Now there is another problem for aviation: wasps | CNN

Brisbane, Australia (CNN) -

- A small bug that bypassed Australia's strict biosecurity controls is multiplying and threatening aircraft safety at Brisbane Airport.

Native to Central America, South America and the Caribbean, the keyhole wasp first caused problems at the airport in 2013, when it forced an Etihad Airways A330 bound for Singapore back just minutes after takeoff.

Once on the ground, maintenance workers found that the pilot's pitot tube, the hollow instrument on the outside of the plane that measures air speed, was almost completely blocked by mud, according to a report from the Bureau of Transportation Safety. from Australia.

A perfect hiding place for wasps

For wasps, pitot tubes are the perfect cavity to build a nest at high speed - Etihad's plane was only on the runway for two hours before the aborted flight.

"We have anecdotal reports from ground staff in Brisbane that a plane may have arrived at the gate and in a matter of two or three minutes, a wasp will fly around the nose of the plane to look at the probe," Alan said.

House, an ecologist at Eco Logical Australia.

House worked with experts from Brisbane Airport, Australian airline Qantas, and environmental consultancy Ecosure to produce one of the world's first studies of the impact of wasps on pitot tubes.

It was commissioned by the Brisbane Airport Corporation and published this week in the open access journal PLOS ONE.

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The researchers say that without proper management there is a risk that the wasps will travel to other Australian airports, and even to nearby countries with the right semi-tropical conditions for them to thrive.

“When we did a background investigation, we realized that this was not just an inconvenience, nor that we only had to clean these things and drive away the wasps;

this could actually lead to major accidents, ”House said.

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An important instrument for aviation

Pitot tubes are mounted at the front of aircraft and perform the important task of sending information to the cockpit about how fast air is moving through them.

That indicates how fast the plane is traveling: too slow and there is a risk of stalling, too fast and it could malfunction in other ways.

When the pitot tubes are down, the A330 automatically switches to manual mode, forcing pilots to take over the controls.

That is what happened with the Etihad flight and ultimately the reason the pilots turned back.

There have been no major incidents at Brisbane airport due to wasps, but accidents elsewhere have been linked to the bug.

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For example, Birgenair Flight 301 crashed off the coast of the Dominican Republic in February 1996, killing 189 passengers and crew.

The accident report said that the "probable cause" of the Pitot tube blockage was "mud and / or debris from a small insect" that entered while the aircraft was on the ground.

In 2018, the Australian Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) issued an alert to the country's pilots, airlines and airports about the dangers of wasp infestation.

Blocked pitot tubes could cause total loss of airspeed and altitude indicators, which would be "dangerous," the bulletin warned.

CASA advised airlines to cover pitot tubes while waiting at Brisbane airport.

However, it is not required, so crashes still occur.

In total, 26 incidents were reported between November 2013 and April 2019, according to the Brisbane Airport study.

Cunning wasps

The first keyhole wasps were detected in Brisbane harbor in 2010, although they may have arrived as early as 2006, according to the study.

It is not known how they got to Australia, probably by boat, House said.

They are believed to have been at Brisbane Airport since 2012, and they do not appear to have spread to any other Australian city, although they have been seen at Emerald Airport, a small regional hub more than 500 miles away, according to CASA.

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For the study, the researchers used 3D printers to print replicas of pitot tube probes on the Boeing 737 and 747, Airbus A330, and the smaller Dash 8 airlines commonly used by regional airlines.

They were placed in four locations around the airport and monitored for 39 months.

In that time, there were 93 cases of completely blocked catheters, and almost all of them were built in the warmer months between November and May.

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