Transcript 0:00 42375, go ahead. Uh, they said, uh, the route was for, uh, podcast or something. Is that what we heard? Yeah, that's affirmative. Good morning. Welcome back to the VIP seat. 0:09 We have a very important conversation today with Barry Ellis from Hop-A-Jet. Sit back, buckle up, and let's take off. 0:15 [upbeat music] Yeah, Jesse, very excited about the conversation today. We welcome Barry Ellis, the CEO of Hop-A-Jet. 0:32 Hop-A-Jet, as we all know, the final NTSB report ca- did come out last week, and so we are going to talk all about, uh, the tragic accident that they had in Naples, Florida in 2024. So Barry, welcome to the VIP seat. 0:47 Thank you. Appreciate it Preston, Jesse. It's great to do it with you. Yeah. So I, I think before we get started, I, I think that, uh, we just wanted to kind of memorialize it and pay honor to your team. 1:03 Ed Murphy and Ian Hoffman are the two pilots that tragically lost their lives that day. What do you want people to know about those two individuals? 1:12 Well, just, y- you know, they were both just such consummate professionals, uh, about everything that they did, not just when they were in the airplanes. Ed Murphy had worked for us for nearly 30 years. 1:24 He started with us in 1996, uh, in line service. Built his time flying helicopters and other, other types of airplanes while working as his line service for us. 1:37 Worked his way up into the, uh, right seat of a Learjet and on into the Challengers and, and spent the last years of his career flying the Challengers for us. Like, he was a, he was a Mensa member. He was... 1:52 You know, he, he, he had unusually good handwriting for a pilot. [laughs] It was one of the things I remember about him. But, uh, Ed was a friend for many years, so that was just tragic. 2:05 Ian Hoffman was an interesting story also because he started his aviation career, at least his jet career, with Harvey Hop at Hop-A-Jet in the '80s. He got a job flying with the airlines. 2:19 Had 30 years or more of airline flying in his career. Retired, and said he wanted to finish out his career at Hop-A-Jet. He lived locally. 2:30 Came back to us, interviewed with us, and certainly, certainly we wanted to bring him back and allow him to do that, and he too was just such a professional. We miss them both very badly. Yeah. 2:42 I think one of the amazing things that, that came out of this, uh, is the flight attendant who, you know, was able to save the passengers. That's also just such an amazing story. 2:52 You know, it's, it's all tragic, but at least there was, you know, there was some life saved here, which is amazing. She was the right person to have on board that day. 3:00 She was uniquely qualified really to be in that position. 3:04 Very driven person, a collegiate athlete that just had the mindset to get out of that airplane, and, um, the passengers were also helpful and, and they worked good with her as a team and were able to save themselves, which that combined with the actions of the pilots in the end allowed for three of the five occupants to survive that, which is pretty unbelievable really. 3:32 Yeah, and I think that was one of the things we wanna ask you about too. You know, everyone loves, um, a s- a neat single explanation for accidents. 3:40 Rarely do we get that, but I think, you know, what would you like to highlight that the crews did in addition to the fi- flight attendant's amazing, um, actions? 3:49 You know, what did they do in, in those final moments that made a meaningful difference? Yeah. I... 3:54 You know, if I had to put it in one sentence, they, they did what they've been trained to do for years and years and years. They flew the airplane. 4:02 You know, number one in, in everybody's, uh, checklist of things to do in an emergency. 4:07 Rather than it turn into a stall spin accident that so often happens when a loss of an engine, they were able to put the airplane down, get it on the ground, find a, find a suitable landing spot that allowed, allowed the passengers and the flight attendant to survive. 4:25 Didn't severely hurt anybody on the ground outside of the airplane and, and their lives minimal, minimal damage. 4:33 And quite honestly, their lives probably would've been spared if it hadn't been for a very f- very stout, firmly planted signpost on the side of the road that caught the right wing and spun and catapulted the airplane around into the, the concrete barrier on the side. 4:52 And if it hadn't been for that and the airplane had been allowed to decelerate on the highway, even if it had gone off into the, into the side of the highway, I think it would've been survivable by all. 5:04 So it's just tragic. So I think there, there's a lot of operators that listen to this show, a lot of business leaders. Can you walk us through a little bit of maybe the behind the scenes? Like, how do you, 5:16 you know, how do, how do you deal with this internally? How do you rally your other pilots? How do you deal with those individual pilots' families? 5:24 I mean, I'm sure that your job quickly became, you know, soft skill, right? Like, not, not a lot about flying and a whole lot about people. Can you walk us through some of the behind the scenes there? 5:34 We've always, we've always been proud of the amount of time we spend on our emergency response program. We do the drills regularly. We learn from them every time. 5:43 Uh, we work closely with Fireside partners, uh, which I, I must say were immensely helpful throughout the whole process. 5:52 But what none of the drills, none of the training ever prepared us for was the, the notifying of the, of the families, like-Um, Ian lived locally. Ed's family lived in Michigan. 6:06 So the, the phone calls that I had to make to Ed's family obviously were very hard and something that I'll never forget. But Ian's wife lived locally, 6:18 so the first time she heard it was when I knocked on her door that night. 6:23 And, uh, you know, of course, right after the accident, we assembled our emergency response team in our conference room and started setting up the, the room as our war room for the next couple days. 6:35 Um, myself and our chief pilot, David Donovan, along with a pastor, a friend of his, went over to meet Ian's wife, and, um, 6:45 sitting there with her as she was sobbing uncontrollably is something that I'd never, I'd never prepared myself for. 6:53 So I'd say the biggest change we've made to our emergency response program is more family notification training and expectation. 7:02 Yeah, I mean, just that's the, the worst scenario possible is to have to get to that point, but unfortunately, we live in such a high-risk industry, and while it's rare, things do happen. 7:12 And I think in this case, to have dual engine failure is just- Crazy... so unbelievably crazy. 7:18 Yeah, I mean, the, the fact that it can even occur in today's age, I think that's the key piece that, uh, most people in the industry are just like, "W- what?" 7:27 You know, and the, I think the r- the report was very interesting and, and going on to all that. Um, but I mean, a- anything else you wanna share with operators in terms of, like, 7:36 how do you prepare for this day, other than family care? I mean, anything else you think that, that operators should know about responding to these emergencies? Yeah. It's, it's training, training, training. 7:49 Running through it, it- it's like anything. What... It's like flying an airplane. 7:53 If you know what to expect, if you've thought ahead of the airplane when an emergency happens, and then almost expecting an emergency in an airplane, you're better prepared to deal with it when it happens. So that, um, 8:10 that, that preparation that, that you get by training helps a lot. I mentioned Fireside Partners, and I, I really can't endorse them strongly enough. They help you with every facet of, of the process. 8:26 The family notification, because it was local in nature for the calling copilot, Ian's wife, we obviously were on scene long before they could have anybody on scene. Mm-hmm. 8:39 But typically, they are engaged in that process too. 8:43 Having, having them, uh, and we've, we've worked with them for a long time, so having them so closely intertwined with our operation and knowing our ERP, they did a great job. 8:55 So this is a tough conversation today, um, but a very real conversation today, and I just wanna say thank you to AB Jets for sponsoring this show because without them, we don't get to have these long-form, in-depth conversations. 9:08 Yeah, the team at AB Jets, when we first started, uh, talking about our sponsorship and, and partnership together, uh, they really wanted to make sure that we could have these types of conversations. 9:18 Operators, corrosion, I mean, they're all hot topics that they talk about. You know, you look at the choices they've made on their Challenger 3500s to avoid corrosion. 9:27 Uh, this is a huge topic, and we really appreciate their support in helping it, helping make it possible for us to have conversations like this. So thanks, AB Jets, for sponsoring this week's episode of the VIP CEO. 9:38 So, you know, we're not gonna litigate the case, and full disclosure is here for anyone who doesn't know, there is plenty of, um, there are lots of lawsuits in this. Uh, there's the NTSB report. 9:49 We're not gonna litigate this, but I think the big thing is calling out the public record, and I think for you, Barry, is what are the most important points that came out with this report now that it, it's just been released? 9:59 So, you know, maybe walk us through your, your top level, that here's what happened, here's what I think, and then we'll kind of dig into the, some of the details a little more. Yeah. 10:08 Well, you know, let me first say I, I, personally I'm not a litigious type person, and I don't think as an organization we really are also either. But there, there's more than just monetary issues in this. 10:23 It's, it's notification- Mm... to all the other operators of these engines. There's the FAA being involved with ADs and, and such that we feel needs to happen. 10:37 So keep, you know, it sounds, it sounds obvious, but keeping this from happening again to somebody else i- is really, really a big part of the litigation. We feel that there could've been 10:50 more done proactively by the engine manufacturer. We feel like after the fact there could've been more expeditious, uh, dissemination of information to other operators. It's been 11:06 two years, two months, two weeks, but I'm not counting, [laughs] until the final report came out. 11:12 But, um, in that time, we felt like there should've been more information given to other operators of this CF34 business jet engine. 11:21 Yeah, I think what might be useful just for those that have not read the report, I've got it pulled up here just to kind of lay a basis for the rest of this conversation. Sure. 11:32 Uh, I, I'm just gonna, I'm gonna read this word for word from the NTSB. 11:36 "The National Transportation Safety Board determines the probable causes of this accident to be corrosion of both engines, variable geometry, VG system components, which led to their operation in an off-schedule position and resulted in near simultaneous sub-idle rotating compressor stalls on approach, subsequent loss of thrust in both engines, and an off-airport landing. 11:59 Contributing to the accident was a inadequate fault isolation guidance from the engine manufacturer, which prevented the identification of corrosion buildup in VG system components."During troubleshooting of hung start events on both engines about one month before the accident. 12:15 So- All true... just so that we all kind of are singing from the same sheet of music, so that everybody understands that the probable cause was determined to be corrosion-induced 12:27 dual engine failure built, uh, around this concept of the VG system component. So maybe can you explain to us- Mm-hmm... walk us through the VG components, what goes into it. 12:39 Like, can you kind of walk us through maybe the basis of this for those that- Yeah... you know, I am not a maintenance person naturally- Neither am I... 12:46 so this has all been a lot of learning for me as, as we've kind of researched for this episode. Yeah, I, I've learned more about VG systems than I thought I ever would or- [laughs]... 12:57 ever needed to, but the variable guide vane system is simply a set of almost like louvers that are in front of each stage of the compressor section. 13:08 They direct and regulate the volume and direction of airflow as they hit the leading edges of the compressor blades, and a compressor blade is basically a wing. 13:19 So the variable guide vanes help direct the angle of attack, uh, and, and the angle at which the air hits the leading edge of the compressor blades. 13:30 So when you have them out of sync or not in the proper position, it can cause the compressor stalls. Now, the way they typically work is fuel pressure. 13:41 When the throttles are back towards idle, uh, the variable guide vanes are, are closed, restricting the air and changing the flow pattern. 13:51 When you advance the throttles, these louver doors, these, these variable guide vanes open, and if, because of corrosion, 14:00 they don't advance or open properly or in sync, it's very likely a compressor stall is gonna happen. The thing that nobody can believe, and it's very hard for, for me also, is that it happened simultaneously. But 14:18 if you knew what we've known now from being involved in a party to the investigation, it was learned very early on just how matched these engines were. 14:31 I mean, there was a statement from the, the GE engineers that they'd almost never seen an engine with such a match of all the characteristics that they see and wear patterns and such. 14:44 The engines had both been on the airplane since manufacture. They both had the same cycles. They both had the same hours. They both been, had been exposed to the same environmental conditions. 14:56 So as much as it's hard to believe, if you think about it from pure logic standpoint, 15:03 they would both fail at the same time, 'cause everything that had, those engines had experienced was identical to each other, and sure enough, that's what was found when they were torn apart. 15:14 So it did happen at the same time, likely because when the crew retarded the throttles, uh, arriving into the Naples area, uh, to slow down, when they went to advance the throttles again, 15:29 the guide vanes not opening correctly, um, caused this dual, this dual compressor stall. And so the thing that struck me, and I read, I've read like 300 pages. 15:41 I haven't read every single document, but I've read most of them. 15:44 The thing that struck me was that this kind of issue had already occurred in another aircraft, and that was involved in more, you know, offshore search and rescue operations. 15:54 So I would love to hear your thoughts on that. Yeah. That's, that's really one of the biggest shames about this is it was avoidable. 16:04 There were a number of opportunities in advance that, that this could have been found out. We, we work very closely with the engine manufacturer on the maintenance of these engines, as do most operators. 16:16 The engine manufacturer has a, has a program that, where they look after the engines and hours are reported, and you actually pay for the use of these engines on an hourly basis. The CF34 on the business jet is 16:32 what they call on condition, meaning that it doesn't have a fixed TBO or, or overhaul time. They did back in the '80s on the Challenger 601 series that, that had the same CF34. 16:48 It had a s- I think it was a 6,000-hour overhaul time. They then, with the start of the Challenger 601-3, they went to this on-condition engine, and 17:00 the new inspection was every 3,200 hour you would do a borescope and a thorough inspection of the engines, 17:08 and as long as everything looked good, they signed it off, gave it a clean bill of health, and you would go for another 3,200 hours. That's a long time, it seems like, between. 17:19 But many of these engines, I think, uh, you know, you make it past 3,200 hours, you then make it past the subsequent 6,400 hours. The engines are still fairly new at that point. 17:32 It probably isn't until the near, you know, 9,000 to 10,000-hour range that it starts becoming suspect, but with, with it being every 3,200 hours, the 3,200-hour inspection is very critical. 17:45 This set of engines had its 3,200-hour inspection done by the engine manufacturer in September 2023, less than six months before the accident. They were both signed off as clean, no problem. 18:03 Go for another 3,200. So that was a huge missed opportunity in our eyes. That was the point at whichThis should have been caught. You've got a borescope inside the compressor section already. 18:16 You would believe that if somebody saw corrosion, that A&P 101, you see something, you say something, you know? But yet they signed it off without a, uh, issue. 18:29 So did they, they, during that inspection, there was corrosion already identified that you found suspect? 'Cause I, I thought some of this was kind of outside, it's on the outside of the compressor. 18:38 Is that something that can be seen during these inspections or no? The majority of the issue comes, it would be visible from inside actually. Hmm. 18:47 There are streaks in the outer compressor case that, uh, show trails of corrosion- Hmm... 18:54 coming from these bore holes, where the variable guide vanes stick through the outer compressor case to hook up to the mechanisms that move them. So this should have been visible from the inside. 19:09 We all know corrosion doesn't start in six months. We, we 19:13 have since gone back in the records and looked at video and pictures that came from previous borescopes, like when the pre-buy was done on the airplane prior to us purchasing it. 19:27 We only had this airplane for less than three years, so it wasn't that we, you know, we, uh, we knew its entire life. Uh, we'd had it for less than three years, like I said. 19:41 Now a borescope was done at the pre-buy also, and this corrosion probably started long ago. 19:48 So I think it was fully developed and, and probably in a real bad state in September of '23 when that 3,200 hour borescope was last done. 19:59 Well, and so this is where the, you know, for people who don't know how this all works, you know, there's a, there is a, a back and forth between the OEM and the operator on not what's okay. 20:10 I mean, ultimately the engine program is responsible for the engine. 20:13 You know, you're, you're hearing from them that, yes, this is okay to fly or not, but there is sometimes, you know, like engine manufacturers, they don't want you doing borescopes if they're on a program, for example. 20:25 Right. Because [laughs] you know, they're certifying it to a certain number, and they don't want you looking in there and finding everything. Yeah. It's exposure for them. Right. 20:32 And, and, you know, not to interrupt you, but to be honest with you, that's one of our reasons for the litigation is that we feel that even after this accident, 20:43 there has not been the priority given to changing the criteria of the borescope as to what they look for. 20:53 Uh, there have been a number of service bulletins that the engine manufacturer has issued since our accident that call for checking of these VG systems, and we were very surprised at how slow this happened and how little importance was put on the boroscoping of them. 21:11 They seemed to try to get by with checks that didn't include borescope. I guess the question is, is would a better borescope or a deeper borescope, again, I mean, I, my knowledge here is limited. Yeah. 21:27 Like is there a world in which you do a deep enough borescope and see this during the purchase process? Is that... 21:34 You probably didn't, you wouldn't even have known to have asked for that because this was a not, not necessarily a known issue, but, you know, was there a world in which a borescope went deep enough to prevent this from happening? 21:44 I guess that's like my big question. Yeah, and that's, that's one of the big questions also is what is the criteria that the engine manufacturer looks for and what they train their vendors? 21:59 Because although they, the engine manufacturer themselves, GE, was the one that did the borescope on our airplane in 2023, they also authorized a number of vendors to do it on their behalf. 22:12 How do they train those vendors? What do they train those vendors to look for? So is it considered a corrosion inspection? And that's questionable. 22:23 Obviously you're looking for cracked blades, abradable material missing from the compressor section, and, and again, I'm not an engine expert either. But they're looking for deterioration of the engine. 22:37 How hard do they look for corrosion is a, is a question. But there is a, the borescope does have the ability to detect this if they look in the proper ports. 22:47 There's a number of plugs in the outside of the compressor section that you open up in order to stick the borescope in. But you certainly, you certainly can, um, excuse me. 23:00 You certainly can get to the sections of the engine that were, that were most affected if you look in the right places. 23:08 So this is, and this is not this case specifically, but having gone through this experience now, I wanna know your thoughts on for manufacturers providing engines on condition versus, you know, I was a phenom operator. 23:21 We didn't have on condition. 23:23 We pushed to get our TBOs extended, but you know, now when I look back on this I go, "Man, maybe it is good to be on a scheduled TBO because at least you're opening up the whole thing, you're seeing it all." 23:33 What are your thoughts on maybe in our industry we've gone too far on unconditioned with some, and maybe we should be on scheduled, um, plans? Yeah. Uh, it's, it's a good question. 23:45 I'm, I'm not, you know, definitely against unconditioned programs at all. I just think that the, the, maybe the interval needs to be looked at and the scope of these, of these inspections that happen. 23:59 Clearly the one designed for this engine wasn't sufficient. Obviously it's a, it's a big financial win for the engine manufacturer that-Also controls the engine program, 24:17 including the cost of the overhauls when required under the program. Um, the airframe manufacturer in selling the airplane, if they can sell it as having on-condition engines. 24:31 So it's a big windfall until things go wrong, and, and that's-- we're not looking to necessarily have the engine taken off of an on-condition program, but I think this, this inspection should be more robust and maybe more frequent. 24:44 Mm-hmm. Well, and for those who aren't, aren't familiar with the background on this, I think, you know, on-condition engines were traditionally really a, a commercial aerospace product. 24:53 You know, large airlines that had, you know, engineering teams, lots of people able to do trend monitoring, analysis, all of that. 25:01 I think that was the intent of most on-condition programs, and perhaps in 135.91, it's just a different, um... 25:09 I think there's more reliance from the operators on the OEMs to give them the guidance and to manage that for them. My question for you is, like, all right, as an operator- Yeah... 25:18 you're completely reliant on the OEM at this point for the on-condition engines, or is there some pushback that can happen between the two? 25:26 Well, like you said, engine manufacturer and I think the airframe manufacturer both used the fact that this exact engine, with the exception of the data tag, is the same engine that's on the CRJ2 commuter. 25:40 The larger CRJs use the same family of engine. It's a CF34, but it's a different dash number. It's more thrust, slightly larger, but it's the same basic design engine and same basic design VG system. 25:59 The-- another missed opportunity was shortly after COVID, when a lot of commuters had sat, the larger commuter engine, the CF34 dash experienced very, very, very similar problems. 26:16 They attributed it, I think, to sitting, but they came out with an emergency AD that exists on just the slightly larger version of this same exact engine. 26:28 I would think at that point that it would have been a good time to let the business jet, uh, community know, who operated the business jet version of this engine, about this emergency AD. 26:43 We certainly didn't have any idea. It wasn't sent to us. It wasn't known to the charter operators or Part 91 operators of this airplane, even though we had basically the same airplane engines. 26:56 So another, another missed opportunity, I think. We're still waiting for any AD to come out for the business jet engine because of this. The, the larger, the larger CF34 is a FADEC engine, computer controlled. 27:12 So the problem presented itself slightly differently, um, because the FADEC essentially didn't allow the engine to hurt itself. It would roll back or reduce power settings or, or thrust available. 27:27 But the core, the core problem was the same. Was, was hung-- was the hung start similar? Was that ano- is that a way that it was presenting itself, or is that unique to the 604, 605? 27:41 No, that, that was, that was an opportunity. What had happened that day was the aircraft had started both engines, went to taxi, and South Florida has gotten to be a very busy area, air traffic control-wise. 27:55 So the tower said, "You guys might as well shut down because you're gonna be a while." 28:00 So the crew shut the engines down, got the call from the tower, and went to restart them 20 minutes later, and neither engine would start. They both hung. 28:07 Different than a slow start in that when it hangs, it, it accelerates normally, but gets to a point where the N1, N2 don't accelerate further and stabilize at an idle. It just hangs there. 28:24 Um, immediately we stopped attempting to use that airplane for the trip that day. 28:30 The airplane spent three days on the ground with the engine manufacturer helping us run through troubleshooting, trying to find a problem with it. 28:41 Now, what somewhat masked the problem was that the next morning when we went to begin working on this airplane, they both started normally. It was cold. 28:52 At that point, we didn't really put two and two together that this was a hot problem. Um, so we continued with starting down the troubleshooting guide, uh, and it always, it seemed like starts with airframe. 29:09 You know, the airframe manufacturer says it must be the engines. The engine manufacturer says it must be the airframe. That kind of, that kind of back and forth. 29:17 But so we, we did, we cleared any, any possibility that it was an airframe issue. Mainly there was sufficient start pressure, 'cause they start pneumatically on this, on this engine. 29:30 So we cleared the airframe, uh, then we started down the next phases of it, changing fuel filters, checking fuel flow, checking adjustments of everything. Again, I'm not being a mechanic, I'm assuming. 29:44 But hundreds of gallons of fuel running in the run-up area, three days' worth of intense troubleshooting with the engine manufacturer closely involved, and we couldn't get the engines to fail. 29:57 Now, we had determined that it was a hot issue, heat issue, but we couldn't get them to fail again. So at some point, you know, you surmise that something that you've done already must have fixed the problem, 30:12 because you can't get it to fail anymore. Unfortunately, the test that checked variable guide vane systems was so far down in the troubleshooting treeThat we never got to it. 30:25 Everything remedied itself well prior to page six or whatever it was of the troubleshooting. Um, there was, there was a practice called MP68, Maintenance Practice 68, that existed. 30:40 I don't know that we'd ever done MP, whether that had ever been done. We didn't necessarily even know what it was, 'cause nobody'd ever gotten to it. It just wasn't on, uh, anybody's radar. 30:52 Um, it required special tooling that at the time there were two sets of this pressure test tooling that existed with the OEM. So in order to do it, it would've needed to have been ordered by the OEM, 31:09 either conducted by or sent us the equipment to perform it. But again, it just wasn't on anybody's radar. But to clarify, it would've needed to have been the manufacturer to order that. 31:23 Had you gotten to that point and they said, "Okay, your next step is MP68. Here's the tooling." You know, kind of initiating that. 31:33 Eventually, we, we would've needed the tooling, especially we, we didn't have the tooling to do it. So we do now. We've built our own. 31:40 Any operator with access to a competent machine shop and some knowledge can, can now build their own, and I suspect a lot of people have. 31:50 But at the time, this was, this was not something that was known or on anybody's radar. We f- we believe that it should've been. It was a missed opportunity because ours was not the first airplane 32:03 that had hung starts as a symptom to a variable guide vane problem, as Jesse, you mentioned earlier on. It, there was experience with offshore operating aircraft that had had this exact scenario. 32:19 Of course, we didn't know that at this time, even though I think there had been a, a lot of, lot of studying done of it by the OEM. 32:28 Yeah, and I think in that case too, it, it was again, this back and forth between the operator and the OEM. "Well, it's fixed. It's fine. It's fixed. It's fine. Keep moving on." 32:36 And then the crews would actually had to film the error- Right... occurring in the cockpit to prove to the manufacturer, "Yes, there is a problem. It keeps happening." 32:45 'Cause it, it's this no fault found thing that happens. 32:47 You know, you have an issue on an airplane, you send it to the OEM, and they go, "Oh, well, we can't replicate it, so we don't know what to do to tell you to fix it." 32:53 And you know, it's like when you- You've done your homework. Yeah. 32:58 But, um, we do know that they, they had knowledge of it, and you would think that that knowledge would be passed down to those that were helping operators troubleshoot problems. It was our, 33:13 our belief, but it, it didn't happen that way. I know that as the operator, ultimately, you know, people think that we should've, should've done MP68. It's just that it's, it's not easy to get to that point. 33:29 It needs direction by the OEM, assistance by the OEM, and not something that was on our radar. Probably, probably if it had continued to fail, eventually we would've gotten to it, you know. 33:45 But I guess- But that was like- Where does the, I guess, to restate a little bit of that is, is the onus on the engine manufacturer? 'Cause they're the, you had mentioned earlier, they're the provider of the program. 33:56 They manufactured the engine. So, you know, there is a financial cost to maintaining an engine program. Is the onus on the operator, or is the onus on the OEM to take it to that extent level? 34:13 Like is it, which, who, who does the onus fall on that that check was never performed? I mean, I guess that's maybe the basis of the whole litigation is, but, you know, it's like it was on you, it was on me. 34:25 But I guess, I don't know. That's, I, that's, that's like the big, you know, big question I think in my mind. Yeah. And, and something that may get flushed out in the litigation. 34:33 You know, I mean, ultimately the PIC's to blame, you know, in, in an airplane issue, so I, I don't, I don't say that, you know, we're, we're completely exonerated, but I'm not sure who would've 34:49 had the presence of mind to go much further than we went. So it's, um, yeah, it's e- you say financially it's, it's a big, it's a big issue. 35:02 It, it's a big enough issue, and this is somewhat controversial. General Electric's engine program called OnPoint 35:12 always throughout the 601, 604, 605, and then 60- 650 series, was always one that covered corrosion. Full stop. 35:26 Didn't say not in the compressor section, not in the turb- you know, it had no limitations really on covering corrosion during overhauls that they found or, or whatever. 35:37 Sometime after the airplane that you discussed, Jesse, the, the offshore airplane with the hung starts, somewhere after that time, for some reason the GE OnPoint contract changed, 35:52 where now they cover the first $50,000 of corrosion. To fix this problem on one of these airplanes is a million dollars an engine, out replacing outer compressor cases. So 36:07 why did the program change if nobody knew about this problem or didn't suspect there to be an issue? It's, it's created a, a real conundrum for people buying an airplane. 36:22 'Cause like for instance, we had an airplane, 'cause we, we grounded our entire fleet after this of Challengers.And said, "GE, you need to come down here and you need to check every one of these engines that we have." 36:38 Um, there was a 605 that they ended up taking both engines, uh, because they, at that point, it was very early on in, in the understanding, I think, of what was acceptable and what wasn't as far as corrosion. 36:54 So they took both engines off of this 605 that we have, repaired them, couple million dollars, but it was covered by GE OnPoint because the 10 year, uh, 10 year running contract had been written in 2017. 37:10 They were covered. We also had a Challenger 650 that we'd only been operating for a few months. I mean, pretty new airplane, less than 10 years old, very low time on it. They took both those engines also. 37:24 But that owner had bought the airplane in 2021, had signed GE contract post corrosion change, cost him $2 million that he, that he paid. Yeah. That's crazy. So very- Hitting, hitting them with a new contract- 37:42 Yeah... after that experience. So now, the, the reason I say it's such a conundrum is, let's say, for instance, you wanna go buy a Challenger, and 37:52 you wanna have a pre-buy done, and typically during a pre-buy, all they do is allow you, GE OnPoint program allows you to, uh, inspect the compressor section with a bore- or the, uh, the turbine section with a borescope. 38:07 I wouldn't buy an airplane without making sure that this corrosion didn't exist in the compressor section because I'm about to have to sign a GE OnPoint contract that no longer covers corrosion. Mm-hmm. 38:20 So now you got these pre-buys going on. You got people buying airplanes that now want a lot more thorough engine pre-buy inspection completed. 38:33 The engine manufacturer has to essentially buy off on that to be done because it's not on schedule with the 3,200 hour borescopes. So you're asking for exposure off schedule, uh, to the, to the engine manufacturer. 38:50 It's, it's quite, it's, it's got some tentacles, for sure. Yeah, it does. 38:57 I think one of the big conversations that's, that's been happening about this has been the engine washes, and the, the schedules, you know, from my reading, the schedules went from, like, 800 to 400. 39:09 It changed a lot over time. It's not like from day one- All over the place... there was, yeah, there wasn't, like, a good plan of when you're supposed to wash these things. 39:16 But even so, I'm, would it have made a difference due to where this corrosion was, how often you're doing compressor washes, and is that something that needs to change in the industry overall for all engines, especially those operating in South Florida? 39:30 Peter, wanna, wanna, what's up with washes? [laughs] Tell us your thoughts on that. Yeah. 39:35 Well, I, I think now the OEM, uh, has recognized there needs to be a change in the program because one of the service bulletins that's come out has added a step to it, and I'll talk about that in a second. 39:48 But the airplane that, like I said, we'd had for less than three years, when it was born nine, in nine, in 2005, the owner took delivery of it. 40:03 The owner's maintenance technician who lived with the airplane its whole, you know, beginning of its life, with, with the help of the OEM being the airframe manufacturer and engine manufacturer, it was decided that they were going to do compressor washes 800, every 800 hours. 40:25 You know, now this is, this is, these were not Challenger experts that took delivery of this airplane. 40:31 They just, they basically went off the recommendation of others and set an 800-hour schedule that they maintained religiously throughout the life of this airplane, the first 20 years or first 18 years of its life or whatever. 40:46 When we took over the airplane, we continued on that same schedule. Now, it would be my contention the, the corrosion happened long before we ever got it, and we all know corrosion or rust doesn't get better. 40:59 Um, it doesn't stop. Compressor washes don't stop corrosion. It's my contention they may even exacerbate it 41:08 if you don't also do the same, do the step that GE has now added to the compressor wash sect- section, which is lubricate the bore holes of the VG system post-wash. 41:23 And you gotta figure if you've got corrosion, additional fluid, especially down at the 6:00 position of the engine in the inlet air, in the compressor section, 41:36 water is gonna accumulate down at the, you know, lower, lower half of the, uh, of the engines, and that's where the majority of the corrosion has come from. So would engine washes have helped? 41:52 Engine washes are typically for power recovery, and the engine manufacturer's manuals even list that as the primary function of an engine wash is for power recovery, whether it be carbon or, or whatever. 42:08 It's first thing they tell you to do if the engine is not making performance numbers is to try a compressor wash or engine wash or whatever, a process. So now they've 42:20 tightened the criteria a little bit for the compressor washes at the timeframe for them, but they've added that big step since our accident of lubricate the bore holes after you do a compressor wash.Other, other engine manufacturers have provisioned for this, 42:39 like Rolls-Royce. We have, we operate Gulfstream also. Rolls-Royce, 42:45 they've manufactured into the VG system little holes where you lubricate little weep holes that you can actually reach the inside of the bore with lubrication after each compressor wash. 43:00 That was thought about in advance. It's not an afterthought on that engine. So, um, the only other thing I have to say about compressor washes, and corrosion is 43:12 a time, is accumulates on a time factor, not a flight hour factor. In fact, additional flight hours probably are good for the engine. Sitting is what is the problem. 43:25 This airplane, prior to us beginning to operate, was operated Part 91, and even though it was a busy, busy airplane, it was still a, you know, 300, 400 hour a year at the most airplane. 43:38 So therefore, if you had a 400-hour compressor watch schedule, you're doing a compressor watch, wash once a year, maybe once a year and a half. We took over the airplane, and now we're flying it a lot. 43:54 You know, we're flying it 800 to 1,000 hours a year. 43:59 So we're, we ended up doing compressor washes on it on a more frequent basis than, than, than most would be doing if they were doing 400-hour compressor wash intervals. 44:11 So it's just, you know, the concept that, that time is what creates corrosion, not flight hours. Mm-hmm. Basing, basing your compressor washes on a flight time interval really doesn't make a lot of sense to me. 44:29 It should be hour. The other, yeah, the other piece of this too was that the compressor wash schedule, it was never actually changed in the manual, I don't believe. 44:38 And again, I, I read a lot, [laughs] so correct me when I'm wrong. 44:41 Uh, but it wasn't actually changed in the manual, but what happened after the other aircraft that had hung start issues, there was a notice and some sort of digest on the engine that maybe you should change it to 400. 44:53 It's so hard. But I don't think that was ever actually mandated. It is so hard to figure it out. It just, it talks in circles- Yeah... if you go through all the different service bulletins. Yeah. 45:04 And let me, I'll conclude the corrosion thing with one other super important factor. Most people maintain their aircraft in accordance with FAA mandated chapter five in the maintenance manual. That's the Bible. 45:19 That's the regulatory document that you have to maintain your aircraft with. In Bombardier's chapter five for this aircraft, there is zero talk of or requirement for engine washes. Now, 45:37 their 60 operating with Pratt & Whitney engines, it is in chapter five. You, you will wash, you will do compressor washes or rinses or, or whatever at a specific interval. 45:51 It doesn't exist anywhere in Bombardier's chapter five for the Challenger. 45:57 So if you're an operator, Part 91 or otherwise, and you're just gonna follow the manufacturer's recommended FAA mandated program, you are not gonna have it on your radar. 46:10 You need to go further into GE's, once again, recommended procedures, not mandate, not mandated anywhere, so. And what about South Florida? And this aircraft had been operating in the islands before that. 46:25 You know, I think what recommendations do you have for operators who are in these, in, there's a map in the report that shows you where the severely corrosive environments are. It's Florida. It's New York City smog. 46:36 Um, what can, do those operations need to sp- pay special attention to, you know, in that environment? South Florida, New York, I could be wrong, but I don't consider them really super corrosive areas 46:51 compared to the Caribbean, for instance, which we, we've learned a lot since, since then. Uh, but South Florida, not so much. 47:01 We, we just celebrated, or we're celebrating this year our 50th anniversary of operating airplanes out of South Florida. This is the first we'd ever had a problem with corrosion in South Florida. 47:12 Airplanes are transitory, so you may live in the Midwest and figure you have no corrosion problem. 47:20 But if your airplane lived the first 10 years of its life in the Caribbean, uh, and it's not just, it's not just corrosion due to salt exposure. 47:32 The Challenger 650 that we have that they took both engines lived the beginning few years of its life in Lima, Peru, which is very corrosive due, it turns out, we didn't know it, but very corrosive due to pollution. 47:48 So it's not just a salt air issue. Yeah. I've heard China is a bad one as well- Yeah... just from smog. 47:57 Yeah, there's places, you know, in, in, in, uh, in, in, uh, Eastern Europe that, you know, they, they, they talk about. Look, even if you live in the Midwest, your airplane, it lives or is based in the Midwest, 48:12 what is it? Two-thirds of the world is covered with ocean? [laughs] You know? These airplanes are not local in nature. 48:19 Yes, a, a South Florida base may have a little bit more exposure to corrosion than a Midwest base, but these airplanes fly all over the place. 48:28 The owners go to the, the Caribbean to get on their yachts during the winter for their holidays, and they sit out, so-All of these airplanes, I think everybody, this should be on everybody's radar, and that's why we are pushing hard for these service bulletins that have come out. 48:48 And I, I credit the OEM for coming out with service bulletins to start with. I do not think they've gone far enough. I s- still think that they go to, 48:59 go to protect them from the ultimate exposure of a lot of engines coming off airplanes. But they've done some service bulletins. 49:08 They need to become mandatory rather than just monitoring for hung starts to where you don't even look at your engine unless you've had a hung start problem. 49:18 I think everybody needs to have a borescope done for a baseline, and then at least you know you have a clean engine, you know, or you know you have a developing problem because that corrosion will continue if it's started, regardless of the continued exposure to salt or whatever. 49:36 It's, it's gonna get worse. So baseline, I think is, baseline inspection is important. 49:43 But it is good to note that you need to check your program documents because sometimes if you do a borescope, that, that is not covered. Absolutely. That's very, very, very true. Yeah, I guess that that would be a ton. 49:54 I mean, I'm just quickly glancing at how big the fleet is, but I mean, you've got 287 Challenger 605s. You know, just use that as, as your baseline, right? 50:06 Like, that's a, that's a lot of engines that are- That's a lot of engines... 50:08 gonna be getting borescopes and- And I think that the majority of the operators, obviously there's other engine program options, and you don't have to be on an engine program. It's n- it's not a regulatory thing. 50:22 It's a cost, cost decision. But I'd say of the people on programs, the vast majority of them are on the OEM's program. Yeah. No, that's crazy. Yeah, 344 Challenger 604s. 50:34 I mean, that's 700, or, you know, close to 700 airplanes. I wonder, too, do you think, 50:41 uh, our pilots, and this is just general, you know, all of our, all of our pilots in 91 and 135 can differentiate between a hung start and a slow start? Because that could be another critical issue. 50:52 You know, are, are there hung starts maybe occurring that even aren't recognized potentially? There probably are. I, I can go further to say that there's probably hung starts encountered a lot that are just not even 51:09 written up or nobody's notified about. Because if you think of the mentality, you've got the owner or clients in the back of the airplane, you have a hung start, 51:23 the first thing you're gonna do is, is shut it, shut down the process and re- and retry it. It's, it's, that's just what a pilot is going to do. And if it starts again, then everything was, everything was fine. 51:37 It was an anomaly. Let me just keep right on going. And yeah, the differentiation between a hung start and a hot start is, is important, you know, uh, or, or a, a slow start. 51:47 Slow start is typically a, a starter going bad or some sort of additional friction or something that, that, or an air, a, a airframe issue where there's insufficient pneumatic pressure to start the engine. 52:01 The hung start is something very different to where, I mean, it'll accelerate normally to a point, but just never will reach and stabilize at idle. So recognizing it, super important. 52:13 Acknowledging it, maybe even more important. Uh, letting your- Mm-hmm... letting your maintenance department know that this is happening. 52:21 And training, I mean, is this something that's properly covered, uh, in, in training programs? Yeah. We've tried very hard to get the word out. Um, I think probably the most, 52:35 the most widespread it is that we work with CAE for our training program. 52:41 The people at CAE were very receptive to some of the information that we'd shared with them so that they could incorporate it, if not officially, at least unofficially, through their, their instructors teaching people that are coming through there how to recognize it, what might be the problem. 52:58 Even with an airframe thing, there was a, you know, one of the early theories was that the throttles, there was a throttle shut do- you know, the throttles were brought to idle cutoff. 53:11 Prior to us learning of the actual cause, we did a lot as, as a party to the investigation to help the NTSB try to determine how this could have happened. 53:23 So in one of our troubleshooting days, we said, "You know, is there something in the auto throttle system that could have something to do with this?" And one of us asked, "How does this auto throttle work?" 53:37 Well, is it... And, and it turns out it's just a simple clutch mechanism 53:42 to where if you, if you set the speed down as you're approaching the airport, the auto throttles will bring the throttles back to idle to try to reach the speed that you've set in to, uh, in, in the meter there. 53:57 So the throttles come back. What would happen if somebody bumped those red latches? 54:03 Would the throttles continue to try to, with the clutch, just drive themselves to idle cutoff, or is there some intelligence in the auto throttle system that will not allow them to do that? And we found early on 54:19 through our testing on the ground, nope, it'll, it'll shut the engines off. You, you're able to simulate it. 54:27 So if you're reducing speed, the throttles are, are, are being held back at flight idle by the auto throttle system in an attempt to slow the airplane, and somebody reaches across the cockpit or does something to hit one of those little red latches, that throttle's gonnaContinue to drive itself to idle cutoff. 54:50 So we thought maybe this is it, and even after we found out that that wasn't the problem, we knew pretty early on, being a party to the investigation, 55:01 that it wasn't that because we saw from the flight data recorder data that these engines were never shut off. But we went to, we went to the airframe manufacturer and said, "Crazy, but this happens. 55:14 Everybody needs to know about it. We need to shout this from the rooftop that this can happen." Nothing's happened. They haven't notified anybody. 55:22 CAE, on the other hand, were very receptive to the information, and I believe maybe even incorporated it in some of the training, just knowing that it can happen. Hmm. 55:33 Well, I think kind of the last, as we're running up on time, the last thing that I'd like to talk about is, you know, the impact to your business since this has happened and maybe what, you know, hopef- what you're hopeful for with this investigation coming out, you know, where, where you see the business itself going. 55:51 Being a 50-year-old company and having felt like we, we always talked about having access to the entire charter pie. You know, we do aircraft management also, Part 91 management. 56:04 But as far as our charter operation goes, which has been the foundation of the company for 50 years, we liked to have access to the whole pie. We wanted to be ARGUS Platinum Elite. We wanted to be Wyvern Wingman Plus. 56:18 We wanted to be IS-BAO. We want, you know, all of that. We wanted to be approved by NetJets. 56:25 We wanted to be approved to do business for all of these places, and that's something that we had achieved, and we lost a third of that pie that day. 56:34 We understand, uh, you know, they by their, by their company guidelines are mandated to remove from, from use an operator that's had an accident until some point, and that's usually when the final report comes out. Um, 56:51 we were, we were very pleased that ARGUS and Wyvern right up front recognized that it was, this was not a systemic problem with Hop- A-Jet and their safety systems 'cause they're, they're in here auditing us all the time. 57:07 You know, we do quarterly audits with, with, uh, with them and, and just been in their program for so long. They had confidence in us that they didn't need to pull our ratings. But we lost some of the real big players. 57:22 So we were, we were happy to have more availability for some of the brokers and other operators and our retail clients that, uh, continued to have faith in us. 57:33 But now we're really hoping that everybody will give us a shot again, and that's the biggest thing that we think the report finally being out, and the last thing we are is a spike the football kind of company. 57:49 We try to stay pretty low-key and humble. That's just our methodology here. But we do believe that this should go a long ways to having them realize that this wasn't all us. 58:01 Our systems, our safety protocols, our training, just our company culture was not the problem here. 58:11 And I think that's the, uh, you know, I, I have a, a nonprofit that publishes accidents and incidents, and one of the things that I encourage people, you know, before the page even opens is understand the context. 58:22 You know, there's a big difference between a bird strike and a pilot who did something negligently, you know? 58:28 So I, I think it's worth people, you know, if, if you really wanna investigate truly if someone is safe or not, you have to investigate the details. It's not, uh, it's not, it's not as simple as we'd all like it to be. 58:41 Never, never is. But it's, uh, it's, it's been quite the experience. Um, it's, it's not over yet by any means, but today is the first day of the rest of our, our company's life. Like I said, 58:57 it was planned long before the, uh, the report came out last week, but we had a, a, a 50th anniversary celebration on Saturday night. 59:05 And, you know, seeing some of the people there and some of the pilots from decades ago that showed up, um, and, and seeing some of the, the new generation of people that we have coming through here, I mean, 50 more years is not out of the question by any means. 59:22 I, I won't be here, but there's, there, uh, there certainly is the possibility for the next generation to continue it on much further. Yeah. Well, I think that that is, uh, that's a good place to end it here, Barry. 59:34 Uh, we really appreciate you coming on and having a long-form conversation. 59:38 We think that this is the type of important conversations that we try and have here on "The VIP Seat," so thanks, uh, thanks so much for coming on. Thank you, guys. Awesome. Thanks. 59:49 Well, that has been another awesome episode of "The VIP Seat." You can help us by sharing this with someone in the aviation industry. 59:56 If you know an operator, if you know a broker, if you know someone new to the industry, old, old in the industry, share this with them so that they can understand a little bit more of what goes into this. 1:00:07 It's a really deep dive in operational expertise and knowledge, and Barry did a great job. Go subscribe to the newsletter at thevipseat.com. 1:00:16 Thanks again to AB Jets for sponsoring this week's episode of the podcast, and we will see you all next week. 1:00:22 [outro music]
