Qantas Airbus A380 fleet checked for cracks

February 9, 2012 Leave a comment

Qantas will inspect its fleet of Airbus A380s for cracks on its wings following a European directive, but the engineers union says it should have happened months ago.

The airline will check all 12 of its superjumbo jets for structural damage on parts inside the wings following directions from the European Aviation Safety Agency EASA.  The agency last month issued an airworthiness directive calling for “a detailed visual inspection” of the 20 planes that have flown the most, but that has now been extended to the entire fleet of 68.  A Qantas spokeswoman said the airline would “comply fully with the EASA directives” and begin inspections in the next few weeks.  But Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association ALAEA federal secretary Steve Purvinas said that while the inspections were necessary, they should have been made sooner.  Mr Purvinas said cracks were first discovered in the so-called “wing rib feet” — the metal brackets that connect the wings ribs to its skin — in several A380s in the global fleet months ago.”Weve been calling for these checks to take place for two months now,” Mr Purvinas said.  “It shouldnt have taken them two months to work out that these cracks are only going to get bigger, and the inspection should have been mandatory as its now been made.”

Senior aviation school lecturer at the University of NSW, Peter Marosszeky, said the checks were not cause for alarm, because the aircraft had only been flying internationally since 2007 and some were likely to have minor “teething problems”.Mr Marosszeky, also a former Qantas engineer, said the ordered checks on the aircraft were “an eminently sensible idea”.  He said cracks such as those discovered so far posed “no threat to safety”, and that routine checks meant it was “very unlikely” such cracks could worsen to the point of becoming dangerous.  However Mr Purvinas said the cracks were only first discovered by engineers carrying out repairs, and had not been picked up during routine checks.Qantas grounded one of its A380s on Sunday after 36 hairline cracks were discovered on its wings.  The plane was hit by severe turbulence last month on a flight from London to Singapore and seven people were injured.  Qantas said those cracks were “not related to the turbulence, or specific to Qantas”, but had been traced back to a manufacturing issue, and had no effect on flight safety.  It also said the type of cracking was different to cracking found on certain A380s in the global fleet.AAP

via Qantas Airbus A380 fleet checked for cracks.

Filed under News Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Jetstar botched landing at Melbourne Airport | Pilot pressure caused errors

December 13, 2011 2 Comments

Andrew Heasley – December 13, 2011

A JETSTAR Airbus A320 slipped to within 51 metres of the ground during a botched, aborted landing at Melbourne airport, as pilots fumbled with wrong flap settings and a cacophony of cockpit alarms, Australian Transport Safety Bureau investigators have found.

A sequence of mistakes on a July 28 evening flight from Newcastle to Melbourne left the pilot flying the plane – a cadet recruit with just 300 hours Airbus flying experience – overwhelmed. The captain sitting next to him was so busy trying to recover the situation that his capacity was also compromised.  On landing approach the plane was variously descending too fast, the flaps weren’t extended properly and an altitude alert went unheard by both pilots.  The first officer may have experienced ”cognitive overload”, Jetstar told investigators.  The captain reported a ”high workload” in supervising the first officer, ”reducing his cognitive capacity and situation awareness of the aircraft’s configuration”, the airline said.

At 75 metres, the captain realised the plane wasn’t configured properly for landing, just as the ground warning system sounded and a message on a screen flashed: ”Too Low Flap” – the flaps were on the wrong setting.  The captain called off the landing and the first officer throttled the engines to climb as a second terrain warning sounded.  Mentally overloaded, the first officer failed to reset the flaps, leaving it to the captain.  Compounding matters, another alarm went off due to an air conditioning fault.

The Australian and International Pilots Association had warned a Senate inquiry this year about the risk of fast-tracking inexperienced pilots to airline cockpits.  But a Jetstar spokeswoman yesterday defended its methods.  ”Any pilot who sits behind the controls of a Jetstar aircraft has the skills and qualifications to be there,” she said.  ”Go-arounds [aborted landings] are not uncommon and are a part of our systems of checks and balances for safe operations.”

In a separate incident, two Jetstar pilots made separate engine power calculation mistakes prior to take-off from Darwin for Bali on June 12.  The first power calculation was made with the incorrect aircraft weight, then with the wrong length of runway, compounded by a pilot short-cut to bookmark the wrong data table for cross checking the calculations by the second pilot.  Jetstar later told all pilots that take-off calculations have to be checked independently and the practice of bookmarking data tables ”must cease immediately”.

via Jetstar botched landing at Melbourne Airport | Pilot pressure caused errors.

Filed under News, Travel Tagged with , , , , , , , ,