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TRIP-100096; No of Pages 11 Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives xxx (xxxx) xxx Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives journal homepage: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/transportation-research- interdisciplinary-perspectives Insects and aviation safety: The case of the keyhole wasp Pachodynerus nasidens (Hymenoptera: Vespidae) in Australia ⁎ Alan P.N. House a, , Jackson G. Ring b, Matthew J. Hill c, Phillip P. Shaw d a Eco Logical Australia, 12 Creek St, Brisbane, Qld 4001, Australia b Brisbane Airport Corporation, 11 The Circuit, Brisbane Airport, Qld 4008, Australia c Qantas Engineering, Brisbane Domestic Satellite, Brisbane Airport, Qld 4008, Australia d Ecosure Pty Ltd, 10/37 Connor Street, Burleigh Heads, Qld 4220, Australia ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT Article history: While birds and other vertebrates are well known hazards to aviation at airports, the threat posed by invertebrates is Received 19 December 2019 less well understood. Here we present an example of a serious risk to flight safety from the mud-nesting keyhole wasp Received in revised form 22 January 2020 (Pachodynerus nasidens) which views aircraft pitot probes as an attractive nesting opportunity at Brisbane Airport. Pitot Accepted 14 February 2020 probes measure airspeed, and obstructions can render measurements inaccurate, leading to serious and potentially cat- Available online xxxx astrophic consequences. We undertook experiments over 39 months to determine rates of nesting in pitot probes and the associated risk of blocked probes. We also examined how this risk was reduced by covering probes. A bow-tie risk Keywords: fi Wasp analysis was completed to assess the safety, reputation, one-off nancial loss, and injury and illness costs of a range of Aviation incidents of increasing severity, and climate modelling was used to show the potential spread of the keyhole wasp in Risk management Australia. The reduction in risk from covering 33% to 75% of all probes on arrival is substantial and made more sig- Pitot probe nificant when the costs of incidents are set against those of wasp management. The prospects for eradicating the key- Eradication hole wasp and the prospect of it spreading to other parts of Australia with suitable climatic conditions are discussed in Pachodynerus nasidens view of the substantial risk the species presents. 1. Introduction New Zealand 2.5 strikes/10,000 movements (Civil Aviation Authority of New Zealand, 2017); USA 1.7 strikes/10,000 movements (Federal Aviation Authority, 2019); Canada 4.0 strikes/10,000 movements (Trans- port Canada, 2017), but similar to those in climatically equivalent regions “They build very remarkable cells or nests of earth, finely tempered, and (e.g. Brazil, mean of three airports 6.6 strikes/10,000 movements formed in layers of tiny mud-pats, like a swallow's nest. Many of these (Mendonca et al., 2018). Costs of wildlife strikes are very substantial glob- were placed in a small wooden outhouse, between the upright studs ally – up to US$2 billion annually 2009 (Weller, 2014), and an annual cost and the boarding of the wall; several were formed on a shelf in the of US$72 million to civil aviation in Australia (McKee and Shaw, 2016). porch, where some small pieces of wood lying heaped together offered Costs are not confined to equipment repair or replacement: significant ex- convenient nooks; and one wasp, resolving to have a more costly lodg- pense may be incurred through delays in services, damage to reputation, ment than his friends, took possession of a meerschaum pipe-bowl loss of life and property, financial penalties and complex lawsuits (Dale, which lay on the same shelf, and very snugly laid out his house in its in- 2009). terior.” While birdstrikes, and strikes of other wildlife such as bats and ground- [(Meredith, 1849)] dwelling animals, make headlines (e.g. US 1549, Marra et al., 2009; AWACS Boeing 707, Flight Safety Foundation, 1996), threats to flight The risks to air travel posed by wildlife are well known. In Australia, safety from insects are less well understood. Our interest in the relation- aircraft-wildlife encounters increased steadily between 2008 and 2017, ships between insects and aircraft is limited to what they can tell us about with 16,626 confirmed birdstrikes with a high of 1921 in 2017 the mechanics of flight (e.g. Takahashi et al., 2018), how aircraft can aid (Australian Transport Safety Bureau, 2018) equating to 8.7 strikes per in insect detection for pest control or other purposes (e.g. Amendt et al., 10,000 aircraft movements. This rate is higher than that in other countries 2017; Stone and Mohammed, 2017) and disinsection to manage insects po- (e.g. UK 5.0 strikes/10,000 movements (Civil Aviation Authority, 2017); tentially carrying disease (Rayman, 2006; Mier-y-Teran-Romero et al., 2017). For wildlife management at airports, insects are generally seen as ⁎ fl Corresponding author. an attractant for birds that might pose a risk to ight safety (Cleary and E-mail address: [email protected]. (A.P.N. House). Dolbeer, 2005; Hauptfleisch and Dalton, 2015), rather than a risk in their http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.trip.2020.100096 2590-1982/© 2020 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/ 4.0/). Please cite this article as: A.P.N. House, J.G. Ring, M.J. Hill, et al., Insects and aviation safety: The case of the keyhole wasp Pachodynerus nasidens (Hymenoptera: Vespidae) in Australia..., Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.trip.2020.100096 A.P.N. House et al. Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives xxx (xxxx) xxx own right. However, aviation authorities, airport managers, commercial high-energy stop causing brake overheating and tyre deflation when the carriers and private aviators are well aware of the threats posed by insects, take-off was rejected, resulting in the deployment of airport rescue and and especially mud wasps, to aircraft operations, although to date there has fire-fighting services (Australian Transport Safety Bureau, 2008). On in- been no formal assessment of risk from these agents. spection, it was found that one pitot probe contained “wasp-related debris” In Australia, the recent discovery of an introduced mud wasp concluded to have caused anomalous speed readings between the pilot fly- (Pachodynerus nasidens Latreille – the keyhole wasp) has resulted in a ing and the pilot-not-flying instruments. Material retrieved from this probe novel hazard to aviation in Australia. This species is native to South and by the Australian Museum included fragments of an insect body resembling Central America and the Caribbean region (Carpenter, 1986; House et al., the head of a wasp. 2020), and typically uses man-made structures (or natural cavities) to con- An incident in November 2013 initiated a review of the impact of mud- struct nests provisioned with butterfly, moth or other insect larvae and nesting wasps on aircraft operations at Brisbane and a framework for capped with mud. At airports, ideally-sized cavities are abundant in airside reporting wasp-related incidents. In one of the most significant incidents machinery, including aircraft, where a number of suitable nesting opportu- at Brisbane to date, an Airbus A330 performed a rejected takeoff and nities are present: elevator feel differential probe (on tail), vent line to fuel returned after airspeed discrepancies between probes were identified dur- pressure gauge (under wing), total air temperature probe (front fuselage), ing the takeoff roll (Australian Transport Safety Bureau, 2016). Inspection engine tail pipe, engine temperature/pressure probe (rear of engine) and, and subsequent maintenance cleared the aircraft for a second take-off, but particularly, pitot probes. once airborne another airspeed discrepancy caused a mayday situation Here we report on the risk the keyhole wasp poses to aviation safety in and the aircraft returned under emergency procedures. Sand and mud con- Australia, using experimental data on nesting to model the probability of a sistent with a mud wasp nest was discovered in one probe. Since this inci- blocked probe; we assess the safety, financial, reputational, and operational dent, more detailed records of wasp-related issues have been made at costs of an escalating scale in severity of incidents caused by wasps nesting Brisbane and a total of 26 incidents were entered into the database between in pitot probes, and model the relationship between given acceptable levels November 2013 and April 2019. of risk and costs of over- and under-managing the problem. 2. Materials and methods 1.1. The hazard 2.1. Study site and probe experiment Pitot probes are hollow instruments projecting forwards from the air- craft fuselage which measure airspeed by registering differential pressures The study site (Brisbane Airport) is located on the eastern seaboard of between total pressure (from air entering the probe) and air in a static Australia (27.3911°S, 153.1197°E), on the shores of Moreton Bay, Queens- chamber (which may be incorporated into the pitot probe or be separate), land at approximately 4 m above sea level. It is flanked on the east by the using Bernoulli's equation (Morris and Langari, 2016). In large passenger Brisbane River, on the west by ecologically significant coastal wetlands aircraft pitot probes are normally mounted at the front of the aircraft on (mangroves and saltmarshes) and to the south by the city of Brisbane. both captain's and first officer's sides but a third may also be located on The climate is sub-tropical, with a long-term mean annual rainfall of the empennage (tail). 1190 mm, 50% of which falls between December and March. The annual Pitot probes are critical instruments in all aircraft.

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