march2022 - 17

Continuous development of
equipment and procedures
is required to reduce
ground damage.
obvious, but the longer the incident disrupts
the operation, the more difficult it
becomes to calculate.
The cost of disruption affects the airport,
where the damage happened, and
the disruption can impact a number of
connecting flights as well.
Normally, the airlines have to take
all the disruption cost, unless the
agreement includes a specific liability
to cover disruption cost caused by a
third party.
Recently, disruption cost has
increased due to the EU 261 passenger
protection article.
A delay of more than X-number hours
can be compensated. The compensation
is depending on delay time and destination
of flight, as a longer flight gets more
compensation. Until now the airline
would have to pay, even if it is a contracted
party that is responsible. If the
airline wants to be covered for this type
of cost, they should have it incorporated
in the contract agreement (in practice
IATA Standard Ground Handling Contract)
or a special insurance clause.
Examples of Ground Damage
A 737 needed maintenance on the
engines, which required start up and
test of the engines. Unfortunately, the
maintenance created a delay of the flight
schedule. During towing to the departure
gate, the flight deck operator started the
engine and applied more thrust to one of
the engines for test of the bleed system.
The towing was straight forward and
suddenly the aircraft took over control
resulting in a jack-knife situation. The
result was severe damage to the radome
and the RH engine nose cowl.
Estimated repair cost amounted to
$600,000 (USD) plus the aircraft out of
service cost was not included. The incident
could easily have been avoided by
following the procedure and accepting a
relatively small delay. The insurance will
normally cover the repair cost above the
deductible of $500,000 / $750,000 (USD).
In another example, an aircraft had
a normal catering handling at the RH
forward service door. The catering truck
was a standard box type. The operation
lever for up and down operation with
the box has had a period failure but
was not corrected. When the operator
was in an up transition with the box,
the control button would not stop from
moving in the upward direction. Before
the emergency button was activated, the
entire aircraft was lifted until the hinge
broke and the door had severe damage.
The direct estimated repair cost was
$275,000. The failed operation lever could
have been replaced for $25 (USD).
Preventive Actions to Reduce
Ground Damage
Normally the reason for most ground
damage involves a human being in one
way or another. Therefore, focus should
be in that direction, especially following
the COVID-19 pandemic.
Many ground service personnel were
laid off at the beginning of the pandemic.
Now, one to two years later, many have
been called back. That means, that routine
and procedures should be refreshed,
as many things have been changed.
In general, a few important
steps are recommended before and
upon employment:
* Effective screening of staff and
background
* Basic training
* Recurrent training
* Feedback
* Team orientation
* Incentives / rewards
* Company culture knowledge
During the years, many examples of
preventive actions have been implemented,
some with success and some with less
success. One of the more successful was
the extended use of tip cones. In the mid'90s
there were a lot of commercial lowwing
aircraft in operation and quite a lot
of collisions between wings and trucks.
Each collision had a cost of $75,000$150,000
(USD).
Via the IATA Airside Committee, it was
suggested and implemented as a standard
to use tip cones to prevent wing damage.
After some initial problems in introducing
the procedure, it became normal to use
them worldwide. Statistics from one
airline operating a high number of lower
wing aircraft showed, that after years
using the cones, this particular damage
was lowered 60 percent.
The tip cones are also used in front of
aircraft with wing-mounted engines. This
has also had a significant impact on the
number of lip nose cowl damage.
The Next Step for Breaking
the Ground Damage Code
There is a continuous development of
equipment and procedures in order to
reduce ground damage. For example,
IATA's Safety Audit for Ground Operations
(ISAGO) and the IATA Ground Operations
Manual (IGOM) implementation
has not had an impact enough to break
the ground damage code so as to reduce
the number of incidents significantly.
Another way is to step up the investigations
of an incident to find the root
cause. Very often ground damage investigation
is concentrated to those directly in
" contact " with the aircraft.
Another new approach in order to prevent
ground damage, is the development
of driverless ground equipment. The new
equipment will soon be tested in operation
and could prove a code breaker for
ground damage. Time will tell.
Finally, to be directly economically
accountable for damage and disruption,
a preventive method would be best. But
several attempts to modernize contracts
and agreement in that direction have not
been able to do this so far.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
IVAR BUSK
Ivar Busk has 40 years
of experience in aviation,
including as aircraft
engineer, head of airside
safety worldwide and group
insurance and claims at
SAS. He received a human
factors degree and safety
management training certificate from the
University of Southern California. He has been
a member of the IATA Airside Safety Group,
Australasian Aviation Ground Safety Council
(AAGSC) and Artex. Busk is now owner of
Aviation Care Consulting.
March 2022 || AviationPros.com || 17
NATA
http://www.AviationPros.com
march2022

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of march2022
