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Aviation History
1989
1989 - 3780.PDF
OPERATIONS: AIR TRANSPORT Drug dealers' bomb suspected in Avianca 727 crash Structural failure or a bomb explosion remain the prime suspects in the 27 November crash of an Avianca Airlines Boeing 727 near Bogota, Colombia. In response to a Colombian Government request, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation sent a bomb specialist to Colom bia shortly after the crash, which killed all 107 passengers and crew aboard. A group calling itself the "Extraditables" claims that it blew up the aircraft to kill five police informants it says were on board. The five had apparently revealed the location of the head- CVR reveals pilot error Examination of the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) in dicates that the pilot of a China Air Lines (CAL) Boeing 737-200 was mainly responsible for its crash on 26 October in which all 54 passengers and crew were killed. The aircraft crashed into a mountain while climbing out from the east-coast city of Hualien on a domestic flight to the capital city of Taipei. The CVR was eventually re trieved on 24 November after a month-long search. Pilot Wu Wei-tien, a 15-year CAL veteran, used the wrong runway and turned east towards the mountains instead of west towards the sea. The tape records an automatic warning from the ground proximity warning system: "Terrain, terrain; pull up, pull up", but it came too late for the pilot to respond. The trainee copilot was said to be too in experienced to notice the errors. Control-tower staff are also made to shoulder some blame, as apparently they did not notice the use of a secondary runway nor did they contact the pilot to warn him when he veered off course. • quarters of the Medellin drug cartel to police. Investigators have found no evidence of a bomb yet, although the wide dispersal of the aircraft is said to be typical of bomb explosions. Most of the wreckage was con centrated in an area measuring 60m X 15m, but some parts have been found 3km away. Most reports tell of the 727- 100 "coming apart in the sky" before crashing into a hilly area south of Bogota. Several wit nesses reported hearing or seeing explosions, including two Colombian Air Force pilots. "The explosions might have been caused by depressurisation Trials show smoke Even in a smoke-filled aircraft cabin, the most significant factors in favour of a fast pas senger emergency evacuation are the size of the exit and having a clear floor in front of it, accord ing to US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) tests. In the same tests it was found that passengers wearing ready- donned passenger protective breathing equipment (PPBE, or smokehoods) always exited more slowly than they did under the same conditions without the smokehoods on. The findings have just been published in a report on tests by Dragonair faces CI A state-owned Chinese corporation says it is consid ering taking a stake in struggling Hong Kong-based Dragonair, which lost its chief backer last month when Hong Kong ship ping and property magnate Yue- Kong Pao pulled out (Flight, 15-21 November). "We're very interested in the civil aviation business," says Wang Jun, vice-president of China International Trust & Investment Corp (OTIC), a Western-style investment house or by other causes," says Colom bia's civil aviation director, Col Jorge Gonzalez. "I don't believe it was a terrorist act," he adds. The 727, number 272 off the production line, was delivered to Pan Am in May 1966, and was sold to Avianca 11 years later. It had accumulated 59,359 flight cycles, and 45,390h of flying time. Both flight data recorders have been recovered. The only jet airliner which has suffered fuselage failure not caused by explosives but leading to instant catastrophic dis integration was the Far Eastern Air Transport Boeing 737 in August 1981. That was attributed the FAA's Civil Aeromedical Institute (CAI). Smokehoods slowed down each individual's "hatch-cross ing" because of the equipment's bulk. "Hatch-crossing time" is the time each person takes from hatch entry until the last part of the body leaves it. It was in this manoeuvre that smokehood- wearers lost time compared with "bareheads". Yet the smokehood- wearers could not, even in smoke, make up for this lost time by being faster across the cabin, because low-visibility was the slowing factor in the smoke tests, and the smokehoods could not na crisis with considerable autonomy and influence in Beijing. "We have confidence in Hong Kong even even though many others show pessimism," he says. Wang, son of a Chinese vice- president, heads up CITIC's op erations in Hong Kong, which returns to Chinese sovereignty in 1997. CITIC already holds 12.5% of Cathay Pacific Airways, the dominant force in Hong Kong aviation and long-time bane of Dragonair's attempts to win lu- Wide spread of wreckage supports bomb or structural failure theory on to belly structural corrosion. In other major fuselage failure cases (Japan Air Lines, August 1985; Aloha Airlines, April 1988), the aircrew have had time to contact air traffic control.• improve that. In all circumstances, hatch- crossing time was the bottleneck. All evacuations went faster through the larger of the two hatch types in the test: hatch Type III is 51cm x 97cm with a step-up of 48cm and step-down of 66cm; Type IV is 48cm x 69cm, with a step-up/step-down of 58cm/79cm. Although the smokehood- wearers were always slower at a given exit, they were quicker out of the larger exit than the bareheads were through the small one. This, says the CAI, is significant. • crative routes. Other Chinese en tities hold indirect stakes in Dragonair, run by the founding Chao family, which also has close ties with China. "We can't tell when the pur chase will be finalised because Dragonair's shareholding is very complicated," Wang says. Asked about the potential conflict of interest, he adds: "Our involve ment may be good to both air lines. I think Dragonair and Cathay Pacific may co-operate in future in some areas." • ioods slow evacuation FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 6-12 December 1989
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