Pitot Tube Wasps

It's a more common issue than one would think.......from all sorts of spiders, wasps, bees, ants....you name it....and it can be worse depending on where the plane flies or is based and the various seasons. Out here, it's yellow jacket, bee and grease ant city in the Spring/Summertime and even into the Fall if it stays hot enough. Little sobs crawl into everything. Often, some insect will build a damn nest in them and lay their eggs.
 
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We had a lot of trouble with some kind of small insect that would make a pulpy nest in the pitot tubes / masts of both the high wing Cessnas and the low wing Pipers in Gulf Shores in the June-September timeframe every year. If we left the covers off, in one night there would be gooey grey matter in the tubes. After a few days, if a plane had not been flown and the pitot cover was missing, you'd find a tiny grub in the tube when the mechanic would clean it out. Usually by using a small drill bit to bore out the blockage by hand, so you'd see this wet pulpy gunk come out the drill flutes. I could see it being a real problem in something more complex.
 
Birgenair Flight 301 was a flight chartered by Turkish-managed Birgenair partner Alas Nacionales ("National Wings") from Puerto Plata in the Dominican Republic to Frankfurt, Germany, via Gander, Canada, and Berlin, Germany. On 6 February 1996, the Boeing 757–225 operating the route crashed shortly after take-off from Puerto Plata's Gregorio Luperón International Airport.[1][2] There were no survivors. The cause was a pitot tube that investigators believe was blocked by a wasp nest that was built inside it. The aircraft had sat unused for some time without the required pitot tube covers in place.
 
Corporate Pilot said:
Birgenair Flight 301 was a flight chartered by Turkish-managed Birgenair partner Alas Nacionales ("National Wings") from Puerto Plata in the Dominican Republic to Frankfurt, Germany, via Gander, Canada, and Berlin, Germany. On 6 February 1996, the Boeing 757–225 operating the route crashed shortly after take-off from Puerto Plata's Gregorio Luperón International Airport.[1][2] There were no survivors. The cause was a pitot tube that investigators believe was blocked by a wasp nest that was built inside it. The aircraft had sat unused for some time without the required pitot tube covers in place.
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Serious CRM issues and failure of basic airmanship. Keep in mind throughout the flight only the CA side pitot tube was blocked and the FO and standby airspeed were always accurate. The CA stalled the airplane and pancaked into the ocean.
 
We had a 60kt ish abort not too long ago because of a blocked pitot tube. Covers were on overnight, must have crawled in there between preflight and takeoff.
 
tcco94 said:
What happened to that Capt?
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Not sure if he quit or was fired, but he was no longer at the company when I was hired in 2007.

The company had a policy shift after the accident though. FO could call abort as opposed to just stating the abnormality.
 
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