Safety Concerns Over Red Bull's 55-Year Old Seaplane

[Luap]

A Wing and a Prayer: Safety Concerns Over Red Bull's 55-Year Old Seaplane

Popular Marketing Tool Twice Grounded Over Concern about Aged Wings Failing
By ASA ESLOCKER, JOSEPH RHEE and ERIC LONGABARDI
March 30, 2009

The 55-year old seaplane used to market the Red Bull energy drink at major sporting events and air shows was decommissioned and disposed of by the Coast Guard in 1976 because they considered it no longer safe to fly given the age of its wings.
Some say 55-year-old seaplane used to market the energy drink is unsafe.
But it flies over the heads of hundreds of thousands of people a year under an "experimental airworthiness certificate" granted by the FAA in 2008.
In a written response to questions, a Red Bull spokesperson, Patrice Radden, said: "Neither Red Bull nor any of its pilots or flight crews have or would operate an aircraft that is known to be unsafe or in an unsafe manner."
Although the FAA certificate specifically requires the Red Bull plane to "avoid densely populated areas," the plane flew over festivities surrounding the Super Bowl last month in Tampa.
The aircraft is a Grumman-built HU-16E "Flying Albatross."
...............................
"It's terribly unsafe because the wing could fall off at any time," said Bill McNease, a former FAA safety inspector who helped initiate an earlier investigation of the plane when he was with the FAA in 2006.
"The long wing versions of this airplane have a definite, if you want to call it, drop dead time. When they reach a certain amount of flight hours, that's it," said McNease in an interview with ABC News Chief Investigative Correspondent Brian Ross for Good Morning America.

You can read the 3 page article here:
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/Story?id=7192755&page=1

[two green one prayer]

Dumb (?) question from a non pilot and amateur engineer.
Granted that an aeroplane doesn't disintegrate the instant that it's fatigue life limit is reached. How can a responsible body like the FAA and a major company like Red Bull continue to allow the operation of this aircraft? Is inspection effective enough to detect incipient failure? Have the parts liable to fail been renewed? Is this a case where the techies have been over-ruled by the management? Will anyone hang when the wings come off over a city? Comment by professionals would be appreciated.

[Rollingthunder]

Get a newer seaplane or spend USD20million on an upgrade

[Tower Ranger]

So Red Bull need someone else to give THEM wings !!

[deltayankee]

Hmmm... Looks suspiciously like free PR for a cerrtain brand of energy drink that I will not mention by name.

FAA or no FAA, no pilot is going to fly a plane if they think the wings will fall off. If they have any concerns at all about the wing spars they will avoid sporty flying, doing gentle turns and pullups.

[Finn47]

FAA records say N29853 was built in 1957, so if the records are correct, the plane would be 52 years old, tops, instead of 55 - unless someone has been cooking the books :hmm:

[Wjh308]

I watched that airplane do TnG's at KAPF, love the sound of those radials!

[skiingman]

FAA or no FAA, no pilot is going to fly a plane if they think the wings will fall offBecause pilots are now engineers qualified to make that judgment? They now have magic NDT vision that can spot and evaluate cracks in a wing box on a walkaround? Gee, who needs Part 25 when those clever pilots will simply refuse to fly something unsafe.

Of course no pilot is going to fly something that they think the wings might fall off of. Unfortunately, common sense and experience prove that isn't good enough to prevent the wings from actually falling off flying aeroplanes.

I'm a huge fan of experimental and homebuilt aviation and find it critically important that the experimental certificate isn't abused. I certainly don't take ABC's reporting as fact, and I hope that in this case Red Bull really did do the work to ensure the airworthiness of the bird. I hope Red Bull is operating with the higher level of caution and autonomy the experimental certificate requires. I wouldn't be terribly surprised though if these concerns have some basis in fact.

[hkgweilo]

FAA or no FAA, no pilot is going to fly a plane if they think the wings will fall off

Because pilots are now engineers qualified to make that judgment? They now have magic NDT vision that can spot and evaluate cracks in a wing box on a walkaround? Gee, who needs Part 25 when those clever pilots will simply refuse to fly something unsafe.

I didn't think I'd ever need to say this, but - yes - pilots are indeed required to verify that an aircraft is fit for flight (ie airworthy), before making a take off.

And the author of the remark about the Red Bull Albatross, reported at the beginning of this thread, is making an observation which is rash. The fact that he was an (allegedly) an FAA Inspector is neither here nor there. I have dealt with FAA Inspectors on a continuous basis throughout my entire career as a professional pilot, and they are assigned to oversight of an operation, with responsibility for a very narrow area of regulation.

Unless this FAA Inspector had direct responsibility for the oversight of the maintenance for the Red Bull HU-16E operation, he would be speaking with no more authority than anyone else in the aviation industry, and probably a good deal less than the pilots who fly these aircraft and the engineers who maintain them.

My guess is that he had no involvement with the Red Bull Albatross operation, if he genuinely believes what he says. For if he had, he would undoubtedly have used his authority as an FAA Inspector to ground the aircraft.

The fact of the matter is that no aircraft is permitted to fly if it has reached its specified fatigue life limit. If the aircraft hasn't, then it is safe to fly, provided all other aspects of the operation are maintained to the required level demanded by those with responsibility for oversight.

And aircraft age in years is not exactly the most germane factor. Hours and cycles are far more important, which is why these are recorded in the Mx log and reviewed before each departure by the P-I-C, whereas the age of the aircraft in years is not a factor in the review.

Lest it need be mentioned, please be reminded that the B-52 is still flying as an operational combat aircraft some 50+ years after it was built, and is expected to go on serving as an active strategic bomber with the USAF until it has reached the age of 100. And there are numerous DC-3's still in operation worldwide, some of them dating back to the 1930s.

Indeed, the Reno Air Races 'Unlimiteds' are built around 60-year-old aircraft such as the P-51, the P-47, the Spitfire and the Hawker Typhoon, all of which date to WW2.

And all of these aircraft have seen much more demanding service lives than the Hu-16 'long wing' Albatross.

With specific reference to Red Bull, much will depend upon how well their Hu-16E is maintained, and how thorough the required maintenance program is. Given Red Bull's public profile, and trouble they went to acquiring and re-furbishing their Hu-16 (it was a five-year program from start to finish, apparently), I would imagine that engineering matters are not at issue, especially given regulatory oversight.

Yes, wings do fall off aircraft, but none has yet fallen off an Hu-16 (the Chalk's crash in Florida was a G-73 Turbine Mallard - an entirely different aircraft), but let's at least be intelligent about these matters, and direct our concern more profitably to where it might justifiably do more good.

And - for the record - no, I do NOT work for Red Bull, and I am in no way associated with them.

[skiingman]

I didn't think I'd ever need to say this, but - yes - pilots are indeed required to verify that an aircraft is fit for flight (ie airworthy), before making a take off.

Pilots are required to complete an inspection, which is one part of a larger system of inspections, maintenance, manufacture, and design.

A successful preflight inspection by no means ensures an airplane is airworthy or safe. It takes a lot more money, paperwork, and time to make sure an airplane is airworthy.

And there are numerous DC-3's still in operation worldwide, some of them dating back to the 1930s.

Yes, and many/most of them are operating under the intended, appropriate category of airworthiness certificates, with continuing oversight including ADs, etc. You mention "regulatory oversight" of this bird, while conveniently omitting that it is operating with an Experimental category certificate...which means it gets vastly less oversight...and that said certificate requires it not be flown over populated areas, which they've clearly violated at least in spirit.

Operating under an Experimental certificate means that Red Bull is taking all responsibility for the airworthiness of an airplane the manufacturer/FAA/government operator decided was no longer economically viable. This could mean that Red Bull is spending serious time and money ensuring the continued safety of the bird, or it could mean that there is a lot of whistling past the graveyard going on. I don't personally know about the program or even care: I just know your comments about airworthiness don't apply to pilots after Wilbur or Orville.

SRSLY, B-52s? You are comparing the operation of aircraft with the full force of the US national defense to a single aircraft operated without the manufacturer's oversight by a soft drink company?

[rigpiggy]

WRT the mallard accident, it wasn't due to the old wing, but a bad repair where the dummy drilled the spar.