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Aviation History
1963
1963 - 0767.PDF
738 FLIGHT Internatii 23 May . "Flight International" photographs Panair do brasil's red, white and black Caravelle interior, designed by Max Stukert and the airline's president, Dr Sampaio, is probably one of the most attractive in service. Panair have solved the old problem of carpet wear, and at the same time widened the choice of carpet pat terns, by covering the whole floor with transparent Vynil. This gives the carpet an infinite life, and itself lasts about S.OOOhr AIR COMM ERCE.. ever be"; and the Corporation have yet to find another transport aircraft with comparable pilot vision. Mandatory features of the 400 will be fuel dumping and a flight recorder. Detail design of the 300 and 400 began last November and is now virtually complete. The heavier aircraft are likely to be some thing like £50,000 dearer than the 200, and will not be available quite so soon. Nevertheless, many important operators—some of whom are quite obvious—will find these new members of the family more attractive than the 200, and are likely to associate themselves with these models within the next few months. SURVIVAL AFTER DITCHING IN the report* on a survey of accidents to transport aircraft during the last ten years involving a descent into water, Mr B. W. Town- shend, a technical consultant to the RFD Co Ltd, has concluded that even if all the circumstances are faveurable, without life rafts the prospects of rescue for survivors of the crash falls off rapidly at quite short distances from the shore. It approaches zero well within the limits of the present rules giving exemption from the carriage of such equipment. The survey also shows that where life rafts have been carried a high percentage of survivors are rescued —in fact over 50 per cent even 1,000 miles from the shore. In claiming that every airline operator has a strong moral obli gation to provide life rafts on all over-water flights, the survey shows that a wide range of aircraft types has been proved to ditch satisfactorily, and that even though the majority of occurrences are close to shore, events have proved that rescue is invariably delayed through any one of a multitude of reasons—leaving survivors in the water to fatal doses of exposure. *Copies of the report may be obtained from the RFD Co Ltd, Godalming, Surrey. DISBELIEVING THE PILOT IN the May issue of the British Air Line Pilots Association journal The Log, their contributor Aerius alleges there is a widespread lack of impartiality in accident investigations in many countries of the world. As an example he takes the case of West Germany, in stancing a couple of reports published in the United Kingdom on the findings of the West German Accident Investigation Branch headed by Flugkapitan H- J. Reichel. The first is the report dealing with the BEA Elizabethan accident in February 1958 which concluded that ice on the wings prevented the aircraft taking off. Aerius comments: "strangely enough no evidence was ever put forward to prove the presence of ice on the wings at the same time as the accident.. . but perhaps the most surprising thing of all was the attitude of the West Germans towards the credibility of the witnesses. They implied in the report that Capt Thain, the surviving pilot, could not be believed, although a German witness who watched G-ALZU taxying away from the apron from a window high up in the terminal building was considered 'tj be a particularly valuable and reliable witness as regards the obser vation concerned because he has been employed at Hamburg Air port for some time and had been engaged on the removal of ice from aircraft.' You must admit it does seem odd on the one hand to disbelieve a qualified pilot who was on the spot at the time and on the other hand to give such undue credibility to a de-icing merchant who had probably not been nearer to the aircraft than 200 yards." Aerius goes on to say: "The same thing has happened again, on a much smaller scale, to another BEA pilot, Capt Gray, who en countered turbulence in a Viscount 806 on November 27, 1961. Our old friend, Flugkapitan Reichel, has written the report himself, and is his usual impartial, broad-minded self." The report more or less eliminates the possibility of natural turbulence on the evidence of the met reports and suggests that from statements of the injured passengers and their position in the cabin, the aircraft was pitched nose up in a way "that must have been set going by the elevator [sic] in the pull direction." In view of the serious contradiction between this statement and Capt Gray's evidence, it is very sur prising that the report did not contain any details of the pas sengers' statements or seating position (Flight International, March 28, 1963, page 431). Finally, the report says that the question of whether the aircraft could have flown into the vortices of another aircraft was also examined. "According to vertical separation this was very unlikely and moreover turbulence of this kind could only have had a limited effect and in a horizontal direction." Aerius asks: "What vertical separation, Flugkapitan Reichel? How do you know that no German military planes were in the area at the time? Has that possibility been examined?" The common denominator of these two reports is their contradic tion of the pilot's evidence. Aerius (whose views are not necessarily those of BALPA) says that it is about time active airline pilots were invited to participate in official accident investigation work. Aerius comments that BALPA has enough talent readily available "and the Ministry know by now that in the technical field the association is far less of a cloth cap, whistle-blowing trade union than a responsible professional body." Indeed, Aerius compares BALPA with the Guild of Air Pilots and Air Navigators, "whose performance on the noise abatement question and the attempt to steal the limelight by releasing evidence to the Hamilton Committee before that committee had published its report, is rapidly leading them toward becoming a laughing stock in aviation circles." Learn to Investigate A school for teaching the techniques of aircraft accident investigation is being established at the Federal Aviation Agency's Academy in Oklahoma City. BUA's Genoa Service Following the lengthy negotiations be tween the Italian and United Kingdom Governments on traffic rights for British United Airways between London and Genoa, which were finally resolved on May 6, the airline is due to begin services on May 31.
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