Podcast: Boeing 787 Crash Casts A Shadow Over Le Bourget

The Paris Air Show is opening under a cloud following the tragic crash of an Air India Boeing 787 just days ago. Editors discuss what investigators will be focusing on and what the accident means for the industry.

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AI Transcript

Joe Anselmo: Welcome to this special edition of Aviation Week's Check 6 podcast coming to you from Paris, France on the eve of the Paris Air Show. I'm Joe Anselmo, Aviation Week's editorial director, and I'm joined by Guy Norris, our senior propulsion editor, Jens Flottau, our executive editor for Commercial aviation. Guy, the crash of a Boeing 787, not to mention the new Israeli-Iranian conflict has just cast a shadow over this airshow as it's about to open. What are we hearing about the 787 crash? What are people saying?

Guy Norris: You're absolutely right, Joe. Obviously the crash has cast a huge shadow over the start of the Paris Air Show, and in fact, it's already led Kelly Ortberg, the CEO and Stephanie Pope, the president of Boeing Commercial Airplanes aren't here. And of course, all of the events that were scheduled have been pushed back because of that. So what are we hearing on the accident itself? So the one thing that really strikes me is that there's a certain number of things which the investigators have got to be looking at. Remember, we don't know for a fact any of these details from a sort of regulatory or investigation perspective, but just judging by what we're hearing from the overall community, the industry is obviously going to be looking at what they're seeing from the evidence of the videos and from the flight data and cockpit voice recorders, both of which have been recovered by now.

Guy Norris: But one thing that we do know is that the aircraft looked as if it lost power during that climb out, evidently in the few seconds before the accident occurred. And the other thing that we do know almost certainly by now, is that the ram air turbine deployed in those literally few seconds of flight. The ram air turbine, for those that don't know, is a sort of a two-bladed small dropdown, propeller-driven generator, which essentially deploys out of the root, below the root of the starboard wing into the slipstream, and it generates an emergency source of electrical and hydraulic power basically for the primary flight control system. And so that's a smoking gun really, which the investigators will be bad to be looking at.

Joe Anselmo: Well, let's follow on with that thought because it's not in the video, right? You can just hear it in the video. You can't see it.

Guy Norris: Yeah, that's a really good point. So the sound is the giveaway. If you listen to the first few seconds of the video of the aircraft going away from the camera, there is this distinct sound of something, a turbine, which I think is a giveaway. You can't really hear much of engine sound either, which also is very suspicious. Of course, 787 has very quiet engines. It's a remarkably safe airplane. This is the first ever hull loss, of course, since it entered service in 2011. So it's a really big mystery. So this is something which we know investigators are looking at as potential indicator of what happened. And just to quickly go over why the RAT would drop down and deploy, there's a number of reasons. One is dual engine failure. This is something which would, unless it was a bird strike or something like fuel contamination, something so difficult to imagine happening, especially in those first few seconds of flight loss of electrical power to all instruments, the flight instruments, the failure of four electric motor pumps.

Guy Norris: Now these are the main heart electrical system on the aircraft. Two, I believe, related to each engine. If they fail on takeoff landing, that would trigger the dropdown of the ram air turbine. And of course, this is designed to operate at all operational speeds and altitudes supplying not only that power to the central electrical system, but also keeping a 5,000 pounds per square inch pressure to the aircraft central hydraulic system. And the other clue, I think, is that the landing gear, remember it was down and deployed during that whole sequence. We didn't see it start to retract if the ram air turbine deploys, it's actually prevented from raising because it's drawing hydraulic flow from the RAT itself by a check valve. So I dunno, I think that's got to be one of the key areas where investigators are looking. And Jens, of course, you've been following Air India itself for a long time. What do you make of all this?

Jens Flottau: Yeah, I mean, you have to keep in mind this all happened like two weeks after the global airline industry met in Delhi for the IATA Annual General Assembly. And it hits Air India at a crucial time in its history when it has started its corporate turnaround. I mean, if you're looking back, Air India has been in state ownership, government ownership for decades. It's been really, really in decline. It had dozens of aircraft on the ground because spares couldn't be paid, aircraft were being lies and everything. And three years ago got sold, new management came in. Campbell Wilson, the current CEO from New Zealand started his turnaround plan of the airline and they've made good progress. They bought a lot of aircraft trying to refurbish cabins, reinstating and growing into international. So this is the context for them. And of course it's a tragedy for any airline for India, it hits the carrier when it was about to become a much stronger force in international aviation.

Joe Anselmo: Guy. It seemed like Boeing was going into this air show with the wind at its back for the first time in a long time, you, Sean Broderick and I were out in Seattle, recently interviewed Kelly Ortberg, put him on the cover of Aviation Week magazine. Just awful, awful timing for 'em. What are people saying about the ramifications if this is truly an issue with the aircraft itself or perhaps something caused by some sort of maintenance?

Guy Norris: That's a great point, Joe. I mean, you're right. When we did come here, we were expecting a pretty upbeat message actually out of Boeing. 777X has been well on its way finally to certification. 737 MAX dash seven and 10, the final members of the family similarly looking towards certification by the year end. So there was no doubt about it. Boeing had its tail up. It was coming into the show with, as you say, a good tailwind. And you are absolutely right. I think the industry is sort of holding its breath at this point because if there is an issue, which is obviously the aircraft system related, that's going to be a big deal because this aircraft is in widespread service. It's the backbone for many of the international carriers on super long range route. It's a main sort of fundamental element of the current air transport system. And it's also absolutely key to Boeing's future throughout the next decade. It needs this airplane like no other at the moment to maintain cashflow and it's got big plans to continue to increase production. So I think the industry is on a knife edge right now with this because it really needs to know pretty quickly.

Jens Flottau: What has happened. And don't forget the broader context here. We're meeting here with the tariff dispute ongoing, the 10% tariffs that are in place right now, that could go up to 50% within a month. And if any of that or any of that happens or stays, the global globalized aerospace industry as we've known it for decades, will be gone. I mean, it is as serious as that because a lot of the structures will not be maintained. So it was going to be a very, very air show from the previous ones, even without that tragedy of Air India 171, that just makes it so much worse. So we've got the tariff situation and what I'm observing going into the show on the commercial side is that geopolitics and politics in general are playing a much, much bigger role now. So obviously we won't see any Boeing orders here of any relevance because of the Air India situation.

Jens Flottau: I get that. But in general, orders are going to be much more affected, influenced by the political situation. Trump going to Qatar. Qatar Air orders 160 Boeings. There's a big campaign at LOT Polish Airlines between Airbus and normally would say that's one that Embraer should win because they have an incumbent Embraer fleet there. But nowadays, can Poland really go for Embraer when at the same time everyone talks about strengths from the local, in this case, the European industry. There's this big China order that everyone's been expected for a while, but as the US-China trade conflict continues, can China really go with an Airbus order to make Trump even more mad than he's already? So this is the context now. So very unusual show for structural reasons, and obviously with very sad news at the beginning.

Joe Anselmo: And Guy, you're supposed to be out today, you're supposed to be at briefings for CFM and you're supposed to be in a briefing with Kelly Ortberg. As I said at the beginning, this crash investigation really has cast a cloud of this air show, hasn't it?

Guy Norris: Yeah, very sadly, the whole of the original plan has been scrapped, I guess, for obvious reasons. And I think the rest of this show, certainly from a commercial aviation perspective, is really going to follow a lot of the trends that Jens identified. Plus of course, people being on the lookout see where the investigation is going in terms of the Air India accident. It will be interesting to see whether it's driving towards a technical answer that some sort of failure within the system itself or whether it's much more to do with either a maintenance or an event incident to do with operations. We just dunno at this point.

Joe Anselmo: Okay, well I mentioned at the beginning we also have a war going on now or conflict. It's crazy. We put the air show issue of Aviation Week magazine to bed Wednesday night and I went home and said, okay, we can just coast into the air show. And we had an air crash and then we had this conflict begin. Robert Wall and our defense team will be recording a Check 6 podcast in the next couple of days where they'll talk much more about the conflict in Israel and Iran and what people here are saying. And then Jens and Guy and I will all be back with you later this week for another Check 6 to talk about the commercial highlights from the Air Show. But for now, that is a wrap for this Check 6. A special thanks to our podcast editor who is here with us on site Guy Ferneyhough. We will see you later in the week.