April 2009 Archives

I don't think there can any longer be any doubt that Emirates is plain wrong in sacking the pilots of the Airbus A340-500 who made the error that led to the near-catastrophe in Melbourne.
 
Australia's ATSB investigation agency has revealed its initial findings today and they make crystal clear that the whole question of electronic flight bag (EFB) use, at the centre of the incident, is going to be extensively investigated. Rightly so, this is unquestionably an industry-wide issue.

More remarkably, it turns out that Emirates has just introduced the practice of using a second EFB/laptop as a check against the first! So their position now is that the incident crew committed an error grievous enough to merit sacking, but they're worried that another crew might do the same thing.

So logically, if another crew makes the same error, but they catch it with the second laptop, then they should be sacked too for making the same error in the first place. And if they shouldn't be sacked, then neither should the incident crew since they didn't have the benefit of the second laptop.

Report and press conference highlights, with memorable pictures below. Emirates statement here.

That Turkish Airlines investigation in the previous post isn't the only one turning out to be more subtle in terms of pilot performance than first impressions suggested.

In a couple of weeks time the US NTSB will hold its public hearing on the Colgan Air Bombardier Q400 crash at Buffalo back in February. I understand it's going to be a messy business that will shine a light into some shady corners of the regional airline business.

The Dutch preliminary report on the loss of the Boeing 737-800 at Amsterdam in February is out and it shows that matters are more complex than first realised. No surprise of course.

A lot of commenters here and elsewhere were pretty critical of the crew's behaviour and the report gives the critics some added evidence, but also some additional points to ponder.

Last Friday I interviewed at some length American Airlines senior VP planning Henry Joyner. It was a wide-ranging interview and we talked about many things. In fact he actually commented to me afterwards that he was surprised at the different areas I pursued for our different publications, and I explained to him that at Flight we were trying to do more with less, owing to the lousy economy, internet effects etc.

Sadly I did not ask him: "Henry, when are you going to retire?" Which is regrettable because the answer, had he so chosen, would have been: "Now, since you ask Kieran."

I hope it wasn't anything I said, but given the timescales that Henry works to, it's more likely he decided a couple of decades ago.

祝您好運 Henry.

UK investigators trying to puzzle out what caused the main gear box on that Bond Helicopters Eurocopter Super Puma to fail catastrophically have just confirmed that the task is proving every bit as tough as you might imagine. In a second 'initial' report they say that first it's now clear that the mechanics were effectively already doing the enhanced inspections that Eurocopter and EASA have since recommended - but there still wasn't adequate warning of the impending failure. And, to compound the situation, they still can't work out what did cause it.

Regular readers will know I don't like returning from holiday without squeezing a blog post out of it, which brings me to the question of the dire state of Easyjet's fins (vertical stabilisers). 

My chum Brian Weatherly here at Reed Business Information waited, as far as I can tell, for about 30 years for blogging to be invented and has since spent his every working hour lovingly creating BigLorryBlog. Like all truckies he actually likes aircraft too and regularly sends me his aviation-themed blog-posts, and I regretfully but equally regularly break the news to him that over here we've all seen the stories already. Finally however he's come up with the goods. If you're a fan of 70s-era prop transports that is, and who isn't?

So here is a L'Armee de l'Air Transall C-160R coming to the end of its natural at Chateaudun via a 40km or so road trip from Orleans. The numerous splendid pictures, with just a taster here, are from Brian's Dutch mate Henk Kruit, who's commercial manager at LDV Group benelux BV.

The question, as will be obvious to you all, is what happened to the Rolls-Royce Tynes that used to drag the beast around the sky?

...I suppose in the end this is what it's all about??? Full size version here courtesy of vector1771 who's from Portland, Oregon where I rather suspect this was taken???

The question of what to do about the Super Puma following the recent fatal loss of the Bond Helicopters machine is an incredibly hard one to answer. And it reverberates through the whole world of helicopter operations.

I'm treading on eggshells here, and some people will no doubt object to my even discussing this, but there are really deep issues afoot.

Yes, both of you! Nice picture of an Air China A340 in the midst of a 8C-check at Ameco Beijing. The work included a major structural mod that involves removing the fin as you can see. When it all gets put back together it looks like the bottom picture. Ameco Beijing is an Air China - Lufthansa joint venture and a truly noteworthy success story I'd suggest. They say they did five of these checks last year.

OK, so below are the full-size pix of the Delta Connection / ASA Bombardier CRJ electrical fire I posted earlier. As commenters previously helped me establish - it's not a lightning strike as widely suggested around the web.

Apologies for the lack of posts - I'm on holiday, However, I've been given what seems to be a plausible version of events in the Emirates A340-500 tailscrape at Melbourne, which tallies with earlier rumours. To the best of my knowledge there's still no official statement on all this so I'll caution that this below is strictly unconfirmed.

OK, one last time, we all agree Boeing 767 looks great with winglets, and here's the most recent one to fly - it's Lan's first and flew Santiago-Buenos Aires (just to show off to the neighbours I suppose.)

Three days before the loss of the Fedex Boeing MD-11 at Tokyo on 23 March, there was very nearly a much worse disaster. The cause is unknown (publicly anyway - though as you'll see, it's probably pretty well established in fact) but I'll predict now that the lessons from it will be more significant than those of the MD-11 loss - tragic though that was.

Another grim day for the offshore aviation business - a Bond Helicopters aircraft, presumed to be a Eurocopter Super Puma of one type or another - has been lost in the North Sea. Current reports of upwards of eight bodies recovered, remainder of the 16 occupants missing. SAR mission still underway.

That, you'll recall, follows the thankfully non-fatal loss of another Bond Super Puma (an EC225) last month, and the very nasty loss of the Cougar Helicopters Sikorsky S-92 in the Atlantic earlier this month with 17 fatalities.

Any connection? Not so far. The first Bond was CFIT of some complexity, and Cougar was catastrophically mechanical. Today's accident happened only a couple of hours ago. There are entirely unconfirmed reports of there being no mayday call, and the weather is relatively fine. But there's no meaningful indicator as to what happened.