Mitigating the growing threat of wildlife hazards at airports.
The world’s increasingly busy airports face a growing threat of birdstrikes and wildlife hazards, partly due to expanding urban environments and bird populations, but also due to the global growth of airport traffic. Lee Pannett, Director at the Scarecrow Group, reveals how bio-acoustic technology can successfully mitigate the issue.
CLEARING RUNWAYS: A Scarecrow Group vehicle in Prague
Regulations concerning airside bird control differ across the world in terms of what is mandatory and the extent to which practices are then governed by authorities. The International Civil Aviation Authority (ICAO), for example, has published a set of Standards and Recommended Practices (SARPs) and although not binding, the SARPs recommend that member countries establish a national procedure for aircraft and airport personnel to record birdstrikes.
Understanding the importance and the implications of birdstrikes and wildlife hazards remains a major challenge for all airports no matter their size, for ground staff, operations teams and management.
Robotic falcon takes to the sky above Southampton Airport
Robird, as it is called, is designed to strike fear into the hearts of a wide range of potential runway hazards, including ‘other’ birds of prey.
ON PATROL: Robird is the first of its kind to be used on a regular, long-term basis at an airport
Birds of prey are a popular method of keeping the population of pest species down. Hawks have been unleashed on the Houses of Parliament in the United Kingdom to scare of resident pigeons and seaside resorts to manage seagulls. For years, airports have used various species but now, increasingly, they are considering a turn to ornithopters for their needs – and Southampton Airport has become the first in Europe to employ the technology on a long-term basis .
Robird, a drone designed and flown to mimic the actions of a bird of prey, has been trialled patrolling the skies above the Hampshire international airport.
Traditional bird scaring methods lose their impact over time and need to be backed up with lethal deterrents. The benefit of Robird is that all types of birds including corvids (crows), birds of prey, pigeons and gulls see the drone as a predator, and change their behaviour to keep well away. No harm comes to any bird through this method of bird control.
The drone has been trialled at Southampton Airport in partnership with NATS and the developers, Clear Flight Solutions. The successful trial means similar robot bird systems could take flight at other airports in the future.
Dan Townsend, Southampton Airport’s Airside Operations and Safety Manager, said: “At Southampton Airport, we invest every effort to make sure our airfield is as safe as possible. Robird is an innovative idea that we’ve found to be an effective and durable way to reduce bird strikes — so you could say this idea really has wings.”
Ian Rogers, UK & Ireland Director, Clear Flight Solutions, added: “Clear Flight Solutions and Southampton Airport worked together to establish a drone operation on a regular and on-going basis in a CTR for the first time in Europe. The effect of flying Robird at Southampton has been to remove bird hazards safely and controllably from safety critical areas. This will benefit the airport and its customers.”
Asbestos exposure, a hidden risk for budget tourists in Asia
We are just beginning to realise that exposure to asbestos is a hidden travel risk in Asia, particularly for those on a low budget who stay in cheap deteriorating buildings or next to demolition sites.
It’s a small but real risk.
Asbestos is a popular building material in many parts of Asia and given that it only takes a few fibres to cause a fatal cancer, tourists may unknowingly be facing a health risk.
The longer and higher the level of exposure, the greater the dose. This explains why asbestos workers are at higher risk of developing disease. But others get it too and some are totally disbelieving when they get the diagnosis because they can’t recall ever being exposed.
Although asbestos may be locked into insulation, floor tiles and coating, walls and roofing material, as buildings decay fibres can be freed.
These fibres can be 1000 times thinner than a human hair and can be inhaled without detection.
Some travel blogs suggest opting for new hotels and avoiding construction or renovation sites where fibres may be in the air, the soil or on nearby surfaces.
Professor Ken Takahashi, director of the Asbestos Diseases Research Institute (ADRI) says the travel risks have not previously been considered by researchers.
“But in the case of travel, one can assume that the exposure level is low and the duration of exposure is short. Therefore, the risk would be small,” he says.
“A practical recommendation would thus be to avoid going near places where asbestos may be obviously present, the most typical of which is asbestos factories or mines.
“Of course, presence of asbestos is not always obvious, such as in the case of exposure to buildings containing asbestos or exposure to asbestos-containing products.
“It then becomes a matter of practicality whether one should avoid travel in view of the small risk.
He strongly believes Australia has a responsibility to raise awareness of asbestos in Asia, provide education on protection against it and hopefully, help to get rid of it completely “for the sake of workers and residents of the country itself, much more than for the sake of travellers”.
He says more than 60 per cent of the world consumption of asbestos occurs in parts of Asia where commercial convenience and the need for development and housing outweigh public health concerns.
Causing persistent damage
While Japan and South Korea have banned it, China, India, Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam are among the top 10 consumers in the world.
The small country of Laos has the highest per capita consumption of asbestos on the planet.
For almost 50 years, it has been known that inhaled asbestos fibres can cause cancer of the lungs or can pass through the lungs into a cell layer that surrounds all internal organs.
This layer is called the called the mesothelium and where malignant mesothelioma forms.
While the asbestos itself is chemically harmless, its long-pointed fibres lodge in the body and cause a series of micro-injuries.
As the body is unable to clear these fibres, they remain stuck and cause persistent damage to the tissue.
About 30 years ago, scientists observed that a single dose of asbestos fibres damages the mesothelium tissue.
Asbestos can also cause asbestosis, a non-malignant disease that results in irreversible lung damage, difficulty breathing, a cough and, in severe cases, an enlarged heart.
Australia should ‘share knowledge’
Professor Takahashi says Australia is the only country in the world that has a dedicated federal agency to deal with the legacy of the asbestos industry.
In other countries, if it is managed at all, it is done so within health, labour or environmental ministries.
“Australia should be taking a lead in the global effort to ban asbestos in developing countries that continue to use it at a very high level because it is cheap, widely available and has many advantageous characteristics.”
He says Australia should share its knowledge and technology about substitutes for asbestos within the Asian neighbourhood.
“These countries are hesitant to make the transition because they prioritise economy over health and added to that is the fact that there are many pro-asbestos lobbies trying to maintain the global trade.
“And there is corruption among officials of ministries of developing countries, so they are not fully motivated to make the transition.
“I believe Australia should assist these counties in developing their own expertise to detect the disease and also develop systems so that workers and consumers are not exposed to asbestos while they are using it.
“Until these countries stop the manufacture and export of products containing asbestos, Australia will have to deal with illegal imports for a long time.”
Occupational exposure
Professor Takahashi says this as the epidemic of asbestos-related disease in Australia has begun peaking.
Although Australia implemented a complete asbestos ban in 2003, classic asbestos cancer – mesothelioma – can take up to 40 years to develop, which means new cases will continue to occur and people will be dying from it for many years to come.
In the 1950s and 1960s, Australia had the world’s highest per capita rate of asbestos consumption. Today it has among the highest rates of mesothelioma.
In 2016, about 700 people – the great majority male – were newly diagnosed with this fatal disease.
Apart from those involved in mining or manufacturing asbestos, many more people have been affected because vast numbers of houses built before 1990 had materials containing asbestos.
Tradesmen, such as plumbers and electricians, working in such residential properties had a high degree of occupational exposure.
Mesothelioma has been characterised by nihilism in the past but an international research effort is making some inroads into the disease.
Last month, Swiss researchers unmasked an underlying mechanism that helps explain why asbestos causes cancer.
Detecting disease earlier
They say that until now, this cancer was “a black box” and they are hopeful their discovery may lead to detecting the disease much earlier in its development.
This may then lead to a means of slowing it.
They say over time the immune system can’t cope with the changes induced by the presence of the fibres.
“The immune system goes out of balance and is no longer strong enough to combat tumour formation,” said lead researcher Dr Emanuela Felley-Bosco, of the Swiss National Science Foundation.
Published in the journal Oncogene, the study proposes that immunotherapy, a treatment that triggers the body’s own immune system to fight disease, may work in this cancer.
Using mice, the researchers showed that micro-injuries caused by asbestos triggered an immune reaction.
Tissue-repair pathways were activated that promote cell proliferation and favoured the growth of tumours
The team also found an accumulation of mutations in RNA (a kind of working copy of DNA), which they thought weakened the tissue-repair immune response.
As a result, tumour formation was no longer effectively combated and cancer developed.
Immune imbalance
An analysis of data from a human gene bank revealed that human mesothelioma tumours also produce large amounts of the enzyme that causes the mutations in the RNA.
It’s hoped this will be useful in recognising early signs of inflammation and in developing a specific immunotherapy against mesothelial cancer.
A clinical study of immunotherapy at the advanced stage of this disease is under way at hospitals in Switzerland, Spain and Britain.
Dr Yuen Cheng, a molecular biologist at ADRI, says the Swiss research has taken the science of mesothelioma a step forward.
While it was known an immune imbalance occurred, the importance and the potential triggers for it were not known.
The Swiss have shown immune imbalance plays a major role and have provided list of genes that were previously not considered.
While these genes were found in the animal model, they were also found in mesothelioma tumours in human gene banks.
The problem is that the banks have samples from fewer than 100 tumours and hundreds of thousands are needed to confirm the finding.
“They’ve clearly shown a link, something different to what other researchers have done, but we don’t know for certain until we have done a large sample,” Dr Cheng says.
The next step, which is not difficult, is to confirm this in humans. If proved correct, it could be useful in the clinical setting.
*Jill Margo is an adjunct associate professor at The University of NSW.
Qatar Airways A321 Badly Damaged in fire at Doha Airport
Inflight entertainment satellite antenna caught fire
On 8 December 2017 a Qatar Airways A321 was undergoing maintenance at a remote stand at Doha’s Hamad International Airport, and apparently the inflight entertainment satellite antenna caught fire.
The A321 with the tail number A7-AIB, which took its first flight in July 2010, so it’s still a fairly new plane.
Here’s the statement from the airline regarding this: “At 06:50am today a Qatar Airways Airbus A321 aircraft positioned at a remote stand experienced a fire whilst under maintenance at Hamad International Airport (HIA). The fire inside the cabin was promptly contained and extinguished. Whilst there was some damage to the aircraft there were no injuries. A full investigation is being conducted by the local authorities to establish the cause. Traffic at HIA was not affected and is running as normal.”
Pictures of the burnt plane have been circulating on Facebook, and it’s not pretty (and certainly looks worse than “some damage”):
I’m curious whether Qatar Airways plans to write off the plane, or if there’s anyway a plane with this much damage can still be fixed.
At least this happened while the plane was undergoing maintenance, rather than while the plane was in service…
One passenger and six crew injured after turbulence hits Brisbane-bound Cathay Pacific flight
Cathay Pacific CX157 diverted to Manila so victims could get medical attention
A passenger and six cabin crew members on a Brisbane-bound Cathay Pacific Airways flight were injured when the aircraft hit severe turbulence on Monday ( October 2017.
Flight CX157 left Hong Kong International Airport at 12.49pm for the eastern Australian city and reportedly encountered the bumpy conditions about an hour into the journey, as staff were serving meals.
The cabin reportedly shook for 10 minutes, during which crew members were thrown up and hit the ceiling.
The Airbus A350, carrying 264 passengers, 11 crew and three pilots, diverted to Manila, in the Philippines, so the injured could get medical attention, an airline spokeswoman said.
The plane landed in Manila at 3.48pm local time. The injured have since been discharged.
All non-injured passengers departed on the plane for Brisbane at 6.29pm
French aviation agency, Airbus investigate ‘serious incident’
Arrangements made to get 497 passengers to Los Angeles
An Air France A380Photographer: Manuel Velasquez/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)
An Airbus SE A380 superjumbo operated by Air France was forced to make an emergency landing in eastern Canada after one of its four engine broke apart over the Atlantic Ocean.
The aircraft was flying from Paris to Los Angeles when the “serious incident” occurred, prompting the pilots to land in Goose Bay, Labrador, the airline said Sunday in a statement. No one on Air France Flight 66 was hurt and arrangements have been made to get the 497 passengers to California, the airline said. Airbus and France’s BEA air-accident investigation bureau dispatched a team of experts to Canada to investigate the aircraft, they said.
While engine malfunctions aren’t uncommon, so-called uncontained failures, when the protective outer part of the power plant known as the cowling rips apart, are. Such explosions are more serious because it can cause catastrophic damage to the wing holding fuel or the hydrolics that control the flaps. The Air France plane’s jet turbines are made by Engine Alliance, a joint venture of General Electric Co. and Pratt & Whitney Corp. The Alliance said on Twitter that it is aware of the Saturday incident and looking into it.
Photos posted by passengers online showed the outer of the two engines under the right wing with extensive damage, and the entire frontal ring of the cowling missing. Pratt & Whitney is owned by United Technologies Corp. and the manufacturer also equips the Airbus A320neo with upgraded engines, while GE and partner Safran SA offer a rival product.
The incident is the most severe since Qantas Airways Ltd. in 2010 grounded all six of its A380 aircraft after an inflight explosion on one of the plane’s engines. Those power plants were made by Rolls-Royce Group Plc, whose Trent 900 model is the other engine of choice on the A380. The Qantas jet was out of service for 18 months for repairs and retestesting.
The A380 is among the increasingly rare breed of airliners powered by four engines. The other two aircraft still in use are the Boeing 747, as well as the A340, which is no longer produced. Airlines now favor two-engine models because they are more fuel efficient, and twin-turbine aircraft have become more reliable even after a malfunction of one engine. Aircraft like the Airbus A350 are certified to fly for several hours on just one engine to reach the next airport for emergency landings.
After a decade in service Airbus has slowed output of the A380, the world’s biggest passenger aircraft, to just one plane a month. Air France operates 10 of the aircraft. The biggest user of the double decker is Emirates, which uses mainly Engine Alliance turbines for the plane, but has switched lately to the Rolls-Royce model.
Severe Tropical Storm Pakhar casus flight chaos at Hong Kong International Airport
The 2nd major storm to hit Hong Kong within a week leads to 206 flight cancellations and 471 delays
Forty-two landing attempts were aborted at Hong Kong International Airport between 7am and 7.30pm on Sunday as winds whipped up by Severe Tropical Storm Pakhar made conditions unsafe.
A review by the Post of data from Flightradar24, which tracks commercial flight movements, found some aircraft tried two or even three times to make a safe touchdown, as crosswinds and wind shear, which exerts a turning force on aircraft, wreaked havoc on operations.
Some pilots eventually opted to divert to other airports, with Xiamen, Kaoshiung, Haikou, Manila and Bangkok taking a large chunk of flights.
Diverted aircraft included Cathay Pacific flight 238 from London, which made no fewer than three failed attempts at landing before being diverted to Kaoshiung. Another flight, CX616 from Bangkok, made one failed attempt to touch down before flying back to the Thai capital.
A Hong Kong finance worker who asked not to be named said his flight to Singapore was supposed to depart at 11.15am on Sunday, but had been delayed twice.
On Twitter, affected fliers complained of delays, with one hitting out at Hong Kong’s flagship airline Cathay for bumping him to a flight on Tuesday.
Hong Kong’s Airport Authority said 44 flights had been diverted to other destinations.
A total of 206 flights were cancelled and 471 delayed due to the storm, with 50 planes left stuck on the tarmac at one point in the day as the city was pummelled by its second severe storm in a week.
The Hong Kong Observatory issued a T8 warning on Sunday morning as Pakhar lashed the city with heavy rain, but downgraded that signal to T3 at 1.40pm and T1 at 5.40pm.
Both of the airport’s runways were set to operate overnight instead of the usual one, to cope with a backlog of flights.
At noon on Sunday, all airlines closed their check-in services until 2pm.
Earlier in the week, more than 450 flights were cancelled due to Typhoon Hato, which hit the city on Wednesday and caused major damage.
The typhoon left 10 people dead in nearby Macau and at least 244 people injured.
On Sunday, as Pakhar lashed the city, an authority spokesman advised travellers to check the status of their flight before coming to the airport.
“Operations are quite severely affected,” he said.
The spokesman said flights were still coming and going from the airport on Sunday afternoon, but a flight attendant on a Delta plane waiting to take off said no planes were taking off or landing, according to a Post reporter on board an affected flight.
The pilot for flight DL38 to Seattle said that at one point 20 planes were stuck on the runway waiting for safer conditions, while another 30 were waiting to push off from the terminal.
He estimated that take-off could be a few hours away at the very least.
Now we are just stuck on the flight like sitting ducks
MARK STRANSON, BUSINESS TRAVELLER
Flights heading southeast of Hong Kong were largely cancelled, while planes to Thailand, Japan and the United States boarded their passengers, the pilot said.
Mark Stranson, aboard DL38 after visiting Hong Kong on business, said he was pleased with the decision not to fly.
“I’d prefer that they delayed us before boarding because now we are just stuck on the flight like sitting ducks, but I’m glad they’re not trying to fly in this weather.”
But Cheri Cheung Wing-lam, a Georgetown University student, expressed concern she would miss her connecting flight.
“I cannot believe we have to sit here for so long, they shouldn’t have boarded us if they were going to keep us waiting. I’m thankful they’re not risking anything and that they provided refreshments, but I cannot imagine sitting here for hours.”
"In Australia you need a photo ID to enter a licensed venue, but not to board a flight!" Roger Henning, Founder, Homeland Security Asia Pacific
Letters: Airport security, the constitution and the NBN
A visible presence, but the holes in security are obvious. Justin McManus
by Letters
Basic steps to tighten airport security
When will the government implement the necessary protective security measures to minimise the risk of a terrorist attack on civil aviation, and require airlines to assure the travelling public as to who and what is flying on their aircraft.
Anyone at our city and regional airports can board a domestic aircraft without ever producing identification. Simply check in online or at an electronic kiosk (including checked baggage), obtain your boarding pass, pass through security screening, and proceed to the boarding gate then onto the aircraft! Or, simply hand your boarding pass to one of the thousands of people in the sterile area, many of whom are not flying.
You, and your ticket and baggage, are never matched.
The bottom line is that our domestic carriers cannot guarantee who or what is travelling in their aircraft.
There are six basis steps to improving aviation security that should be implemented at all domestic airports immediately:
•Automated passenger profiling from the point of ticket purchase (national database interfaced with select government agencies and all airlines).
•Ticket-passenger verification (photo ID) prior to screening – only flying passengers permitted to proceed to the sterile concourse area.
• Scalable risk-based security screening (not everyone presents the same risk) incorporating automated full body scanning.
• Secondary ticket/passenger verification (photo ID) at the boarding gate.
• Replace the low-paid private security personnel working at our airports with a competent and highly motivated government aviation security force forming part of our border protection force. We do this for customs and quarantine inspection, why not security?
• Replace the Aviation Security Identification Card issued to employees, concessionaires and contractors working at our airports with biometric access control and ID –start tracking the person, not the card.
Anything less is simply a cost-driven politically expedient approach to our safety.
Mike Carmody, Former chief of security, Sydney Airport, Forde, ACT
Jet blast from a plane kills a tourist at a Caribbean airport
A sign near St. Maarten’s Princess Juliana International Airport warns people about the danger from airplane jet engines.
A tourist from New Zealand was killed by the blast of a plane at an airport in the Dutch Caribbean island of St. Maarten.
The 57-year-old woman, who was not identified, was hanging onto a fence to watch the plane leave Wednesday, the island’s police said on Facebook.
The jet’s blast was so powerful, it knocked her down, police said. She later died.
Watching planes land and take off at Princess Juliana International Airport is a well-known tourist attraction, as approaching aircraft tend to fly very low above their heads.
But both airport and local authorities warn against getting too close to the planes, calling the practice “extremely dangerous.”
Police didn’t say what kind of plane was involved in Wednesday’s incident.
Island authorities say they have taken necessary precautions to warn tourists not to get too close to planes. They’ve placed signs and they patrol the area to warn people, the police department said.
Thrill-seekers and tourists have been watching planes take off and land at the airport since it opened in 1943.
It is worth highlighting a suggestion posted on Facebook by Paul TrueschlerIn know it’s a tourist attraction, but please install a small deflector to at least reduce the blast effects. It can still be exciting while becoming safer.
Hope the Dutch Caribbean island of St. Maarten Airport Authorities instal a small deflector, to reduce the risk of injury and death of future visitors.
Safety concerns over soft tarmac spots at Suvarnabhumi airport by IATA.
In a report focussing on airport infrastructure in Thailand, IATA has highlighted an urgent need to address soft tarmac spots at Suvarnabhumi Airport (BKK).
Temporary remedial repairs have been carried out on the runway tarmac, but reported incidents are steadily increasing, and IATA has urged Airports of Thailand (AoT) to urgently commit to a permanent solution.
Soft tarmac issues that result in runway closures and disruption have significant knock-on effects
IATA’s overwhelming concern regards safety, but soft tarmac issues that result in runway closures and disruption have significant knock-on effects.
These include:
• Delays resulting in missed onward connections, lost or delayed luggage
• Costs as a result of passenger re-routing due to missed connecting flights, hotel costs, and passenger compensation
• Gate changes caused by capacity constraints and repairs, resulting in passenger complaints and missed onward connections
• Fuel costs and delays caused by imposed holding patterns, and taxiing congestion as a result of capacity issue
• Impairing slot management and takeoff efficiencies
IATA also revealed its support for the approval of terminal expansion plans at BKK. With passenger numbers already surpassing the terminal design capacity of 45 million per year—and demand growing by 10% annually—expansion is vital if the airport is to meet demand.
The development of U-Tapao (Pattaya) as a third Bangkok airport would be an error
Another Bangkok airport, Don Mueng (DMK), meanwhile, experienced demand growth of 21.34% in 2016, driven by a surge in low-cost carrier passengers.
Although recognizing the pressure the Thai Government is under to meet demand, IATA believes the development of U-Tapao (Pattaya) as a third Bangkok airport would be an error. IATA instead believes the focus should be on maximizing throughput and efficiently using the facilities at BKK and DMK.
CLEARING RUNWAYS: A Scarecrow Group vehicle in Prague
ON PATROL: Robird is the first of its kind to be used on a regular, long-term basis at an airport
