Since the beginning of flying, aviation learns (often too late) from mistakes. There are some questions rising from the recent debacles at Haneda Airport of an Airbus A350-900 crashing into a Coast Guard aircraft and the Boeing 737-Max9 loosing a dummy door in-flight, that I find noteworthy to share. I will not mention the airlines, considering them victims.
Neither will pour blame over Boeing only again, at Haneda it was an Airbus raising questions. In my humble opinion, think the entire industry has an issue relating to “safety first” recently. And I am afraid, the “commercial focus” on the cost of safety hasn’t ended with the Boeing 737Max debacle with an amok running flight system driving two fully loaded aircraft into the ground just before the Pandemic.
Haneda (Airbus)
An Airbus A350-900 aircraft crashed into a small Japan Coast Guard Dash-8 aircraft at Tokyo Haneda airport, killing all people aboard the Dash-8. No fatalities aboard the Airbus A350-900. Which in hindsight is a miracle to many experts I heard talking the last days.
- Airbus Fire Sensors
“After the aircraft came to a stop the cockpit crew was not aware of any fire, however, flight attendants reported fire from the aircraft. The purser went to the cockpit and reported the fire and received instruction to evacuate. Evacuation thus began with the two front exits (left and right) closest to the cockpit. Of the other 6 emergency exits 5 were already in fire, only the left aft exit was still usable. The Intercom malfunctioned, communication from the aft aircraft with the cockpit was thus impossible. As result the aft flight attendants gave up receiving instructions from the cockpit and opened the emergency exit on their own initiative” (Source). Later information says there was a several minutes of delay because of missing or misinformation between cockpit and cabin. So why was the communication malfunctioning in that situation? Why were the pilots unaware? Even Haneda Tower should have informed them instantly of that danger! Why haven’t they? And … and why does the crew have to get approval from the flight deck to evacuate when the aircraft is burst into flames and mortal danger imminent? - Airbus Evac Procedures
Good thing first: The captain [reported only later] was the last one to leave the aircraft. 18 minutes after the aircraft came to a stop. (Source). Wait a minute … 18 Minutes??
Given he aircraft burned out and was on fire rather instantly after the collision, what the heck have those passengers been thinking or doing? I’ve seen my first flight attendant training back in 1989, the emergency training a major part of the training courses. The shouts, day and night in the training center echoing in my ears: “Move it, move it. Get out of my way!”. But 18 minutes? Especially with the issue of 5 out of 8 emergency exits blocked by fire when the purser went to the cockpit to get evac approval?! I believe both Boeing and the airline must have to review the procedures urgently.
Side note. I find it rather telling that there is a lot, a big lot of footage (images, video) of the A350-900, but virtually none of the smaller Dash-8 suffering all the fatalities. At least, I didn’t see or find any? A nice example of “biased news reporting”?
Portland (Boeing)
Above Portland, Oregon (USA), a Boeing 737-Max9 lost a “door plug” in-flight, by sheer luck, not causing any fatality. That this can end far more tragic is burned into my mind, remembering the Aloha Airlines 737 loosing its entire roof shortly after I’ve been there and flying Aloha. A flight attendant being ejected by the decompression. And given the picture, it makes one wonder on the miracle the entire aircraft didn’t break up. One of the many “near-misses” in my life to date. (Wikipedia)
Following the two fatal disasters of 2018+2019 forcing the lengthy grounding and near-bankruptcy of Boeing, the new accident now “naturally” raises the question about the quality of Boeing engineering. In my humble opinion, it does raise the question especially about their constant claim of “Safety First”! With subject matter experts claiming loose screws having caused the door to come apart. What was that about four-eye principle on aircraft construction and all major maintenance?
The door was later found in a teacher’s back yard in Portland Oregon. Just like a phone from the aircraft, the pieces “sailed down”, aerodynamically similar to a Frisbee and landed almost unharmed.
Added 08Feb24: According to preliminary media reporting, there were bolts not just not fastened but missing. Say what??
Is the 737 MAX safe?
Fact: I will neither voluntarily fly, nor allow my immediate family to fly a 737 Max anytime soon. In my humble opinion (IMHO), that aircraft has been misconstructed from the outset and should be shelved for good. It only flies and is approved IMHO for commercial reasons; if it’d be grounded for good, the losses for Boeing can very well proof fatal. To me, it seems the door plug again was a “quick and dirty” solution. On the other end, I won’t “actively” avoid the aircraft, flying was and remains the most secure transport in the world. Just that any incident instantly receives scrutinous media coverage. But yes, booking flights, I usually happen to look at details – and given the choice, avoiding the MAX will be a clear decision making factor for me.
The new incident brings up feedback that I got during the 2019 grounding media uproar. Questions why the “better” Boeing 757 was shelved. It didn’t have the low profile causing engineering complications as there wasn’t enough space under the 737’s wing. Which led to the fatal idea of MCAS, later being the cause for the two fatal crashes killing 346 people. And commercial reasons leading not only to base that on a single sensor (instead of the originally planned three), false readings causing the misinformation of MCAS causing the crashes. But also to the secret implementation not shared with the pilots to avoid potential demand for an “expensive” full type-rating as a new aircraft.
Conclusions
Flight Safety is back to “reactive”. But aircraft engineering must be proactively focused on flight safety! As must be processes, just like the evacuation of aircraft under grim circumstances! Ever since the beginning of flight safety with the Comet-disasters back in the 1950s, aviation “reacted” to disasters. A lesson we also learned with aircraft deicing.
I truly believe that flight safety ain’t a luxury. Just like “service” or “sustainability” being only identified as “cost factors” by finance-focused aviation managers. The recent “cases” are just more examples where things went awry and off track. There are enough cases, not just old, but rather recent, when airlines in distress started to save on the aircraft safety and maintenance. Usually reducing it to the rule-book, “encouraging” their maintenance staff to “look the other way” and to delay parts replacement in questionable situations. Or to have supervisors “sign off” as the additional pair of eyes but in fact reducing it to a single pair of eyes on the job! To safe cost.
Boeing engineers are well advised to return to spend a few more screws and bolts on securing a door plug and to demand four-eye-principle on their construction.
Airbus better finds out, what too so long to evacuate the aircraft.
All else is to be looked at when the incident reports come out. And media is well advised to not just jump the incident, but also report on the final findings. Not 1:1 copying the press release, but questioning them. I think that would be good for (shareholder-value-focused) “managers” to not stray from “Safety First”. As in the end, it’s a trust thing.
Food for Thought
Comments welcome…
Is your job “system relevant”? If you work in home office, I can tell you the answer is No. If you work in consulting, I can very likely tell you the answer being No. Working in aviation and transport, the answer very likely is No. And if your salary is above average, the answer also very likely is No.
My “intern” boss (again) taught me respect for everyone. The guy on the fork-lift, the cleaners, truck drivers and “secretaries” (yeah, we still had those). He taught us to set up the coffee when it was empty and not bother the secretaries. To clean up ourselves to make the cleaners’ jobs easier. To think beyond our petty box as “office workers” and value the hard work of the real workers. Also to question, but then also embrace the value of our work. IF we added value.
I recently attended a multi-week project by United Nations Climate Action on Circular Economy. And the need for lifecycle-assessment. But it was also mostly #talkthetalk and academic ideas. And I had several objectives that then led to my image about the panacea distraction.
In the first year of the pandemic, in the first wave in May, I voiced my expectation already of Corona 
The next big challenge is the look across borders and out of the “industry nations”. Over and again, news about vaccines that expired in the richer nations were met by the ones of i.e. African countries being delivered expiring vaccines or even ones that were not certified in the donor countries. At the same time, vaccines like the Russian Sputnik were still not “certified”. In turn, my own mother-in-law was denied entry into Europe as she got Sputnik, to visit to take care of my kids in my absence, while Yulia (my wife) works full time too.
“Principle Hope” and the Saint-Florian’s Principle dominate our industry: “Oh holy dear Saint Florian, don’t burn my house, take the neighbors one.”
Airports would be well advised to have processes in place to ensure #testingregime for the current and future infections., demanding and assuring the ability for pre-flight testing.
Reports I read fed hopes again about a summer recovery in Europe. A recovery now threatened by the new BA.5 variant spreading throughout Europe. And again, what is the airlines’ role in spreading those new variants so quickly across countries? And Lufthansa recently cancelled 600 flights (5%) for lack of staff. A main reason being the infection of their own. Mainly infected “at work”. What was that again about employee health protection? Naaaw, let’s not play it safe, let’s go back to old normal?
Speaking to airline and airport managers, they prioritize no “new normal” which they promoted in the beginning of the pandemic. But they focus to “renormalize” back to the old normal. Which bites them in the butt over and again. Demands are to lift mask and testing requirements. In an obvious ignorance of the pandemic development. In line with political developments, but not in line with the infection rates.
There can be reasons to fly an aircraft even empty.
Another would be to rotate the pilots to make sure they all keep their “type rating”, their license to fly the aircraft. Which also expires just too quickly. And while airlines now recognize the shortfall on pilots that they had either “laid off” (fired) and (or) didn’t support in keeping their type rating, the current feedback from pilots is that airlines still fail to have programs in place to rotate the pilots as good as they could to keep the type-ratings.
While the aviation industry and it’s Powers-That-Be (PTBs) argue that we must delay sustainable flight in face of the crisis, I am on a complete opposite belief. We must, but we failed, to take the crisis as a chance for overdue change. Instead of investing into sustainable fuels and developments, into optimizing the airspace, our PTB try to go back to old normal. Then finding reasons to delay the change further.
!["Our Obsession with technology will slow down the green transition.” [Lubomila Jordanova]](https://foodforthought.barthel.eu/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Jordanova-Lubomila-Techfocus-slows-down-green-transition.jpg)
In my humble opinion, most “impact investors” are greenwashers. It’s beyond cognitive dissonance when they focus their investments on “green tech” but in turn increase the energy demand instead of focusing on solutions that safe and conserve energy. Yes, I can sing not just a song but an entire opera about “green investors” that either look for max-profit under a green umbrella or they look for the next “tech unicorn”. It’s what I said before. If you want to invest into sustainability, pick your industry. Pick your “brown” company and invest into solutions that change that industry. Or. Look at energy consumers and how you can improve their energy consumption. Or replace them. And yes, any of your investments should target a reduction of energy consumption. Which can be, to provide the same service in demand, but having a clear strategy on your energy source.
And we talk about leveling the energy to a sustainable level. Use as much energy as you return. Like 
The war in the Ukraine will impact not just long-haul travel, like the reestablishing of the polar route avoiding Russian air space. And that we can not trust in “neutral air space” we learned when Belarus took down a civil aircraft from transit with the sole reason to jail a political opponent living in exile abroad.
While we have clear plans to become Carbon-Neutral in realistically in three to five years, you got to start. And an “impact investor” told me this week that we are too little innovative. Really?
There is a lot of buzz ongoing about Impact Investment in IT and AI. Whereas I just wrote about 
On the other side – and back to the topic of my previous article, 
A German investor this week told me: “There is too little change in what you’re doing.” That investor referred to either air taxi or hyperloop. Whereas I’ve often enough expressed my concerns about air traffic control taking individual mobility into the third dimension and into potential conflict with commercial (and military) aviation. Just thinking about the increasing drone-warnings disrupting airport operations the past year. That is a very long way to go.
Global CO2 emissions dropped by 7%, with 11% in Europe due to Corona. Especially aviation reduced due to the lockdown by 22% global, some regions by 30%. But those are expected to come back quickly (
People should take rail the politicos wrote. Yeah, I can see Merkel spending a day to travel from Berlin to Brussels. An interesting 
There are exceptionally good examples recently, like 
Though also notable, there is a bad misinterpretation that impact investment would mean low ROI. I think our business concept for Kolibri is looking at very competitive ROI at a residual risk below other investments. But it is so much easier to accuse impact investment to justify one owns look the other direction, right?
The “typical” aviation investment is aircraft funds. Whereas KPMG valued them at an average 4% return in 2019, look at all those assets now. Liabilities in most cases, because they had and have no USP. And even back in 2019, the big aircraft lessors being well established with the airlines made good returns, but many funds also underperformed or failed completely.
Recent developments and posts really bug me. Don’t the writers of those posts recognize the cognitive dissonance? Yes, we must think positive. But there is a clear distinction between thinking positive and whitewashing or daydreaming. We have a crisis at hand and the “positive signals” aren’t as “positive” as those posts try to make them look like. They look at the marketing messages on the surface but fail to look the slightest bit deeper.
Yes, as you can see in the archive of my 
I know, being a German and having taken residence with the family in Germany for the pandemic, I am somewhat biased on what happens here and especially Lufthansa. And that makes me puke. No, I can’t say that nicely.
I was kind of shocked this week, when German Tagesthemen, one of the main news channel mentioned already that this may not be the end, but just the beginning of an expensive further bail-out series for the airline and it’s many subsidiaries. But if they burned 5 billion in three months, how long can they sustain the drought before they burned up the added nine billion?!["We are Listening. And We're Not Blind. This is Your Life. This is Your Time!" [Snow Patrol - Calling in the Dark]](https://foodforthought.barthel.eu/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/CallingintheDark.jpg)
Reading the 
If you focus on shareholder value, human resources and only your own, personal profit, you end up in a deep, dark pit. Sometimes, like Boeing’s Muilenburg and others who have been on the Olymp, just for that much deeper a fall. Examples aplenty.
Corporate Social Responsibility starts with your immediate environment: Your own organisation!
Aside the example i used on the different approaches between 
It might be surprising to the bean counters (accountant-mindset “managers”) that all of our related “cost centers” turned out to be no just driving loyalty, but to be true profit centers and vital in our attempt to melt the cost factors to competitive levels. As a start-up, investing into all the company’s assets, you must be competitive against all those large, established companies like easyJet owning around 70% of their fleet, cost down to maintenance, with roughly 25% being paid off and around 5% being leased to cover ad hoc opportunities (like taking over Air Berlin routes). And while now being a “burden” in Corona times, airlines cannot drop out of leasing either, so the cost still is there. But those airlines can secure credits based on their (aircraft) assets. To develop profit centers that allow to cut down the cost to competitive levels such ain’t a mere strategy, but a vital need.
So let me quickly adjust Ged’s numbers.
Now comes Ged’s mistake, a rather common one, the “inside-out” look.
Which triggers the other issue. At the 
![“Our Heads Are Round so our Thoughts Can Change Direction” [Francis Picabia]](https://foodforthought.barthel.eu/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Picabia-Francis-Round-Heads.jpg)
What we will need is a serious, joint discussion about the future business model in aviation. At the moment there is no discussion. There’s the airlines, the airports and business models that cannot work. And we need to have the politicos and the usually government-controlled ATC (and border control, security, etc.), we have to have the ground handlers, the shops and all other players on the table. You can’t reconstruct all the small airports. We don’t need a fight. We got to work together for a sustainable business model. ERA, AAAE, IATA, ICAO, this is your call.
Looking at current structures in the industry, we have too many Chiefs and too little Indians. In fact, I know companies (i.e. consulting) having 10 Chiefs on a single Indian or less. Mostly secretaries, IT support and cleaning staff, often enough outsourced. And we pay the Indians badly and feed the Chiefs. Some figures in Germany make me afraid. In the last years, the numbers of people living of social security despite having a job increased year over year. Yes, they have work. But not enough to live from, they need state support to survive!
At the same time these highly paid managers reduced their personal risk in case of failure by insurances and contractual clauses. But imply that their mega-salaries are because of all the responsibility they have for the company and its employee and their well-being. Whereas the net income of their workers have in reality dropped many years as a result of inflation, tax and social security increases, etc. And not to forget by making “Leiharbeit”, subcontracting labor. That way, the history of working for a company throughout your lifetime became a myth, companies, no, not faceless companies, but company managers are no longer loyal to their workers. And not paying subcontracted labor a surplus for the job risk but paying them mostly even less than their own.
Another issue on salaries is “variables”. I truly believe a fair base salary and a fair results scheme are motivating. Unfortunately – and I hear that from a lot of friends – the “targets” set are unrealistic. Such you can rarely rely on them. The manager’s goal not being motivation, but cost savings, is also counter productive. Aside, it’s simple greed and also just aside, that’s a mortal sin.