Santa Clause Safety Report

[maxaoa]

Many years ago I remember reading a spoof flight safety report about Santa's Christmas Eve "sortie". I have tried the usual Google search but come up blank. Could anyone please point me in the right direction.

Many Thanks

[Capetonian]

'twas the flight before Christmas ...........


'twas the night before Christmas, and at the European Air Traffic Control Centre near Brussels the only thing buzzing was a fat lazy fly investigating two inches of coffee grounds at the bottom of Dimitri Klafthadis' empty cup of Greek coffee. Dimitri was the only controller on duty, all the others having left early to celebrate Christmas. The sole reason for the Greeks having been admitted to Eurocontrol was that they celebrated Christmas later than everyone else - indeed, they did most things later than everyone else - but the Greek Orthodox Christmas was late by tradition, not by accident.

To be fair, it had not escaped the attention of the committees that had created Eurocontrol that the Greeks had unwittingly made two contributions to the world of civil aviation. After the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens were cancelled as it was clear that nothing would be in place by the requisite dates, the rest of the world adopted the word Chaos - of Greek heritage anyway - as a derogatory acronym for 'Can't Host Any Olympic Sports', and to mean 'Controllers Having Another Off Spell' for when things got really sticky at around 29,000 feet.

The other great Greek contribution to civil aviation was a discovery made by flight engineers one day when an ancient rusting Bulgarian Airlines Ilyushin landed at Hellinikon International airport en route to Dubai. The European system of subsidies had left Greece with millions of gallons of unsold and unwanted Ouzo, Retsina, and Metaxas brandy. A pipeline discharging this into the sea near Piraeus had burst close to the airport, where some unscrupulous workers had diverted this potent mixture into the airport's fuel tanks. They saw an opportunity here and refuelled the 'plane with the lethal mixture. On departure, one of its four engines, which had not worked for many years roared into life, and now powered by four screaming turbojets, it climbed to 43,000 feet in 7 seconds, reached Mach 4 somewhere over the Aegean, overshot Dubai by many thousand miles, and landed at Sydney 5 hours earlier than it was scheduled to have landed at Dubai. Since then, many of the world's aircraft fleets were run on this same mixture, to the great relief of thousands of visitors to Greece annually, and many more customers of Greek restaurants around the world, now able to enjoy something drinkable to wash down their moussaka and dolmades.

Back at Eurocontrol, Dimitri's computer screen blinked, reminding him that he had unfinished business with his game of 'Space Invaders' which he had begun when, for the fortieth time that day, his terminal had abruptly terminated its connection with the multi billion dollar state of the art failproof mainframe system designed to ensure the smooth flow of air traffic. The Officious Automatons department and the Helpless Desk were, as always in the event of a problem, unavailable, and the whining recorded voices telling him to hold for further assistance were of little consolation.

European Air Traffic control was in its usual state of peak season saturation, due to flow control over France imposed by striking French controllers, and the wrong sort of darkness over the United Kingdom. The only alleviating factor was the invariable holiday season Air France strike, reducing the volume of air traffic over that country.

Across Europe, passengers were blissfully unaware that just one slumbering man was responsible for the stacks of aircraft circling the airports of Europe and held the fate of thousands of passengers at his inert fingertips. Hundreds of Captains, wheeling and banking their aircraft like vultures, in hope of landing slots, above Kloten and Schiphol, Schwechat and Gatwick, were being forced to repeat, like a mantra : "Ladies and Gentlemen, due to traffic restrictions .......... I will give you further information as soon as this becomes available ........."

Blissfully unaware of the chaos, Dimitri Klafthadis slumbered on past midnight and into Christmas day, his dreams interrupted only by the buzzing fly settling from time to time on his aquiline nose.

45,000 feet above him, avoiding the saturated airspace by flying far above the commercial flights, Captain Claus skilfully piloted his heavily laden sleigh, drawn by 12 reindeer, through the skies from Lapland, with his red coat wrapped around him to keep out the freezing air, and his flowing white beard covering a rum-stained and well-used flight plan.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, this is Captain Santa speaking. Our arrival this morning will be on time, as it has been every Christmas for the last 2000 years. On behalf of the Reindeer Alliance group of airlines, in association with Lapland Air Services, Alaska International, Greenlandair, Arctic Airlines, and 16 other airlines with unpronounceable names, my crew and I wish you all a very merry Christmas, and a happy and successful New Year."

[sycamore]

Try the search ,or 24 Dec,2009

[Wensleydale]

Before he is allowed to enter UK airspace on Christmas Eve, Father Christmas has to receive an annual Staneval and Air Worthiness check from the CAA. At the check in November this year, a new examiner was used. He walked around the sleigh with Santa and checked the runners under the sleigh followed by questions about load carrying capacity and centre of gravity changes as the presents were delivered. All this being satisfactory, the examiner checked that the harnesses were secure and that the Reindeer had been fed and watered with suitable record made in the F700: he declared that it was time for the flight check.

As he climbed aboard his sleigh, Santa noticed that the examiner was carrying a double barrelled shotgun that he laid across his knees under a blanket.

"Why are you carrying that?" asked a worried Santa.

"I shouldn't tell you", said the examiner, "but the practice emergency today is a double engine failure after take-off".

:}

[Pontius Navigator]

Over 20 years ago the daily intrep included a green sortie out of Keflavik (green as opposed to red, blue and orange). It was noted to have departed on a SE direction towards Rockall before swinging round and RTB. It was about the first week in December.

I duly briefed the current Int with the red and green tracks carefully plotted down in to the UKADR. I did the brief as usual, and left the stage. After the brief, clearly showing that at least someone was awake, OC Supply came up and said "Did you REALLY brief a reindeer and sleigh?"

:)

[BEagle]

A Lightning mate told me that he was doing Christmas QRA. At some point in the early hours, a voice boomed out on telebrief:

"This is God. It's a boy!"

[622]

I have no idea if this is factually acurate...but it made me chuckle..;)

1) No known species of reindeer can fly. BUT there are 300,000 species of living organisms yet to be classified, and while most of these are insects and germs, this does not COMPLETELY rule out flying reindeer which only Santa has ever seen.

2) There are 2 billion children (persons under 18) in the world. BUT since Santa doesn't (appear) to handle the Muslim, Hindu, Jewish and Buddhist children, that reduces the workload to 15% of the total - 378 million according to Population Reference Bureau. At an average (census) rate of 3.5 children per household, that's 91.8 million homes. One presumes there's at least one good child in each.

3) Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west (which seems logical). This works out to 822.6 visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian household with good children, Santa has 1/1000th of a second to park, hop out of the sleigh, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left, get back up the chimney, get back into the sleigh and move on to the next house. Assuming that each of these 91.8 million stops are evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false but for the purposes of our calculations we will accept), we are now talking about .78 miles per household, a total trip of 75-1/2 million miles, not counting stops to do what most of us must do at least once every 31 hours, plus feeding and etc.

This means that Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second, 3,000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man- made vehicle on earth, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second - a conventional reindeer can run, tops, 15 miles per hour.

4) The payload on the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium-sized lego set (2 pounds), the sleigh is carrying 321,300 tons, not counting Santa, who is invariably described as overweight. On land, conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting that "flying reindeer" (see point #1) could pull TEN TIMES the normal amount, we cannot do the job with eight, or even nine. We need 214,200 reindeer. This increases the payload - not even counting the weight of the sleigh - to 353,430 tons. Again, for comparison - this is four times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth.

5) 353,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance - this will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as spacecraft re-entering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer will absorb 14.3 QUINTILLION joules of energy. Per second. Each. In short, they will burst into flame almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them, and create deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire reindeer team will be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second. Santa, meanwhile, will be subjected to centrifugal forces 17,500.06 times greater than gravity. A 250-pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of his sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force.

[500N]

Excuse the partial thread drift but I always found the NORAD Santa tracking to be well done for the kids.

Why we track Santa (http://www.noradsanta.org/en/whytrack.html)
How we track Santa (http://www.noradsanta.org/en/howtrack.html)

Official NORAD Santa Tracker (http://www.noradsanta.org/en/index.html)

[Jhieminga]

The following information was removed from a Cockpit Voice Recorder from an aircraft flying over the North Pole on Dec. 4th 2010.

“Those passengers sitting on the right side of the aircraft may have noticed eight reindeer and a sled with a fat man on it disappear into the number two engine intake. We are pleased to report, all engine parameters are back to normal and we will not be delayed on our arrival into Vancouver.”

A Human Factors investigation, utilizing the “Dirty Dozen,” into this incident revealed the following.

Synopsis
Santa Claus was reported to be carrying out a test flight on his sleigh when he suffered a near miss (He nearly missed) with the #2 engine of a Boeing 777. From information gathered from Mrs. Claus, and witnesses we have determined the following, each of which may have broke the chain of events that enfolded.

Contributing Factors
1) Lack of Communication – Santa was not in communication the ATC responsible for that airspace. Had he been, the collision likely would have been avoided.
2) Complacency – Santa always departed the North Pole in this direction as he had done hundreds of times before. That would have put the sun, low on the horizon directly into his face.
3) Lack of Knowledge – Santa did not know how to conduct the required IFR flight in the controlled airspace.
4) Distraction - Santa was last seen trying to operate his new cell phone. Mrs. Claus was trying to contact him at the time.
5) Lack of Teamwork – Santa is believed to seen the 777 at the last second and pulled the reindeer hard to the right. The reindeer were believed to be trying to go hard left at the time.
6) Fatigue – Due to toy production problems, Santa is known to have been up for at least 36 hours without sleep prior to the test flight.
7) Lack of Resources – There was a chronic shortage of materials for toy making and more elves were needed to complete the work on schedule.
8) Pressure – With only 20 days to go before Christmas Eve, Santa was under enormous pressure to complete all the requested toys on time.
9) Lack of Assertiveness – Santa was in dire need of more help to deliver the toys to the ever-increasing number of boys and girls or more time was required (i.e. Delivery over 2 days) He had not considered either option.
10) Stress – Santa was under enormous stress to complete all the work on time. He was also reported to be very concerned with the gross weight of the sled.
11) Lack of Awareness – Santa was unaware that times had changed over the years and he had failed to change with the times.
12) Norms – Santa was following all the normal procedures as he had done for hundreds of years before.

System Errors

Known facts:
1) Santa Claus lived at the magnetic North Pole which is in Canada and thus he was a Canadian citizen.
2) There is no record of said person ever obtaining a license to fly.
3) There is no record of the flying device utilized by the deceased, ever having been tested for airworthiness or registered.
4) There is no record of a weight and balance ever being carried out on said device.
5) There is no record of Santa ever obtaining the required special permits to land on rooftops.
6) The regulatory body responsible for the flying safety in Canada is Transport Canada
7) From evidence gathered it would appear that the said regulatory body was well aware of the deviations from the air regulations but for political reasons failed to act. (See appendix A - Incident report 1999-199)
8) There is some evidence that presents (bribes) were left at the homes of officials working for Transport Canada therefore constituting a possible conflict of interest.
9) It would appear that regulatory bodies from other countries also chose to ignore the violations that took place in their airspace.
10) They also were given gifts under their Christmas tree although a few in Holland were reported to receive only a lump of coal in their stockings.

Conclusion
In view of the magnitude of the system failure, ICAO may need to review the air regulations of all contracting states with a view to tighten up the regulations as they relate to this tragedy.

Recommendations

Christmas and the spreading of good will should be spread to the remaining 364 days of the year and human factors training for Santa Claus Jr. would also help. System Safety Services would be pleased to assist in the training. May you all have a very Merry Christmas and a safe 2011.

[Prangster]

Remember reading the court abstracts, from memory he'd overstressed the airframe by overspeeding Rudolf and overloading the sleigh by 110%. A sort of Santa vne clause was cited as grounds for the court martial. He nearly got away with it pleading the overload as accidental due to the effects of scoffing millions of mince pies not having been included in the weight calcs. And that's when they nailed his big red arse to the wall. The prosecution pouncing on the sherry consumption convincing the court that along with the mincies he was flying well above the alcohol limits.