36 COMPOSITE AIRCRAFT HANDLING manner:
“I’m turning a 787 when one of my team comes up to me and admits that he has impacted the fuselage with his loader. He can’t be specific about the speed or what exactly happened since he was distracted at the time. I check the fuselage but can see no obvious marks; I call the Captain and he agrees with me.
“My question is this: what now? It would seem to me that, without any measuring instruments to hand, nor an engineer, the aircraft is possibly unfit to fly – or is it? What is the protocol here? Someone has to make a decision – but who? What would happen in the above situation?”
An economical (in line with
Dreamliner philosophy?) answer followed: “Your training would have prepared you to make a judgment. In the case of this kind of impact you would likely use equipment to make that decision.” Tantalising stuff and a reference to equipment - but I was still no nearer a concrete answer.
Realising that Boeing was being coy, to put it mildly, I had to look elsewhere. Obvious avenues were those of the B787 operators: a good many aircraft are in Japanese service and Africa, too, has seen this new model. My own personal first sighting was in Chile, whilst with LatAm, and the 787 was not unknown at Heathrow, either. But maybe because of the lithium battery saga or maybe because of the heaps of poor press that the Dreamliner was bowing under, answers were slow to emerge. Under normal circumstances it might have been difficult to elicit a reply from a traditionally self-effacing country like Japan; and add the fact that its entire quota of B787s (ANA and Japan Airlines have around half of the output to date) was grounded, at great cost and embarrassment to the airlines involved, it quickly became clear that my research was not necessarily going to be easy. Before leaving Boeing’s
Communications department to attend to a doubtless busy Inbox, I had one more question to ask: “You mention that Boeing training has been given – is this confined to a carrier at its home base? Or has the training been/ will the training be extended to independent handlers also?
“This is quite an important point, since the B787 will become a more and more common sight as the months pass.” Boeing’s answer was another model of economy:
“That would need to be addressed by the airlines but in general terms there
GROUND HANDLING INTERNATIONAL APRIL 2013
is appropriate training for personnel to handle the airplane where it lands.” Thus prompted, I started to look at the training requirement.
Handling the Dreamliner
My initial avenue of contact with Servisair in London petered out early on and so I diverted to Africa, where Ethiopian Airlines has been flying several Dreamliners. An example has occasionally visited Accra, Ghana, where it has been handled by Aviance Ghana. The ground staff there were apprised of the fact that as it was composite, special care would need to be taken whilst it was on the ramp. The Dreamliner has also flown to Lagos, again on an erratic basis. There, handler Nahcoaviance says that it has had no direct communication from Boeing about this aircraft but confirmed that it required extra care. Commendably, the handler’s policy is one of always reporting a sharp impact to an aircraft. The African handler was also interested to learn about any tools or instruments that might be employed to gauge the hidden damage in the unthinkable event of a collision. Back in the UK I spoke to Menzies, a handler with more than a little experience of this aircraft. Menzies’ first introduction was through Qatar and the handler was invited to Doha for a briefing and a procedures workshop. Subsequently, its first Dreamliner customer was Ethiopian Airlines in Johannesburg and more recently Menzies has been working in collaboration with the British Airways training team in advance of delivery of the airline’s first B787. According to the handler, Boeing’s website yielded some useful generic information and Menzies subsequently created an awareness campaign over the new aircraft, emphasising the composite structure, and went on to formulate its own handling document. As the spokesperson points out, the B787 is not so very different from the B767, aside from the electric requirement and the plastic fuselage. Underlining to its staff the importance
of care when approaching with beltloaders and stairs and the like, Menzies stressed that any contact with the aircraft had to be reported. The handler operates a no-blame culture in this context. Conversation with insurers revealed to Menzies that these latter were well briefed on the novel aircraft: the handler learned that localised damage can be made good although this was not an ideal answer to the composite question. The Menzies
spokesperson did confirm, though, that only an engineer or the captain could sign the aircraft off after any incident; having said that, it was usual practice for the aircraft manufacturer to be contacted at some point during the check process. The company also mentioned the possibility of carrying a small scanner on board to assess the integrity of any suspect area. LatAm subsequently responded to my enquiry and confirmed that a small gun type instrument, together with a screen, was carried on board a B787. Armed with this information, I had to get back to Boeing with another question: “I have been researching further the ground damage situation since your last e-mail and have found an airline that carries a small camera/scanner on board for the purposes of checking the hull in the event of any impact on the ground. Can you tell me if this sort of equipment is supplied by Boeing? If not, and it is sourced from a third party, is it subsequently endorsed by Boeing?” And the reply: “We don’t provide that level of detail in public comments. Especially not knowing the exact piece of equipment, I can’t be sure.”
Whilst I was digesting this answer,
ANA replied to me on this very topic. The carrier’s correspondent stated that the airline’s maintenance team follow the maintenance manual provided by the manufacturer (Boeing), and implement the measures specified there. He was unable to disclose any details relating to the manual, but admitted that both the exterior and interior were visually checked. In addition, ANA would also conduct an NDI (non-destructive inspection) test in all cases where a Dreamliner was involved in an incident. The instrument to perform that function, though, was not carried on board.
In this instance the NDI tool was exclusively developed for ANA’s Dreamliner by ANA and Toshiba, although it is owned by ANA and not the airport or the ground handler. ANA keeps this device at its main stations and brings it to local airports if needed. This transpires to be the Toshiba Matrixeye, one of several ultrasonic C-scan instruments that are listed in the Boeing 787 Nondestructive Test Manual and which are used to assess damage. At each airport, ANA says that it has
a more simplified type of NDI, which is also owned by ANA: this is used in the first instance. A spokesman from United, an airline that has heartily embraced the B787, confirmed that this scanning tool is considered a Go/No Go gauge. Again,
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