All Safety News – Page 1453
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'Major disappointment': what O'Gorman wrote
Dear Ron United's 777 reliability and performance has been a major disappointment during the past few months. I am very concerned, and would like to ensure that Boeing and United are taking any and all actions necessary to fix these significant problems as soon as possible. The ...
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Japan to invest in airports
THE JAPANESE Government has approved plans to spend '3.6 trillion ($34 billion) on a series of airport projects, including a new airport at Kanto. The bulk of the funds - '2.83 trillion - has been earmarked for airport construction, but '200 billion has also been pledged for ...
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THE GE 747 testbed
THE SHEER SIZE AND extra capacity of General Electric's Boeing 747 test-bed gives it an obvious advantage over its smaller predecessors. "It is five, or even ten times, as efficient as the 707," comments Phil Schultz, GE flight-test organisation (FTO) chief pilot. "We can run five or six objectives in ...
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FltMaster offers low-cost simulation
REVOLUTIONARY, low-cost software designed to provide aerospace engineers with access to powerful simulation and visualisation tools has been unveiled by California-based Sight, Sound, & Motion. Its FltMaster is offered as a complete engineering system, consisting of advanced application software hosted on a graphics workstation. It allows aircraft to ...
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Japan gears up for US bilateral battle
Kevin O'Toole/TOKYO BATTLE LINES are being drawn up in Japan and the USA as pressure mounts on both sides of the Pacific for a renegotiation of the controversial passenger bilateral between the two countries. Although talks are now under way over a revised cargo agreement, ...
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ANZ optimistic of Ansett deal
Kevin O'Toole/LONDON AIR NEW ZEALAND (ANZ) remains optimistic that it can go ahead with the proposed deal with TNT to acquire up to half of Ansett Australia. The agreement with TNT, which owns half of Ansett together with News Corporation, is still under negotiation, but ...
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Private Qantas delivers on performance promise
QANTAS IS HOLDING its own, despite competition in international and domestic markets, says chairman Gary Pemberton, revealing the group's first financial figures, since it completed privatisation in mid-1995. Pemberton reports that Qantas pushed up profits by more than 15%, to A$148 million ($110 million) in the first half ...
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EMB-145 'exceeds expectations'
EMBRAER'S EMB-145 regional jet is performing better than predicted, the Brazilian manufacturer says. One prototype and two pre-series aircraft are now in flight-test and a fourth EMB-145, is scheduled to have been flown, by 20 March. Engineering director Luis Affonso says that the performance is exceeding specification because ...
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NASA orders inquiry into loss of Tethered Satellite
Tim Furniss/LONDON NASA HAS FORMED an independent panel to review the loss of the Italian Tethered Satellite (TSS 1R) from the Space Shuttle Columbia during the STS75 mission on 26 February. A report into its findings will be made available within 70 days. "Given the ...
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Northwest takes A320s and defers A330 deliveries
Ramon Lopez/WASHINGTON DC NORTHWEST AIRLINES has postponed and may eventually cancel delivery of 16 Airbus A330s in favour of acquiring 20 more A320s and hushkits for its 32 Boeing 727-200s and McDonnell Douglas DC-9-30s. The decision puts in doubt the US carrier's intentions of ever ...
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Inertial platform fault to blame for Chinese Long March crash
CHINA GREAT WALL Industry (CGWIC) says that telemetry data from its failed Long March 3B booster indicates that the control system's inertial-guidance platform failed T+2s after lift-off from Xichang on 14 February. The maiden flight of the LM3B carried the Intelsat 708, which was lost in the crash ...
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World accidents and incidents fell in 1995
PRELIMINARY statistics from the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) show that airline fatal accidents and security-related incidents declined in 1995. The scheduled airlines of the 184 contracting states of ICAO experienced 26 accidents involving passenger fatalities, compared with 28 fatal accidents in 1994. The number of fatalities came ...
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'Bitter' union conflicts force Sabena chairman to resign
SABENA CHAIRMAN and chief executive, Pierre Godfroid has resigned, to be replaced by Swissair executive Paul Reutlinger. Godfroid ran into a bitter dogfight between the management and the airline unions over a controversial restructuring plan involving a pay freeze and longer working hours. Two other senior Sabena managers have been ...
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BAe calls for Airbus restructuring
Kevin O'Toole/LONDON AIRBUS INDUSTRIE must start to rework its consortium structure and finances, before going ahead with the launch of a new A3XX large-aircraft project, says British Aerospace chief executive Dick Evans. There is little prospect of BAe approving a new Airbus programme "...unless there ...
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Research pinpoints non-precision risks
David Learmount/AMSTERDAM AIRLINES CARRYING out non-precision approach and landing procedures face a five-fold increase in the risk of a controlled-flight-into-terrain (CFIT) accident compared with precision approaches, according to research by the Netherlands' National Aerospace Laboratory (NLR). The Flight Safety Foundation (FSF), as part of its International ...
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Second Trent 777 returns to Seattle after testing
THE SECOND Rolls-Royce Trent 800-powered Boeing 777 was expected to return to Seattle on 1 March after undergoing 91 route sectors with Cathay Pacific Airways. Boeing is striving to achieve early extended-range twin-operations (ETOPS) clearance for the aircraft. By the end of February, the Trent 777 had undergone ...
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Recorder reveals clue to 757 crash
A FAULTY AIR-SPEED indicator has emerged as a possible factor in the 6 February crash of a Boeing 757-200 in the Caribbean, which claimed 189 lives. Dominican Republic accident investigators, aided by the US National Transportation Safety Board, say that data from the recently retrieved cockpit-voice recorder ...
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Lufthansa and United apply for anti-trust immunity in USA
LUFTHANSA AND United Airlines have applied for US anti-trust immunity to expand their strategic alliance. The move came just hours, after a new open-skies bilateral air accord was initialed, by US and German transport officials. Final signature on the bilateral is expected by the third quarter. German transport ...
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How open skies?
GERMANY HAS become the latest and largest catch in the US drive to sign up Europe to open skies. With this new bilateral safely initialed, the USA has now signed up 11 European nations to open skies, representing 40% of the region's air market. The deal marks ...
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Combi Saab 2000 nears certification
SAAB AIRCRAFT is hoping to complete development and certification of a passenger/cargo combi version of its Saab 2000 turboprop by the end of 1996, in an effort to boost flagging sales. The Swedish manufacturer is proposing two different basic combi configurations. The aircraft can be configured typically for ...