Airnews, December 2011
OOPS – BENT BEFORE EIS * (*Entry into service)..
ONE REALLY must have pity for the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. Not only was the first production aircraft delivery to launch customer All Nippon Airways (ANA) some three-and-a-half years behind schedule, but the brand spanking new airliner was “bent” within days of a razzmatazz delivery ceremony and before it even had a chance to make its first commercial flight.
This is just one of three “OOOPsies” reported to World Airnews during the past few weeks, two of which involved ANA and its Boeing fleet. These things, unfortunately, happen in the best of regulated families – remember the damage to the wingtip of the demo Airbus A380 at the last Paris Air Show when it struck a building while taxiing? In the Dreamliner incident, All Nippon Airways has admitted that its first Boeing 787 suffered some slight surface damage to one of its engine inlet cowls after it hit a passenger boarding bridge. The incident took place while ground crew were towing the aircraft after a crew training flight.
An airline spokesman explained that the Rolls-Royce Trent 1000-powered aircraft suffered only surface damage, and that it resumed regular flight tests the following day after the company did some minor
repairs and checks. “Everything was fine. There was only some surface damage, and the aircraft was
back in operation on schedule,” said the spokesman. The inaugural commercial flight for the 787 took place 12 days later. It was a special charter service between Tokyo’s Narita airport and Hong Kong. Regular scheduled services started at the beginning of last month, with daily flights between Tokyo’s Haneda Airport and the cities of Okayama and Hiroshima. International operations are due to begin in this month on the Haneda-Beijing route.
“AEROBATICS” AT 41 000 FEET
The Japanese Transport Safety Board has determined that the co-pilot of an ANA B737 scheduled flight from Naha to Tokyo did not suddenly have a hankering for doing some high altitude aerobatics, but instead had mistaken the cockpit door access knob for the rudder trim control which caused the aircraft to roll inverted.
The aircraft had been cruising at 41 000 feet during the September 6 flight when the incident occurred. Apparently, the captain had left the cockpit for a few minutes and when he tried to re-enter the cockpit, the co-pilot had inadvertently turned the rudder trim control knob instead of that for the cockpit door. The aircraft had been on autopilot at the time but the “black box” had recorded the left turn on the rudder
trim control knob.
Can you imagine the captain’s reaction, never mind that of the co-pilot, when the aircraft cruising on a heading of 052- degreees, suddenly went into a 35-degree pitch diving turn reaching a 132-degree left bank? The aircraft lost some 6 300 feet in altitude by the time the startled (and no doubt ashen-faced) co-pilot was able to get it back on a level keel on a heading of 257 degrees, some 105 degrees later.
The safety board reported that the aircraft achieved a speed of Mach 0,828 with a maximum G-force of 2,68. None of the 117 passengers and crew sustained anything but minor injuries and the aircraft returned to its original course and altitude and continued on its flight to Tokyo without further incident. It’s a pound-to-a-penny bet, though, that the co-pilot was told by the captain (once he had regained his seat) to sit on his hands and not touch anything else.
IF YOU WANT SOMETHING DONE….
Many has been the time that the phrase “If you want something done properly, do it yourself …” has been said, and this was certainly the case for the crew of a Fokker F.27 Friendship who tried to fly the aircraft
off the ground with an out-of-limits centre of gravity and ended up literally (no doubt) with mud on their respective faces 55- metres into the over-run of the main runway at a place called Moenchengladbach, in
Germany. Although the incident occurred some five years ago, the German accident investigation agency (BTU) only recently released its report on the incident.
Apparently, the aircraft had been undergoing maintenance work on its nosewheel and was to have left on a positioning flight to Cologne. Prior to takeoff, the crew had calculated that, in order to keep the aircraft within its weight and balance limits, it would need some 500 kg ballast (in the form of sandbags) placed in the rear-most freight compartment.
The crew gave the order for the ballast to be loaded and naturally assumed when they saw the piles of sand bags in the position required, that their order had been carried out. This was mistake Number One – never assumed anything. Mistake Number Two was to calculate the load and trim sheet based on what they had surmised was the full 500 kg ballast, which would have been correct, but ….
The aircraft accelerated down the 1 200- metre runway, but when it reached its rotation speed of 96 knots, nothing happened. The captain immediately aborted takeoff, but the aircraft still over-ran the runway by 55 metres before coming to rest in the soft turf. Later investigations revealed that the weight of ballast actually loaded was only 282 kg – 118 kg less than had been ordered. When the load and trim sheet were recalculated with this loading, it was found that the aircraft’s centre of gravity was well outside its forward limit. None of the three-man crew was injured and the aircraft itself sustained only minimal
damage. But it just goes to show, if you want something done properly, do it yourself.
[Home]
