All Ops & safety articles – Page 1327
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Angola accident
A 31-year-old Angolan Air Charter Boeing 727-100F (D2-TJC) crash-landed at Lukapa, Angola inbound from the country's capital, Luanda, on 15 August. There are no confirmed reports about the circumstances, but no-one on board the cargo flight is believed to have been seriously injured. Source: Flight International
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Load shift?
US National Transportation Safety Board investigators are focusing on a possible rearward load-shift of untethered cargo as a cause of the 7 August accident to a Fine Air McDonnell Douglas DC-8-61F at Miami, Florida. Controllers reported that the aircraft pitched up to an angle of some 60¼ almost immediately after ...
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Bombardier proposes Dash 8-300X flightdeck upgrade
Bombardier is showing customers an upgrade of the 50-seat Dash 8-300, which incorporates the Sextant Avionique glass-cockpit suite being introduced on the new 70-seat Dash 8-400. The move would be in line with the Canadian company's moves to achieve a common type-rating across its turboprop family. The upgrade, ...
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Tests complete on first 'Block 4' GE90
Boeing has completed flight and performance tests of the first 777-200IGW (increased gross weight) powered by the "Block 4" variant of the General Electric GE90-90B turbofan. The aircraft is being refurbished at the company's Everett site in Washington before delivery to Lauda Air in late September. ...
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Cathay will re-engine entire 747-400 fleet
Hong Kong Aero Engine Services (HAESL) will ship Cathay Pacific Airway's first hybrid Rolls-Royce RB211-524G/H-T engine to Boeing in early September for flight certification, following agreement to modify the airline's entire fleet of 21 747-400s. HAESL is now modifying the first -524G and plans to run the engine ...
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Dash 8-400 favourite at SAS
Kevin O'Toole/Stockholm An official announcement on the selection of a new 70-seat turboprop for the SAS Commuter fleet is imminent, says the Scandinavian airline, with an order expected for as many as 20 Bombardier de Havilland Dash 8-400s, to be used alongside the existing Saab 2000 50-seaters. ...
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GATX Airlog close to returning reworked cargo 747s to use
Graham Warwick/WASHINGTON DC Two airlines have started work to return to service two Boeing 747 freighters grounded in mid-1996, when the US Federal Aviation Administration imposed load restrictions on the GATX Airlog cargo conversion. Airlog says that work to recertificate the conversion is "about 80% complete" ...
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Mesa Air regional-jet operation experiences a sluggish start
Mesa Air Group says that its Texas-based regional-jet operation, started in May with two Bombardier Canadair Regional Jets (CRJs), is growing more slowly than anticipated. Marketing of the initial Fort Worth-Houston service is being intensified, and Fort Worth-San Antonio flights will be added in September, with a San Antonio-Colorado Springs ...
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Cathay to place orders with Airbus and Boeing
Paul Lewis/SINGAPORE Cathay Pacific Airways is planning to place orders for up to 20 additional new Airbus Industrie and Boeing widebody aircraft, as part of a large-scale expansion of its international operations. The airline is opening up the engine side of the competition to all three potential suppliers. ...
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Japanese consortium prepares plans to launch regional airline
An Okinawa-based Japanese business consortium is drawing up plans to launch an airline within three years, to operate domestic routes and, possibly, international services in the longer term. A group of 32 island investors led by Okinawa Electric Power has established a new company called Southern Cross to ...
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United buys time for regional-jet deal with Atlantic Coast Airlines
United Airlines has agreed to reimburse the aircraft-lease and flight-crew costs for Atlantic Coast Airlines' (ACA) Bombardier Canadair Regional Jets (CRJ) until the end of the year, giving the carrier more time to reach an agreement with its pilots . ACA had planned to begin an independent regional-jet ...
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AOPA safety arm funds research
Research into a novel high-lift device is being funded by a ground-breaking grant from the US Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association's (AOPA) Air Safety Foundation. The research grant has been awarded to Wichita State University in Kansas to conduct computational fluid-dynamic analysis and windtunnel testing to validate the "Nahas wing" ...
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Qantas steps up battle to cut costs and raise yields
Kevin O'Toole/LONDONPaul Phelan/CAIRNS Qantas chairman Gary Pemberton, unveiling a modest increase in profits for 1996/7, has warned that the carrier will have to step up its drive to cut costs and improve yields if it is to have a chance of further improvements over the coming financial year. ...
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Beriev prototype crashes at show
Beriev's Be-103 prototype crashed on 18 August during a familiarisation flight over the Zhukovski aerodrome in Moscow just before the start of the show. The twin-engined multi-purpose Be-103 amphibian was first flown on 15 July and had had a further 18 flights during the first month of testing. ...
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ValuJet crash blamed on total US safety-oversight failure
Ramon Lopez/WASHINGTON DC The cause of the ValuJet Airlines McDonnell Douglas DC-9-32 crash on 11 May, 1996, was failure by the US aviation-safety system to keep hazardous material off a commercial transport aircraft, according to the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) official accident report. ValuJet, the Federal ...
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Europe's B-RNAV plans in 'chaotic mess'
Julian Moxon/PARIS The attempt to introduce the new basic radio-navigation (B-RNAV) standards into European airspace by January 1998 has been termed a "chaotic mess" by the avionics industry as it faces a last-minute change of speciÌcation from the European Joint Aviation Authorities (JAA). B-RNAV avionics will be required to enable ...
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Europe's B-RNAV plans in 'chaotic mess'
Julian Moxon/PARIS The attempt to introduce the new basic radio-navigation (B-RNAV) standards into European airspace by January 1998 has been termed a "chaotic mess" by the avionics industry as it faces a last-minute change of specification from the European Joint Aviation Authorities (JAA). B-RNAV avionics will ...
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GosNIIAS signs up to produce Collins TCAS modules
Rockwell Avionics & Communications has signed a co-production agreement with the Russian State Research Institute for Aviation Systems (GosNIIAS), for the production and testing in Moscow of components for the Collins traffic-alert and collision-avoidance system (TCAS). Under the agreement, GosNIIAS will produce key modules of the Collins TPR-900 ...
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KLM pursues European plans
Kevin O'Toole/LONDON KLM says that it will continue to press ahead with plans to increase its presence across Europe, having signed its latest partnership deal with Norway's Braathens SAFE- backed with a 30%equity stake. KLM, which took full control of Air UK earlier this year and ...
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Guam probe reveals US MSAW problems
Software errors have been found and corrected on the minimum-safe-altitude warning (MSAW) systems at three US airports, the US Federal Aviation Administration has revealed. The MSAW alerts air-traffic controllers when an aircraft equipped with a Mode C transponder descends below minimum safe altitude during a landing approach. The ...