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Aviation History
2000
2000 - 1314.PDF
American Love affair goes sour GRAHAM WARWICK/WASHINGTON DC AMERICAN Airlines' lengthy, and ultimately unsuccessful, legal battle to prevent start-up car rier Legend Airlines from launch ing long-haul services from Dallas Love Field Airport may have back fired. The city of Dallas is refusing to allow American to operate com peting services from refurbished gates in Love Field's east con course. As a result, American will launch services to Chicago O'Hare and Los Angeles on 1 May from the gates it shares with Continental Express in die east concourse at die airport. The airline will operate five flights a day to Chicago and four to Los Angeles, using Fokker 100s reconfigured with 56 first-class seats to stay within the capacity restrictions on long-haul flights from Love Field. Five Fokker 100s are being converted. Boeing MD- 80s may be used later, American says. To make room for die new ser vices, American Eagle will discon tinue its eight daily Embraer RJ-145 flights to Austin, Texas, which use die shared gates. American is continuing with refurbishment of diree gates at die former Braniffterminal and hopes to move its operations there on 28 May, if it gets approval from the city of Dallas. Having lost its lawsuit against Dallas to prevent Legend begin ning operations, American argues it has the legal right to operate competitive long-haul services from Love Field, "and Dallas has a federal obligation to accommodate our needs". Legend began services from Love Field to Las Vegas, Los Angeles and Washington Dulles earlier diis month, using 56-seat McDonnell Douglas DC-9s. American has no plans to restart small regional jet services from Love Field. Continental Express operates ERJ-145s from the air port, and Delta Connection carrier Comair has filed to begin regional jet operations diere. J Singapore suspends An-8 cargo services THE CIVIL Aviation Auth ority of Singapore (CAAS) has suspended operations of older Antonov aircraft after An-8 freighters operated by two Singa porean cargo companies were deemed no longer airwordiy. "CAAS was recendy advised by Antonov diat two An-8 aircraft operating at Seletar Airport in Singapore had reached the end of dieir service life. As a safety precau tion, we asked operators to stop using dieir Antonov aircraft. We have asked diem to provide more information on the airworthiness condition of their aircraft for our review," says die audiority. The ban affects regional cargo operators Air Mark Aviation and Expo Aviation, bodi of which oper ate from Seletar. Antonov An-124 operations in Singapore are unaffected. Air Mark, which operates one Antonov An-12 and one Antonov An-26, says it is maintaining some of its Antonov services from Batam and Johor Bahru, Malaysia. The carrier says it was taken by surprise by die ban, and does not know how long it could remain in place. Expo Aviation, which operates a single An-8, says it has now returned die affected aircraft to its lessor, and replaced it widi a recon ditioned model. The company remains ground ed, however, pending die lifting of the CAAS ban. • 737-700 convertible testing starts Boeing is flight testing the first cargo 737-700 variant THE FIRST cargo version of Boeing's Next Generation 737, the 737-700C convertible, began a five-month flight test programme on 14 February. The first four -700Cs are des tined for the US Navy, and dubbed C-40As. The aircraft incorporates a 3.3 5 x 2.13m (11 x 7ft) forward freight door, and the strengthened wing and under carriage of the heavier -800 model. The naval version will be operated in three configura tions: an all- passenger layout seating 121, an all-cargo config uration with up to eight pallets, or a "combi" configuration with three pallets and 70 seats. The US Navy expects to take delivery of the first of four aircraft on firm order early next year. More C-40As are expected to be ordered by the end of this year, says Boeing, which is "in talks" with the USN for replacing 27 McDonnell Douglas DC-9- based C-9 Nightingales. Disorientation theory probed in Crossair crash DAVID LEARMOUNT/BARCELONA TNVESTIGATORS are consid ering pilot spatial disorientation as a possible cause of the 10 January Crossair Saab 340 accident at Zurich, Switzerland, after running a simulation. According to die flight data recorder - downloaded by the Transportation Safety Board of Canada - the pilot rolled the air craft nearly inverted, but then appeared to recover attitude awareness and reduced die extreme bank by 70° just before die aircraft hit die ground. Preliminary statements issued by die Swiss investigators indicate that die captain had begun a left turn as he was cleared to do his climbing departure from Zurich, but when the flight management system locked on to die Zurich East VOR beacon and "recog nised" a right turn as the more direct route, the flight director led die pilot to turn right (Flight International, 4-10 April, P17). The fear is that the pilot may have followed die flight director right while still thinking of a left turn, which would have caused conflicting sensory inputs. The simulation shows that die extreme right bank was applied manually in short bursts, recognised as a sign of confusion, but diere was never any significant pitch input and the air craft spiralled into the ground widi about Ig positive acceleration throughout the fatal descent. Crossair flight safety and securi ty officer Matthias Schmid says no definite conclusions can be drawn, but adds that the conditions were classic for disorientation. Apart from conflicting turn inputs, it was night, and the landing lights were probably on while the aircraft was in cloud widi slight rain. • 8 FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 25 April - 1 May 2000
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