, via email on Tuesday to Fierce Electronics. “Boeing and the FAA are now immune from review by outside independent safety experts, can shield negligence, incompetence, conflicts and undue influence in safety decision making.” Gregory Travis, an unpaid expert for FlyersRights.org, and also a pilot and retired software entrepreneur, has long questioned MCAS and its subsequent upgrades and said the FAA or Boeing need to explain what would happen to a 737 MAX plane in flight if the current MCAS system were to fail. “We don’t even know what the pilot should do if the red light turns on that says MCAS is not operating,” he said in an interview with Fierce. “Can we even trust government to keep us safe?” After losing an appeal June 30 in the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to seek communications between the FAA and Boeing over recertification of 737 MAX planes, FlyersRights.org has stepped up its pressure on the FAA. The organization asked in an August 10 letter shared with Fierce to meet with FAA technical experts because multiple independent technical safety experts “publicly expressed concerns with the 737 MAX and have technical questions that only the FAA is positioned to answer.” The FAA said Tuesday it does not comment on litigation and did not respond to the latest FlyersRights.org request for a technical meeting. Instead, the FAA referred Fierce to its extensive work to reverse the grounding of the 737 MAX. and a 92-page preliminary summary of its findings in 2020. Despite the FlyersRights concerns, the FAA, Boeing and many pilots deem the 737 MAX safe to fly and many airlines have the plane in service. “I can say categorically that the 737 MAX product is safe,” then-acting FAA administrator Bill Nolen told members of the US Senate Commerce Committee in March. However, US Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Washington, asked the FAA for transparency in oversight of aircraft manufacturers and their suppliers. “For us, it’s making in the certification process…that another MCAS isn’t projected as a part of the system and people don’t understand it,” she said at the time. Boeing did not respond to a request for comment regarding the recent court decision but has repeatedly defended its upgrades to MCAS in the past. In addition to concerns about the 737 MAX, FlyersRights.org has also complained as recently as August 10 in separate letters to the FAA with concerns about flight delays and cancellations, air traffic control personnel shortages, passenger seat sizes and near misses at US airports. Court of Appeals decision In its Court of Appeals decision on June 30 (case number 21-5257), three appeals judges affirmed a lower court decision preventing the Flyers Rights Education Fund from access to documents used by the FAA in recertifying 737 MAX planes. The court affirmed that FOIA access to documents is exempted by Congress if the information is “trade secrets and commercial or financial information obtained from a person and privileged or confidential.” The FAA had earlier found 100 documents related to the FOIA request but withheld or redacted most based on the congressional exemption. The June 30 ruling upholds that decision, keeping the information secret. In 2021, Boeing entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with the Justice Department, winning immunity from criminal prosecution as part of a $2.5 billion payment to settle a 737 MAX fraud conspiracy charge related to the plane’s flawed design. Of that total, Boeing paid a $243 million fine, compensation to airlines of $1.77 billion (related to when planes were grounded for 20 months) and $500 million to crash victims. Boeing also paid $200 million to settle civil charges by the US SEC that it misled investors about the safety of the 737 MAX. Families of victims of the crash sought to reopen or reject the 2021 deferred presecution agreement but in February, a US judge in Texas denied their claim, saying he did not have legal authority in the case despite Boeing’s “egregious criminal conduct.” US Judge Reed O’Connor said the victims of the crashes in 2018 and 2019 were legally “crime victims” subject to Boeing’s criminal conspiracy and said Congress had failed to vest the courts with more authority to take action. Travis, the software expert for FlyersRights has repeatedly questioned how MCAS could ever have been implemented, once calling it “unfathomably incompetent.” MCAS (Manuevering Characteristics Augmentation System) was implicated in causing the two planes to nosedive, causing the deadly crashes, even as pilots made manual attempts to stop the dives. MCAS was intended at design to automatically correct the MAX from climbing into a stall, which experts had predicted could happen under MAX’s design with larger engines mounted on an original 737 fuselage, but moved higher and more forward due to engine size. The software was written to detect the angle of attack in an unsafe climb from a single sensor, but should have been written to detect more than one angle-of-attack sensor to call for a reduction in altitude. Angle-of-attack sensors are unreliable because they can be knocked offline when hit by birds or subjected to rough weather, Travis said. Boeing did upgrade MCAS after the planes were grounded to require inputs from two angle-of-attack sensors. Still, Travis is seeking more information, now kept secret, including how pilots would respond should MCAS not operate properly. Bigger picture The June 30 appeals court decision “goes well beyond the FAA and air safety,” Hudson said. “In my view, it guts FOIA and negates its whole purpose to make government agency decisionmaking transparent and decision makers accountable…Under this decision all federal agencies and their regulated parties can now keep secret the details of their decisionmaking as well as all relevant information submitted to an agency, as well as the identify of their regulatory personnel.” Government oversight of various regulated industries is called into question by the court’s ruling-- everything from food to pharmaceuticals to coal mines, Travis said. Hudson believes congressional action is needed to reverse the court decision to restore FOIA and require mandatory disclosure of basic information in air safety decisions including flight test protocols and flight test results for the 2020 recertification and ungrounding of the MAX after two deadly crashes. He said there have been “many safety incidents” with the plane since 2020. Two such incident with the 737 MAX were presented to the Senate Commerce Committee in March. Travis called the court’s decision “ridiculous,” partly because citizens and FlyersRights is not asking for trade secrets. Congress created FOIA, which took effect in 1967, but no one at the time foresaw that the exemptions from disclosures would cover rules written by the manufacturers themselves, he said. “Much of what the FAA regulates are written by the industry itself,” he noted. “The FAA is essentially acting as Boeing’s attorney and indemnifying it against claims.” The FAA seems to be protecting Boeing from mistakes it made and not trade secrets, Travis argued. He said he understands that companies would not be open to regulation at all if they thought their comments would be made public, but called for a middle ground with greater protections for the flying public. “I’m not at all a government-is-bad libertarian,” he added. “I don’t mean to erode trust in government. But we have a culture that seems to be careening into unaccountability, especially by people powerful and connected. The rest of us wear our seat belts, but the bigger the crime, the less accountability there is.” https://www.fierceelectronics.com/electronics/boeing-secrets-over-deadly-737-max-crashes-shield-faa-incompetence-critics-say Who wants to fly over Taliban-held Afghanistan? New FAA rules allow it, but planes largely avoid it DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Two years after the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, the United States has begun easing rules that could allow commercial airlines to fly over the country in routes that cut time and fuel consumption for East-West travel. But those shortened flight routes for India and Southeast Asia raise questions never answered during the Taliban’s previous rule from the 1990s to the months after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. How, if at all, do you deal with the Taliban as they block women from schools and jobs, and engage in behavior described by United Nations experts as potentially akin to “gender apartheid?” Can airlines manage the risk of flying in uncontrolled airspace over a country where an estimated 4,500 shoulder-launched anti-aircraft weapons still lurk? And what happens if you have an emergency and need to land suddenly? Who wants to fly over such a country? The OPSGroup, an organization for the aviation industry, recently offered a simple answer: “No one!” “There’s no ATC service across the entire country, there’s a seemingly endless list of surface-to-air weaponry they might start shooting at you if you fly too low, and if you have to divert then good luck with the Taliban,” the group wrote in an advisory, using an acronym for air traffic control. Still, the possibility of overflights resuming would have a major impact on carriers. Though landlocked, Afghanistan’s position in central Asia means it sits along the most direct routes for those traveling from India to Europe and America. After the Taliban takeover of Kabul on Aug. 15, 2021, civil aviation simply stopped, as ground controllers no longer managed the airspace. Fears about anti-aircraft fire, particularly after the 2014 shootdown of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 over Ukraine, saw authorities around the world order their commercial airliners out. In the time since, airlines largely curve around Afghanistan’s borders. Flights rush through Afghan airspace for only a few minutes while over the sparsely populated Wakhan Corridor, a narrow panhandle that juts out of the east of the country between Tajikistan and Pakistan, before continuing on their way. But those diversions add more time to flights — which mean the aircraft burns more jet fuel, a major expense for any carrier. That’s why a decision in late July by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration caught the industry’s eye when it announced flights above 32,000 feet (9,750 meters) “may resume due to diminished risks to U.S. civil aviation operations at those altitudes.” The FAA, which oversees rules for America-based airlines, referred questions about what fueled the decision to the State Department. The State Department did not respond to requests for comment. However, a State Department envoy has met multiple times with Taliban officials since the U.S. and NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan. Taliban officials likewise did not respond to repeated requests for comment from The Associated Press over the lifting of the restrictions. For now, outside of Afghan and Iranian carriers, it does not appear that any airline is taking chances over the country. Part of that comes from the risk of militant fire, as Afghanistan has been awash in aircraft-targeting missiles since the CIA armed mujahedeen fighters to fight the Soviet Union in the 1980s. Afghanistan also may still have Soviet-era KS-19 anti-aircraft guns, said Dylan Lee Lehrke, an analyst at the open-source intelligence firm Janes. The FAA says it believes flights at or above 32,000 feet remain out of reach of those weapons, even if fired from a mountain top. United Airlines runs a direct flight to New Delhi from Newark, New Jersey, that uses the Wakhan Corridor and could be shortened by an overflight. “In accordance with current FAA rules, United operates Newark to New Delhi flights over a small section of Afghanistan where air traffic control is provided by other countries,” United spokesman Josh Freed told the AP.“ We do not plan to expand our use of Afghan airspace at this time.” Virgin Atlantic flies over the corridor for its New Delhi flights as well. The United Kingdom has yet to change its guidance telling carriers to stay out of nearly all of Afghan airspace. Virgin Atlantic said it makes “ongoing dynamic assessments of flight routings based on the latest situation reports and always following the strict advice set out by the U.K.” American Airlines and Air India also use the Wakhan Corridor route. Those carriers did not respond to requests for comment. Despite the lack of interest now, airlines in the past used the route heavily. A November 2014 report from the International Civil Aviation Organization noted that from near-zero flights in 2002, overflights grew to over 100,000 annually some 12 years later. Before the Taliban takeover, the government charged each flight $700 in fees for flying over the country — which could be a significant sum of cash as Afghanistan remains mired in an economic crisis. And there is precedence for collecting overflight fees and holding them. After the 2001 U.S.-led invasion, authorities ended up releasing some $20 million in frozen overflight fees to Afghanistan’s fledging government. In the Taliban’s telling, however, they already are profiting from the limited overflights they see. Private Afghan television broadcaster Tolo quoted Imamuddin Ahmadi, a spokesman for the Transportation and Aviation Authority Ministry, as saying that Afghanistan had earned more than $8.4 million from overflight fees in the last four months. “Any flight which is crossing Afghan airspace should pay $700,” Ahmadi said. “As the flights increase, it benefits Afghanistan.” The ministry also said it received the money from the International Air Transport Association, a trade association of the world’s airlines. However, IATA told the AP in a statement that its contract with Afghanistan to collect overflight fees “has been suspended since September 2021” to comply with international sanctions on the Taliban. “No payments have been made since that date,” it said. https://apnews.com/article/afghanistan-taliban-commercial-airlines-overflights-52529d5cc94996b8763396d40ecf5b29 Fiji Airways takes delivery of new Airbus A350-900 aircraft Fiji Airways has taken delivery of its newest Airbus A350-900XWB (A350) as part of a journey to modernize the national flag carrier’s fleet. The airline announced on August 15, 2023, that the plane would be named the ‘Island of Beqa’. The brand new aircraft is the third A350 to join the Fiji Airways fleet. The airline’s managing director and CEO, Andre Viljoen, said that one of the “Game Changer” strategies that the carrier has relentlessly pursued since 2017, has been the modernization of its aircraft with ‘new generation’ planes such as the Airbus A350. “The A350 with its superior cabin, significant fuel savings and substantial cargo capacity has fast become the pride of our airline and the joy of our passengers. The Island of Beqa is brand new having been put into storage immediately after manufacturing. We were able to negotiate a lucrative deal to acquire it,” Viljoen said. He added: “It combines the very latest aerodynamics, new generation engines and use of lightweight materials, to bring a 25% advantage in fuel burn, carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and operating costs compared to previous generation aircraft.” The airline hopes that the new acquisition will help the carrier to reach new destinations it has not flown to before. “Fiji Airways brings in 70 percent of all visitors to Fiji. We are crucial to the long-term sustainable growth of the tourism industry which is 45%of our GDP and the largest employer in the country. As the National Airline we recognize our role is not just to be the bridge to and from the world but to support the growth of tourism, one of the ways we can do this is by introducing new destinations with potential for high tourism opportunities,” Viljoen explained. The A350 XWBs will allow Fiji Airways to fly much deeper into the United States (US) or Canada. Other destinations being considered include Dallas, Seattle, Beijing, Shanghai, Seoul and also Noumea, Wallis, Rarotonga, Port Moresby, and several additional destinations in Australia. “The Island of Beqa will add more capacity to our leading source markets of Australia and New Zealand, North American long-haul flights to San Francisco and Vancouver, as well as Hong Kong which is our current gateway to China,” Viljoen added. https://www.aerotime.aero/articles/fiji-airways-airbus-aircraft Dubai Aerospace Enterprise Buys 64 Boeing 737 MAX Orders From A Chinese Lessor The deal includes multiple models of the 737 MAX family and will contribute to the sustainable development of DAE's fleet. SUMMARY • Dubai Aerospace Enterprise (DAE) has procured 64 Boeing 737 MAX aircraft from China Aircraft Leasing Group. • Deliveries are set to take place between 2023 and 2026. • Various types of 737 MAX are included in the deal. Dubai Aerospace Enterprise (DAE), a prominent global company providing aviation services and leasing solutions, has recently entered into an agreement to procure a total of 64 Boeing 737 MAX aircraft. This significant development was made public on August 14th, 2023. DAE revealed that one of its affiliated entities had finalized a binding arrangement to secure the rights, stakes, and responsibilities associated with a selection of 64 Boeing 737 MAX airplanes. These aircraft were previously owned by a wholly-owned subsidiary of China Aircraft Leasing Group Holdings Limited (CALC). The acquired portfolio encompasses various models, including the 737 MAX 8s, 737 MAX 9s, and 737 MAX 10 aircraft. It's worth noting that the certification process for the 737 MAX 10 is still pending. The scheduled aircraft delivery is set to take place between 2023 and 2026. However, the precise details of the transaction's terms were not revealed. Both DAE and CALC are happy with the deal DAE hasn't had the easiest time in recent months, being required to write down almost $600 million worth of jets that were leased to Russian airlines. Nevertheless, its eyes are firmly on the future, and these new aircraft acquisitions are seen as key to developing a robust fleet ready for leasing. DAE reached the milestone of 500 aircraft owned, managed, committed, and mandated-to-manage. These include Airbus, ATR and Boeing, and make for a fleet size of more than $16 billion. Reflecting on today's announcement, DAE's CEO, Firoz Tarapore, said, "Since inception and including this transaction, DAE has acquired and is committed to acquire approximately 500 Boeing aircraft. We look forward to further growing this relationship in the coming years. Approximately 20% of the acquired portfolio is on lease to airline clients who are also existing clients of DAE, and we look forward to expanding our relationship with them. The remainder of the acquired portfolio of assets will be placed directly by DAE in the coming quarters." CALC also verified the agreement through its own official statement, highlighting that the company had engaged in a "Novation Agreement" with DAE. As of December 31st, 2022, CALC had a total of 27 Boeing aircraft within its owned and managed fleet. Earlier in 2023, CALC successfully accomplished its inaugural 737-800 cargo conversion project. Furthermore, in June 2023, the company received its initial Boeing 737 MAX 8 delivery from Boeing. In a pro forma analysis, the described transaction is poised to boost the share of modern, fuel-efficient aircraft within the owned fleet to approximately 66%, marking a significant rise from the current 50%. This development serves to enhance the predictability of the growth trajectory. The deal will enlarge the collective fleet, including owned, managed, committed, and those under management mandate, to approximately 550 aircraft. The overall valuation of this expanded fleet is estimated to be around US$20 billion, as detailed by Tarapore. https://simpleflying.com/dubai-aerospace-enterprise-buys-boeing-737-max-orders/ Air Force Pilots Have One Month to Extend Contracts for Up to $50,000 Per Year in Bonuses Air Force officials are allowing certain pilots to join a new test program that could offer up to $50,000 in bonus money per year if aviators sign extensions to their contracts. The new program, called the Fiscal Year 2023 Rated Officer Retention Demonstration Program, is open from Aug. 15 to Sept. 15 of this year, and will allow pilots whose contracts expire in fiscal 2024 or 2025 to sign an extension for up to $50,000 a year, depending on the length of the contract. "Retaining our experienced aviators is key to succeeding in a warfighting environment," Brig. Gen. Kirsten Aguilar, the Air Force's Force Management Policy director, said in a Tuesday press release. "The demo program helps posture the Air Force to reliably retain aviators to meet current and future operational requirements." The National Defense Authorization Act signed into law by President Joe Biden in December directed the Air Force secretary to enact "a demonstration program to assess and improve the retention of certain officers," according to the bill text. The program allows active-duty manned pilots -- with no more than three years, but not less than one year, remaining -- to sign a contract for the maximum monetary amount one to two fiscal years prior to the fiscal year their Undergraduate Flying Training Active-Duty Service Commitment expires, according to the Air Force. If the program is successful, the Air Force may keep offering the bonus "with higher funding allocation requests in future years to expand offerings to a broader rated field and/or for an extended period," according to the release. The Air Force's issue with pilot recruitment, training and retention is not new. For nearly a decade, the service has landed anywhere between 1,500 to 2,000 aviators shy of requirements yearly, Military.com has previously reported. The new bonus also comes as the Air Force, as a whole, struggles with its toughest recruiting environment in decades. This past March, Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall announced at the Air & Space Forces Association's conference in Colorado that the service is projecting about a 10% shortfall in active-duty numbers, and the hole will likely be even larger for the Guard and reserve. Air Force officials said pilots who qualify under the new program should act fast. Starting next fiscal year, the highest bonus amounts will be reserved only for aviators who sign a contract three fiscal years prior to the end of their service commitment. "The monetary amounts will be tiered thereafter. In FY23, airmen should sign up early to receive the highest valued contracts," the Air Force said in a press release. This new program comes on the heels of another Air Force initiative aimed at retaining pilots. In June, it was announced that certain pilots -- including remote piloted aircraft pilots, air battle managers and combat systems officers -- could apply for the Legacy Aviation Bonus Program through Sept. 15. Major changes to the program include "an increase in the monetary cap from $35,000 per year up to $50,000 per year" for those who are eligible, the service said in a press release. To be eligible under the new Legacy Aviation Bonus Program, pilots must have an Undergraduate Flying Training Active-Duty Service Commitment expiring in fiscal 2023 or earlier, according to the press release. Pilots who already have a contract under a previous aviation bonus program are not eligible to renegotiate for a higher amount, according to the news release. https://www.military.com/daily-news/2023/08/15/air-force-pilots-have-one-month-extend-contracts-50000-year-bonuses.html USU researchers create jet fuel from juniper trees LOGAN, Utah — Researchers at Utah State University believe they’ve come up with a clean-burning jet fuel made from juniper trees. They are now trying to get the bio-fuel into the marketplace. While it’s designed as jet fuel, researchers say it can be fractioned out to work in boats and even cars. It was created at Utah State University’s Innovation Campus. Doctor Foster Agblevor started working on this idea ten years ago, knowing that Utah has a plentiful supply of the invasive juniper tree. They grind down the wood into a sawdust-like material and further process it down to a sort of a crude oil type product before turning it into fuel. “The other big advantage of using the biomass is that biomass doesn’t contain sulfur. The sulfur content is so minuscule that you don’t have to worry about it,” Agblevor said. Utah State University's Innovation Laboratory The juniper tree jet fuel was developed at the Utah State University Innovation Campus. (KSL TV) He said the fuel can be produced from other wood products too, even leftover materials from sawmills making it possible to produce it virtually anywhere. Agblevor added, “Look at this a positive way and how we can use it to create – solve the problem so Utah becomes part of the solution. Creating the biofuel does leave behind a black sand-like byproduct that Agblevor said can also be used to help fertilize soil. Now the researchers are searching for an investor willing to help mass produce the fuel and get it into the market. Labs like the one here at the innovations campus are aimed at developing new products with the idea that they can eventually be used to improve our everyday lives. Making energy more efficient is something Utah universities have been working on. The USU Innovation Lab also invented a faster and smaller charger for electric vehicles. The University of Utah recently made an agreement to work with the Idaho National Laboratory to advance the nation’s energy and security technology. The Idaho National Laboratory is one of the leading centers for energy research and development, including biofuels and electric vehicles. https://ksltv.com/577507/usu-researchers-create-jet-fuel-from-juniper-trees/ Curt Lewis