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This is a transcript of a tape recorded conversation with Gatwick Airport Operations Duty Manager, Ben Ellis after we discovered that an emergency escape hatch was leaking on an Onur Air A320 airbus - and we eventually got to talk to someone in authority regarding the safety implications.
GL. Personally I find it hard to believe that it is normal, I can't believe that the aircraft manufacturer actually designed it that way. We've been onto 5 or 6 different organisations...
BE: Fair enough, I'll just take the details ...
GL: Yes , please do...
BE: Garf Lucas
GL: That's me. Now if we were complaining that our seat wasn't comfortable or something I could understand that laxidaisical attitude, but an aircraft is leaving this airport, with 200 people on board, with a door seal that's faulty, and no one's going to check it out. Basically you guys are going to let it happen. I think that's... I just find that utterly unbelievable.
BE: We have to rely upon, unless we can see something which is overtly wrong, like an external part of the aircraft is missing, like a bit of the wings missing, or something like that - we have to rely upon the aircraft operators operating the aircraft in the manner in which they are licensed to do so. If it is a British registered aircraft, then everybody carrying passengers has to carry something called an operators certificate, which outlines the faults they are allowed to carry on an aircraft, because no aircraft is completely fault-free, and the faults which ground the aircraft until fixed. Some faults wait until they've done one cycle, some can wait until the next service, other faults carry on indefinitely, providing they haven't got another fault which overrides the first fault. So there is a whole scale of faults you can have on an aircraft. If a door seal - I don't know too much about the A320, but I do know a little bit about pressurisation systems in general, and generally, if a door - some leakage is always occurring from the fuselage - I guess mostly around doors - so there is always going to be a little bit of leakage, and some aircrafts are notorious for having condensation around doors...
GL: The...11 which used to suffer a lot with condensation...
BE: As I say I don't know the A320 so I don't know what the limits are. It's up to the crew ultimately on the aircraft to operate it within their limits. Now I don't know how the Turkish Authorities organise their approval for aircraft to fly, but the idea is that there is an organisation called IKO which tells everybody, everybody belongs to IKO, all the national countries - not the airlines, it's the countries themselves - Great Britain, the United States, Canada, Turkey - all belong to IKO, and operate under the same basic rules which were all laid down years ago, about the basic way in which you operate safely. If we find somebody's flouting IKO rules, then it's up to us then through a convoluted route to report them to the CAA, to the national countries concerned CAA - the Turks in this case, and for them then to ultimately withdraw the airlines operating certificate if that's the way they organise themselves. So that's the normal route one would expect in this case. For me to say I cannot allow this aircraft to depart because I think it' got something which is going to cause it to not make it's journey, I've got to have some very concrete grounds for saying so.
BE: Each aircraft commander is responsible for their own aircraft in all respects. So the ultimate responsibility lies with the person in the left seat in the front in every aircraft, whether it's a Cessna 172 or a 747. In this particular case if a door seal is leaking, that may be uncomfortable for the passengers, but does not necessarily mean to say that the door itself is going to come off, or that there is going to be a sudden loss of pressurisation in the aircraft. So it's difficult for me to say because I'm not familiar with the A320, but it doesn't sound in this case like it is immediately life-threatening. I can't say if that's really true or not because I don't really know the A320. The best thing I can do is take all the details, pass them on to the CAA who will pass them on to the Turkish Authorities.
SK: The crew that check the plane on the ground, are they also Turkish, or are they...
BE: It depends, but probably in this country, or at Gatwick I should say, the airlines normally employ one of two or three companies who employ licensed engineers who check aircraft and that may be from just walking around the tyres checking tyre pressures to door seals to door latches to toilets now working or anything that can go wrong with an aircraft. Bearing in mind this aircraft is what we call turning around, rather than being based here, and turnaround, you carry a lot more faults back to your base on a turnaround, than you are allowed to exit your base with. So like British Airways who are based here aren't allowed to leave with some faults, whereas if they're flying to Vienna. and a fault arises on the way to Vienna, they're allowed to leave Vienna with that fault because they're going back to home base to have it fixed. So there's a different level depending on which leg of the journey you're going on. You've got to realise that aircraft are designed to allow lots of things to go wrong before you ultimately get to a situation where the aircraft is in a state where it will crash. It may result in some discomfort, like if that door seal were to blow, probably - I don't know because as I say I don't know the A320 - but possibly one of the things that would happen is they'd have to come down to 10 000 feet and finish the trip at a level where everybody can sit in the aircraft in the same pressure as outside the aircraft, so there is no pressure differential, which would be a bit uncomfortable, and they might have to divert somewhere, but hopefully, that would be the worst consequence of a door seal rupturing, because the latches on the door should hold it in place. Do you think the door was in place, bearing in mind it was an emergency exit, do you think it was in place properly? Because there's an arm isn't there in a latch, so you can see if it's in the right place..
GL: This thing actually has a hatch that lifts down from the top, and you pull out a panel and then the lock is actually behind that, so I was unable to see, that was the other thing that concerned me - you couldn't see if it was closed properly or not. The seal you could see was actually pushed in on the top left hand side of the door when I looked at it, on the other three doors the seal went all the way round. This was actually pushed in on the top left hand side.
BE: So you think that is where the air was leaking?
GL: I think it was. I wasn't actually sitting next to it, I was actually sitting some distance away from it, I took some photographs of it but I wasn't sitting next to it.
BE: So you got some pictures which compare that door with the other doors that you feel are in a more satisfactory condition?
GL: No I don't think we did we?
BE: You just took the picture of the door that you felt was ...
GL: We got a close up of that door with the water streaming in through it.
S: In a situation like this would you recommend that passengers contact...
BE: Recommending for you? Well, if it's in flight, you did the right thing obviously, you called the flight attendant and pointed out what you considered to be a hazard to safety, and then it's up to the flight attendant to report that to the crew..
GL: She didn't.
BE: She didn't? No, there's obviously a communication problem with the flight crew working at the back of the aeroplane and the flight crew working at the front.
GL:: She didn't report it at all. She just carried on with what she was doing.
BE: We've had this in the past, where the crew at the back know the engine's on fire, but the people in the front think a different engine's on fire, because there's not been the full communication between the back and the front of the aeroplane. That can apply worse in countries where there is a problem with talking up the hierarchy - like a big safety problem in the Far East is about talking - a First Officer is sitting next to a Captain who's - and the First Officer has to instead of "here mate, what's gone wrong here?"
GL: In that fact that it's been
BE: I don't know, I've never been to Turkey, I don't know what the cultural situation is.
GL: So basically the bottom line is the aircraft is going to take off and there's nothing you can do about it.
BE: Well, at the moment yes, that's true. Now you've got me concerned but I can't arbitrarily go and stop every aircraft - my experience shows me that by and large...
GL: No, I'm not suggesting that you do - I'm just gobsmacked, it's taken me now over an hour to actually talk to anybody. There's almost a conspiracy of get that thing out of here as quickly as we possibly can..
BE: If you'd spoken to me at half past eleven I might...
GL: If I'd been able to speak to you at half past eleven I would most certainly have done so. We've been passed from pillar to post, it's almost as if - I get the distinct impression that basically nobody wants to know, and I find it incredible that you can dial a hotline number if there's too many traffic cones on the motorway, but if you're concerned about the safety of an aircraft which can kill people...
BE: I must say I'm surprised at the CAA perhaps not being able to put you through to the right number. The CAA has a problem about pro-action in some countries which makes them reluctant to do anything about foreign-registered aircraft unless there's something hanging off the aircraft. We have stopped aircraft here - foreign-registered aircraft - because they've been patently unsafe to fly. As you say there's a thing about flying over UK territory where we're concerned, would it crash on East Grinstead or something. So aircraft have been grounded here but it takes quite a lot to do it. I think we've got into the culture where an aircraft can have x-fault, y-fault and z-fault before it becomes physically unsafe. It can become uncomfortable for the passengers, but there's a difference between that and an aircraft being physically unsafe.
GL: I'm concerned about the safety because there are plenty of historical precedents of aircraft flying in the sky with the doors not opening and shutting properly...
BE: there is indeed. I'm very well aware of those.
GL: We're in a situation where people are going up in an aircraft with a door seal that's known to be faulty and we are doing nothing to stop it doing it. I personally feel very bad about that. I think you should do too.
BE: My feeling right now, without having seen the door seal, or as I say again, not knowing too much about the A320, is that a door seal going isn't as bad as a door falling out and that's a different kettle of fish. There are latches on the doors to prevent their physically departing the aircraft.
GL: But a tremendous stress is put on an aircraft at that speed.
BE: There are, yes, many pounds pressure differential between the inside and the outside skin, which is all pushing everything out. Once something actually gets out into the air flow, that's true. Everything's designed to prevent anything getting out into the air flow. And the first thing that would probably happen with that door is it might strike the tailplane which would disable the aircraft. So that's why doors shouldn't come off aeroplanes, because it would hit the aeroplane as it goes past. Did you ever see that picture of the 737 in Honolulu, where a whole big piece of the aeroplane fuselage tore back, with about 6 or 7 rows of people sitting there, and a whole big piece of aeroplane missing, and it just landed like that.
GL: What happens now?
BE: What happens now is that I ring the CAA and Safety Regulation Group and say a concerned passenger on a commercial flight has expressed concern about a door seal, we've got a seat number here on the door seal, and say how do we proceed from here? I must say I wasn't expecting to have a problem with a modern aircraft like the A320. It can't be many years old.
GL: No, I don't think it is.
BE: With a new aeroplane you don't expect it. With these tired old aeroplanes you expect to start leaking air but you don't expect it on...
GL: Do you have a contact number or contact address for Airbus?
BE: Airbus Industry? Best I can tell you is that they're in Toulouse in France. I'm not even sure where the fuselages are made but that's neither here not there because the final manufacture takes plane in Toulouse in France.
GL: Do we need to write to you for follow-up on this or do you write to us? How does it work?
BE: You can write to me if you like, and then...
GL: I'd appreciate that.
BE: Have you got a card as well, if I want to contact you, how do I do that?
BE: Yes, I've got some business cards here. You can e-mail me at that address as well.
BE: We're attached to the Internet but we're not allowed to use it. They don't want us surfing all day - but working instead.
GL: I thought there was a tremendous pool of information...
BE: No doubt there is.
GL: That will be our first line of attack on Airbus no doubt.
BE: Best thing you can do with me is fax me.
GL: Thank you very much for your time and trouble on this.
BE: Well, I'm very conscious that you feel this hasn't been satisfactory.
GL: I think it's very unsatisfactory to be quite frank with you. Personally, I feel it's wholly unsatisfactory with a complaint like this. You're probably right, it probably is nothing to worry about, but it could be lethal. These things have been in the past and there's absolutely stuff all anybody's going to do about it.
BE: I don't know if you remember the Turkish Airlines DC10, it was only going from Paris to Heathrow and a lot of people lost their lives in that because of a cargo door, and that was the third McDonnell-Douglas DC10 cargo door which had departed a DC10, but it was the first time it killed anybody. It took that before anything was done about it.
GL: Presumably there's a Government Minister responsible for transport, is there?
BE: Well, you'll find your fighting your way through the Department of Transport as they're having problems at the moment.
GL: In all seriousness I am concerned that with so much air traffic and so many people flying by air, there's no mechanism in place for people to report a potentially lethal problem.
BE: If the aircraft was on a longer turnaround, then perhaps we would have a chance of doing something. It's probably already gone.
GL: Yes, it almost certainly has. We've had it now, it will probably arrive at it's destination quite safely. Pray to God it does.
BE: We'll put out a signal to make sure it has actually now you've highlighted this. Particularly that the Turks are highlighted at the moment with the 757 which went down last week. So, we're thinking what are the Turks doing, is it absolutely above board?
The End!
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