A380 Evac Test Politics

[Pangloss]

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05087/478649.stm

 

Interesting article about the upcoming evacuation test of the A380. I had no idea that could be so dangerous, but I guess it makes sense. But the test is important, and needs to be done. Unfortunately it happens all too often that a passenger plane will be involved in some sort of incident requiring the rapid evacuation of the passengers. There've been a number of hard landings and fires aboard planes readying for take-off. The airplane business is one of those morose industries in which most of those safety regulations have a large body count behind them.

 

But what's really interesting about the above article are the political overtones. This issue (the A380 evac test) has been the subject of a very high level fight between the EU and the US for several months, for a number of reasons that ultimately derive from globalization.

 

There are only two significant passenger aircraft manufacturers left in the world: Boeing and Airbus. Boeing gets handouts from the US Gov in the form of tax incentives. Airbus gets direct funding from the French and the EU to pay for the development of new airplanes ($12 billion for the A380 alone). Both of these payments are in violation of the WTO, which has made corresponding judgements against both governments for those payments (more or less ignored by the respective countries).

 

The final piece of the puzzle is that the US and the EU have an agreement to honor each other's aircraft certifications. If the alarm bells weren't ringing before, they should be now.

 

A few months ago it was looking like the test was going to be run with the lights on and the chutes already extended (that's not in the article). As the article mentions, they were later planning to run the test one deck at a time. There are other disparities as well. Boeing's (and Airbus's previous) tests were much more stringent.

 

Apparently the FAA managed to get someone over there and make enough of a racket that some changes were made. Unfortunately the FAA has an axe to grind here as well. Part of their function is defending domestic airlines and manufacturers, and is certainly aware that Boeing would love to see the A380 fail. One can only imagine the endless parade of phone calls these days from Capital Hill to FAA headquarters right down the street.

 

There's a lot of engineering and safety logic behind both sides of the dispute, and the issues need to be resolved by clear, dispassionate, objective people. Unfortunately both sides are clearly dealing with major conflicts of interest. The concern here is that the terms of the test are being decided by politics rather than concerns for safety.

 

The A380 is not the only plane affected by all this political nonsense, and a lot of observers feel it's just a matter of time before it becomes a serious problem, if it hasn't already.

[Dave]

It'll be interesting to see the results. I don't think it's possible, myself, but then again I am a bit of a pessimist. I agree with your opinions though. The political stuff that's going on behind-the-scenes is rather silly when all's said and done.

[Pangloss]

Yeah if you think about it, that's almost 10 passengers per second going down those chutes. Doesn't seem real likely, does it? But they say it's actually possible. There will be eight chutes operating, in theory....