Jessie Naor: So this is a tough conversation today, a very real conversation today. And I just want to say thank you to AB Jets for sponsoring this show because them, we don't get to have these long form and in depth conversations. Good morning, welcome back to the VIP seat. We have a very important conversation today with Barry Ellis from Hopajet. Sit back, buckle up, and let's take off.

Preston Holland: Yeah, the team at AB jets when we first started talking about our sponsorship and partnership together, they really wanted to make sure that we could have these types of conversations, operators, corrosion. I mean, they're all hot topics that they talk about. You know, you look at the choices they've made on their challenger 35 hundreds to avoid corrosion. ⁓ This is a huge topic and we really appreciate their support and helping it helping make it possible for us to have conversations like this. So thanks AB jets for sponsoring this week's episode of the VIP Seat. Yeah, Jessie, very excited about the conversation today. We welcome Barry Ellis, the CEO of Hop A Jet. Hop A Jet, as we all know, the final report come out last week. And so we're going to talk all about the tragic accident that they had in Naples, Florida in So Barry, welcome to the VIP seat.

Barry Ellis: Thank you, appreciate it Preston, Jessie. It's great to do it you.

Preston Holland: Yeah, so I think before we get started, I think that we just wanted to kind of memorialize it and pay honor to your team. Ed Murphy and Ian Hoffman are the two pilots that tragically lost their lives that day. What do you want people to know about those two individuals?

Barry Ellis: just, you know, they were both just such consummate professionals about everything that they did, not just when they were in the airplanes. Ed Murphy had worked for us for nearly 30 years. He started with us in 1996 in line service, built his time flying helicopters and other other types of airplanes while working as line service for us, worked his way up into the right seat of a Learjet and on into the Challengers and spent the last years of his career flying the Challengers for us. was a Mensa member. was, you he unusually good handwriting for pilot. ⁓ was one of things I remember about him. But ⁓ Ed was a for many years, so was just tragic.

Jessie Naor: Hahaha

Barry Ellis: Ian Hoffman was an interesting story also because he started his aviation career, at least his jet career, with Harvey Hop at Hop A Jet in the 80s. He got a job flying with the did 30 years or more of airline in his career, retired, and he wanted to finish out his career at Hop A Jet. He lived locally. came back to us, interviewed with us, and certainly we to bring him back and allow him to do that. And he too was just such a professional. We miss both very badly.

Jessie Naor: Yeah, I think one of the amazing things that came out of this is the flight attendant you know, was able to save the passengers. That's also just such an amazing story. You know, it's all tragic, but at there was, you know, there's some life saved here, which is amazing.

Barry Ellis: She was the right person to have on board that day. She was uniquely qualified really to be in that position. driven person, collegiate athlete that just the mindset to get out of that airplane. And the passengers also helpful and they worked together a and were able to save themselves which... That combined with the actions of the pilots in the end allowed for three of the five occupants to survive that, which is pretty unbelievable, really.

Jessie Naor: Yeah, and I think that was one of the things we want to ask you about too. know, everyone loves a neat single explanation for accidents. Really, do we get that? But I think, you know, what would you like to highlight that the crews did in addition to the flight flight flight and its amazing actions? You know, what did they do in those final moments that made a meaningful difference?

Barry Ellis: Yeah, know if I had to put it in one sentence they did what they've been trained to do for years and years and years. They flew the airplane, you know, number one in everybody's checklist of things to do in an emergency. Rather than it turn into a stall spin accident that so often happens when a loss of an engine. They were able to put the airplane down, get it on the ground, find a... find a suitable landing spot that allowed the passengers and the flight attendant to survive. Didn't hurt anybody on the ground outside the airplane and their lives minimal damage. And quite their lives probably would have been spared if it hadn't for a very very stout, firmly planted signpost on the side of the road. They caught the right wing and spun and catapulted the airplane around into the ⁓ barrier on the side. If hadn't been for that and the airplane had been allowed to decelerate on the highway, even if had gone off into the side of the highway, think it would have been survivable by all. So it's just tragic.

Preston Holland: I think ⁓ a lot of operators that listen to this show, a lot of business leaders. Can you walk us through a little bit of maybe the behind the scenes? Like how do you, you know, how do you deal with this internally? How do you rally your other pilots? How you deal with those individual pilots families? I mean, I'm sure that your job quickly became, ⁓ you soft skill, right? Like not a lot about flying and a whole lot about people. ⁓ Can walk us through some of the behind the scenes there?

Barry Ellis: We've been proud of the amount of time we spend on our emergency response program. We do the drills regularly. We learn from them every time. We closely with fireside partners, which I say were immensely helpful throughout the whole process. But what none of the none of the ⁓ training ever prepared for was notifying of the of the families, lived locally here. Ed's family lived in Michigan. So the phone calls that I had to make to ⁓ Ed's obviously were very hard something that I'll never forget. But Ian's wife lived locally. So the first time she heard it was when I knocked on her door that night. And, you know, of course, right after the accident, we assembled our emergency response team in our conference room and started setting up the room as our war room for the next couple days. myself and our chief pilot, David Donovan, along with the pastor, a friend of his, went over to meet Ian's wife. And sitting there with her as she was uncontrollably is something that I never prepared myself for. So I'd say the biggest change we've made to our emergency response program is more family notification, training, and expectation.

Jessie Naor: Yeah, mean, just that's worst scenario possible to have to get to that point. But unfortunately, we live in such a high risk industry. While rare, do happen. And think in this case, to have dual engine failure is so unbelievably crazy. Yeah, I mean, the fact that it can even occur in today's age, I think that's the key piece that most people in the industry are just like, what? You know, and I think the report was very interesting and going on to all that. But I mean, anything else you want to share with operators in terms of like, how do you prepare for this day other than family care? I mean, anything else you think that that operators should know about responding to these emergencies?

Barry Ellis: Crazy. ⁓ Yeah, it's training, training, training. Running through it, it's like anything. It's like flying an airplane. If you know ⁓ to expect if you've fought ahead of the airplane when an emergency happens and been expecting an emergency in an you're better prepared to deal with it when it happens. that's sort of... That preparation that you by training helps a lot. I mentioned fireside partners and really can't endorse them strongly enough. They help you every facet of the process. family notification, because it was local in nature for the co-pilot Ian's wife. We obviously were on scene long before they could have anybody on scene. But typically, they are engaged in that process too. having and we've worked with them for a long time. So having them so closely intertwined with our operation and knowing our ERP, they did great

Jessie Naor: Mm-hmm.

Barry Ellis: job.

Jessie Naor: So, you know, we're not going to litigate the case and full disclosures here for anyone who doesn't know there is plenty of ⁓ there are lots of lawsuits in ⁓ There's NTSB report. ⁓ We're going to litigate this, but I the big thing is calling out the public record. And I think for you, Barry, is what are most important points that came out with this report now that it's just been released? So. ⁓

Barry Ellis: to pay.

Jessie Naor: you know, maybe walk us through your top level that here's what happened, here's what I think, and then we'll kind of dig into some of the details a little more.

Barry Ellis: Yeah, you know, let me first say, I ⁓ I'm not a litigious type person. And I don't think as an organization we really are also either, but, there, there's more than just monetary issues in this. It's, it's notification to all the other operators of these engines. there's the FAA being involved with ADs and and such that we feel needs to happen. So keep, know, it sounds, it obvious, but keeping this from happening again to somebody else is really, really big part of the litigation. We feel that there could have been more done proactively by the engine manufacturer. We feel like after the fact, there could have been expeditious dissemination of information to other operators. It's been two two months, two weeks, but I'm not counting until the final report came out. in that time, we felt like there should have been more.

Jessie Naor: you

Barry Ellis: information given to other operators of this CF-34 business jet engine.

Preston Holland: Yeah, I think what might be useful just for those that have not read the report, I've got it pulled up here. just to of lay a basis for the rest of this conversation. ⁓ I'm just going to, I'm going to read this word for from the NTSB. The national transportation board determines the probable causes of this accident to be corrosion of both engines, variable geometry, VG system components.

Barry Ellis: Sure.

Preston Holland: which led to their operation in an off schedule position and resulted in near simultaneous sub idle rotating compressor stalls on approach, loss of thrust in both engines and an off airport landing. Contributing to the accident was inadequate fault isolation guidance from the engine manufacturer, which prevented the identification of corrosion buildup in VG system components during troubleshooting of hung start events on both engines about one month before the accident. So just so that we all kind of are from the same sheet of music so that everybody understands that the probable cause was determined to be corrosion ⁓ dual engine failure built around this concept of the VG system component. So maybe can you explain to us, ⁓ us through the VG components, what into it? Like, can you kind of walk us through maybe the basis of this ⁓ for that, you know,

Barry Ellis: It's all true. Mm-hmm. So, let's go.

Preston Holland: I am not a maintenance person so this has all been a lot of learning for me as we kind of research for this episode.

Barry Ellis: Night, everyone. Yeah, I've learned more about VG systems than I thought I ever would or ever needed to, but the variable guide vein system is simply a set of almost like louvers that are in front of each stage of the compressor section. They direct and the and direction of airflow as they hit the leading edges of the compressor

Jessie Naor: you

Barry Ellis: mean, a compressor blade is basically a wing. So the variable guide vanes help direct angle of attack and the at which the air hits the leading edge of the compressor blades. So when you have them out of sync or not in proper position, it can cause the compressor stalls. the way they typically is fuel pressure. When the throttles are back towards idle, the variable guide vanes are closed, restricting the air and changing the flow pattern. When you advance the throttles, these louver doors, these variable guide vanes open. if, because of corrosion, they don't ⁓ or open properly or ⁓ sync, it's very likely a compressor stall is going to happen. thing that nobody can believe, and it's very hard for me also, is that it happened simultaneously. But if you knew what we've known now from being involved in a party to the investigation, it was learned very early on just how matched these engines were. I mean, there was a statement from GE engineers that they almost never seen an engine with such a of all the characteristics that they see and wear patterns and such. The engines had both been on the airplane since manufacture. They both had same cycles. They both had the same hours. They both had been exposed to same environmental conditions. So as much as it's hard to believe, if you think about it from pure logic standpoint, they would both fail at the same time because everything that those engines had experienced was identical to each other. sure enough, that's what was found when they were torn apart. So it did happen at the same time, likely because when the crew ⁓ retarded the arriving into the Naples area to slow down. When they went to advance the throttles again, the guide vanes not opening correctly caused this dual compressor stall.

Jessie Naor: And so the that struck me and I read, I've read like 300 pages, I read every single document, but I've read most of them. thing that struck me was that this kind of issue had already occurred in another aircraft. And that was involved in more, you know, offshore search and rescue operations. So I would love to hear your thoughts on that.

Barry Ellis: Yeah, that's really one of the biggest shames about this is was avoidable. There were a number of opportunities in advance that this could have been found out. We work very closely the engine manufacturer on the maintenance of these engines, as do most operators. The engine manufacturer has has a program where they look after the engines and hours are reported and you actually pay for the use of these engines on an hourly basis. The on the business jet is what call on condition, meaning that it doesn't have a fixed TBO or ⁓ overhaul time. They back in the 80s. on the Challenger 601 series that the same CF-34. It had, I think, was ⁓ a 6,000 overhaul time. They then, the start of the Challenger 601-3R, they went to this on-condition And the new inspection was every hours you would do a borescope and a thorough inspection of the engines. And as long as everything looked good, they signed it off, gave it a clean bill of health, and you would go for another 3,200 hours. That's a long time, it seems like, between. But many of these engines, I think, you you make it past 3,200 hours, you then make it past the subsequent 6,400 hours. The engines are still fairly new at that point. It probably isn't until the near, you know, nine to ten thousand hour range that it starts becoming suspect. But with it being every 3200 hours, the 3200 hour inspection is very critical. This set of engines had its 3200 hour inspection done by the engine manufacturer in September of 2023, less than six months before the accident. They were both signed off as clean, no problem. Go for another 3,200. that a huge missed opportunity in our That was the point at which this should have been caught. You've got a borescope inside the compressor section already. You would believe if somebody saw corrosion that A &P 101 You see something, you say something, you know. But yet, they it off without an issue.

Jessie Naor: So did they, that inspection, there corrosion already identified that you found suspect? Because I thought some of this was kind of outside, it's on the outside of the compressor. Is that something that can be seen during these inspections or no?

Barry Ellis: The majority of the issue comes, would be visible from inside actually. ⁓ are streaks in the outer compressor case that show trails corrosion coming from these bore holes where the variable guide veins stick through the outer compressor case to hook up to the mechanisms that move them. So this should have been visible from the inside.

Jessie Naor: Hmm.

Barry Ellis: We all know corrosion doesn't start in six months. have since gone in the records and looked at video and pictures that came from previous borescopes, like when the pre-buy was done on the airplane prior to us purchasing it. only had airplane for less than three years. So it wasn't that we... ⁓ You know, we knew its entire life. We had it for less than three years, like I said. So a borescope was done at the pre-buy also. And this corrosion probably started long ago. So I think it was fully developed and probably in a real bad state in September of 23 when that 3200-hour borescope was last done.

Jessie Naor: Well, and so this is where the, know, for people who don't know how this all works, you know, there's a, there is a back and forth between the OEM and the operator on what's okay. I mean, ultimately the engine program is responsible for the engine. You know, you're, you're hearing from them that yes, this is okay to fly or not, ⁓ there is sometimes you know, like engine manufacturers, don't want you doing borescopes if they're on a program, for example, because, you know, they're certifying it to a certain number. They don't want you looking in there and finding everything. Yeah. Right.

Barry Ellis: Thanks for watching. It's exposure. It's exposure for them. And, you know, not to interrupt you, but to be honest with you, that's one of our reasons for the litigation is that we feel that even after this accident, there has not been the priority given to the criteria of the borescope as to what they look for. There have been a number of service bulletins that the engine manufacturer has issued since our accident that call for checking of these VG systems. we very surprised at how slow this happened and how importance was put on borescoping of them. They seemed to try to by with checks. that didn't include borescope.

Preston Holland: I guess the question is, would better borescope or a deeper borescope, again, my here is limited, ⁓ is a world in which you do a deep enough borescope and see this ⁓ during purchase process? You probably even have known to have asked for that because this was not necessarily a known issue, but...

Barry Ellis: Yeah.

Preston Holland: you know, was there a world in which a borescope went deep enough to prevent this from happening? I guess that's like my big question.

Barry Ellis: Yeah, that's one of the big questions also is what is criteria that the engine manufacturer looks for and what train vendors because although the engine manufacturer themselves, GE, was the one that did the borescope on our airplane in 2023, they also authorized a number of vendors to do it their behalf. do they train those vendors? What do they train those vendors to look for? So ⁓ it considered a corrosion inspection? And that's questionable. Obviously looking for cracked blades, abradable material missing from the compressor ⁓ section. And I'm not an engine expert either, but they're looking for deterioration of the How hard do they look for corrosion is a question. But there is, the borescope does have the ability to detect this if they look in the proper ports. There's a number of plugs in the outside of the compressor section that you open up in order to stick the borescope in. But you certainly can, excuse me, you certainly can get to the sections of the engine that were most effective if you look in the right places.

Jessie Naor: So this is, and this is not this case specifically, but having gone through this experience now, I want to know your thoughts on. for manufacturers providing engines on condition versus, I was a phenom operator, we didn't have on condition. pushed to get our TBOs extended, but now when I look back on this, go, man, maybe it is good to be on a scheduled TBO because at least you're opening up the whole thing, you're seeing it all. What are thoughts on maybe in our we've gone too far on on condition with some and maybe we should be on scheduled plans.

Barry Ellis: Yeah, it's a good question. I'm not, you know, definitely against on condition programs at all. I just think that maybe the interval needs to be looked at and scope of these inspections that Clearly, the one for this engine wasn't sufficient. Obviously it's big financial win for the engine manufacturer that also controls the engine program, including the cost the overhauls when required under the program. ⁓ airframe manufacturer is selling the airplane, if can sell it as having on condition So it's a big windfall. until things go wrong. that's, we're looking to necessarily have engine taken off of an unconditioned program, but I think this inspection should be more robust and maybe more frequent.

Jessie Naor: Mm-hmm. Well, for those who aren't familiar with the background on this, think, you know, on condition engines were traditionally really a commercial aerospace product, you know, large airlines that had, you know, engineering teams, lots of people able to do trend monitoring analysis, all of that. think that was the intent of most on condition programs. And perhaps in 135.91, it's just a different, I there's more reliance from operators on the OEMs to give them the guidance and to that for them. question for you is like, all right, as an operator, you're completely reliant on the OEM at this point for the on-condition engines, or ⁓ there some pushback that can between the two?

Barry Ellis: Okay. Well, like you said, engine manufacturer and I think the airframe manufacturer both used the fact that this exact engine, with the exception of the data tag, is the same engine that's on the CRJ200 commuter. larger use the same of engine. It's a CF-34, but it's a different dash number. It's more thrust. slightly larger, but it's the same basic design engine and same basic design VG system. missed opportunity was shortly after COVID, when a lot of commuters had sat, the larger commuter engine, the CF 34-8, experienced very, very similar problems. They attributed it, I think, to sitting, but they came out with an emergency AD that exists on just the slightly larger version of this same exact engine. I would think at that point that it would have been a good time to let the business jet community know who operated the business jet version of this engine about this emergency AD. ⁓ We certainly didn't have any idea. It wasn't sent to us. It wasn't known to the charter operators or part 91 operators of this airplane, even though we had basically the same airplane engines. So another ⁓ missed opportunity, think. We're waiting for any AD to come for the business jet engine because of this. that the larger CF-34 is a FADEC engine, computer controlled. So problem presented itself slightly differently because the essentially didn't allow the engine to hurt itself. It would roll back or reduce power settings or thrust available. But the core problem was the same.

Preston Holland: Was the hung start similar? Is that a way that it was presenting itself or is that unique to the 604, 605?

Barry Ellis: And it turns out that an opportunity. What had happened that day was the aircraft had started both engines, went to taxi, and South Florida has gotten to be a very busy area, air traffic control-wise. So the tower said, you guys might as well shut down, because you're going to be a while. So the crew shut the engines down. Got the call from the tower and went to restart them 20 minutes later and neither engine would start. They both hung. Different than a slow start in that when it hangs it accelerates normally but gets to a point where the N1 and N2 don't accelerate further and stabilize at an idle. It just hangs there. So... Immediately we attempting to use that airplane for the trip that day. The airplane spent three days on the ground with engine manufacturer helping us run through troubleshooting, trying to find a problem with it. Now what somewhat masked the problem was that the next morning when we went to begin working on this airplane, they both started normally. It was cold. At that point, we didn't really put two and two together that this was a hot problem. So we continued with starting down the troubleshooting guide. it always, it seemed like starts with airframe. You know, the airframe manufacturer says it must be the engines. The engine manufacturer says it must be the airframe. That kind of, that kind of back and forth. But so we, we did, we cleared. possibility that it was an airframe issue. Mainly was sufficient start pressure because they start pneumatically on this engine. So we cleared the airframe, then we down the next phases of it. Changing fuel filters, checking fuel flow, checking adjustments of everything. Again, I'm not being mechanic, I'm assuming. But... hundreds of gallons of fuel running in the run-up area, days worth of intense troubleshooting with engine manufacturer closely involved. And we get the engines to fail. We had determined it was a hot issue, heat issue, but we couldn't get them to fail again. So at some point, you surmised that Something that you've done already must have fixed the problem because you can't get it to fail anymore. Unfortunately, the test that checked variable guide vein systems was so far down in the troubleshooting tree that we never got to it. Everything remedied itself well prior to six or whatever it was of the troubleshooting. There was a practice called MP68, maintenance practice 68 that existed. I don't know that we'd done MP68, whether that ever been done. We didn't necessarily even know what it was, because nobody had ever gotten to it. It just wasn't on anybody's radar. It required special tooling that at the time there were two sets of this pressure test tooling that existed with the OEM. So in order to do it, it would have needed to have been ordered by the OEM, either conducted by or sent us the equipment to perform it. But again, it just wasn't on anybody's radar.

Preston Holland: to clarify, it would have needed to have been the manufacturer to order that. Had you gotten to that point and they said, okay, your next step is MP68. the tooling, know, kind of initiating that.

Barry Ellis: Eventually we would have needed the tooling, we didn't have the tooling to do it. we do now, we've built our own, any operator with access to a competent machine shop and some knowledge can now build their own. And I suspect a lot of people have, but at the time this was not something that known or on anybody's radar. believe that it should have been. It was a missed opportunity because ours was not the first airplane that had hungstarts as a symptom to a variable guide main problem. As Jessie, you mentioned earlier on, there was experience with offshore operating aircraft that had had this exact scenario. Of course, we didn't know that at this time, even though I think there had been a lot of studying done of it by the OEM.

Jessie Naor: and I think in that case too, ⁓ was again this back and forth between the operator and the OEM. Well, it's fixed, it's fine. It's fixed, it's fine. Keep moving on. And then the crews would actually to film the error in the cockpit to prove to the manufacturer, yes, there is a problem. It keeps happening because it's this no found thing that happens. you have an issue on airplane, you send it to the OEM and they go, ⁓ well, we can't replicate it. So we don't know what to do to tell you to fix it. And, you know, it's like, when do you... ⁓

Barry Ellis: All You've done your homework. But do know that they had knowledge of it and you think that that knowledge would be passed down to those that were helping operators troubleshoot problems. It was our belief, but it didn't happen that way. I know that as the operator ultimately ⁓

Jessie Naor: ⁓

Barry Ellis: you know, people think that we should have done MP68. It's just that it's easy to get to that point. It needs by the OEM, assistance by the OEM, and not something that on our radar. I think probably if it had continued fail, eventually we would have gotten to it. Yeah, without respect.

Preston Holland: But guess where does the, I guess to restate a little bit of that is onus on the ⁓ manufacturer, because they're the, you mentioned earlier, they're the provider of the program, they manufactured the engine. So, you know, there is a financial cost to maintaining an program. Is the onus on the operator or is the onus on the OEM to take it to extent level, like is it which who who does the onus fall on that that check was never performed? I mean, I guess that's maybe the basis of the whole litigation is about, you know, it's like, it was on us on me. But I guess, I don't know, that's, that's, that's like the big, you know, big question, I think, in my mind.

Barry Ellis: Yeah, and something that may get flushed out in the litigation. know, mean, ultimately, the PICs to blame, you know, in an airplane issue. So I don't say that, you know, we're completely exonerated, but not who would have had the presence of mind to go much further than we went. it's, it's, but it's, You say financially it's a big issue. It's a big enough issue, and this is somewhat controversial, but General Electric's engine program called On Point, always throughout the 601, 604, 605, and then 60650 series, was always one that covered corrosion, full stop. Didn't say not in the compressor section, not in the turbine, you know, had no limitations really on corrosion during overhauls that they found or whatever. Some time the airplane that you discussed, Jessie, the offshore airplane with the hung starts, somewhere after that time, for some reason, the GE On-Point contract changed. Now they cover the first $50,000 of corrosion. To fix this problem on one of these airplanes is million dollars an engine. out replacing our compressor cases. So why did the program change if nobody knew about this problem or didn't suspect there to be an issue? It's created a conundrum for people buying an airplane. Because like for instance, had an airplane, because we grounded our entire fleet after this of challengers and said, GE, you need to come down here and you need to check every one of these engines that we have. There was a 605 that they ended up taking both engines they, at that point it was very early on in the I think, of what was acceptable and what wasn't as far as corrosion. So they took both engines off of this 605. that we have them a couple million dollars, but it was covered by GE OnPoint because the 10-year running contract had been written in 2017. So they recovered. also had a Challenger 650 that we'd only been operating for a few months. I mean, new airplane, less than 10 years old, very low time on it. They took both those engines also, but that owner had bought the airplane in 2021. Had signed GE contract post corrosion change. It cost him $2 million that he paid. So very.

Preston Holland: ⁓ crazy. ⁓ them with a new contract ⁓ that is pretty... ⁓

Barry Ellis: Yeah. So now the reason I say it's such a conundrum is let's say for instance, you want to go buy a Challenger and you want to have a pre-buy done. typically during a pre-buy, all they do is allow you GE on program allows you to inspect the compressor section with a bores or the, ⁓ the turbine section with a borescope. I wouldn't buy an airplane. without making sure that this corrosion didn't exist in the compressor section because I'm about to have to sign a GE on point contract that no longer covers corrosion. So now you got these pre-buys going on. You got people buying airplanes that now want a lot more thorough engine pre-buy inspection completed. The engine manufacturer has to essentially buy off on that.

Jessie Naor: Mm-hmm.

Barry Ellis: to be done because it's not on schedule with the 3200 hour borescopes. So you're asking for exposure off schedule to the engine manufacturer. it's got some tentacles for sure.

Jessie Naor: Yeah. It does. I think one of the big conversations that's been happening about this has been the engine washes and the schedules, know, from my reading, the schedules went from like 800 to 400. It changed a lot over time. It's not like from day one, there was, yeah, there wasn't like a good plan of when you're supposed to wash these things. But even so,

Barry Ellis: All of us once.

Jessie Naor: I'm, it have made a difference due where this corrosion was, how often you're doing compressor washes and is that something that needs to change the industry overall for all engines, especially those operating in South Florida? You know, up with washes? ⁓ Tell us thoughts on that, yeah.

Barry Ellis: Well, I think now the OEM has recognized there needs to be a change in the program because one of the service bulletins that's come out has added a step to it. I'll talk about that in a second. But the airplane that, like I said, we'd had for less than three years. When it was born in 2005, The owner took delivery of it. The maintenance technician who lived with the airplane its whole, you know, beginning of its life. With the help of the OEM being the airframe and engine manufacturer, it was decided that they were going to do compressor washes every 800 hours You know, now this is... These were not challenger experts that took delivery of this airplane. They basically went off the recommendation of others and set an 800 hour schedule that they maintained religiously throughout the life of this airplane. The first 20 years, first 18 years of its life or whatever. When we took over the airplane, we on that same schedule. Now. It would be my contention that the corrosion happened long before we ever got it. And we all know corrosion or rust doesn't get better. doesn't stop. Compressor washes don't stop corrosion. my contention they may even exacerbate it. If you don't also the same, do the that GE has now added to the compressor wash section, which is lubricate the bore holes. of the VG system post wash. And got to figure if you've got corrosion, additional especially down at the six o'clock position of the engine in the inlet air in the compressor section, water is going to accumulate down at the lower half of the ⁓ engines. that's where the majority of the corrosion has come from. So would engine washes. ⁓ have helped. Engine washes are typically for power recovery and the engine manufacturers manuals even list that as the primary function of an engine wash is for power recovery whether it be carbon or ⁓ It's first thing they tell you to do if the engine is not making performance numbers is to try a compressor wash or engine wash or whatever process. now They've tightened the criteria a little bit for the compressor washes at the time frame for them, but they've added that big step since our accident of lubricate the bore holes after you do a compressor wash. Other manufacturers have provisioned for this, like Rolls Royce, we operate Gulfstream also. Rolls Royce, They've manufactured into the VG system little holes you lubricate little weak holes that you can actually reach the inside of the bore with lubrication after each compressor wash. that was thought about in advance. It's not an afterthought on that engine. So only other thing I have to say about compressor wash is is a time, it accumulates a factor, not a flight hour factor. In fact, additional flight hours probably are good for the engine. Sitting is what is the problem. This airplane prior to us beginning to operate, operated part 91. And even though it was a busy, busy airplane, it was still a, you know, three, 400 hour a year at the most airplane. So therefore, if you had a 400 hour compressor wash schedule, you're doing a compressor wash once a year, maybe once a year and a half. We took over the airplane and now we're flying it a lot. you know, we're flying at 800 to a thousand hours a year. So we ended up doing compressor washes on it on a more frequent basis than, than, than most would be doing if they were doing 400 hour compressor wash intervals. So, it's just, you the concept that, that time is what creates corrosion, not flight hours.

Jessie Naor: Mm-hmm.

Barry Ellis: basing your compressor washes on a flight time interval really doesn't make a lot of sense to me. It should be a caliper.

Jessie Naor: The other piece of this too was that the compressor wash schedule, it was never actually changed in the manual, I don't believe. And again, I read a lot, so correct me when I'm wrong. But it wasn't actually changed in the manual. But what happened after the other aircraft that had Hung Start issues, there was a notice and some sort of digest on the engine that maybe you should change it to a 400. But I don't think that was ever actually mandated.

Barry Ellis: It's so hard. It is so hard to figure it out. It just, it talks in circles. If you go through all the different service bulletins. And let me, conclude the corrosion thing with one other super important factor. Most people maintain their aircraft in accordance with FAA mandated chapter five in the maintenance manual. That's the Bible. That's the regulatory document that you have to maintain your aircraft.

Jessie Naor: Yeah. Yeah.

Barry Ellis: with. In Bombardier's chapter five for this aircraft, there is zero talk of requirement for engine washes. Now, there Lear 60 operating with Pratt Whitney engines. It is in chapter five. You will wash, you will do compressor washes or rinses or whatever at a specific interval. It doesn't exist Anywhere in bombardier's chapter 5 for the challenger. So if you're an operator Part 91 or otherwise and you're just going to follow the manufacturers recommended FAA mandated program You are not going to have it on your radar. You need to go further into GE's again recommended procedures not mandated not mandated anywhere, so

Jessie Naor: And what about South Florida? And this aircraft had been operating in the islands before that. think what recommendations do you have for operators who are in these? ⁓ a map in the report that shows you where the severely corrosive environments are. It's Florida, it's York City smog. What do operations to pay special attention to in that environment?

Barry Ellis: South Florida, New York, could wrong, but I don't consider them really super corrosive areas compared to the Caribbean, for instance, which we've learned a lot since then. South Florida, so much. We just celebrated, we're celebrating this year our 50th anniversary of operating airplanes of South Florida. This is the first we'd ever had a problem with corrosion in South Florida. Airplanes are transitory. So you live in the Midwest and figure you have no corrosion problem. But your airplane lived the first 10 years of its life in the Caribbean, and it's not corrosion due to salt exposure. The Challenger 650 that we have that they took both engines lived the beginning few years of its life in Lima, Peru, which is very corrosive due, it turns out, we didn't know it, but very corrosive due to pollution. So it's not just a salt air issue. Yeah, yeah, there's places, you know, in, in, in, in,

Jessie Naor: Yeah, I've heard China is a bad one as well, just from smog.

Barry Ellis: Eastern Europe that, you they talk about. Look, if you live in the Midwest, your airplane lives or is based in the Midwest. What is it? Two thirds of the world is covered with ocean. You know, these airplanes are not local nature. yes, ⁓ a South base may have a little bit more exposure to corrosion than a Midwest base, but

Jessie Naor: you

Barry Ellis: These airplanes fly all over the place. The owners go to the Caribbean to get on their yachts during the winter for their holidays they out. So all these airplanes, I think everybody, should be on everybody's radar. And that's why we are pushing hard for these service bulletins that have come out. And I credit the OEM ⁓ coming out with service bulletins to start with, I do not think they've gone far enough. I still think that they go to protect them from the ultimate exposure ⁓ lot of engines coming off airplanes. But they've done some service bulletins. They need to become mandatory rather than just monitoring for hung starts. to where you don't even look at your engine unless you've had a hung start problem. I think everybody needs to have a borescope done for a baseline. then at least you know you have a clean engine, or you know you have a developing problem because that corrosion will continue if it started, regardless of the continued exposure to salt or whatever. It's gonna get worse. So the baseline I think is. Baseline inspection is important.

Jessie Naor: But it is good to note that you need to check your program documents because sometimes if you do it for boro scope, the program is not covering

Barry Ellis: Absolutely, that's very, very, very true.

Preston Holland: Yeah, I guess that that would be a ton. I mean, I'm just quickly at how big the fleet is. But I mean, you've got 287 Challenger 605s. You just use that as as your baseline, right? Like that's a that's a lot of engines ⁓ that going to be getting borescopes and

Barry Ellis: That's a lot of engines. And I think that the majority of the operators, obviously there's other engine program options and you don't have to be on an engine program. not a regulatory thing. It's a cost decision. But I'd say of the people on programs, the vast majority of them are on the OEMs program.

Preston Holland: Yeah, no, that's crazy. Yeah, 344 Challenger 604s. mean, that's 700, you know, close to 700 airplanes.

Barry Ellis: Yeah.

Jessie Naor: I wonder too, do you think our pilots, and this is just general, all of our pilots in 91 and 135 can differentiate between a hung start and a slow start? Because that could be another critical issue. Are there hung starts maybe occurring that even aren't recognized potentially?

Barry Ellis: There probably are. I can go further to say that there's probably hung starts encountered a lot that are just not even written up for nobody's notified about. Because if you think of the mentality, you've got the owner or clients in the back of the airplane. You have a hung start. The first thing you're going to do is. is shut it, shut down the process and retry it. It's, it's, that's just what a pilot is going to do. And if it starts again, then everything was, everything was fine. It was an anomaly. Let me just keep right on going. yeah, the differentiation between a hung start and a hot start is, important, you know, or, or a slow start. Slow start is typically a starter going bad. some sort of friction or something that or air frame issue where there's insufficient pneumatic pressure to start the engine. The hung start is something very different to where I mean it'll accelerate normally to a point but just never will reach and stabilize at idle. So recognizing it, super important. Acknowledging it, maybe even more important. letting your letting your maintenance department know that this is happening

Jessie Naor: me. in training? is this something that's properly covered in training programs?

Barry Ellis: Yeah, we've tried very hard to the word out. I think probably the most widespread it is that we work CAE for our training program. The people at CAE were very receptive to some of the information that we shared with them so that they could incorporate it, if not officially, at least unofficially through their instructors. teaching people that are coming through there how to recognize it, what might be the problem. Even an airframe thing, was a, you know, one of the early theories was that the throttles, there was a throttle shut down, you know, the throttles were brought to idle cutoff. Prior to us of the actual cause, We did a lot as a party to the investigation to help the NTSB try to determine how this could have happened. So in one of our troubleshooting days, we said, you know, is there something in the auto throttle system that could have something to do with this? And one of us asked, how does this auto throttle work? And turns out it's just a simple clutch mechanism to where ⁓ If set the speed down as you're approaching airport, the auto-throttles will bring the throttles back to idle to try to reach the speed that you've set in the meter So the throttles come back. What would happen if somebody bumped those red latches with the throttles? continue to try to, with the clutch, just drive themselves to idle cutoff? Or is there some intelligence in the auto throttle system that will not allow them to do that? And we found early on through our on the ground, nope, it'll shut the engines off. You're to simulate it. So if you're speed, the throttles are being held back at flight idle by the auto throttle system an attempt to slow the airplane and somebody reaches across the cockpit or does something to hit one of those little latches, that throttle is gonna continue to drive itself to idle cutoff. So we thought maybe this is it. And even after we found out that that wasn't the problem. We knew pretty early on, being a party to the investigation, that it wasn't that. we saw from the flight data recorder data that these engines were never shut off. But we went to airframe manufacturer and said, crazy, but this happens. Everybody needs to know about it. We need to shout this from the rooftop that this can happen. Nothing's happened. They haven't notified anybody. CAE on the other hand were very receptive to the information and I believe even incorporated it in some of the training. Just knowing that it can happen.

Preston Holland: Hmm. I think kind of the last, as we're running up on time, the last thing that I'd like to talk about is, you the impact to your business since this has happened and maybe what, you know, hope, what you're hopeful for with this investigation coming out, you know, where, where you see the business itself going.

Barry Ellis: Being a 50 year old company and having felt like we, we always talked about having access to the entire charter pie. You know, we do aircraft management also, part 91 management, but as far as our charter operation goes, which has been the foundation of the company for 50 years, we liked to have access to the whole pie. We wanted to be Argus. platinum elite, wanted to be Wyvern Wingman Plus, we wanted to be IS-BAO want, you all of that. We wanted to be approved by NetJets, we wanted to be approved to do business for all of these places and that's something that we had achieved. we lost a third of that pie that day. We understand, you know, they buy their by their company guidelines are mandated to remove from use an operator that's had an accident until some point and that's usually when the final report comes out. We were very pleased that Argus and Wyvern right up front recognized that ⁓ was not a systemic problem with Hopajet and their safety systems because they're in here auditing us all the time. You know, we do quarterly audits ⁓ them just been in their for so long, they had confidence in us that they didn't need to pull our ratings. But we lost some of the big players. So we were... ⁓ We were happy to have more availability for some of the brokers and other operators and our retail clients that continue to have faith in us. now we're hoping that everybody will give us a shot again. And that's the biggest thing that we think the report finally being out. And the thing we are is a spike the football kind of company. We try to stay pretty low key and humble. That's just our methodology here. But do believe that this should go a long ways to having them realize that this wasn't all us. Our systems, safety protocols, training, just our company culture was not the problem here.

Jessie Naor: And think that's the, you know, I have a nonprofit that publishes accidents and incidents. And one of the things that I encourage people, you know, before the page even opens is understand the context. You know, there's a big difference between a bird strike and a pilot who did something negligently, you know? So I think it's worth people, you know, if you really want to investigate truly if someone is safe or not, you have to investigate the details. It's not, it's not, it's not as simple as we'd all like it to be.

Barry Ellis: Never is, but it's been quite the experience. It's not over yet by any means, but today is the first day of the rest of our company's life. Like I said, it was planned long before the report came out last week, but we had a 50th anniversary celebration on Saturday night. Seeing some of the people there and some of pilots from decades ago that showed up seen some of the new generation of people that we have coming through here. 50 more years is not out of the question by any means. ⁓ won't be here, But certainly the possibility for the next generation continue it on much further.

Preston Holland: Yeah, well, I think that that is a that's a good place to end it here, Barry. really appreciate you coming on and having a long form conversation. We think that this is the type of important conversations that we try and have here on the VIP seats. So thanks. Thanks so much for coming on.

Barry Ellis: you guys.

Preston Holland: Awesome. Thanks. Well, that has been another awesome episode of the VIP seat. You can help us by sharing this with someone in the aviation industry. If you know an operator, you know a broker, if you know someone new to the industry, old in the industry, share this with them so that they can understand a little bit more of what goes into this. It's a really deep dive in operational expertise and knowledge and Barry did a great job. Go subscribe to the newsletter at thevipseat.com. Thanks again to AB Jets for sponsoring this week's episode of the podcast, and we will see you all next week.