FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1948
1948 - 0232.PDF
2OO FLIGHT FEBRUARY 1948 Civil Aviation News Scandinavian Airlines System as well as those ol the nationalcompanies can thus be safeguarded. Joint operations are expected to start with the introductionof a summer time-table in April of this year and the Scandi- navian operators confidently expect a great improvement- ineconomics and in service. The plan that envisages the merger between the two Swedishcompanies, ABA and SILA, has already been agreed in principle, and was announced in Flight, October 30th. In 1947 SAS flew on the transatlantic routes a total numberof 19,000 passengers and approximately i,6oo,ooolb of freight. Behind Scandinavian civil aviation there is about 200 millionkroner (£10 million), and the combined air fleet will consist of about 100 aircraft, which will be reinforced during the comingsummer with Stratocmiscrs and D.C.6 aircraft. CONSTELLATION SHEDS AIRSCREW A CONSTELLATION in flight from New York to Miami onFebruary 7th, at 22,000ft shed an airscrew blade, or some :>ther piece of metal, from the starboard inboard engine. Themetal penetrated- the fuselage, cut some controls and the rudder and elevator trim tab cables. The controls for the starboardoutboard engine were put out of action and that engine could only be cut-out by means of the ignition switch. Since itwas set for power at 22,000ft, considerable power was built up as height was lost at destination. Captain Johnson ofEastern Airlines flew on a further 300 miles after the accident and made a no-flap landing, since they were also out of control,and stopped on the runway in 1,450ft. The steward, who was preparing food in the galley, was killed "by flying metal, butill passengers were uninjured. STAR TIGER ENQUIRY TPHE question as to whether the enquiry into the loss of the•JL Tudor IV Star Tiger shall be the normal public enquiry by the Chief Inspector of Accidents or a Court investigation isstill under consideration by the Minister of Civil Aviation, who will announce his decision as soon as he is in a position todo so. Meanwhile the Ministry of Supply is to provide facilities for Ministry of Supply engineers, in conjunction with the AirRegistration Board, to carry out an examination of one of the grounded B.S.A.A. Tudor IV aircraft. This examination isbeing undertaken by arrangement with B.S.A.A. as a pre- cautionary measure and to ascertain whether failure of theaircraft can be ruled out as a possible cause of its loss. IN. A. OPERATIONS /""OPERATIONAL statistics issued by Indian National Air-^-^ ways for 1947 reveal considerable increases in air traffic. On scheduled flights 62,259 passengers, 1,132,445 lb of freightand 423,055 lb of mail were carried, and on non-scheduled services 4,790 passengers and 524,272 lb of freight werehandled. The latter nights involved a mileage of 335.989 covered in 2.2T2 flvino; hrurs. The total of 67,049 passengers FINAL TRIALS : The Boeing Straiocruiser, with four Pratt and Whitney Wasp Major engines, is now nearing the end of a long period of flight testing prior to entering service witn American and European operating companies. Fifty-five are on order. flown on both regular and non-scheduled services was nearlythree times the combined total handled by all the internal air- lines during 1945. Although the number of scheduled milesflown was only 3 per cent above the 1946 figure, 89 per cent more passengers and 95 per cent more freight were carriedDuring recent evacuation operations I.N.A. operated five routes and handled some 6,000 passengers. AIR-INDIA CONSTELLATIONST HE first Constellation for delivery to Air-India Limited isdue to leave Burbank, California, on February 23rd on its delivery flight to Bombay. Manned by an Indian crew, theConstellation will fly non-stop to New York and again non-stop to London. Plans have been announced by A.I.L. to operatetwo round trips per week between India and London, begin- ning in June. The new service will be operated by Air-IndiaInternational, a subsidiary line owned jointly by A.I.L. and the Indian government. Constellations are expected to reduce thetime from Bombay to London to under 22% hours. B.O.A.C. ACCIDENT AT BAHREIN A TOTAL of ten people lost their lives in an accident 1B.O.A.C. Sandringham flying boat at the Marine Air ~ at Bahrein, Persian Gulf, on August 23rd, 1947. Of these ten.seven were passengers and three members of the crew. The crash occurred when the aircraft was alighting at night after a flightfrom Karachi. The pilot, Captain Stone, has 8,550 flying hours to his credit out of which 3,412 hours by day and 447 hours bynight have been as 1st pilot in flying boats. He has been operat- ing through Bahrein during the last ten years and has alightedthere by night on numerous previous occasions. He stated that the aircraft first touched the water at an I.A.S. of 85-90 knotsand he noticed pronounced drag and a nose down tendency. To counteract this he eased the control column back, but as theaircraft left the water for 1-2 seconds he opened up the engines to " hold " it. The next touch down, he said, commenced per-fectly smoothly but immediately developed into a violent swing to port. The wreckage was examined after recovery, 7 daysafter the crash, and showed that the planing bottom on the starboard side had collapsed. The leading edge of the wing wascrumpled inwards and downwards. There was no indication of pre-crash technical failure or defect, neither was there anyevidence of the machine striking a solid object when alighting. In the opinion of the Chief Inspector the accident was due toerrors of judgment by the Captain, who had not employed the correct technique for approaching and alighting. The aircraftwas serviceable and its documents were in order at the time, the machine's weight and C. of G. were within the prescribedlimits and the licences of the operating crew were valid. ATR-SEA SAFETY TN London from January 29th to February 6th a Preparatory-*• Committee convened by the British Government con- sidered the problem of co-ordinating safety measures in ship-ping, aviation and telecommunications. The problem was submitted by the Economic and Social Council of the UnitedNations, and recommendations were made for securing inter- national co-operation among specializedagencies of the United Nations concerned r —the International Civil Air Orgarfiwf-tion, the International MeteorologSal Organization, the International Telecom-munications Union, and the Intergovern- mental Maritime Consultative Organiza-tion. A conference convened for to-day, February 19th, by the Economic andSocial Council of the United Nations, is meeting in Geneva to discuss whetherthe latter organization should be formed, and if so its scope and purpose. It isexpected to be the world organization for shipping. The Committee has outlinedtne present problem and recommended methods by which necessary co-ordina-tion in the fields of assistance in distress, routing of distress messages, radio com-munications, radio aids to navigation and weather reports could be obtained.It was appreciated that in the interests of safety at sea and over the sea everypossible step should be taken to effect co-ordination among the four agencies,and it was suggested that the secretaries of the agencies should keep in closetouch. The Committee was presided over by Air Vice-Marshal Sir ConradCollier, chief of technical operational services, Ministry of Civil Aviation.
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
