“It all began with an email…on Friday the 13th”
It all began with an email…on Friday the 13th, August 2021. It was from Avalon – the aeroplane owners, to Aerotech – the company I was working for at the time.
The request was for me to oversee the delivery of 2 A30s to the new operator which was Condor. At the time of this initial discussion, the delivery location had not yet been finalised. It was probably going to be at Etihad Airways in Abu Dhabi. After a series of emails and phone calls this rapidly changed due to Etihad not having the hangar capacity or the manpower. The work on one of the aircraft (which we will call Helga-33) was to be completed in 33 days. The other aircraft (which we will call Eva-11) only required an 11-day input. Helga-33 was to be done first, followed by Eva-11.
After numerous conference calls and a lot of location hunting from Avalon to secure an acceptable maintenance facility, it was decided that the work on Eva-11 would be carried out in Düsseldorf and Helga-33 in Shanghai, as it appeared that no facility could do both.
Eva-11, going to Düsseldorf was due to arrive on the 13th of September. I was asked to go there to meet it. It did not arrive till the 30th. This was due to export and import laws in Germany. The aircraft had flown from Abu Dhabi to Spain for storage after its lease had expired. Avalon tried to import directly from Spain to Germany without success. It was a stern, immovable no from German customs. So even though Eva-11 was physically on Spanish soil it was still technically registered in the UAE. So now, they had to ‘import’ the aircraft from the UAE to Spain during the Spanish holidays. Eventually, the aircraft physically departed Spain and flew to…London Gatwick, then to Shannon in Southern Ireland. The crew overnighted in Shannon and then flew to Düsseldorf the next day. All of this was for tax purposes.
When the plane finally arrived on Saturday 30th September. The maintenance organisation in Düsseldorf did some maintenance checks on Sunday and then on Monday I finally went to work. By this point, I had been in Düsseldorf for two weeks!
On my way to the facility, I am informed of a new restriction – I am only allowed to be airside at said facility for 12 days, per year. I got a pass for five days, just to be on the safe side, which also meant I could not be called upon to visit the facility on my weekend!
Eva-11 should have been finished in 11 days. It was not delivered till February of the following year! The litany of problems began when the number 2 engine’s acoustic liner showed signs of water ingress and corrosion. The facility that was doing the maintenance on the aircraft was not capable of investigating this properly, so a specialist organisation had to be brought in, as well as the acquisition of necessary spares. I had to organise the team’s arrival, transportation, and access to the facility. The specialists flew in from Manchester and started work straight away. They removed three sections of acoustic liner and then ground the corrosion off. The area they worked on had to be measured and the results were sent to Rolls Royce for their review, analysis, and recommendation. This review took 2 working days! Which, at the end, they asked for further information and measurements. They finally gave a repair scheme to allow the engine to continue in service. By the time the repair information was received, the specialists had gone back to the UK to work on another job. So, this physical repair was now down to Nayak, and could only be carried out by an approved engineer. There is only one. And he could only work a few hours a day. All in all, this repair took about 5 days to complete, it could have been done in 2 if the specialist team had stayed in Düsseldorf.
Another part of this issue was the acquisition of spares and the specified sealant. Again, this was not an easy task. Part of the problem was with customs as some parts were from the UK, some from the US and others from Europe. Europe was not a problem. When the material did reach Germany, it was held in the customs area for 4 days! Because of these delays, we arranged for all future spares to be delivered directly to Frankfurt as their customs offices are open 24/7. There were still delays, but far less thanks to this solution.
So, while Eva-11 was making slow progress in Dusseldorf, Helga-33 was sent to Shanghai for its 33-day maintenance input, including a paint job. I was not involved with Helga-33 while it was in China.
Meanwhile…back in Germany…The acoustic liners were repaired on Eva-11 and the air inlet cowl was re-fitted to the engine. During the records review a mandatory inspection must be carried out on both engine inlet cowls. Specialist tooling was required, which, thanks to customs, took 4 days to arrive. Also, during the records inspection, several engine components had no history and had to be replaced. One of these items was the exhaust cowl of the number 2 engine. Getting this part took another 4 days. When this part was installed on the engine, we had to acquire more sets of special tooling, which had to be brought by truck from Malta. All these 4-day delays are sequential and when compounded, grossly extended the input time of the aircraft!
Back to the number 2 engine on Eva-11! Part of the inspections for both engines is to check for damage in the inlet cowl. The engine must have 3 repairs carried out as per the specific guidance from the technical documents. Once complete a report was written up by Nayak. One of the jobs did not meet the standards of the repair manual and because of this, questions were raised about whether the cowl was serviceable or not. This discussion goes on for a week, the week just before Christmas. The cost of a replacement engine cowl is huge, to the tune of 4 million dollars!
Luckily Helga-33 had just arrived from Shanghai, So, to give us time, we removed the cowl and changed it over from the one on Eva-11.
This went smoothly but now we were waiting for replacement wheels coming from the UK, due to the aircraft being in storage for so long. While we’re waiting for them, Eva-11 is pretty much ready for operation, so it is tugged outside for an engine test. During the engine run, a distinct smell of oil was noticed in the cabin, coming from – the number 2 engine! After they shut it down, they also noticed oil spilling out from underneath it. On investigation, we identified two problems. One was a leak coming from the gearbox, which caused the smell of oil in the cabin. The other problem was a seal on a duct which had to be replaced.
After the gearbox was repaired, another engine run was initiated to prove there were no more leaks. During that engine run, a team from Condor came with specific test equipment that checks the quality of the air system and identifies any pollutants. During the run, for whatever reason, they shut down the number 1 engine and cross-feed all the air from the number 2 engine. The test equipment identifies oil as the source of the pollutant, which has now been fed into both AC ducts, contaminating the entire aircraft! So now the Airbus decontamination procedure must be carried out. Before this can be done, many of the components in both AC systems need to be replaced. This costs more time and money!
Please remember that all this is happening over the Christmas period with Covid restrictions everywhere!
The second act of my Dusseldorf saga is coming soon! If you would like to know more or wish to discuss how we can help you on a project, then please get in touch via our contact page.
