Flight Safety Information - May 2, 2024 No. 088 In This Issue : Incident: Finnair A333 over Canada on Apr 28th 2024, engine shut down in flight : Incident: Envoy E175 at Washington on May 1st 2024, bird strike causes flap fail : Incident: PAL DH8D at St. John's on May 1st 2024, overran runway on landing : Incident: Scoot B789 at Singapore on Apr 30th 2024, smell of smoke on board : Unruly Passenger Must Pay United Airlines $20,638 for Disrupting Flight : The Worrisome Death of a Second Boeing Airliner Quality Critic : Tel Aviv Flights Cancelled Until May 15 As Air India Prioritises Safety : Embry Riddle, FAA Align on Confronting Pilot Mental Health Following New Federal Recommendations : NetJets Announces The Purchase Of Over 200 Bombardier Business Jets : CALENDAR OF EVENTS Incident: Finnair A333 over Canada on Apr 28th 2024, engine shut down in flight A Finnair Airbus A330-300, registration OH-LTM performing flight AY-10 (dep Apr 27th) from Chicago O'Hare,IL (USA) to Helsinki (Finland) with 194 passengers and 12 crew, was enroute at FL350 about 450nm north of Montreal,QC (Canada) when the crew reported they had needed to shut the #1 engine (CF6, left hand) down. The aircraft drifted down to FL220 and turned southbound to divert to New York JFK,NY (USA), where the aircraft landed safely on runway 22L about 2:20 hours after leaving FL350. A listener on frequency reported the crew declared PAN PAN due to the failure of an engine. The airline reported the crew needed to shut the #2 engine (right hand) down following an engine failure. On May 1st 2024 the Canadian TSB reported the crew observed about 1.5 hours after departure the engine oil quantity for the #1 engine was dropping, engine oil pressure and temperature remained normal however. Some time later the crew observed the oil pressure began fluctuating and gradually decrease. Approximately one hour after noticing the decreasing oil quantity the crew received indication the oil pressure had decreased to 10psi, a message activated to shut the engine down. The crew shut the engine down and diverted to JFK, where the aircraft landed safely. Maintenance determined there had been an oil leak at a gasket starter seal. https://avherald.com/h?article=5180338b&opt=0 Incident: Envoy E175 at Washington on May 1st 2024, bird strike causes flap fail An Envoy Embraer ERJ-175 on behalf of American Airlines, registration N205NN performing flight AA-4168 from Washington National,DC to Key West,FL (USA) with 73 people on board, was climbing out of runway 01 when the crew upon contacting departure declared emergency reporting they had a bird strike on initial climb and they had a flaps failure. The aircraft stopped the climb at 5000 feet and diverted to Baltimore,MD where the aircraft landed safely on 33L about 45 minutes after departure. The FAA reported: "American Airlines Flight 4168 landed safely at Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport around 2 p.m. local time on Wednesday, May 1, after the crew reported a bird strike while departing from Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. The Embraer E170 was headed to Key West International Airport in Florida. The FAA is investigating." https://avherald.com/h?article=518191d8&opt=0 Incident: PAL DH8D at St. John's on May 1st 2024, overran runway on landing A PAL Provincial Airlines de Havilland Dash 8-400, registration C-GPNE performing flight PB-3072 from Halifax,NS to St. John's,NL (Canada), had aborted the approach to runway 10 and entered a hold due to weather before attempting another approach to runway 10 about 28 minutes later. The aircraft touched down on runway 10 at 15:09L (17:39Z) but overran the end of the runway by about 180 feet/55 meters. The runway needed to be closed. St. John's Airport reported a charter aircraft overshot the runway, the runway needed to be closed causing delays for other flights. https://avherald.com/h?article=51818fb5&opt=0 Incident: Scoot B789 at Singapore on Apr 30th 2024, smell of smoke on board A Scoot Boeing 787-9, registration 9V-OJD performing flight TR-280 from Singapore (Singapore) to Denpasar (Indonesia), was climbing out of Singapore when the crew stopped the climb at FL130 reporting the smell of smoke on board. The aircraft returned to Singapore for a safe landing on runway 02C about 25 minutes after departure. A passenger reported about 5 minutes after takeoff smoke became visible in the cabin and a strong odour of burning was observed. A replacement Boeing 787-8 registration 9V-OFK reached Denpasar with a delay of about 5 hours. The occurrence aircraft remained on the ground for about 8 hours. https://avherald.com/h?article=51818be3&opt=0 Unruly Passenger Must Pay United Airlines $20,638 for Disrupting Flight The man had been “verbally and physically aggressive” on a United flight from London to Newark, prompting the plane to land in Bangor, Maine, prosecutors said. A passenger who was yelling and became physically aggressive on a United Airlines flight from London to Newark in March, prompting the crew to divert the plane to Bangor, Maine, has been ordered to pay the airline $20,638 in restitution, federal prosecutors said. The passenger, Alexander Michael Dominic MacDonald, 30, of Chelmsford, England, was also sentenced on April 25 to time already served, prosecutors said. Mr. MacDonald had been in custody since March 1, when he was arrested after his flight landed at Bangor International Airport. He pleaded guilty on March 22 to one count of interfering with a flight crew, a felony punishable by up to 20 years in prison. “He apologized for his actions in court and looks forward to returning home to his family in England,” Mr. MacDonald’s lawyer, Matthew D. Morgan, said in an email on Tuesday. According to an F.B.I. affidavit, about 160 passengers and 10 crew members were aboard United Airlines Flight 883, which left Heathrow Airport near London on the morning of March 1 and was headed to Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey. Several hours into the flight, the purser, or lead flight attendant, heard Mr. MacDonald “arguing loudly” with his girlfriend and asked him to lower his voice, the affidavit says. He agreed to do so, but minutes later the purser found him yelling again, this time at another flight attendant, the affidavit says. The purser tried to calm Mr. MacDonald down but he “would not listen and continued to be verbally and physically aggressive,” according to the affidavit. Mr. MacDonald asked the purser if he wanted to “have a problem” and threatened to “mess up the plane,” the affidavit states. He also put his hands on the purser’s shoulders as he backed the purser into a corner, the document says. With the help of another passenger, the purser restrained Mr. MacDonald in flexible handcuffs, but he “continued to be noncompliant” and the purser determined that the plane needed to land “for the safety of the crew,” the affidavit states. The captain also believed that continuing to fly to Newark “was too great a risk,” the affidavit states. United Airlines said in a statement that the plane landed in Bangor so the “police could remove two disruptive customers who appeared to be intoxicated.” The statement did not identify those passengers but said they had both been banned from flying on United Airlines. After the passengers were removed from the plane, it continued on to Newark. The number of incidents involving unruly passengers on airplanes has dropped steadily since it reached record highs in 2021, when passengers returning to the skies amid the easing of coronavirus restrictions reported frequent and disruptive behavior, including many heated disputes over mask rules. In January 2021, the Federal Aviation Administration introduced a “zero-tolerance policy” regarding unruly passengers, resulting in hefty fines instead of the warning letters or counseling that were used previously. The agency said it had received 2,075 reports of unruly passengers last year, compared to 2,455 in 2022 and 5,973 in 2021. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/01/us/united-airlines-passenger-diverted-flight.html The Worrisome Death of a Second Boeing Airliner Quality Critic By: Christine Negroni Joshua Dean, a 45-year-old safety auditor at the plant assembling Boeing 737 Max fuselages, died unexpectedly in Wichita on April 30th. He was stricken with an illness that came on quickly and defied treatment. His lawyer, Brian Knowles, said until his hospitalization two weeks ago, Dean was in robust health. “He would take care of himself, go to the gym, do yoga, eat right, drink protein shakes,” Knowles told me, adding, “He had like four undergraduate degrees. He had considered at one time, going to medical school and was really smart.” A mechanical engineer, Dean worked in Wichita since 2019 for Spirit Aerosystems, a key Boeing subcontractor. His is the second death in as many months of an insider criticizing production quality on Boeing airliners. On March 9, 63-year-old John Barnett, who Knowles and attorney Robert Turkowitz also represented, was found dead in his pickup truck in the parking lot of a hotel in Charleston, South Carolina. Barnett had been shot and the local coroner said it appeared he’d killed himself though no official determination of the cause of death has been released. Barnett was in South Carolina for three days of depositions in a case he brought against Boeing in 2017. Like Dean, Barnett claimed he faced retaliation for raising safety concerns. Barnett, however, worked for Boeing directly at the 787 Dreamliner factory. “It’s an absolute tragedy when a whistle-blower ends up dying under strange circumstances. It should be of concern to everybody,” Turkowitz said of Dean’s death. “I would say it needs to be fully investigated like Barnett’s case needs to be fully investigated.” Neither attorney would speculate on the closely timed deaths of their clients. But a number of people, who claim they’ve witnessed unsafe and sometimes illegal practices at Boeing have reported being threatened, harassed, ridiculed, fired and yes, sickened. Gigi Prewitt reported manufacturing problems at the same Wichita factory where Dean worked but years earlier when Boeing still owned it in the late nineties. And while many years separate their claims, their cases are similar in notable ways.Both Prewitt and Dean said some tools used to fabricate parts and create aligned fastener holes were defective. Prewitt’s were those used for the 737 NG and Dean’s for producing the 737 Max. The accounts of both were verified. Both lost their jobs after pointing out safety issues. Prewitt claimed in a lawsuit later dismissed that she and others working with her were threatened with being shot and were mysteriously sickened with Stachybotrys also known as black mold. Her husband, Jerry said during the time the case was pending their life was like living in “a bad James Bond movie.” The family watchwords were “Be careful, these people aren’t playing,” according to Jerry. Gigi said telling the truth about what happened made her sound crazy. A decade after her case ended, Gigi is still what others might call inordinately security conscious a situation that is unlikely to subside following news of a second Boeing whistle-blower death. For Brian Knowles that should worry everyone who flies. “What we don’t want to happen is the deterrence of whistle-blowers. You know whistle-blowers play an important role in the safety of society. They bring to light issues that can protect society. Since the third 737 Max event on January 5th, the one in which a door came off an Alaska Airlines plane departing Portland, Oregon, Boeing’s commercial airline business has been the subject of intense attention, from the Federal Aviation Administration, the National Transportation Safety Board, Congressional investigations, the media and consumers. Optimists might argue there’s never been a better time for those with inside information about what’s really going on at Boeing to share what they know. Pessimists, (or are they realists?) can be excused if they disagree. https://christinenegroni.com/the-worrisome-death-of-a-second-boeing-airliner-quality-critic/ Tel Aviv Flights Cancelled Until May 15 As Air India Prioritises Safety Check for alternative flights or rebook with a one-time waiver as Air India extends the suspension of Tel Aviv-Delhi flights until May 15. Air India has announced an extension of its temporary suspension of flights between Delhi and Tel Aviv, Israel. Due to the current situation, all flights on this route will be postponed until May 15, 2024. Before the suspension, Air India operated four weekly flights between Delhi, India’s capital, and Tel Aviv, Israel’s financial and technological hub. Previously, Air India had suspended flights from April 14 to April 20, followed by another extension until April 30. Citing the evolving situation, the airline has extended the suspension for an additional two weeks, until May 15, 2024, to prioritise passenger and crew safety. Air India is offering a one-time waiver on cancellation and rescheduling charges for passengers with confirmed bookings on the Delhi-Tel Aviv route during the suspension period. Passengers can contact Air India’s 24/7 contact centre at 011-69329333/ 011-69329999 for assistance with cancellation or rescheduling their flights. Besides Air India, United Airlines has also extended the cancellation of flights to Israel till May 9, 2024. https://www.travelandleisureasia.com/in/news/tel-aviv-flights-cancelled-until-may-15-as-air-india-prioritises-safety/ Embry Riddle, FAA Align on Confronting Pilot Mental Health Following New Federal Recommendations Addressing mental health in the aviation industry is becoming more of a priority following newly released recommendations from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Embry Riddle Aeronautical University has openly tackled the issue of pilot and air traffic controller mental health, incorporating updated ways of confronting the issue into the university’s aviation education programs. Following a recent review of mental health policies, a committee of experts commissioned by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has also moved forward on the topic, releasing recommendations designed to increase public safety by allowing pilots and controllers to seek support and treatment without jeopardizing their jobs. “To advance aviation safety and save lives, we must debunk the notion that having the ‘right stuff’ means never asking for help,” Embry Riddle President P. Barry Butler, Ph.D., said in an editorial in early 2023, reporting that the university had “accelerated its ongoing efforts to place mental health issues front and center,” repeatedly encouraging student pilots “to seek help if they feel they need it.” Embry Riddle’s dean of the College of Aviation, Dr. Alan Stolzer, was among the experts on the committee commissioned late last year by the FAA to examine the obstacles preventing pilots and air traffic controllers from seeking mental health support and to make recommendations on how to mitigate those obstacles in order to reduce flight safety risks. “We ended up with 24 recommendations that were thoughtfully developed with the goal of modernizing the system and removing barriers to pilots and controllers seeking mental health care without compromising safety in the National Airspace System,” Stolzer said. “Safety was at the forefront of all our discussions and was considered inviolable.” The committee’s recommendations were released on April 1 and included establishing a “non-punitive” way for aviation professionals to disclose mental health conditions, making sure that FAA medical screening procedures are relevant to safety principles, expanding peer support programs and promoting mental health awareness. The FAA’s focus on the issue first intensified in 2015 after the co-pilot of a Germanwings flight, who had been previously treated for suicidal tendencies, commandeered a plane with 150 people aboard and flew it into a mountainside. More recently, in October of 2023, an off-duty pilot suffering a mental health crisis tried to shut down the engines of an Alaska Airlines flight. As Butler pointed out in his editorial, the work of pilots and air traffic controllers is not only stressful because they are protecting the lives of passengers. The long hours required in many such jobs can heighten stress levels. The FAA committee’s report cited a “widespread belief" in the aviation field that pilots and controllers “are, in effect, disadvantaged” if they follow current rules regarding disclosure of mental health problems. “A system that incentivizes people to remain silent will cause pilots/controllers to avoid seeking help, leading to unacceptable safety risks,” the report says. Although disclosing a mental health issue very rarely results in permanent grounding or removal of duties, according to the report, the process of being reinstated after a disqualification is perceived by pilots and controllers as “complicated, excessive and inconsistent with accepted protocols and treatment practices,” the report says. Specific reforms being recommended for adoption involve which treatments must be reported, reductions in the grounding time required for newly prescribed medications to stabilize and allowing performance measurements in the assessment of a pilot’s or controller’s fitness for duty. “If adopted, the recommendations would lead to substantive changes to current FAA mental health rules, such as eliminating the requirement to report seeing a therapist and reducing some of the more onerous requirements with respect to use of medications,” Stolzer said. “The [committee] is recommending several significant, risk-based reforms to aeromedical policy,” the report says, “with the recognition that treatment is the key benefit to the safety of the National Airspace System.” https://news.erau.edu/headlines/embry-riddle-faa-align-on-confronting-pilot-mental-health-following-new-federal-recommendations NetJets Announces The Purchase Of Over 200 Bombardier Business Jets SUMMARY • NetJets revealed as mystery buyer of twelve Bombardier Challenger 3500s in $6 billion deal. • CEO Eric Martel praises Challenger 3500's performance and reliability, aligning with NetJets' clients' needs. • Challenger 3500, with upgraded features, is a popular choice for super-midsize private jet market. On Wednesday, May 1, Bombardier officially revealed a recent buyer of twelve aircraft. The initial transaction occurred in December 2023 for twelve Challenger 3500 business jets. Bombardier revealed that the buyer was NetJets, one of the largest private jet charter companies in the world. NetJets is also owned and operated by Warren Buffet-owned Berkshire Hathaway. Mystery buyer As previously mentioned, an unknown customer purchased twelve aircraft from Bombardier last December. Specifically, this order was valued at $326.4 million at the time of the deal being signed. However, other options for aircraft can be exercised. This deal would allow for the purchase of 232 total Bombardier Challenger 3500s over time. This brings the value of the deal to over $6 billion. Initial deliveries of this deal are set to begin in the second half of 2025. The President and Chief Executive Officer of Bombardier, Éric Martel, released a statement, saying, "The Challenger 3500 jet continues to impress with its ultimate combination of refined cabin experience, proven reliability and top performance, perfectly aligning with the needs of NetJets’ discerning client base. We couldn’t be prouder to see the Challenger 3500 business jet join the NetJets’ fleet as we write the next chapter of our long-term collaboration." NetJets has frequently chosen this business jet family to fill the hole in the super-midsize private jet market. Currently, the company operates 88 total Challenger 350s, which are the predecessor of the Challenger 3500. NetJets also operates the Cessna Citation Longitude in the super-midsize private jet category. About the Bombardier Challenger 3500 This business jet initially began as the Bombardier Challenger 300. Bombardier first announced this super midsize business jet in the late 1990s. However, the aircraft was not introduced until January 2004. Over 450 Challenger 300s were produced, until the beginning of the upgraded Challenger 350. The Challenger 350 first entered service in June 2014. This upgraded aircraft added a brand-new interior that featured 20% taller cabin windows. It also added upgrades to its Honeywell HTF7350 turbofan engines which reduced its takeoff thrust and increased its reliability and durability. Bombardier also added winglets and strengthened the wing structure itself. Finally, Bombardier announced the Challenger 3500 in September 2021. This variant included mostly avionics upgrades, including new auto-throttles. It also added a refreshed cabin. This aircraft has the following specifications: Capacity Ten passengers Length 68 feet eight inches Height 20 feet Wingspan 69 feet Maximum takeoff weight (MTOW 40,600 pounds Range 3,400 nautical miles (3,912 miles) Top speed Mach 0.83 (637 miles per hour) Cruise speed Mach 0.80 (614 miles per hour) Ceiling 45,000 feet This aircraft has become an instant hit, especially with charter companies looking to fill its super midsize roles. Besides NetJets, other charter companies have placed orders for this jet. This includes Flexjet, VistaJet, and Airshare, per Private Jet Card Comparisons. https://simpleflying.com/netjets-purchases-200-bombardier-jets/ CALENDAR OF EVENTS • Blazetech - Aircraft Fire Hazards, Protection, and Investigation Course June 4 - 7, 2024 • (APTSC) Asia and Pacific Turboprop Safety Conference - June 26 - 27, 2024 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia • Airborne Public Safety Association, Inc. (APSCON 2024) - July 29 - August 3; Houston TX • Asia Pacific Airline Training Symposium - APATS 2024, 0-11 September, 2024, Singapore • Aircraft Cabin Air International Conference - 17 & 18 September - London • 2024 Ground Handling Safety Symposium (GHSS) - September 17-18, 2024 - Fort Worth, TX • 2024 ISASI - Lisbon, Portugal - September 30 to October 4, 2024 • International Congress of Aerospace Medicine ICAM 2024 in Lisbon, Portugal, 3 - 5 October 2024 • Aviation Health Conference back on Monday 7th and Tuesday 8th October 2024 • 2024 NBAA Business Aviation Convention & Exhibition - Oct. 22-24 (Vegas) Curt Lewis