All Safety News – Page 1308
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News
Mooney Eagle programme advances towards its target
Mooney Aircraft's worst fears for development of its new M20S Eagle piston single have failed to materialise, and it is on schedule to begin delivering the entry-level aircraft in January, after US approval around 1 December. Soon after Mooney launched the Eagle early this year, company sources confided that ...
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Bul Aero's all-composite Zulu ultralight enters production
Bul Aero,the Avions Robin sister company, has started production of its Zulu single-engined ultralight aircraft. The Zulu, which achieved French certification in July, has clocked up more than 100h of flight testing at the company's Darois base. The all-composite Rotax 912-powered Zulu offers a maximum take-off weight of 550kg ...
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FAA examines insulation rules after MD-11 crash
Ramon Lopez/WASHINGTON DC Within six months, the US Federal Aviation Administration is to produce a tougher burn test specification for aircraft internal insulation blankets. The action results partly from investigations into the 2 September crash of a Swissair Boeing MD-11 off Nova Scotia. Although the cause of the fatal ...
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Airbus stands by safety regulations
Airbus has insisted that existing safety regulations are adequate for large aircraft such as the 480/660-seat A3XX now on the drawing board. Speaking at the Very Large Transport Aeroplane (VLTA) conference at Noordwijkerhout, the Netherlands, on 13-16 October, Wolfgang Didszuhn, vice-president for product integrity at Airbus, said: "There is ...
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Boeing targets year end for assessment of 747 stretch
Guy Norris/LOS ANGELES Boeing expects to complete windtunnel tests of a stretched, 500-seater 747 by the end of the year and, pending the successful conclusion of business case studies and sufficient customer commitments, says it could launch the aircraft by mid-1999. Boeing, which celebrated 30 years of 747 assembly earlier ...
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Russia and USA sign to commit to safety
Russia and the USA have signed two agreements aimed at improving aviation safety relations between the two countries. The deals were signed last month by US State Secretary Madeleine Albright and her Russian counterpart, Yevgeni Primakov (who has subsequently become prime minister). The main part of the first ...
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Virgin to grow single-aisle fleet
Günter Endres/LONDON Virgin Atlantic is to boost its Airbus A320 fleet in the next few months to accommodate the expansion of its European scheduled and charter flights. Initial expansion is expected later this year, with the opening of the London Heathrow-Moscow service, followed by the start of the new ...
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'Intranet in the sky' is planned
Graham Warwick/WASHINGTON DC Two European airlines are leading the drive to link aircraft on the ground and in the air with the airline's "intranet" information technology systems. Lufthansa charter affiliate Condor and Swissair plan demonstrations of systems to allow Internet-style exchanges of information with aircraft using low-power datalinks ...
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Southern African airlines struggle to survive as profits plunge
By Hilka Birns/CAPE TOWN Dangerously low profit margins are threatening the future of airlines in Southern Africa as low yields from domestic services and excessive levies imposed by government-owned monopolies take their toll, according to the Airline Association of Southern Africa (AASA). Airlines in the region are reporting ...
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Space rescue
Tim Furniss/LONDON On 26 September, 92 days after being lost in deep space, the European Space Agency (ESA)/NASA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) began sending back images of the sun again. The spacecraft's remarkable rescue owes much of its success to the initial location work completed by the large radio ...
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FAA performs a U-turn on non-US pilot-training rules
David Learmount/LONDON The US Federal Aviation Administration has performed a dramatic policy U-turn, allowing non-US schools to train pilots for an FAA licence. The policy change was prompted by the fear of an imminent ruling by the European Joint Aviation Authorities, which would curtail the use of US pilot ...
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JetProp converted Malibu gets US go-ahead
Pilots no longer have to wait until 2000 to fly a turboprop-powered Piper Malibu. Customers with an aircraft and $589,000 to spare can now have the piston single converted to a Pratt &Whitney Canada PT6A-34 engine by JetProp. The Spokane, Washington-based company is owned by the same person who is ...
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Rutan to launch Boomerang after production agreement
Graham Warwick/WASHINGTON DC Burt Rutan's unconventional, asymmetric piston twin, the Boomerang, is set to enter production. Oregon-based Morrow Aircraft has reached an agreement with Rutan under which the one-off design could be certificated within three years - provided that sufficient financing is secured. Under the agreement, Rutan's Scaled ...
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GE90-powered Continental 777 hits ETOPS proving flight hitch
This new General Electric GE90-powered Continental Airlines Boeing 777 had to carry out a precautionary diversion following a starboard engine low oil-quantity alert during a transpacific extended range twin engine operations (ETOPS) proving flight for the airline. The aircraft, en route on a nonstop New York-Tokyo flight on 7 October, ...
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PAL seeks foreign capital as resumption nears
Philippine Airlines (PAL) is due to resume skeleton international flights from 15 October, following the restart of domestic services with a much reduced fleet of aircraft. It is now seeking to attract new foreign investors, with efforts focused on Cathay Pacific Airways and Northwest Airlines. International operations will begin ...
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Airbus/Boeing poser faces Air France
Julian Moxon/PARIS Air France is considering the purchase of an initial 15 Airbus A330-200s or Boeing 767-300ER/400ERs to satisfy part of its future long-haul requirement and has asked General Electric, Rolls-Royce and Pratt & Whitney to come up with offers for both types. Selection is being held up ...
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EC and Italy reach last-gasp airports agreement
The European Commission and the Italian Government have reached a last-minute agreement on a traffic distribution system between Milan's two airports at Linate and Malpensa, where a new hub is to open on 25 October. The deal, agreed in principle, followed a day of intense negotiations on 8 October ...
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Improving safety
Graham Warwick/MONTREAL Teams of International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) inspectors will move out early next year to begin mandatory safety oversight audits, opening a new chapter in the history of the United Nations agency. The programme of "regular, mandatory, systematic and harmonised safety audits" in all 185 member states was ...
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Sabena turbine failure
A Sabena Boeing 737-200 with 104 people on board suffered an uncontained starboard engine failure just after take off from Brussels Zaventem for Lisbon, Portugal, on 26 September. Upwind from runway 25R, engine parts from the Pratt & Whitney JT8D-15 rained on the village of Diegem, damaging cars and houses. ...
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Australia throws challenge to flailing Air Niugini
Brisbane-based Flight West Airlines has expanded plans for new services between northern Australia and Papua New Guinea (PNG), further challenging embattled Air Niugini on one of its prime revenue earning routes. The Australian regional carrier now plans to add two direct flights weekly between Cairns and PNG's second city, Lae, ...