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February 2012 Archives

Tracking ash the new old fashioned way: MOCCA

By
David Learmount
 on February 28, 2012 9:32 PM | | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

A  purpose-equipped aircraft for tracking and measuring atmospheric volcanic ash in northern Europe has just been approved for operation on behalf of the UK Met Office.

MOCCA 2.JPG

Known as the Met Office Civil Contingency Aircraft (MOCCA), it is a specially equipped twin-engine Cessna 421C, piston-powered to give it greater resilience when it encounters ash that would damage turbines. 

It has been fitted out by Cranfield Aerospace with an array of different sensor devices that will enable it to "see" ash concentrations at different levels, but also take measurements of actual atmospheric contaminants for analysis.

JRP_7324.JPG

This multi-purpose sensor mounted under the starboard wingtip is not exactly aerodynamic, but it detects, measures, identifies and samples particles of all types - and gases - in the atmosphere. 

Below, there's a Brechtel probe on the right of the nose looking like an oversized pitot tube...

JRP_7331.JPG

The aircraft, G-HIJK built in 1977, is pressurised for high altitude flight and powered by two Teledyne Continental turbocharged engines. It is so packed with onboard specialist equipment that there is room only for a maximum crew of three, but the operator, special missions company DO Systems based at Bournemouth, UK, says a typical mission crew would be a single pilot and a Met Office systems operator.

JRP_7434.JPG

Data on ash and other atmospheric pollutants is gathered and transmitted in frequent bursts by satellite communications to receivers on the ground managed by the London Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre, which is a Met Office responsibility.

Managing Director of Cranfield Aerospace David Gardner emphasised that the aircraft, while primarily intended to contribute to multinational efforts to enable safe aviation operations when volcanic ash is affecting Europe's airspace, it can also detect and monitor other atmospheric pollutants, hence the Cessna's generic description as a "civil contingencies" aircraft.

JRP_7616.JPG

Under the port wingtip is a probe that measures position, altitude (by differential GPS), pressure, temperature, humidity and atmospheric behaviour - like turbulence - which puts in context all the other measurements.

As regards other environmental tasks that the MOCCA aircraft can undertake, Gardner cites the example of the Buncefield oil storage site conflagration a few years ago. The aircraft's sensors can identify atmospheric pollution levels that result from such an event, the locations that will be affected, and the risks involved.










"Let's all do nothing": German democracy at work

By
David Learmount
 on February 13, 2012 12:16 PM | | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)
A committee of Members of Parliament from the German Bundestag has just voted to do nothing about cabin air contamination with neurotoxic organophosphates, on the grounds that it doesn't happen very often. They admit there is an issue, but have rejected action.

In releasing this verdict a few days ago they have proved my prediction wrong (see my immediately preceding blog entry). 

I thought Germany was going to do something while all the other European countries had stuck their heads in the sand. Actually I still think the Germans might act.

But the German Government itself has taken refuge in Europe: it's not our decision, says the Government, it's a decision for Europe to take. Brilliant piece of courageous decision-making in defence of their citizens there! Let's take no action despite evidence of more than sixty recent toxic cabin air incidents in German airliners, and let's blame our inaction on Europe.

The parliamentary committee met to hear evidence in September. They heard the evidence from aircraft manufacturers, medical witnesses, pilot representatives and experts in toxicity.

Having heard the evidence, the MPs voted along party lines: the right wing parties voted to do nothing, the left wing parties wanted something done.

How predictable. How scientific! How sad.

But the German accident investigator (BFU) has not laid the issue to rest: see the two previous stories for what's going on.

More fume casualties

By
David Learmount
 on February 6, 2012 5:09 PM | | Comments (7) | TrackBacks (0)
Detail is emerging that the copilot of the Air Berlin/Germania 737-700 was not the only crew member to have tested positive for the neurotoxin tri-ortho-cresyl phosphate after the flight (see the blog entry before this one)

All the flight and cabin crew have needed sick leave. I suspect we will hear more from the BFU which is still investigating this incident. I also suspect that the Bundestag - the German Parliament - will show a renewed interest in this subject. A Bundestag committee heard evidence on the issue in September last year. 

Watch this space for the results of laboratory tests on crew uniform shirts, and for more incidents on other flights.

I have been reporting this issue for several years now, but there has been a marked difference in the general reaction to this particular report. The Learmount blog has recently had an unusually high number of visitors, but the sceptics are not bothering to respond or to append their statements about what invented nonsense it all is.

All we need now is for Europe's ultimate aviation safety authority, the EASA, to take an interest. So far they have shown none.

Pilot inflight collapse: Germany investigates cabin air poisons

By
David Learmount
 on February 2, 2012 10:51 AM | | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)
Following the copilot's collapse with nausea from oil fumes in the cockpit air on an Air Berlin flight from Milan Malpensa to Dusseldorf in November, German accident investigator BFU has taken the unprecedented step of sending a blood sample from the copilot for analysis to a specialist scientific organisation.

From previous experience the BFU knew what it might find in the copilot's blood: tri-ortho-cresyl phosphate (TOCP), a chemical constituent of the anti-wear additives in aircraft engine oil. This neurotoxic organophosphate has, on numerous documented occasions worldwide, got into the engine bleed air fed to the cockpit and cabin for air conditioning and pressurisation.

So the BFU arranged for the blood sample - taken from the copilot at a Dusseldorf hospital immediately after the flight - to be sent to the University of Nebraska for analysis. The tests proved positive, the BFU has reported. There was indeed TOCP in the copilot's blood, and what is more it had bonded with one of the natural enzymes in the copilot's body that regulates muscular and cognitive neural activity. 

This is what TOCP does. The neurotoxicity of organophosphates is a known and understood phenomenon.

The BFU has said it is not going to put this subject down*. It is going to investigate the medical consequences of TOCP poisoning for pilots. Actually this is well known, but the BFU wants its own proof.

This is just what the airlines and aircraft manufacturers have been dreading: a government agency that is not prepared to look the other way any longer, like all the others have done so far.

The UK Civil Aviation Authority, for example, has had to face several cases of the inflight incapacitation of airline pilots.

Its reaction? Heath and Safety issues in an aircraft cabin are not its job [actually that's a wilful misinterpretation of its duties], and besides which, it was the pilots' fault for not getting their oxygen masks on fast enough. 

How refreshing to see an agency like the BFU with the courage to face up to an issue as controversial as this.

It may lead to the industry finally having to do something about a problem which has been well known and understood for fifty years, and which has robbed thousands of flightcrew and cabin crew of their health and livelihoods.

Watch now as those with interests at stake try to silence the BFU.

Watch the conspiracy theories about the blood samples being rolled out. 

Watch for the denigration of the copilot as a total wimp because the captain was not affected to the same degree.

Even Boeing, which has eliminated the risk of organophosphate contamination from its 787 series by generating cabin air supplies from sources independent of the engines and auxiliary power units, cannot celebrate, because all its other types are conventional.

The Air Berlin flight in this case was a Boeing 737-700 operated for the airline by Germania, but in October last year an Air Berlin Airbus A330 had just such an event, and the BFU is looking into that, too.

No pressurised types that draw bleed air from the engines or APU are immune. That means all of them except the 787.

If you want to see just how convoluted this issue has become, visit my blog entry about Cranfield University's awful "report" on cabin air contaminants. Incidentally, Professor Ramsden, who dared criticise the report is no longer with the University.

*The link takes you to the BFU report, in German, and you have to scroll down the bulletin some distance to this report, which is for the event dated 18 November.


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