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Aviation History
1993
1993 - 0060.PDF
HEADLINES EL Al blames Boeing for Amsterdam crash BY ARIE EGOZI IN TEL AVIV El Al has blamed Boeing for the crash of its 747 freighter in Amsterdam on 4 October, 1992, and attacked Dutch air- traffic control for making the attempt to land the damaged aircraft at Schiphol more diffi cult than it need have been. The accusations are in the final report by an El Al commit tee investigating the crash. The airline's president, Ra phael Harlev, says that the air line will ask Boeing to compen sate it for the damage which the incident caused to its reputation. Boeing has responded, saying that it is neither denying nor accepting responsibility for the crash, and is waiting for the final verdict of the official investiga tion before assessing its position. The Tel Aviv-bound aircraft crashed on a block of flats in the Amsterdam suburbs as its crew attempted to return to Schiphol, killing over 50 people on the NEWS IN BRIEF MAROC ORDER Royal Air Maroc has ordered 12 Boeing 737s of variants yet to be decided. The Moroccan flag-carrier has received six 737s — three -300s and three -400s — out of ten aircraft already on order. NEW SHUTTLE Outgoing US Vice-President Dan Quayle, in his final re port as head of the President's Space Council, has urged that a replacement for the "expen sive and unresponsive" Space Shuttle be ready in 12 years. RAYTHEON UPGRADE The USA has confirmed that Raytheon will assist Taiwan in upgrading its air-defence sys tem, but denies local press reports that the unspecified deal includes Patriot surface- to-air missile systems. ground, the crew of three and the one passenger. The Israeli report says: "The sole responsibility for the acci dent is on the aircraft manufac turer." The investigation com mittee found that the accident was a result of a sequence of events that began with the break ing of a fuse pin in the No 3 (inboard) engine-mount attach ment. It is most likely that the sequence started in the right fuse pin and spread from there, leading to the separation of the mount from the wing. After en gine No 3 separated, it hit engine No 4 (outboard), which also separated from the wing, it says. The report says that there was no technical problem in either engine and "...additional damage to the right wing made the control of the aircraft very hard and finally caused the total loss of control". The final loss of control, in the last 40s of the flight, resulted as "...the right wing lost its lift and the balance of its rolling moment. This was followed by a dropping of the right wing and a yaw to the right which developed into a spiral turn that ended in the crash". The fact that the engine sepa rated as a result of a failure in the fuse pin appears to be a deviation from the "fail-safe de sign principle", says the report. "There is reason to wonder how this principle, which went into effect in the Federal Aviation Administration regulation in 1976, was not applied and does not apply today to 747 aircraft." El Al also criticises Boeing for its reaction following the crash of the China Airlines 747 freighter in December 1991, say ing: "This reaction to an acci dent, which appears to be similar to the El Al one, was slow and weak to the extent that can be almost considered as negli gence." The Israelis are recom mending that Boeing install a system on 747s enabling the flight-deck crew to monitor vis ually the engines and the wing flaps. With no line of sight The El Al 747 destroyed a block of flats when it crashed near Schiphol between the flight deck and the engines, the pilot believed that engine No 3 was on fire and that it and engine No 4 had lost power. In fact, both had already separated from the wing. The committee also criticises the role of the Dutch air-traffic controllers, claiming "...the air- traffic control system did not give the aircraft the right back up and made the landing ma noeuvring harder". Boeing has rebuffed El Al's accusation that its reaction to the China Airlines crash was "slow and weak". It defends itself by revealing new details of the Taiwan crash investigation. "There is some misconception that Boeing waited a long time before taking any action to ad dress problems with engine mounts. We had a salvage crew in the South China Sea looking for the engine-mount system the day before the El Al crash." According to Boeing, the wreckage of the China Airlines 747 freighter, which crashed on 29 December, 1991, was so deeply embedded at the impact point that it was "...several weeks be fore the accident investigation team realised that two engines were not even at the scene". A search of the seabed com menced and the No 4 engine was discovered in February 1992. "At that time, some clues led investigators to falsely sus pect that the cause may have been engine trouble." Later, around July 1992, investigators recovered the No 3 engine and discovered that the engine- mount assembly was missing. It was only then that the investigation moved to the en gine mounts, the earlier wreck age of the No 4 engine having misled the investigators. "By September, we informed operators of our plan to begin inspecting engine mounts and we went back several times to look for the engine-mounting system. This is still in the sea. "At this point, it is still not determined if the engine mounts contributed to either accident," says Boeing. D Additional reporting by Guy Norris in Los Angeles. 6 FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 20 - 26 January, 1993
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