All Ops & safety articles – Page 95
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NewsATR gear door hit wing root after in-flight separation
French investigators have determined that a Hop ATR 42-500 sustained serious damage after a lost nut caused a main landing-gear door to separate during descent to Aurillac. The turboprop (F-GPYF) had departed Paris Orly on 25 March 2018, with 48 passengers and three crew members. As it descended through 18,000ft ...
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NewsSubtle thrust-lever shift may have caught out Sriwijaya 737 crash crew
Preliminary findings from the Sriwijaya Boeing 737-500 crash probe increasingly support an in-flight upset scenario in which the crew was suddenly caught out by the insidious development of an asymmetric thrust condition. No conclusions have been drawn over the 9 January accident. But the highly-unusual retardation of a single throttle ...
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NewsThrust lever asymmetry emerges in Sriwijaya 737 crash inquiry
Indonesian investigators will focus their attention on the autothrottle system of a Sriwijaya Air Boeing 737-500 that crashed into the sea minutes after taking off from Jakarta, after revealing a thrust-lever asymmetry developed during the flight.
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NewsNo evidence Ukraine aware of threat before MH17 shot down: analysis
Independent analysis has found no evidence that Ukrainian authorities were aware of the threat to high-altitude traffic, and specifically civil aviation, before a Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777-200ER was shot down by a surface-to-air missile. This is despite Ukrainian national security officials’ openly floating the possibility that high-powered weapons might have ...
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NewsAirbus intends ETOPS for BelugaXL to support transatlantic operations
Airbus is to seek extended twin-engined operations (ETOPS) approval for the BelugaXL outsize transporter, in order to support commercial services involving overwater flights. Three BelugaXLs, based on the A330, have been built, the most recent introduced in October 2020. Another three will be manufactured, the last two of which will ...
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NewsSriwijaya 737-500 'slowly' turned left before entering fatal descent
Components of the crashed Sriwijaya Air Boeing 737-500 including the flight-control computer, autothrottle computer, and autothrottle actuator assembly are undergoing examination, a Indonesian parliamentary commission has heard. The commission held a session on 3 February during which various representatives involved in the inquiry provided preliminary information on the flight and ...
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NewsCollins’ dogfighting training system flies on US Navy F/A-18E Super Hornet
The US Navy has completed the first in-flight test of Collins Aerospace’s Tactical Combat Training System II (TCTS II), a system that could become the brains behind future large-scale virtual dogfights.
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NewsRobin pilots warned over carbon monoxide risk from swapped heater ducts
Operators of Robin DR400 light aircraft are being warned that a possible misfitting of ducts on the type could lead to the pilot becoming intoxicated by carbon monoxide ingestion. One in-service occurrence has emerged of the cabin-heater and carburettor-heater ducts on a DR400/120 model having been wrongly installed on the ...
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NewsSummit amends Dornier 228 ice procedures after dual-engine flame-out
Canadian operator Summit Air Charters has modified icing procedures after an incident in which both engines on a Dornier 228 flamed out just after take-off on a service to Yellowknife. The turboprop had been departing the remote Cahcho Kue in the Northwest Territories on 19 January, according to a Transport ...
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NewsHow the appeal of vintage flight helped solve the Alps crash puzzle
With its unusual historic triple engine sound and vintage appearance, the Junkers Ju 52 would have been as anachronistic as it was distinctive and engaging to those capturing its passage through the Alps with high-resolution mobile-phone cameras. But the appeal of the pre-war aircraft to onlookers combined with a technological ...
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NewsNew Spanish facility of BAA Training to offer 737 Max simulators
Pilot-training organisation BAA Training is intending to introduce Boeing 737 Max simulation devices at its Spanish facility over the course of this year. The company says the Barcelona centre will be introducing a Max full-flight simulator in April, and complement this with a flight-training device in the fourth quarter. With ...
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NewsCrashed Ju 52 was poorly-maintained and not airworthy: inquiry
Swiss investigators have determined that a Junkers Ju 52 was not fit to fly, having been poorly maintained, before it spiralled into the ground after stalling during a sightseeing flight in the Alps. But the inquiry believes that – despite being “not airworthy in a physical or formal sense” – ...
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NewsJu 52 fatal crash probe uncovers atrocious catalogue of safety violations
Swiss investigators have concluded, in a damning inquiry, that a Junkers Ju 52 on a pleasure flight stalled after the crew flew it into a narrow valley at low altitude, at a dangerously low airspeed and with its centre-of-gravity out of limits. The crew intended to exit the valley via ...
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NewsControlling out-of-trim 737 Max will not require ‘exceptional’ strength
Critical to pilots’ acceptance of the Boeing 737 Max’s re-entry into service is the assurance that a serious out-of-trim situation can be easily resolved without the risk of manual controls becoming impossible to manipulate owing to aerodynamic forces. Not only will aircraft need to be modified but Max simulators will ...
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NewsUkraine seeks to ban overflights by Pobeda and other Russian carriers
Ukraine’s government has approved a proposal to sanction 13 Russian companies, including several airlines which will face a three-year ban on overflying Ukrainian territory. The measure is continuing evidence of the political tensions between the two countries whose relationship deteriorated after the Russian annexation of Crimea nearly seven years ago. ...
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NewsUK regulator clears 737 Max for flight
UK regulators have, as expected, approved the Boeing 737 Max for return to service, publishing a separate airworthiness directive to the European Union Aviation Safety Agency. This separate publication follows the UK’s exit from EASA membership as it completed its withdrawal from the European Union on 1 January. But the ...
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NewsBoeing 737-10 processes to undergo revision after EASA’s Max scrutiny
One crucial consequence of the Boeing 737 Max scrutiny is that development and certification work for the 737-10 will differ substantially from that of the earlier Max variants. Extensive analysis by the US FAA and European Union Aviation Safety Agency following the Max grounding two years ago has led not ...
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NewsEASA yet to approve 737 Max for certain precision approaches
Operators of the Boeing 737 Max in Europe will be prohibited from conducting certain precision approaches until regulators are satisfied that the aircraft can maintain the necessary performance under specific failure conditions. While the European Union Aviation Safety Agency has cleared the 737 Max to return to service, it has ...
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NewsEASA formally clears 737 Max to resume operations
Europe’s air safety authority has formally cleared the Boeing 737 Max to return to service with the publishing of a finalised airworthiness directive. The European Union Aviation Safety Agency published the document on 27 January, following a consultation period which closed on 22 December last year. EASA executive director Patrick ...
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NewsHaste appears pivotal to E-11A crash pilots’ engine misidentification
Military investigators have signalled that haste was a contributing element to a Bombardier E-11A crew’s incorrectly identifying a failed engine and, in response, mistakenly shutting down the functioning one. The E-11A, a US Air Force (USAF) version of the Global 6000 executive jet, crashed some 21nm (39km) short of the ...