Intelligence: News

The Technical Services division of DRS Technologies had a ribbon cutting ceremony this past spring, opening a new facility in Elizabeth City, North Carolina. DRS invested in a hangar collocated with an established Coast Guard facility at that airport, and is reporting that the culture and ambience created is benefiting both their company and the Coast Guard. "It’s our facility but we are so close to the Coast Guard. We do certification checks, maintenance systems checks. We have the room and facilities to do major structural repair and overhauls," said Sandeep Kaul, vice president, business development and technology.

The hangar is large enough to hold four C-130s nose to tail, and employees "upwards of 300 people," according to Kaul. But the company is also eager expand there and take on more work. "Any C-130 operators would be potential clients, the Department of Homeland Security, the United States Air Force, etc." The DRS facility can perform center wing box work, structural modifications, flight line enhancements, avionics installations and engine overhauls. "The gamut," Kaul said.

DRS has been associated with the maintenance of Coast Guard aircraft for 16 years. According to Kaul, "Our partnership with the Coast Guard was in play while the facility was being built. We cycle all C-130H and J models, the newest in the fleet, through there. Our client is also benefiting from substantially reduced repair time and turn-around time."

DRS sees the relationship as a new business model and the company is looking to build more public/private partnerships of this nature. "The U.S. government is realizing there are many ways to skin a cat. The way the industry is responding to this facility and partnership is a good example," said Kaul.

New FAA Rule Boosts Aircraft Wiring Safety

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has finalized a new rule designed to mitigate conditions that put airliners at risk for wire failures, smoke and fire.

The final rule greatly enhances the safety requirements for design, installation and maintenance of electrical wiring in new and existing airplane designs. It moves existing rules on wiring into a single section of the regulations, and adds new certification standards to address wire degradation and inadequate design or maintenance.

"We’ve gained enormous knowledge about aircraft wiring issues over the last decade," said Nicholas A. Sabatini, FAA associate administrator for aviation safety. "With this rule, we are ensuring that wiring systems will be properly designed, installed and maintained over the life of the airplane."

Under the rule, manufacturers must complete FAA-approved instructions for new wiring-related maintenance and inspection tasks within 24 months of the effective date for existing airplanes. U.S.-scheduled air carriers and foreign airlines operating U.S.-registered aircraft must develop maintenance and inspection programs for wiring based on the manufacturers’ instructions within 39 months of the effective date, and update those programs as needed for subsequent aircraft modifications.

This final rule is a result of recommendations made by industry groups working with the FAA and international authorities. The new maintenance requirements apply to aircraft carrying more than 30 passengers or having a maximum payload of 7,500 pounds or more. The estimated total cost of this final rule is $416 million ($233 million present value) over 25 years.

"The surprise issue is that maintenance was causing damage to the wiring bundles," said Les Dorr, a spokesman for the FAA. The rule requires greater coordination between manufacturers and carriers in developing maintenance procedures. The rule is part of a broader FAA effort to improve the safety of aircraft systems, including wiring. The program looked at how connectors, wiring harnesses and cables were installed and how they degraded during an aircraft’s service.

The entire rule can be viewed at: http://www.faa.gov/regulations_policies/rulemaking/recently_published/.

Europeans Give Thumbs-up to HFT in MRO

One year from the date when human factors training in maintenance and overhaul became a mandatory requirement in Europe according to EASA regulations, airlines, MRO companies and training establishments agree that this extra "module" in the training syllabus really is beneficial. While many will maintain that they have been practicing HFT or something like it for years, September 28, 2006 will be recorded in the annals as the date when the European Aviation Safety Agency wrote the requirement into law. But far from being exercised because of additional costs or any greater workload, European companies prove to be strongly in favor of the concept and its evident rewards, according to Aviation Maintenance inquiries.

"We’ve been practicing it for years and it’s now embedded in our training culture," said Colin Brown quality manager for training and support at British Airways. "Human factors training is a part of the training syllabus and we don’t find it burdensome. The rewards are very difficult to quantify but it certainly does give value. Anyone that delivers an HF training program is going to gain satisfaction from the fact that they are fulfilling a function that’s needed. It doesn’t matter what a person might do, if he doesn’t take into account his state of mind or his state of health for example, he is not going to perform as well as when he does, and I would say therefore yes, absolutely and categorically there are benefits to be realized from HF training."

British Airways is one of the major European carriers that performs its own maintenance and support for its fleet of 240 aircraft and performs third-party work also. Brown noted that the airline had introduced its own maintenance error investigation procedures at the same time as the HF regulations were coming in but this was a separate system and specific to BA.

Jim McKenna, chief surveyor of the U.K. Civil Aviation Authority, recalled the thinking behind the case for human factors training in MRO and its realization of general adoption. "It grew out of JAR 145, Part 66 and had been discussed for some years," he told Aviation Maintenance. "It had been said that aircraft standing about when not flying cost a lot of money and commercial pressures could drive shortcuts towards getting them into the air. This was one of many reasons why HFT was eventually regarded as a good thing and was introduced in refined form initially in September 2005. Companies were given a year’s grace towards positive introduction, which helped them prepare for the legal date of September 28, 2006. Since then it appears to have been working pretty well, and we’ve noted that ICAO has drawn up regulatory measures for this which will be formally adopted on January 1, 2009."

Everyone agrees that the rewards from this relatively new requirement are difficult to quantify but financial rewards are not the intended return from the programs drawn up, although these can be realized. Virgin Atlantic Airways, for one, believe that many of the benefits resulting could be translated into hard cash, "We spent a lot of time looking at case studies and recognized savings in cost and efficiency resulting from the training," said Malcolm Ellis, Virgin’s engineering training manager. "There’s no extra cost to us and there’s a lot of extra benefits gained. All staff now has to go through HF training and it’s recorded that they have done so. It’s a mandatory module, Module 9, which is revalidated every 18 months. We update the training syllabus regularly as advances are made and the requirements change."

Most companies in European MRO are in accord with Virgin’s policy that all staff has to undergo some HF training, ranging from the engineers to the managers, supervisors and the CEOs. "If there is any additional cost to us we regard it as a part of the training program and look more at the benefits resulting, and these can be seen," said Roger Tingey, training manager at Marshall Aerospace, the long-established Cambridge, England-based MRO company. "We say ‘watch the body,’ for the body’s rhythm at 4 a.m. is different to what it is at 10 a.m. and with awareness of this, as one example, we believe you can lower the possibility of mistakes."

New Bureaucracy?

Prior to considered discussion on the issue some years ago, many people argued that human factors training in MRO could be just another layer of bureaucracy, serving as an excuse for poor monitoring and inspection, simple carelessness or even poorly written manuals, but Tingey quickly dismisses this argument, pointing out the benefits, sometimes intangible, but in the end contributing towards greater efficiency and advances in air safety. As the oldest MRO company in Britain, Marshall Aerospace now has 20 percent of its work given to the executive jet market, while 80 percent remains committed to the military, largely RAF. In this context, the company’s annual training program provides for the intake of numbers of ex-military and RAF personnel along with the usual intake of young apprentices.

Sabena Technics, now owned by the French TAT Group, similarly sees a fair intake of former military personnel amongst its trainees, of which there appears to be no shortage. "Train everybody on your staff, because it’s very important," said Didier Fouche, ST’s VP of quality and assurance. "There are evident benefits, and I would say the following: HF training improves the quality, because the results are assessed and pupils are impressed because they can see the likely consequences of their actions, which they previously didn’t understand. Then everybody can discuss the results and better understand and anticipate problems. I would think that there is money-saving too, as with HF training future problems have been met."

With Lufthansa Technics, Europe’s largest MRO organization, fielding a staff of 11,000 in Hamburg and Frankfurt, Germany and double that number worldwide, "awareness" is the key word, for this is what is impressed upon engineers and others as a result of HF training, according to Dr. Hans Jurgen Loss, head of quality management in Hamburg. "We carry out continuous training at our facilities and we teach staff to have a new awareness of everything they do," said Dr. Loss. "New apprentices are made aware of human factors right from the start, and of course, this is a regular feature of engineering training [that] has been at Lufthansa for some time."

So does Lufthansa Technics embrace the concept as beneficial and worth any extra effort? "Yes. This is a systematic approach to tasks, and we see people really talking about this in frank discussion and keen to examine all contributing factors. The benefits cannot always be readily quantified or expressed but they are there and can be recognized," Dr. Loss concluded. — By Roy Allen

None Hurt When Engine Separates from the Wing on Takeoff of B737 in South Africa

On Wednesday, November 7th, 2007, South Africa-based Nationwide Airlines flight CE723 departed from Cape Town. During the take off roll, as the nose wheel of the B737 lifted from the ground during rotation, the captain heard a loud noise immediately followed by a yaw of the aircraft to the right. On confirmation of the flight-deck instrumentation, it was apparent that the number two engine (on the right side) had failed. Simultaneously it was observed by some passengers onboard as well as people at the airport that the engine had separated and detached from the wing.

The captain applied emergency procedures prescribed for an engine failure and continued the climb out from the airfield. An emergency was declared and the aircraft was cleared to return and perform an emergency landing. The cabin crew were briefed and the passengers were prepared for the landing.

The aircraft landed without further incident. There were no injuries sustained by anyone on board or on the ground.

It has been determined that during the take off roll an object which is yet to be defined was ingested into the engine which caused a catastrophic engine failure. The subsequent forces experienced by the engine supporting structure caused this to fail and for the number two engine to detach from the wing.

The engine-to-wing supporting structure is designed to release the engine when extreme forces are applied to prevent any structural damage to the wing that may impair the aircraft’s ability to fly. Nationwide said it is working with authorities and investigators to establish what exactly the unidentified object was.

The engine on this particular aircraft was fitted in March 2005 after a major overhaul by an approved Federal Aviation Authority facility in the USA and had since accumulated 3,806 hours, according to Nationwide.