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Aviation History
1990
1990 - 0274.PDF
HEADLINES A321 victory for West Germany BY GILBERT SEDBON IN PARIS Airbus Industrie has agreed in XVprinciple to assemble the A321 in West Germany. It has ruled out a move to shift-A330/ A340 assembly, however. After a protracted political and industrial wrangle over West German efforts to break the French monopoly on Airbus assembly, the supervisory board of the four-nation consortium has asked for a management report on the financial implica tions of the proposed assembly of the A321 in Hamburg. A final decision on the move will be taken at the board's next meeting on 23 February. At its last meeting in Toulouse on 26 January, the supervisory board issued a statement which appeared to rule out transfer of assembly of the A330/A340 from Toulouse to Hamburg as orig inally sought by the West German partners. "The principle of integration of customisation and final assembly on the same production line is adopted for future programmes," the state ment says. Massive new assembly build ings for the A330 and A340, which enjoy great commonality, are almost complete at Aero spatiale's new factory in Colomiers, in the Toulouse area. MBB of West Germany will have to transfer its component parts work on the aircraft to Aerospatiale. The French aircraft maker will have to spend an additional Fr500 million ($87 million) at Colomiers to cope with the additional work. While losing the A321 assem bly, Aerospatiale says that fitting out and final assembly of the A330/A340 will provide jobs for as many as 500 in Toulouse. The Airbus Industrie exec utive board has been asked to ". . . examine the appropriate Confusion over fuc The fuel tanks were dry and all four engines inoperative when the Avianca Boeing 707 hit the ground on Long Island's north shore. The crash happened about lOmin after a missed ap proach at New York's John F Kennedy Airport at 21.34 on 25 January, but the circumstances leading to the accident began more than 2h before the impact, which killed 73 people. Bad weather in New York and heavy traffic had meant that the Avianca 707 had to hold for 88min over the US east coast before being cleared for descent. About 45min before the crash management organisation and the financial consequences of the supervisory board's decision, and to submit the matter for final decision at the next supervisory board meeting on 23 February". West German economics min ister Helmut Haussmann wel comes the Airbus supervisory board's move as "opening con crete prospects" for the final assembly of the A321 in Ham burg. By its latest decision, the supervisory board has, in effect, opened the way to shifting some final assembly to Hamburg, as demanded by West German the 707 pilot mentioned fuel shortage for the first time, telling New York Center (NYC): "I think we need priority". He ad vised NYC that he could hold only for five more minutes. The aircraft retained 45min worth of fuel—only slightly more than the minimum quantity demanded by regulations for an aircraft start ing its final approach to the runway. The time taken from that message to the missed ap proach point was 37min. At no time did the pilot declare an emergency. NYC handed the 707 over to New York terminal radar control (Tracon), stating: "Avianca 52 can only do five more minutes in the hold. Do you think you can take him or do I offer him his alternate?". Avianca had rejected Boston as an alternate, saying: "We can't do it now; we would BAe plans internal British Aerospace is negotiat ing to buy Liverpool Airport and the surrounding land in order to develop "... the first major private-sector airport to be constructed in the world". BAe has agreed terms with Liverpool City Council and says that an industrial consortium and Government help will be needed to raise the £1.2 billion "infrastructure costs". The company envisages a two- political and industrial leaders. Separate A321 assembly is fea sible provided there is sufficient demand, Airbus says. There are 40 firm orders and 100 options for the A321, from a dozen cli ents. A market survey, however, suggests that 400 aircraft will be sold over the next ten years. Aerospatiale argued that splitting production of the A321 from its smaller sister aircraft, the A320, was not a viable proposition. The first flight of the 186-seat A321 is planned for early 1993, with first deliveries due in Janu ary 1994. • run out of fuel" Tracon accepted the 707, and ultimately handed it over to JFK Tower. On approach to runway 22L, with 2km visibility in rain, a 300ft (90m) cloudbase and re ported windshear conditions, the 707's ground-proximity warning system gave a "pull up" warning, and the captain initiated a go- around. The Federal Aviation Admin istration says that immediately the missed approach was com plete, the tower asked whether the aircraft had enough fuel to go around for another landing at tempt: the answer was affir mative. "Almost immediately", however, the crew reported that the aircraft was running out of fuel. Within lOmin of the go- around, the 707 reported that two engines had stopped, and the aircraft descended to impact. • inal airport runway hub in the "Atlanta style", handling up to 40 million passengers a year by 2005. Land would be reclaimed from the River Mersey estuary for the second runway, to take the total area to 16km2 (4,000 acres). The Liverpool site is only 50km from Manchester Inter national, which is engaged in a massive terminal development and expects to handle 20 million passengers a year by 2000. • BIA GOES INTO RECEIVERSHIP British Island Airways, the London Gatwicfe-based charter carrier has gone into receivership. A recent £20 million injection raised by sale-and- leaseback deals with Atlantic International Aviation Holdings has/ailed to save the carrier from the effects of the collapse of the UK package holiday market. The two MD-80s shown in the picture are leased from ILFC. situation caused Avianca crash 14 FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 7-13 February 1990
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