The emails sent to me by the anonymous informant certainly appear genuine and as we continued our trust developed.
Here is the first email, at times I will omit some info that may be too sensitive and paraphrase where required.
"……Max
The time has come to come clean. Hopefully what I write here will help end the world-wide atrocity that I have been a part of. I know that what I say will shock many, but seeing that you seem to be almost there with uncovering the truth, the sooner this is out in the open the better.
So you know, I am a management pilot with one of the carriers that has figured in your videos; I am involved in the regulatory side of things, which is required because since just about everything we do in these spraying programs is illegal according to the CAA and JAA regulations, if a pilot becomes aware of what we are doing he or she will come to me first and I, supposedly, take it from there. Surprisingly very few of our pilots have become aware of the program, but your videos have alarmed the small group of managers I report to, and I fear the cat may soon be out of the bag.
At first I thought you had actually cracked it. From your latest videos you have accurately identified the method of getting the Al2O3 into the atmosphere, but not where it is stored. Right in the middle of most airliners, apart from the very short range ones, is the CWT or centre-wing fuel tank. As aircraft are fuelled, the tanks in the wings are always fuelled first to preserve what is know as favourable wing bending moments. Unless the aircraft is scheduled for a long-range flight, the centre wing tanks are empty and can be isolated if required by the use of shut-off and cross-feed valves.
Doing it this way allows us to accurately load the right amount of the material and avoid overloading the aircraft, which is a safety risk, particularly on take off. You are correct about the TMA. Other methods of delivery required too much in the way of pumps and switches, which meant too many people would notice what was going on. Under the guise of fitting an inerting system, which is automatic and has no cockpit controls, we can pressurize the CWT enough so that once a simple valve is actuated remotely, the TMA is drawn through the lines by the pressure differential and flows into the exhaust where it does its thing. And doing it this way has only one drawback, it limits "spray flights" by us and other airlines to shorter range flights but that is just a matter of scheduling and logistics.
Really the only people who need to be involved are the people who empty the honey-cart who must purge the TMA system after use; they are required to wear protective clothing for the honeycart job which also covers them for accidental exposure to TMA; and the refuellers who must configure the fuel system from a panel under the wing; have you ever wondered why most refuelling systems have two pipes attached to the wings?
Extraneous weight issues are handled by a small team of flight dispatchers, who exclusively handle the spraying flights. Some time before each flight they check the destination, alternate and departure airports, the planned loads and make sure that the prevailing winds will guarantee that the runways most likely to be used have a performance safety "pad" that will compensate for the extra weight that the pilots are unaware of. If there is any doubt then the TMA will not be loaded. Some other safety precautions include adjusting FMC stall margin values so the pilots do not climb too high for their REAL weight which could cause a high altitude stall. One of the ways we realised that was a problem was graphically illustrated back in 2009. Guess what I am talking about…
Under this program, I have personally been subjected to death threats should I ever reveal what is happening. Low level personnel are simply trained to do the job and have no real idea what is happening. Little do people realise that those doing what are considered menial jobs, refuelling and "waste disposal" are paid very handsomely for what they do, and their general ignorance means they don't ask any questions. I guess that is just as well because they are monitored 24/7.
By doing this I hope to end the fear and guilt I and others have been suffering. Long ago I was spun a tale about how this program was a beneficial thing for the world and I believed with all my heart. Eventually, after much soul searching.. I realised the evil in which I was such an integral part…."
I am sure as a first time reader, you may be questioning is this real…? Well of course the emails are real and genuinely sent from who knows where, the techy people can deduce that.
I have done a great deal of research, the reason the whistleblower contacted me is because of my recent physical investigation when taking a flight, of one of the carriers I have seen spraying. I took photos and remembering much of the likely technical possibilities made assumptions and speculated on the likely system used. I contacted one of the internet radio shows I have been on and they ran a show rendering the pictures and my ideas. I was a little too quick and made mistakes, actually very basic mistakes. However, according to my new source I was actually close.
So onto the next email……I have purposefully left out some of the pictures for obvious reasons….
"……Hello Max
This message contains some graphics which if released, may expose my identity to those in the know. How that is handled by you is critical. I will let you know what you can share and what is for your eyes only. Secrecy is still very essential at this time.
My well being depends on it.
Earlier I told you about the unease regarding the use of TMA. Some of the reasons are obvious. Some not so. At the core of some of the problems is the cost of producing it in worthwhile quantities. Google some of the companies that sell it for an idea about how much just one spray flight must cost the taxpayer.
Europe is a problem because the vast majority of flights flown in the Eurozone are made by smaller aircraft such as the ones my company fly. Intercontinental, and longer range flights are more efficient because they are done by larger jets which can actually carry aluminium oxide in raw form. I will also explain how that is done in this message.
So…. as management, by law, we are not allowed to dictate to our captains how much fuel they carry on any particular flight. As professionals they know that fuel is expensive and they generally do not over-order but we must devise methods to ensure they do not order so much fuel for a particular flight so as to require the unused capacity of the CWT.
Control of this factor is done by using scheduling and logistics as explained earlier, and also by what is called the minimum equipment list, or MEL's. On every aircraft, this is a list of defects that can be legally carried on a flight. Nowadays, all aircraft have a lot of redundancy built in to all their systems to allow for this. The MEL list allows aircraft to fly with minor defects and then be repaired in scheduled downtime.
Here is a photo of the MEL we use to allow the aircraft to fly, but prohibits using the CWT.
( NOT SHARED)
Earlier I told you how the CWT needs to be isolated so the TMA can be loaded. Reading this MEL you can see that even if one of these valves isn't working then the CWT cannot be used in normal flight. Every flight that we use to spray carries this bogus MEL. Any suspicion by pilots that we carry this MEL too often is managed by making sure that no captain is rostered for a spray flight more than once a month. Rostering is tightly controlled by management. Every operator of the aircraft we fly has this MEL list so you may release this information.
Now to the larger aircraft. One of the problems with the smaller aircraft is that their cargo compartments are only designed to load passenger baggage and maybe a small amount of parcels via hand and a belt loader. Consequently there is no extra room in them for tanks/pumps etc required for really large scale spraying. Having this restriction means going down the TMA route, with all its attendant problems.
Extra negative factors include the impossibility of hiding the weight of large amounts of aluminium oxide from pilots on the smaller aircraft. "Meth", as it is known by the few of us intimately involved, weighs less than the equivalent amount of fuel, so there is no real problem there. The extra weight is hidden by the methods explained earlier. Really large scale spraying however requires a bigger solution. Among the other problems of TMA is that aluminium oxide is only one of the byproducts created when TMA combusts, so burning a kilo of it creates much less than a kilo of AL2O3.
Intercontinental sized aircraft have advantages that are the answer to these problems. Like their smaller cousins, they can also carry TMA using the same systems if required, and more of it. Some, like the earlier domestic version of the 767 do not have a CWT, but most do.
High capacity aircraft like the A380, 747, A340, 777, A330 and the ER versions of the 767 all have the two things that make them ideal for large scale spraying. One is a large volume CWT and the other is two large capacity cargo compartments where aluminium oxide, mixed into a slurry with methanol, (for dispersion) can be loaded inside specially converted ULD (Unit Loading Device) containers.
When a spray flight is scheduled, a calculation is made by specially trained flight dispatchers as to the availability of payload weight that can be used for spraying. Early in the process, it is determined if both aluminium oxide and TMA can be used; just TMA for longer flights or if there is no spraying availability; generally this occurs on ULH (ultra long haul) flights.
At all times the weight limitations of the aircraft must be observed. Safety is paramount; the risks of TMA notwithstanding. You can see a loading message below. I cannot allow you to publicly disclose this because it is proprietary and was an actual flight, and may endanger a sympathetic contact I have in another company.
(NOT SHARED)
Some of this is a bit arcane but bear with me. In line 8 you can see a value called the Zero Fuel Weight. This is the key to making sure pilots do not know they are carrying spray material and still keeping the aircraft safe. The ZFW is the weight of the entire aircraft, including passengers and freight, minus the fuel. On the right of the actual value is the regulatory maximum that this value can be, on this particular aircraft type it is 175000 kgs.
For this particular flight, you can see that the ZFW was almost at the maximum value. On this particular day, the weight of the passengers and freight carried, (the total traffic load in line 6), which the pilot has no means to physically check, was altered to reflect the weight of the passengers and cargo PLUS the spray material, in this case both aluminium oxide and TMA.
One major advantage of this system is that it is foolproof from a safety point of view. Landing with spray material still on board, say in the event the remotely operated release valve failed, could mean big trouble if that weight was not accounted for by the pilot on landing. You can see that if the material sprays correctly, the aircraft will actually be much lighter for landing than the pilot realises, but all that means is that the landing is much safer from an operational point of view. On the other hand if the valve failed (rare but it has happened) the weight of the material is procedurally (but unknowingly) accounted for by the pilots in their landing distance calculations that they must carry out, and therefore the risk of a landing over-runs is negated.
Under this system, the critical speeds that are always calculated for a safe take-off are also inherently correct.
Now to look how all this is done in practice. All large aircraft are refuelled from a single point, by convention, usually under the left wing. In the following photos you can see the twin hoses that are used, and if you look very carefully at the CF6 engine in the background and the foreground in the second , you will see the same spray nozzles that are present on the 737 engines.
I took these photos myself at a large European airport, they are not proprietary so you may distribute them, or get your own CF6 photos off the net. Visually, the spray pipes are small but they have high capacity pumps inside the pylon (inside the white access panel on the pylon) which forces out large quantities of material in a small amount of time if required. Energy is diverted from the exhaust gas stream to power these pumps…. they are simple, foolproof, operate continuously when the engine is running and require no flight deck control.
Going with this system means that flexibility is maintained. Using TMA for longer range flights, loading can be done using the second hose. Lines carrying TMA and their access points, are part of just about all airports. Located only at the left hand wing, to keep the operation as simple as possible, they are pressurised to reduce the chance of air getting into them with the inevitable results. In the case of non TMA flights, the second hose is just there for show and is not being actually used.
But in the case of aluminium oxide, the weight and bulk of the material means that this method cannot be used. Loading aluminium is done by the modified ULD container method. Even this method however has its safety considerations which must be followed.
Cargo loading is critical and must take into account the weight and balance restrictions that all aircraft have. Real problems can be caused by mis-loading as the aluminium oxide slurry is very heavy. Every flight, even non spraying flights, must have containers loaded in correct sequences to avoid balance errors.
Duty load dispatchers aren't required to know what is in the containers, just what each one weighs in order to get the sequence correct. ULDs that are modified for spray purposes are always loaded first at either cargo door (locations pictured below). Loading them this way is essential because they have pipe arrangements which hook into the onboard spray system, and the heaviest containers must go as close as possible to the C of G as you can see from this proprietary diagram… (not to be released.)
(NOT SHARED)
One can see that CPT 2 and 3 have the heaviest allowable weights, 20 and 15 tonnes respectively which is fortunate because they are the areas that must be used by the modified ULD containers. ULD use is ubiquitous and the modified ones can be found at holding areas at airports around the world if one knows what one is looking for. Suffice to say, if you are looking for evidence about how ULDs can be modified, check out "envirotainer" and imagine how simple it would be to do the required modifications.
Using the ADSB system, the inflight position of the aircraft is always known by spray controllers. New ATC procedures mean that the position of spray aircraft are always broadcast to satellite receivers that sites such as FlightRadar24 do not have access to. Spraying, even over oceans, can therefore be targeted very accurately and efficiently.
Knowing all this is a heavy burden I now wish to pass on to others. Every day has become a trial for me. Please us this information wisely. Trust is important..for the reasons we both know so well. I cannot meet you till this is out in the open, hopefully these disclosures will be the tipping point for you. Can you disseminate this as widely as possible, without the info that must remain confidential? All I long for is an end to this guilt.
Leaving it with you now, in hope……"
