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Aviation History
1997
1997 - 0066.PDF
AIR TRANSPORT NEWS IN BRIEF • CRASH DATA HELP Indian accident investigators have decided to send abroad the flight-data and cockpit- voice recorders (FDR/CVR) from the two aircraft in volved in the mid-air collision near New Delhi on 12 November 1996. The CVR and FDR from the Saudi Arabian Airlines Boeing 747- 100B are to go to London, UK, to be downloaded. The "black boxes" from the Kazakh Ilyushin 11-76 are to be sent to Russia. • GARUDA TAKES DELIVERY Garuda Indonesia received its first Rolls-Royce Trent- powered Airbus A3 30-300 in December. Five more A3 30s will be delivered to the airline before March, while the final three are due in mid-1998. The Indonesian carrier has also recently taken delivery of the first of three extended- range McDonnell Douglas MD-llERs. • AIRBUS V2500 APPROVED The International Aero En gines (IAE) V2524-powered version of the Airbus A319 has been given European Joint Aviation Authorities certification. United Airlines and International Lease Finance are launch cus tomers for the IAE-powered A319. It has also been certifi cated with IAE and CFM International powerplants by the Interstate Aviation Com mittee of the CIS. • DRAGONAIR APS 3200 Hong Kong-based Dragon- air has selected the Auxiliary Power International APS 3200 auxiliary power unit (APU) to equip two new and five optioned Airbus A320- 200s. In addition, Dragonair has started to replace the AlliedSignal APU in seven A320s with the APS 3200. The retrofit programme started in November 1996. New deliveries will begin in mid-1997. Boeing boosts 737 production to match previous all-time high MAX KINGSLEY-JONES/LONDON PRODUCTION OF the Boeing 73 7 is set to emulate the previously highest-ever rate of 21 aircraft a month by the end of this year, with Boeing having an nounced a further boost in produc tion of the twinjet. The monthly rate is set to reach the new peak during the fourth quarter of 1997. An increase to a maximum of 17 a month had previ ously been planned. If it is main tained, the new rate will enable at least 250 737s to be delivered in 1998 — more than the entire Boeing production tally in 1996. The 21 aircraft a month rate is the maximum ever achieved on the 73 7 programme, which last ran at this rate in September 1992. Initially, assembly of the next- generation models will be under taken on one of the two 737 lines at Renton, with the other line dedi cated to the current -300/400/500 models. By die end of 1998, Boeing is expecting to have moved current model 737 assembly into the 757 hall next door, enabling production of the next-generation models to be boosted by taking over both lines in the 737 hall. This will also enable the entire 737 rate to be fur ther increased if necessary. Boeing believes that orders like Americans will make the 737-800 a big seller Boeing says that it plans to con tinue production of the current models "... for as long as we are sell ing them", although the allocation of one of the two 757 lines for cur rent 737 model assembly could hinder any future large produc tion-rate boosts on the 757. The company is, however, considering the relocation of all, or part, of the 757 assembly line Flight Inteitiational, 1-7 January, P22). Boeing has cut production cycle time to six months on its narrow- bodied aircraft and is able to offer customers the opportunity to spec ify the variant required down to a minimum of ten months before aircraft delivery. Boeing expects to capture 80% of the total market in which it com petes with its 737-600/700/800 model, while Airbus is predicting that it will win around half of the orders in the A3 2 0/7 3 7 category over the next 20 years. Boeing Commercial Airplane president Ron Woodard says that the biggest seller among the new models will be the larger -800 model, representing around 40% of all the new aircraft sold. The smaller -700 and -600 variants will account for 3 5 % and 2 5 %. Flight-testing of the new model will kick off in February, with the first flight of the 737-700. Boeing will use a total of four 737-700s, three -800s and three -600s in the entire flight-test programme. J US airline fatalities are the worst since 1985 LAST YEAR WAS the worst for air safety in the USA since 1985, according to figures released by the National Transportation Safety Board. During 1996, fatali ties in the four US passenger airline accidents totalled 354, and there were eight deaths in two freighter crashes, Some 32 people on the ground were also killed as a direct result of the accidents. In 1985, the figures for sched uled and non-scheduled flights totalled 639 casualties. In 1995, by comparison, there were only 67 airline fatalities. Most of the deaths occurred in scheduled Part 121 operations, including 110 in the Valujet Mc Donnell Douglas (MDC) DC-9 crash on 11 May in Florida and 230 in the loss of the TWA Boeing 747 on 17 July. Two passengers were killed on 6 July in Pensacola, Florida, when a Delta Air Lines MDC MD-88 suffered an uncon- tained engine failure. Meanwhile, a Millon Air Boeing 707 freighter crashed in Ecuador on 22 October killing the crew of four and 30 people on the ground, and a Northern Air Cargo Douglas DC-6 crashed in Alaska on 20 July, killing its four crew.This compares to only six fatalities involving scheduled Part 121 flights for all of 1995. In 1996 scheduled Part 135 operations, there were 14 deaths as the result of the 19 November col lision of a United Express Beech 1900C and a Beech King Air 90 at the municipal airport at Quincy, Illinois. This compares to nine fatalities during 1995 for US scheduled regional airlines. Including US general-aviation accidents, there were 1,056 fatali ties up until the end of November, compared with 727 fatalities for all ofl995. • See Flight International, IS-21 January, 1991, for a review of world airline safety in 1996. FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 8 - 14 January 1997
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