Ground and/or air test? Next bulletin already written?
Warning: I'm non-professional; not crew, not engineer - just scientist guest and thanks.
Seems Andy Pasztor was right in his article in WSJ, post 908. No surprise, afterall why would David King (AAIB) talk to a journalist if he was not preparing the ground for a further release of information.
Reference has been made in a recent post to dubious Chinese manufacturing practices and related these to the adulteration of fuel on BA038. I think we can safely assume that the fuel has been fully tested, found to be good and was not adulterated. That is, it performs within required standards and does not contain sub-standard substances. As an aside, it is possible the fuel was not Chinese but maybe Russian. In anycase, the question of origin is redundant given that the AAIB are satisified with it.
AAIB satisfaction in the standardisation of the fuel is crucial to understanding the rest of the special bulletin. No doubt initially the AAIB would have been hoping that they could show the fuel was sub-standard. The result would have been - phew!, wipe brows and proceed to the publication of a definitive cause.
As it is, the AAIB, RR and Boeing, are left with a mystery. They strongly suspect the fuel was degraded in some manner, due to the exceptional environmental circumstances of the flight, but cannot yet prove it or, at least, demonstrate that this is the most likely cause of the accident.
So, without a simple cause, e.g. adulteration of fuel or some mechanical defect/malfunction, the authorities are left with testing and research and preparing the public, governments and airlines for operational changes that may be issued in a following bulletin. The AAIB are preparing the ground.
But how to test? Can Boeing fully test the fuel in tanks equivalent in volume and dimensions to those in a 777, at the right temperature and barometric pressure and also push through the test system vibrations generated and experienced by G-YMMM? Does anyone know?
I suspect, but hope to be wrong, that a ground testing system, as described above, does not exist anywhere.
Possibly the AAIB/Boeing et al will commission a test 777. Time is critical: the authorities need an answer before the northern hemisphere winter arrives, but commissioning a test flying 777 will take months and, even assuming they act quickly, the only test area available now is Antarctica! Anyone seen a strange 777 in southern Chile/Argentina??
So, I'm assuming the present testing/research will be inconclusive and the AAIB will issue another bulletin towards the end of 2008 that will contain operational changes (actually, I expect that a draft of this bulletin has already been written). In other words, the precautionary principle will be
applied:-
1) avoid prolonged flight in very cold air masses
2) if 1) cannot be followed then loiter, in some way, until fuel is warmed.
And, if I was a pilot, I'd spool up the engines on descent a couple of times - just to make sure! Better to discover a problem with a few thousand feet to spare rather than 720.
Regards, Tanimbar
PS. I love a mystery and I am enjoying reading and writing on this thread but once in a while I remember, with some embarrassment, that my enjoyment is predicated on the lucky survival of the souls on BA038. In other words, I would not contribute if they had died. Their luck did not run out but what of the next occurence! We here write for enjoyment, the AAIB to save lives. We must remember that.