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Aviation History
1989
1989 - 0684.PDF
747 door checks ordered by Emma Stynes The US Federal Aviation Administration has ordered new, regular inspections and accelerated modifications to older Boeing 747s following the incident when the cargo door and part of the fuselage of a United Airlines' aircraft broke away and nine people died. As a result of the accident, the F AA has brought forward its inspection and modification rulings for cargo doors, which it previously gave airlines two years to complete. Under the new FAA rulings, door latches are to be strengthened within 30 days. This measure is designed to ensure that the latches are stronger and the door remains completely locked. Additional tests and inspections have been ordered on the door's mechanical and electrical systems, and more inspections are to be conducted on the door locking mech anisms. To prevent the inadvertant opening of the forward and aft lower-lobe cargo doors, oper ators of older 747s are to install notices indicating how to KLM Fokker 100 gear collapses by David Learmount Fokker issued a service bulle tin following an incident when a KLM Fokker 100's port landing gear collapsed on landing. The bulletin has been made an airworthiness directive (AD) by the Dutch civil aviation authority (RLD). The incident took place on March 5 at Geneva when the KLM aircraft (PH-KLC) was carrying out an autoland. Almost immediately after touchdown, according to the pilots, there was a strong vibration, which they have interpreted as wheel shimmy. Soon after the vibration started there was a loud bang and the port wing dipped. The crew held the wing up while aileron lift lasted, then lowered it, and the aircraft came to a stop just to the left of the runway on the grass. There was damage to the port wing, port outboard flap, starboard main gear, and to the aft fuse lage from parts of the gear which hit it following breakup. No-one, was hurt. The incident appears similar to one during Fokker 100 certi fication testing, when the test aircraft, while carrying out a high-speed flapless landing, suffered wheel shimmy and starboard gear torque-link fail ure followed by wheel loss and gear collapse (Flight, August 15, 1987, page 6). The Fokker bulletin recom mends visual inspection of the main landing gear for "obvious damage" to the torque-link hinges and pin, and to bolts aft of the assembly. The advice also includes instructions for checking the torque application to the axle nut. The RLD's AD endorses the Fokker advice, making the inspection compulsory for Dutch 100 operators. Fokker says that home and foreign operators have already carried out the inspection advice, and as a result all the 100s had been cleared of any deficiencies. It notes that the same airframe had been involved in a heavy landing (2 • 46g) at Stavanger, in south ern Norway, but says that no definite connection with this event had been established. A total of 14 Fokker 100s is in airline service, and the oper ational fleet has flown more than 9,000hr and made 10,000 landings. operate the doors' hook and latch mechanisms. A visual inspection is to be carried out on broken, bent, or damaged lock sectors which could affect the integrity of the door locking section. Operators must repair or replace any damaged areas before flight. These inspections must be repeated every 30 days and after each manual operation of the door. The FAA has set down that electrical tests are to be repeated once electrical power has been restored after manual operation. Operations procedures will be changed to include visual verification that the door is closed before take-off, through external viewports to ensure proper engagement of the latches. This information must be relayed and acknowledged by the flightcrew. An important point of the new FAA rulings is that, when operating the door, the crank ing torque should not exceed 70in-lb, and power tools should not be used to operate the latch and hook mechanisms when being operated manually. The reasoning is that, if undue force is needed to close and lock the door, it must be damaged in some way and therefore it must be repaired before use. Although the cause of the United Airlines' accident has not yet been determined, the FAA believes that an acceler ation of the new modifications and inspections are needed in the interim. No improvement in GA safety, says UK CAA Several "good" years are required before the general- aviation safety record improves in the UK, says the Civil Aviation Authority. There were 12 fatal accidents involving British light aircraft during 1988, compared with 27 in the previous year. "For the past ten years, there has been no improve ment in the UK rate," accord ing to the CAA safety pro motion section, which says that major causes remain largely unchanged. A pre liminary assessment for last year shows that weather was a factor in five accidents, loss of control in three events, and single examples occurred of low-level aerobatics, mid-air collision, structural failure, and "unknown causes". The safety-promotion sec tion has taken aero club- aircraft movements from monthly CAA airport statistics as the basis for estimates of hours flown in its accident-rate figures. These show a 15 per cent increase in flying last year, after similar growth in the previous year. Earlier, the CAA had assumed that 1987 was only 10 per cent up on 1986, erroneously implying a poorer safety performance for that year. (The year was the worst since 1978, and this led to a special investigation.) UK general-aviation safety 1977-88 « 15 77 ' 78 ' 79 ' 80 ' 81 ' 82' 83 ' 84 ' 85 ' 86 ' 87 ' Year 3.5 3 * h y i °- 1 2 ; 1 lAnnualfatal-accidentrate < 77 [ a iThree-vear moving average 78 79 80 81 82 83 * 84 85 ' 86 87 88 Year 18 FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL, 18 March 1989
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