http://news.excite.com/news/ap/000117/14/int-australia-grounded-planes

Fuel `Gunk' Grounds Aussie Planes Updated 2:50 PM ET January 17, 2000

(AP) By ROHAN SULLIVAN, Associated Press Writer SYDNEY, Australia (AP) - From Wagga Wagga to Wee Waa, Rockhampton to Lightning Ridge, towns in the vast Australian Outback depend on small planes to deliver the mail, dust crops, round up cattle, shuttle schoolchildren, bring in doctors and evacuate medical emergencies.

Eleven days ago, half the nation's light aircraft were grounded because of contaminated aviation fuel that thickens when it contacts copper and brass engine parts, raising the risk of clogged fuel lines and motors stalling in flight.

Nobody knows how many planes actually carry the bad fuel. The source of the contamination - Mobil Oil Australia Ltd., a subsidiary of U.S.-based Exxon Mobil Corp. -has no test to find out, and there is no known method to clean contaminated systems.

"This is a contamination crisis of a magnitude that has never been seen before anywhere in the world," said Mick Toller, the authority's safety director of the Civil Aviation Safety Authority, which ordered the planes grounded.

Scientists are working on a three-stage field diagnosis they hope will identify which aircraft have tainted fuel. But pending further tests, grounded planes would not be in the air before Thursday, Toller said Sunday.

The fuel contaminant affects piston-driven engines that turn propellers in aircraft ranging from single-engine Cessnas up to planes that carry a dozen or so passengers.

Bigger turboprop aircraft are not affected, so there is no disruption to major airlines. But hundreds of charter services and flight training schools have shut down. In Victoria state, wildfire-fighting crews scaled back operations, as did the national Royal Flying Doctor Service.

The air force grounded three of its 14 Caribou transport planes, including one in East Timor, where Australia is leading the peacekeeping force, until engine parts were replaced.

Just before Christmas, pilots started reporting discoloration in some fuel. The aviation authority told the pilots not to fly until they had checked and, if necessary, cleaned their fuel systems.

Then, on Jan. 7, the authority grounded all aircraft that had filled their tanks from batches of Avgas 100/130 produced at Mobil's plant in Altona, a suburb of Melbourne, from Nov. 21 to Dec. 23. The affected fuel had been distributed throughout Australia's eastern states. Scientists had found the tainted fuel could set off a chemical chain reaction, producing a viscous material that can clog fuel lines and cause motors to stall.

"What dreadful gunk," Bill Hamilton, president of the Aircraft Owners' and Pilots' Association, said as he examined the substance last week. "You wouldn't put that in your lawn mower, would you?"

Mobil says it inadvertently altered the refining cycle for Avgas 100/130 at the plant Nov. 21 and added corrosion retardants out of the proper sequence, which left traces of ethyl diamine in the finished product. The thick contaminant forms when the ethyl diamine reacts with copper and brass engine components, Mobil said.

The fuel crisis is crippling Australia's network of small airports, flight schools, charter services and bush pilots, an industry worth $330 million a year.

In hangars and on runways across eastern Australia, planes stand idle and owners are canceling orders and laying off pilots and mechanics. Operators say weekly losses are running at $8 million. Airport owners on Friday threatened legal action against Mobil to recover losses.

Besides potential compensation claims, Mobil faces a huge cleanup bill and a government investigation into the cause of two helicopter crashes during flight tests.

The federal Transport and Safety Bureau says it is looking into reports that the contamination occurred before Nov. 21 and that it contributed to the two helicopter accidents, both of which occurred before that date. The flight tests were near ground level, and no one was injured.

Mobil has said it will pay cleanup costs where contamination is found. At a meeting with pilots last Thursday, however, the company refused to discuss compensation, said Hamilton, the head of the pilots and owners group.

Acting Prime Minister John Anderson said the government would defer fees for air traffic control services and has urged banks not to foreclose on small air operators who miss loan repayments.

-- Hokie (Hokie_@hotmail.com), January 17, 2000

Answers

Why isn't this a problem everywhere?

-- Johnny (jljtm@bellsouth.net), January 17, 2000.

Excuse me, but I do not understand why this may not be Y2K related. Until the origin of the contamination problem is established, it would seem to be reasonable to assume that a system malfunction occurred at some point. Another example is the recent chemical incident in Houston. "Accidents" such as these are probably not the results of "deliberate" or planned action since security is very high. Therefore, it would seem logical that error lies within the machine system. There seem to be very many accidents lately. Perhaps I receive that impression because of the many postings on the forum.

-- charlie in houston (cml@workmail.com), January 17, 2000.

I never heard this story before, & it's already 11 days old.

Did Dan Rather/any of the other talking heads on network news EVER mention this, even once? Did I just miss it?

Does it piss off anyone besides me that such things don't get reported in the U.S. news?

-- too bad (about@them.aussies), January 17, 2000.

ok, oil experts. so how and why would you alter the refining sequence? isn't this an automated process?

-- tt (cuddluppy@aol.com), January 17, 2000.

CASA

This is the link to the official Australian web-site regarding this issue.

I've heard reports of postal contractors hiring different aircraft at costs to the contractor of about $A3000 per day. You can't keep that up for long.
I've also heard that some operators are ripping out the fuel lines and tanks, replacing them anew just to stay in business.
This issue affects everyone in Australia at a time of extreme heat. You could say times are rather testing, and the Federal Government has asked the finance lenders to be considerate to business touched by this Avgas problem.

Regards from Oz

-- Pieter (zaadz@icisp.net.au), January 17, 2000.

No the news does not ever report anything but the same old fluff: tune in 4 days ago, Cuban boy 3 days ago Cuban boy 2 days ago, Cuban boy today, cuban boy. 5am, cuban boy 10am Cuban boy. 12noon, Cuban boy. I am sitting on edge waiting for the 7PM news, I wonder what it will be. All hell can be bursting loose, Texas gone in Nuclear blast. New Arleans adrift in raw sewage. Pipe lines exploding, and what do we get? The Cuban boy.

-- Notforlong (Fsur@aol.com), January 17, 2000.

Thanks for posting this, Hokie. I've been following the story since it broke through the Australian wires (for those of you who might not be aware of it, 7am.com/worldwires leads you to all sorts of breaking news.)

The key words in your post for me were "Mobil says it inadvertently altered the refining cycle for Avgas 100/130 at the plant Nov. 21...." Inadvertently. Quite a careless error to ground 5000 airplanes at an estimated cost of $50 million Australian a month!

I posted links to earlier articles about this catastrophe on the thread about the airplane crash just off Libya (where fuel contamination might also be a possibility). Links to today's articles are:

f uel contamination

Transportation Safety Bureau

Role of Industry Self-Regulation

Thanks for starting this as a new thread. I believe it was posted on this board when it first became public knowledge, then it was ignored. It's a big story, possibly relevant to y2k, and it's being somewhat ignored.

-- Rachel Gibson (rgibson@hotmail.com), January 17, 2000.

Oops!

Role of Industry Self-Regulation

-- Rachel Gibson (rgibson@hotmail.com), January 17, 2000.

Peter from Oz:

Can you offer us anything else FIRSTHAND about the current situation over there, re: contaminated airline fuel and the consequences for aviation and deliveries? Maybe start a fresh thread if you have other good information. TNX

>"<

-- Squirrel Hunter (nuts@upina.tree), January 17, 2000.

try watching the news on WYBE if you get it; mine is on right after the 6:30 junk. Better coverage of USA news too than the USA does.

-- carolyn (carolyn@luvmyhub.com), January 17, 2000.

The suspect gas was produced before December 23rd, after a mistake made on November 21st.

Explain exactly how this can be Y2k related. Just the facts, please.

-- Mikey2k (mikey2k@he.wont.eat.it), January 17, 2000.

Of course it's a major y2k problem. Several months ago Mobil was installing the final software patches that were rushed into service for its avgas refining plants. This software patch screwed up a precise batching process. The Mixture of chemicals for producing fuel is an exacting process. To much of any one of the chemicals causes the mix not to work right. I suspect we will see more chemical process control errors as data gets corupted. We are just getting started.

-- y2k aware mike (y2k aware mike @ conservation . com), January 17, 2000.

G'Day Squirrel Hunter et al,

Here in Australia any Y2K news is twisted as well. Some gossip does get out though pointing to remediation headaches and glitches.

ie. A major local store has had to rebuild its payroll system when employee records booted to 15 May 1920. An employee's wage record/reconciliation at say 5 January 2000 was impossible. The problem was fixed by upgrade and restoring to 22 Dec. 1999 and then by patching from then on until the payroll GI'd.

A major National retail store with a supermarket here got their email server zapped by viral infections multitudinous. Needless to say my friend's holiday was not merry and they threw out the 166 mhz server box to begin anew. When he phoned Melbourne HQ he was told of a que and to wait his turn. This same chain of supermarkets has problems with data records and they are getting by utilising employee private computers. The haggard joys of provincial life are many fold. They were doing a trial reboot last weekend and I haven't heard of the results.

Australia tested widely and spend big money, although I understand from my cousin in the Netherlands that more per head was spend by them.

Before the rollover we had several electrical grid tests that bombed the entire state of South Australia and fried my brother's harddrive. Reports from around the place indicated that a lot of boxes got damaged then.

The Avgas thing is ill luck for us. It comes in a heatwave with all local firecrews sitting it out. There are less planes for spotting now. This problem is cascading over the entire nation.

Will post news as it comes to hand. The real Y2K news is hidden very well though.

Regards from Oz with temp at +100 Fahrenheit (+40C) today and strong gusting northerly winds. Extreme Fire alert - Jeez.

-- Pieter (zaadz@icisp.net.au), January 17, 2000.

Pieter from Oz:

Profuse thanks for a fresh perspective and quaint colonial English to boot! Please look around and repost on a fresh thread at a later date, as you seem to be applying strict scrutiny to developments over there. The Y2K tests frazzled your power; but have there been any variations in voltage or brownouts since rollover? It is so very quiet here, in so many areas where complications were anticipated.

TNX

>"<

-- Squirrel Hunter (nuts@upina.tree), January 18, 2000.

y2k aware mike, please enlighten us as to how you know so much much about making aviation fuel. If software went wrong,are you seriously suggesting that it went un-noticed? How is it that so much of this fuel was sold? I don't know if people like you are just fishing for comments, or are so seriously twisted that you actually believe that the y2k hoax is responsible for any significant problems.... in November '99 for instance!!

-- Mr. Sane (hhh@home.com), January 18, 2000.

Unless you were actually THERE operating the equipment at the time the fuel micture was latered, you canNOT say for sure what caused this avgas problem.

Finding a dead body does not mean a murder was committed.

The problem could have been caused by someone getting dust in their eye and looking away from a monitor momentarily, for Pete's sake!

The reason it's not on the news here? Who knows? If you're not covering the story persoanlly for CNN and you AREN'T THERE, you have no more information than anybody else.

Geezus, people, quit panicking every time something goes wrong somewhere in the world. Something goes wrong EVERY FRIGGIN' DAY, always has, and always will.

-- Dave Polich (wavedave@earthlink.net), January 18, 2000.

From: Y2K, ` la Carte by Dancr (pic), near Monterey, California

...Mobil says it inadvertently altered the refining cycle...

Despite Mobil's claim that they have found the problem, is it possible that instead, they were stockpiling fuel as a precaution against refinery breakdowns and expecting a year-end rush of preparation frenzie to put more pressure on transportation, and that this did not occur, and so the fuel started expired toward year end? Which one would their insurance more likely cover for them? $50MM/day? Unwilling to talk about contamination? Why are my bullshit antenae twitching?

-- Dancr (addy.available@my.webpage), January 20, 2000.