Brent Hannon/HONG KONG
MALAYSIA AIRLINES is seeking to be launch customer for AlliedSignal Aerospace's new enhanced ground-proximity warning system (EGPWS) on the Boeing 777. There may not be time, however, to incorporate the system into aircraft in production.
Malaysia has requested a change to its 777 contract, to enable the EGPWS to be installed as part of the avionics suite. Boeing says that it is attempting to respond to the request, but, with the first of Malaysia's 15 aircraft due for delivery in May 1997, it may be too late to incorporate the change, at least on the early aircraft.
The new system relies on a digital database, which stores and displays terrain relative to the aircraft's height. Mountains below the aircraft appear as a series of yellow or green dots, while mountains above the level of the aircraft appear as red dots and are accompanied by a verbal warning.
Sales of the EGPWS were given a boost by the crash of an American Airlines Boeing 757 in December 1995 in Colombia, a controlled-flight-into-terrain accident which might have been avoided if an EGPWS had been fitted.
"We ran a simulation with the American Airlines 757," says J T Foo, AlliedSignal's regional manager for marketing, sales and service. "If it had been equipped with the EGPWS, it would have avoided the collision," he adds.
Source: Flight International
