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Aviation History
2004
2004-01 - 0012.PDF
AIR TRANSPORT ACCIDENT CHRISTINA MACKENZIE / PARIS France aids Flash 737 crash hunt Divers locate flight recorders from lost aircraft as US experts also join Egyptians in search for wreckage French divers searching the Red Sea off Sharm el Sheikh have picked up location signals from the crashed Flash Airlines Boeing 737-300's flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder. The Egyptian charter carrier's aircraft dived into the sea on 3 January with 148 passengers and crew on board. There were no survivors. The recorders are lying about 1,500m (4,900ft) apart around 600- 800m below the surface. Admiral Jacques Mazars, leading the French naval efforts in Egypt to recover the wreckage and bodies, says the air craft "probably crashed at a speed of 500km/h [270kt] at a 45° angle". France's civil aviation authority says the recorders will be handed over to the Egyptian authorities. France has put its expertise and equipment at Egypt's disposal as 133 of the passengers were French nationals. The 13 crew members were Egyptian. France has sent three ships, one carrying the navy's Super Achilles robot that can operate at depths of up to 1,500m. A US team from Boeing, the Federal Aviation Loss highlights lack of safety transparency Switzerland's civil aviation authority banned Flash Airlines from landing at Swiss airports after an inspec tion on 27 April 2002 revealed "obvious maintenance lapses in the landing gear, the engines and the flight controls" on one of the aircraft and "identical problems" on a second aircraft when it was inspected on 11 October 2002. The inspections were carried out under the European Civil Aviation Conference safety assess ment of foreign aircraft (SAFA) programme. France's own SAFA spot checks found the airline operating to acceptable standards. Meanwhile, UK transport minister Alistair Darling has published a list of airlines banned from UK air ports in response to criticism that there is a lack of transparency in the SAFA system. All airlines from five countries are banned from the UK - Equatorial Guinea, Gambia, Liberia, Tajikistan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo - on the grounds of "inadequate safety regulation". Seven specific airlines were banned following inspections that revealed unsatisfactory technical or documentary standards, and two for failing to pay fines charged when the air lines carried passengers with inadequate travel documentation to the UK. Administration and the US National Transportation Safety Board is also working with the Egyptians. Boeing says the aircraft, registered SU-ZCF, was delivered in October 1992 and had accumulated 25,592 cycles and 17,973h and has had seven owners. Flight FSH604 took off at 04:40 on 3 January in clear weather and crashed about 11km (6nm) south of the airport. The aircraft's heading fluctuated after it began a planned left turn at 5,000ft. It finally made an unplanned right turn, rapidly losing height and crashing into the sea 17s later, says Ahmad Shafiq, Egyptian minister for civil aviation. The pilots did not make an emergency call. Egypt insists the accident was due to a technical fault. Shafiq says military person nel who witnessed the accident reported no signs of an explosion before impact, and that the fuse lage was "complete" when the air craft hit the sea. ACQUISITION Cubana to take ll-96s Cubana, the Cuban national air line, has agreed with llyushin Fin ance, the Russian aircraft leasing company, to take two llyushin ll-96-300s. The aircraft, due for delivery in late 2004 and in 2005, will establish Cubana as the first 11-96 export customer. The order was discussed by a Russian delegation with the Cuban transport minister in Nov ember, and the airline is anxious to take two aircraft that are close to completion but intended for Aeroflot. Some Russian govern ment funding may be sought. Cubana has relied mainly on Soviet and Russian aircraft for the past 40 years while international sanctions have prevented it tak ing Western aircraft. It has used leased DC-10s, but has been seeking new-generation long- range aircraft for some time. SEE AIR TRANSPORT P14 INVESTIGATION DAVID KAMINSKI-MORROW / LONDON Engine problems cited in Austrian forced landing Investigators probing the forced landing of an Aust rian Fokker 70 near Munich on 5 January have found that ice-protection devices on both Rolls-Royce Tay engines had broken away from the cowlings. The devices are panels mounted behind the engine fan, designed to protect the core from ice-fall while flying in freezing conditions. The crew reported that both Tays lost power while on approach to Munich airport. Flight OS111 had departed from Vienna and was around 10km (5.5nm) east of Munich at 08:08 when the crew made a mayday call. Four minutes later, says German air navigation authority DFS, the pilots said the aircraft was experi encing "severe icing" of the engines. A few minutes later, the twinjet landed in a snow- covered field 4.4km east of runway 26L, suffering severe damage to its undercarriage and coming to a halt resting on the underside of its fuselage. All 28 passengers and four crew members on the aircraft escaped injury. "Why the panels broke away has not yet been established," says Austrian. German accident inves tigation authority BFU says the aircraft "could not hold the intended flight altitude during the approach procedure, for reasons not yet determined". 10 13-19 JANUARY 2004 FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL www.flightinternational.com
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