All Safety News – Page 1207
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News
Workshop
Gemini Air Cargo has contracted Boeing Wichita and Israel Aircraft Industries to undertake freighter conversions of two leased ex-Varig McDonnell Douglas MD-11s. London Heathrow-based British Airways franchise operator British Mediterranean Airways has awarded Monarch Aircraft Engineering a four-year base maintenance contract for its three Airbus A320s. Overhaul specialist Triumph Air ...
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Traffic on the up
Preliminary International Civil Aviation Association results show traffic increased by 5% last year over 1998, and by 6% on international services, measured in tonne-kilometres. A 1998 slowdown saw traffic rise by 1%, with 1999's growth suggesting a move back towards the previous six years' 7% average. Source: Flight International
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Young will head Mars inquiry
Former Lockheed Martin executive Thomas Young has been appointed by NASA to lead the Mars Program Independent Assessment team. It will review the failures of the Mars Climate Orbiter (MCO), Mars Polar Lander (MPL) and the space agency's approach to robotic exploration. The MCO was lost on 23 September and ...
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Clear air ahead for turbulence detector
Honeywell aims to develop a system within three years that will be able to detect clear air turbulence (CAT), for which there are no predictive warning systems available. The company plans to certificate a combined microwave and infrared radar to detect all types of turbulence, including CAT. It has ...
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Urgent GE90 removal starts on worldwide 777-200 fleet
Guy Norris/LOS ANGELES Paul Lewis/WASHINGTON DC General Electric has begun removing the first of 90 GE90 engines from the worldwide Boeing 777-200 fleet after turbine blade separations caused two in-flight shutdowns and one turnback. The problems, all of which afflicted 777-200ERs operated by Saudi Arabian Airlines, were caused by ...
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Airports
The Netherlands Government has decided that the construction of an international airport on an offshore island to serve Amsterdam is not feasible. It will instead allow Schiphol Airport to be expanded. Aircraft movements will increase from 420,000 to 600,000 in 10 years, while a sixth runway will be constructed by ...
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Aerospace beats the Y2K bug
Airline, air traffic control and airport reports from around the globe show that the millennium bug has not caused any computer glitches. The exceptions have been with the control of some ageing satellites (see P17). International Air Transport Association (IATA) director general Pierre Jeanniot says: "No Y2K-related incidents were ...
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TWA looks at stretched 757s to replace ageing 767 fleet
Guy Norris/LONG BEACH TWA is "in discussion" over the possible acquisition of Boeing 757-300s as part of a fleetwide modernisation plan aimed at settling the composition of its narrowbodies for the next 10 years. The airline is considering the 240-seat twinjet as a replacement for its ageing 767-200 ...
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Two Cubana crashes add to sad year-end toll
David Learmount/LONDON A series of airline accidents has cast a shadow over the year-end holiday period, with Korean Air suffering its third hull loss in 1999 and Cubana having two fatal crashes within five days. The main accidents in the last days of 1999 include: 21 ...
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Instrument failure suspected in crash
David Learmount/LONDON A faulty attitude director indicator (ADI) on the captain's side appears to have been a major factor in the Korean Air (KAL) Boeing 747-200 freighter crash on 22 December near London Stansted Airport, UK, according to details in a UK Air Accident Investigation Branch (AAIB) interim bulletin. ...
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Unhappy month
December 1999 was an unhappy month for airline safety in a year which has been better than most. In the last four weeks of 1999 there were eight fatal accidents involving airlines as diverse as small regional operators flying twin turboprops to majors flying widebodies. With Korean Air's Boeing ...
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Late rash mars safer than average year
Despite the rash of serious airline accidents in December which made 1999 appear a bad year for safety, initial figures indicate that last year was safer than average for the 1990s. The number of crew and passenger deaths in all categories of airliner worldwide was 730, compared with a decade ...
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777-100X revived to counter A330 at Singapore Airlines
Paul Lewis/WASHINGTON DC Guy Norris/LOS ANGELES Boeing is looking at reviving the shelved 777-100X shrink derivative as a counter to Airbus Industrie's A330-200 and its proposed -100 variant ahead of an expected Singapore Airlines (SIA) request for proposals (RFP) for an A310 replacement. SIA is expected to release ...
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BA studies CityFlyer transfer in Gatwick route shake-up
Chris Jasper/LONDON Andrew Doyle/MUNICH British Airways is considering a radical restructuring of its London Gatwick-based operations that would see all routes of less than 800km (430nm) - or around 35% of services - transferred to its CityFlyer subsidiary. The move, among several under consideration, aims to exploit the lower ...
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Satcoms progress
Back in the 20th century, they said people would not want telephones on airliners; that they did not wish to be contactable while they dozed in comfort or ate a fine meal. How times have changed. In the 21st century, passengers slip on virtual reality glasses and join the crew ...
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Free flight and beyond
Increased automation of air traffic management, on the ground and in the air, will be a driving force for future change Like a colossus, the controller walks around her sector, keeping watch on arrivals and departures in the terminal area. Around her a myriad of miniaturised aircraft, holographically replicated ...
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Flight of fantasy
Airline operations in the 21st century will be conducted in an integrated information environment, linking passengers, cabin and cockpit crew with the ground The airliner passenger cabin and the flightdeck are getting closer technologically. No longer are capabilities exclusively designed for the cockpit, with applications increasingly being found in ...
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In the year of the dragon
Asia-Pacific's airline presidents were in more relaxed mood as they gathered for their annual assembly. Kevin O'Toole looks at the brighter figures which are fuelling their optimism. What a difference a year can make. When Asia-Pacific airline presidents met for their annual assembly a year ago in Manila, most were ...
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Clean and lean
Environmental issues and the demands of safety and reliability drive airliner design as much as technology Ever since the first powered machines flew at the start of the 20th century, aviation has been driven by the quest to improve aircraft efficiency. With extraordinary persistence, often surmounting seemingly impossible technical barriers, ...
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China tax threatens leasing company growth
A new Chinese tax on aircraft operating leases is emerging as a potential threat to leasing companies hoping to profit from expectations that China's airline industry will grow at a faster-than-average rate over the next 20 years. The new withholding tax was quietly introduced by the Chinese Government, effective ...