Australian wasps threaten another passenger plane, with help from COVID-19
in 2016, the city of Brisbane's airport is adjacent to some mangrove swamps that are a favorite home ofIn 2013, some representatives of the species decided the airspeed sensor of an Etihad Airways Airbus A330 was a fine place to build such a nest. Those sensors are called pitot tubes and are big enough for a wasp to get into, and small enough that a mud nest will block them. With blocked pitot tubes, aircraft can't accurately measure their airspeed or altitude.
The Etihad flight therefore aborted one take-off attempt, then made it into the air before making an emergency landing because pilots had no airspeed information. A Virgin Australia flight also returned to Brisbane after a similar incident. Brisbane Airport's response to the wasp menace was twofold. Staff controlled the local wasp population and started putting little plastic caps on the pitot tubes of aircraft on the ground so a rogue insect couldn't get in and cause a crash.
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