All Safety News – Page 1406
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News
Polynesian Otter crash
A Polynesian Airlines de Havilland DHC-6 Twin Otter crashed into a hill in stormy weather on its initial approach to Apia, Western Samoa, on 8 January, killing three of the five people on board. According to the carrier's managing director Richard Gates the aircraft, inbound from Pago Pago, American Samoa, ...
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Sabena revives study of off-shore contracts
Sabena has confirmed that it has resurrected cost-saving plans to employ flying personnel on out-of-country contracts. The proposal, which is still under study, would see pilots and cabin crew continue to be based in Brussels, but paid in Switzerland, probably via Sabena's partner Swissair, with the transaction made through a ...
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Freight fright
THE AIRLINE-ACCIDENT statistics for 1996 (P31) suggest that there is a serious safety problem in the air-freight market. Over one-third of all fatal airliner accidents last year were to non-passenger aircraft: they caused the deaths of 158 aircrew and other occupants, and more than 350 further deaths of innocent third ...
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European research group will study new blade-tip coatings
A consortium of nine European companies and research centres has launched a four-year project to develop advanced coatings for aero-engine turbine blade-tips. The work is aimed at achieving reduced tip-clearances, to improve engine performance without causing excessive wear in the blades. "When the blade tip rubs against the ...
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Tu-224: different class of aircraft
Sir - In the article "Kato launches Sirocco to lead R-R-powered Tu-204 effort", Dr Ibrahim Kamel, president of the newly formed Sirocco, is quoted as saying that the Tupolev Tu-224 (Western-powered Tu-204) will cost about $36 million. You then say that comparative "sticker" prices for the similarly sized Airbus A321-100 ...
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Fokker will make selection of F28 retrofit engine in February
Plans to launch a re-engineing programme for the Fokker F28 Fellowship are gathering momentum, with a final engine selection expected in February. Programme partners Fokker Services and Perry Group plan a launch decision in April, depending on market response. Lion Boenders, product marketing manager at Woensdrecht, Holland-based Fokker ...
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DC-XA crash cause
An unconnected hose led to the destruction of the Clipper Graham DC-XA technology-demonstrator vehicle at White Sands, New Mexico, on 31 July, 1996. A helium pneumatic-system brake line on one of the landing gears was unconnected, preventing pressurisation of the brake mechanism and extension of the gear. Source: ...
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FAA orders FJ44 turbine solution
The US Federal Aviation Administration is requiring immediate inspection and replacement of high-pressure turbine disks used in Williams Rolls-Royce FJ44 turbofans which have twice failed on Cessna CitationJets. The airworthiness directive (AD) affects the early-model FJ44-1A turbofan engines which power some CitationJets. The Directive orders immediate and recurring ...
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FAA softens order on Lycoming crankshaft
A PROPOSED airworthiness directive(AD) requiring repetitive inspection, and possible replacement, of crankshafts in certain Textron Lycoming engines has been modified to reduce its potentially serious impact on operators. The AD was prompted by failures of hollow-end crankshafts caused by corrosion-induced cracking. The original notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) ...
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Airbus issues hydraulic pump warning after A330/340 fires
Airbus Industrie has instructed all A330 and A340 operators to de-activate the aircraft's electrically driven hydraulic pumps, following a series of fires which has left at least two aircraft badly damaged. In the latest incident, an auxiliary pump is suspected of having overheated on a Malaysia Airlines (MAS)A330-300 ...
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The boom returns for airliner orders
Airbus, Boeing and McDonnell Douglas (MDC)saw jet-airliner orders climb comfortably above the 1,000 mark in 1996, giving the big three aircraft builders their best year since the bonanza of the late 1980s. Production rates are also on the rise and due to hit record levels within the next two to ...
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Indian ATC responsibility
Sir - It is beyond comprehension to understand how the Indian Government and, more importantly, its air-traffic-control (ATC) services can deny responsibility for the 12 November, 1996, mid-air collision between a Saudi Arabian Airlines Boeing 747-100B and an Air Kazakhstan Ilyushin Il-76 at New Delhi. Surely the 1,000ft ...
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The reliability of the GPS system
Sir - The report by the UK National Air Traffic Services (Flight International, 4-10 December, P6) indicates that the global-positioning system (GPS) is unreliable for sole-means navigation. I believe that it should be used with another aid, preferably an inertial-navigation system. The questions of reliability and the political ...
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Comparison system detects database differences
XIONIX SIMULATION has delivered a navigation-database comparison system to British Airways. The system allows BA to compare navigation databases to identify differences and isolate errors. It is in use at the carrier's operations centre at Heathrow. BA is using the comparison system to increase the integrity of navigation ...
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Deja vu with age-60-years ruling
Sir - A US Federal Appeals Court panel will rule shortly on whether the US Federal Aviation Administration can continue to bar pilots of 60 years old from commanding US passenger aircraft. The general consensus seems to be that the "Age 60" rule is not based so much on medical ...
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Airbus Industrie and Wicat join in A310/A300-600 training upgrade
AIRBUS INDUSTRIE IS improving pilot training for the A300-600 and A310-300, with the help of Wicat Systems, to match that available for the A320, A330 and A340. Wicat is supplying new computer-based training (CBT) courseware and is developing a "free-play" trainer for the A310/A300-600 flight-management and -guidance system (FMGS), similar ...
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TTS unveils new-design simulator
THOMSON TRAINING &Simulation (TTS) has delivered the first of its new-design full-flight simulators to the ATR Training Centre (ATC) in Toulouse, France. The new design was evolved following TTS' acquisition of Rediffusion and includes features from the UK company's Concept 90 simulator. The first new-design machine to enter ...
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Why was this aircraft allowed to land at Heathrow?
Sir - On 8 December, 1996, I was awaiting clearance at Heathrow when a Fokker 50 (with a known undercarriage problem) approached runway 09R (Flight International, 18-31 December, 1996, P10). The expected happened, and the left main gear collapsed. What I would like to know is: why was ...
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Outside control
There is nothing new in the perception of inadequacy in African and Third-World air-traffic control (ATC) - merely in the articulation of that perception. The major international bodies (the International Air Transport Association (IATA) and the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) have long known not only about the problems, but ...
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Chinese develop new navigation pod
China is developing a low-altitude navigation pod to provide strike aircraft with all-weather terrain following and target-identification capability. The 200kg Blue-Sky pod is being developed by the China Leihua Electronic Technology Institute (CLETRI), and is believed to have been test-flown already. The pod is fitted with radar and ...