Journal Joseph Mangan's Journal: Airbus A380 Under Fire
This message is from Joe Mangan
The Commercial Aircraft Industry economic business model is seriously flawed, and is actively engaged in transferring financial risk from Corporations to threats to the lives of the passengers and crew without their informed consent.
This issue is not about AIRBUS vs BOEING, this is AIRBUS and Boeing, and FAA, and EASA, and the Aircraft system suppliers and their sub suppliers. This is about all of the elements of the system being under tremendous pressure to be overly aggressive in the use of untested, unproven, low cost technology containing high uncertainty. The use of technology of high uncertainty always results in projects taking far longer to complete and costing far more than originally planned. This is project risk, and risk is nearly always significantly underestimated in project planning of modern Aerospace Programs. In essence we have the worlds biggest game of "Russian Roulette". With Boeing and Airbus gambling that the other will
Pull the trigger on the chamber containing the live round, thus ending the game. I believe that what we are about to see if the combatants do not "throttle back" is the "story of the 3 Japanese fighting fish", where the smart fish (China, India, Japan) allows the other 2 fish to fight to the death, leaving the survivor too weak to defend against the attach of the stronger smarter fish who wins unopposed.
I feel a great sympathy and compassion for those who failed the morality test, challenged with facing the agonizing decision over career and wealth, vs the cost to human lives of their choice. My Christian conscience would not allow me to look the other way, realizing that for my own comfort and security, I would have to knowingly rationalize my own selfish interest, and thereby place at risk the lives of innocent Men, Women, and Children.
I have waited an entire year (October 2004) in a tireless pursuit to work with AIRBUS, Nord Micro, TTTech, EASA, and FAA to correct these issues in private. These organizations refused to take any action. I was left with no other avenue than to pursue the issue in the public domain one year later. I had simply exhausted every opportunity available to me. I even visited the CEO of Nord Micro in his booth at the Paris Airshow, spending 40 minutes with him and his engineers in an attempt to convince them to act in the interest of public safety. Numerous failed attempts in good faith with TTTech are documented on my website. In each and every case, TTTech violated agreed to terms, and demanded in each case a retraction of my official statements to EASA and FAA, which has always been understood to be non-negotiable.
Are these people who failed the moral challenge evil? No, they must decide what is more important to them, the lives of people vs profit, comfort, and security for themselves. The laws currently favor those who choose profit over safety. Protections and safeguards, even in the United States are insufficient to motivate a whistleblower to put themselves and their families in "harms way". One only need to look at the Corporate Crime Spree of WORLDCOM, ENRON, TYCO, ADELPHIA, HEALTHSOUTH and others.
Conscience can only motivate a whistleblower to act first in the interest of others.
When confronted by Executive Management with data showing the program is significantly over schedule and over budget, direct pressure is applied to find a way to "get back on schedule". Just as with the WORLDCOM case of Ebbers, all that must be said, is that "we have to make our numbers", and the pressure is intensified, as it passes down the chain, ultimately to the engineers. In a large corporation, you will never find evidence that the CEO or CFO explicitly directs the commission of fraud which threatens lives, they have culpable deniability.
The "Honor System" of Aircraft Certification, is completely open to exploitation. No safeguards exist. No pressure relief exists for someone to "stop the process" when something is discovered to be seriously wrong. Everything continues to move forward, and the troublemakers are eliminated. The companies hope that when issues are discovered on an aircraft, they will not cause someone to be killed, and they will fix the problem later, after the Aircraft is in commercial service, over many years of incremental updates, in a system known as "fly-fix-fly".
The Aerospace industry has a name for this problem "NASA Chicken", and it comes from the Challenger disaster. Read the minority opinion section of the Columbia NASA Return to Flight Task Force, and the comments by the Co Chair of the Task Force, former astronaut, now Boeing President, Richard Covey '''If you watch sausage being made, it's not always pretty and some people are going to find it uglier than others. I personally did not find the process, as it played out, unusual.'' These comments coming from systemic non compliance with safety critical processes and procedures. Coming from a Boeing Aerospace executive, tells you the level of disdain for compliance within the Aerospace industry.
With the contracts signed with the airlines requiring the payment of penalties by Boeing and AIRBUS for each day an aircraft is delayed from the contract delivery date, on a contract signed years earlier, the pressure to meet ridiculous schedules with multimillion dollar penalties is causing the aircraft system suppliers, aircraft manufacturers, and certification authorities to look the other way, because they will be blamed for the costs and delays for the program.
I have a duty to protect public safety, which is far higher than to a "preliminary injunction" gag order, obtained by the false statements of TTTech Executives under oath, that while legal in Austria, is not legal in the European Union.
In addition, as Chief Engineer, I have personal liability for the systems which are approved under my signature authority. The Chief Engineer of the Concourde in 1969, is, this week, being charged with manslaugter in 2005, 36 years later, for the accident which ruptured the fuel tank, resulting in a crash which took the lives of 113 passengers.
The former head of the Concorde program is reported to have been put under judicial investigation for manslaughter in the case looking into the 2000 crash of the supersonic jet that killed 113 people.
Henri Perrier was the chief engineer on the plane's first test flight in 1969 for Aerospatiale
http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/09/27/france.concorde/index.html
I must remain in Austria to face both the Civil and Criminal Charges, and to receive a final report from the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) with the determination of my allegations, so that the responsibility is transferred from myself to the European Union Government, and to the European state of Austria. If I fail to defend myself against the charges of TTTech, by running to the United States, I will be found guilty of the charges. If the allegations are not fully investigated, and serious injuries and deaths result from a failure of the system, I will be presumed to be guilty, having failed to perform my duty to protect public safety.
As Dickens wrote in the "tale of two cities", "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one". My needs, and the needs of my family pale in comparison to the needs to protect the lives of the passengers and crew of the aircraft, which will grow to be certified to a maximum of 856 persons.
Preliminary data from an Internationally recognized Cabin Pressurization Expert, shows that the passengers and crew will be exposed to an external pressure equivalent of 38,000 feet. At and above 33000 feet, even with an oxygen mask on, passengers will quickly become unconscious. With 500 to 800 passengers, there is not enough time for stewardesses to get the masks on passengers who failed to get their masks on before passing out. In addition, decompression sickness can cause death for passengers, especially those over the age of 40, and further risk increases with increased fat content, as fat stores a tremendously dense amount of nitrogen.
The data also show that the passengers will be exposed to a cabin altitude above 25,000 feet for more than 2 minutes. This violates FAA and EASA regulations 25.841, and the amendment known as 25-87. As a result, AIRBUS has asked for, and have been approved by the FAA for an Exemption to this rule, over the protests of the medical community.
The Boeing 787 Cabin Pressurization System, is to also be provided by Nord Micro, however Boeing demanded that the traditional 3 motor Outflow Valve Design be used, instead of the AIRBUS A380 single motor design. The system implements the "dissimilar redundancy" required by the regulations to assure that the system is "fail safe", and the outflow valve control is redesigned to contain 2 equally functional redundant controllers, (primary and secondary).
However, Honeywell, chosen to provide the Boeing 787 Fly by Wire Flight Control System, is using the TTP/C controller as the exclusive communications element for each of the redundant channels of the system. Honeywell had demanded changes to the TTP/C controller and Protocol to eliminate safety critical defects in October 2003. TTTech Chairman of the Board, TU Vienna Professor Dr. Hermann Kopetz grudgingly agreed to make the changes, in order to win the "exclusive contract" in the use of the TTP/C chip in the fly by wire proposal to Boeing. TTTech's CEO and CFO failed to make the investments to comply with the agreement, and in July of 2004 Honeywell was awareded the Fly By Wire contract. In August, Honeywell asked for the new chip and protocol with the as agreed corrections. In the period between October 2003 and August 2004, TTTech CFO and his sales staff communicated to Honeywell that work was on schedule and proceeding. In September of 2004, I informed the management at Honeywell that TTTech had not performed the work which it had promised, and no work would be performed without a contract, (with a likely cost of several million dollars). Honeywell was furious, and began a desparate attempt to configure the chip in a way to cause the safety defects to be disabled, with the end result that the behavior of the chip and the software no longer conformed to documented behavior and tests.
Boeing, still intends to use the chip in the Honeywell provided Fly By Wire system.
From
www.eaawatch.net/CAT_Documents Index.html
www.eaawatch.net/Boeing_787_fly_by_wire hack.html
www.eaawatch.net/boeing_787_ poledna.htm
www.eaawatch.net/boeing_787_tttech.htm
An extensive amount of evidence is available at my website www.eaawatch.net
I provide this information so that anyone can review the evidence and information, and reach their own conclusions.
Both EASA and FAA have failed to perform their duty to protect public safety. The reports were never fully investigated. Calls to the FAA Whistleblower Hotline resulted in no response from the FAA.
Intense questioning from the news media ultimately resulted in a call from the FAA Type Certification Manager, nearly 3 months after the report was filed with the FAA. Both the EASA and FAA type certification managers were replaced on the very day that the Wall Street Journal article was published on April 28th 2005. No further communication was allowed with their replacements. Only public affairs officials from EASA and FAA were allowed.
The government authorities FAA and EASA have failed to perform investigations, trusting the defamatory, slanderous and libel statements of the suppliers. The defects in the TTTech Chip and Operating System Software, or defects in the system design for Outflow Valve Control by Nord Micro, have not been investigated, nor corrected, according to sources within both the EASA and the FAA.
The public affairs representatives of both EASA and FAA have repeated these defamatory statements to the news media. When confronted by the media for evidence to back up the statements, EASA and FAA admitted that they had not performed an investigation.
However, evidence provided by the news media to EASA and FAA contradict their and EASA and FAA have now made commitments to the news media, that they will now perform an official investigation, one year after the original reporting. The public must insist that all reports be made public, so that there is complete assurance that all allegations have been fully investigated, and any defects and non-compliance with regulations are corrected.
I have proposed to EASA and the FAA that a cost effective solution would be to order the modification of the outflow valves to incorporate a magnetic lock on the larger outflow dump door. Such a lock would prevent the outflow dump door from opening beyond 15 % in the region of flight which represents the most danger to the passengers and crew. No formal response has been received, however, in consultation with FAA and EASA recognized experts in Cabin Pressurization agree that this would be the most effective cost and schedule solution to correct the issues. With a lock installed, a "fail safe" design, as required by the regulations would result, as the danger of a rapid decompression would be eliminated. Defects in the TTTech TTP/C controller chip and Real Time Operating System software could no longer threaten the lives of the passengers and crew on the AIRBUS A380.
I believe that there is tremendous potential in the TTTech TTP/C Technology, when the dangerous defects have been corrected. Flawed judgment in decisions by the Supervisory Board of Directors and the Executive Management of TTTech to "cover up" the issues has damaged the reputation of the technology.
The FLEXRAY consortium, formed in 2001 by a split which formed in the TTA Consortium with the departure of BMW, Bosch, Daimler Chrysler, and Motorola, over the refusal of Dr Hermann Kopetz to modify TTP/C to correct serious safety defects in the technology. TTP/C was therefore determined by the world's Automotive manufactures not to be safe for use in Automobiles. As a result, TTP/c is now only considered for use in some Aerospace applications and special vehicles such as forklifts. TTTech surrendered the battle with FLEXRAY, having joined the FLEXRAY consortium as a member in March of 2005, agreeing to withdraw the marketing and use of it's TTP/C controller for use in Automobiles, and is now only providing operating system software, and consulting services in the Automotive Industry.
It remains to be seen if TTTech can recover the trust destroyed by their actions. It is highly likely that that the Aerospace Companies will use Flexray, and invest substantial sums of money to qualify it's use for Commercial Aircraft.
The public must bring pressure on EASA and FAA to restore the "Honor System", and provide teeth to the regulators, and protection for whistleblowers to assure that sufficient "checks and balances" are restored to prevent dishonorable individuals and corporations from destroying the "Honor System" which is the most efficient and cost effective environment in which to certify Commercial Aircraft.
As opportunities with existing Aerospace Companies is likely at an end at this point.
Safety and risk are often in opposition. Communication, rationalization, and acceptance of risk for a higher benefit is critical to the advancement of new technologies which are incorporated in products which greatly enhance the quality of life for consumers. We should not have to live our lives in fear that someone failed to act in our best interests, exposing us to an undisclosed risk.
Competition is often the only way to enforce and ensure a safe and efficient market for products and services. It is my intent to incorporate a company to compete against both AIRBUS and Boeing. By providing complete transparency to the process of the development and certification of "high risk" "high reward" technology of high uncertainty, the Aerospace Industry can be advanced with the assurance that passengers lives are not placed at risk. This is envisaged to be a partnership with both Industry and Academia, with the express intent to accelerate the safe introduction of new technology advancements, with complete transparency, while substantially reducing and managing the economic risks.
The first step in this effort will be communicated at The Open Vehicles and Control Safety organization with a webpage at www.ovcsa.org
I ask you to consider joining this effort in a partnership for a better future, for yourselves, and for those whose safety you care about.
A daily blog page for myself, and my wife Diana will be established in the next 2 days.
Check www.joseph.mangan.com and www.joseph.mangan.name for the addresses of all related websites.
For those interested in providing financial support for our family in this difficult time, a paypal account has been established at the following web page.
http://www.eaawatch.net/CAT_supporters.html
If you would like your name, and / or a personal statement to be added to the supporters page please send this information to jmangan@eaawatch.net
All of the donations go to an account which is controller by my wife Diana, so that the family can be supported financially if I am arrested and sent to prison in Austria. Contact information for my Attorney is contained on the web page with email and telephone numbers to confirm the financial situation.
Thank you for you interest and support in this matter!
Joe Mangan
