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Identificação de DNA no caso do voo 447 da Air France. Ótimo… agora vem a Escolha de Sofia.

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    Where There’s Smoke, There’s Fire. Where There’s Fire, Will There Be Passengers?

    George’s Point of View

    The biggest consequence in this Trent 900 engine brouhaha may be the Rolls Royce reputation.

    While the company’s engineering skills have not suddenly degraded overnight, confidence in Rolls Royce certainly has. If, as the Australian Transport Safety Bureau says, the internal fire in the notorious (Qantas owned) Trent 900 engine is the result of an internal engine oil leak at 1,000°C at high pressure, the endangerment of 440 passengers and 26 crew may have been preventible, given that there seems to have been fore-knowlege (by Rolls Royce) of a 1st generation manufacturing defect in a pipe coupling. As the 3rd generation versions of the engine no longer sport the same problem, the issue was recognized prior to the explosion, and dealt with.

    The failure to communicate a potential problem to Qantas before the engine fire, and for that matter, to owners of all affected 1st and 2nd generation products (Singapore Airlines and Lufthansa), goes beyond a communications failure and inches toward negligence. And the practical concern now is that irregardless of whether the specific factor was a manufacturing defect or fatigue, how swift and responsible will Rolls Royce be in corrective action, aggressive inspection schedules and reconfiguring a maintenance paradigm that gets A380s back on track?

    Time will tell. Also, only time will tell if this engine explosion will be contained within the auspices of Rolls Royce; Qantas, Singapore Airlines and Lufthansa. In fact, Rolls Royce is not alone in its sub-culture of secrecy and non-reportage and disclosure. Will the teetering public confidence in aviation safety will be irrevocably compromised in the days to come?

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    Jato derrapa em Congonhas


    AVIAÇÃO
    Jato derrapa em Congonhas | 14:58

    Um problema na hora da decolagem de um jatinho King Air no aeroporto de Congonhas pode atrapalhar os horários de pousos e decolagens da tarde e da noite de hoje. O jato, que pertence a rede de drogarias Ultrafarma, derrapou na hora da decolagem e bateu num muro. Foi o que na linguagem técnica do setor é chamado de ‘decolaem abortiva, ou seja, quando o jato ia decolar o piloto decidiu parar o procedimento, após detectar probelmas.
    O piloto, o co-piloto e um passageiro foram removidos de ambulância. Mas os ferimentos foram leves. E a pista do aeroporto está interditada.

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    Southwest Airlines: Hole in fuselage


    Click to view full size photo at Airliners.net
    Contact Photographer Tim Perkins

    What: Southwest Airlines 737 en route from Nashville to Baltimore
    Where: Charleston’s Yeager Airport
    When: 6:30 p.m Monday July 13
    Who: 126 passengers and five crew
    Why: While en route, the cabin depressurized when a hole (metal fatigue?) approximately the size of a football appeared in the fuselage. The plane managed to land safely in Charleston West Virginia. The NTSB is investigating.

    (News photos don’t look football sized, but it is sure big enough to see plenty of daylight through.)

    George’s Point of View

    The 737 is a true workhorse, built to land and takeoff almost without too much delay except to load and unload passengers.

    I fly Southwest to Las Vegas all the time. It’s a short hop.

    I must admit, that every time I fly in one of these planes I have begun to worry about the age and/or the fatigue of the structure. A trip like one from LA to Vegas, most times, is a beating on the passengers and the plane itself. My guess is that 4 out of 5 of these short trips encounter turbulence, sometimes bad turbulence. This beats up the plane. In this case, the plane being beaten up was manufactured in 1994. That’s a lot of years of turbulence abuse. Metal fatigue in these conditions is not surprising, and neither is it completely unexpected. An inspection on this plane last January revealed eight cracks in the frame that required repairs.

    I’m just glad it was a BOEING, and that the pilot remained in control of the aircraft. And of course, it’s a good thing that Southwest is now inspecting all of their planes for fatigue. Last year Southwest was fined $7.5 million for overdue inspections. I hope this is not going to be a repeat of last year. All the timely inspections in the world aren’t going to make this plane any younger. Maybe it’s time to put this particular plane out to pasture.

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    Compensation after Fifteen Years

    I know I’ve said before how cases take a long time. Sometimes they drag on in unexpected ways. Take for example the LAPA case. On August 31 1999 Líneas Aéreas Privadas Argentinas scheduled Flight 3142 (LV-WRZ) to fly Buenos Aires–Córdoba with a hundred and one persons aboard. The twenty-nine year old Boeing 737-204C failed to get in the air because the flight crew forgot to put the flaps in the appropriate position for flight. Instead of shooting into the air, the plane sped through the perimeter fence, across a street, struck a car and collided with a median and machinery on the road.

    The accident took sixty-five lives, two of them not even on the plane. Forty aboard were injured, seventeen of them seriously. NTSB records say there were 80 fatalities and 21 minor injuries.

    That’s what is widely known. What many do not know is that after the accident, nine families were given the wrong bodies. Those bodies were exhumed, checked, delivered to the correct families, and reburied at the cost of Argentina’s First Chamber of the House. The financial cost associated with all of this was covered. Not the emotional cost.

    Three of those families affected will be compensated 100 thousand dollars plus interest.

    In my heart of hearts, I do believe no amount of money can ever compensate for the wear and tear on the families due to the mix-up, even if at the time, the hasty mistake was well-meaning (or expedited due to politics.) Can you imagine what the families went through, seeing the resting places disturbed, then having to endure new funerals? It must have been like losing them more than once—refreshing the whole misery of loss a multiple of times. I cannot help but wonder about the families who were not compensated. I wonder if it has been so long that there is no one left to pay.

    This can be of no assurance to the families of Malaysia Airlines flight 370. It is further proof that aviation crash cases do take a long time. Tragedy is tragedy. There is no best case scenario in a tragedy.

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  • Air France: Blithe Unconcern, Unconcern or something more?

    At Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris, the memorial dedicated to the victims of flight 447 will have its grand opening. Family members of those lost in the crash are invited.

    Sometimes Air France displays a disturbing lack of propriety, even when they’re doing their public best to appear sensitive and thoughtful.

    Case in point: Generously, Air France provided tickets to the family members of the victims of Flight 447 , the flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris, that final notorious, fatal flight which disappeared into the Atlantic Ocean on 1 June 2009, killing all 216 passengers and 12 crew members.

    Guess which flight Air France put the grieving families on? Flight AF445 on an Airbus aircraft–it is, in fact, exactly the same flight as the one which killed their family members. (“447” was discontinued; “445” is the current designation for the same flight.)

    The victim association is intending to rebook on Boeing flights.

    It’s difficult to figure out, impartially, what is going on in the heads of Air France management. Are they deliberately ignoring the 400 lb gorilla in the room? (Actually, they’re planning to replace the 400 lb gorilla—the Airbus A330-200— with an even bigger model, the A340. Essentially replacing the 400 lb gorilla with a 500 lb gorilla… but I digress.)

    Meanwhile, the families agonize over the details: would the plane have crashed if the pitot tubes had been replaced with another model? Or if the pitot tubes had been maintained properly? And how can Air France possibly expect them to set foot on a plane–especially the same flight as the one that carried their family members to their deaths?

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    ATR De-Icing


    Ice is the friend of no plane.

    But there was no excuse for the icing problem on the UTAir flight that we are calling the Tyumen crash.

    On that flight, both Pratt & Whitney Canada PW124 engines were operating till impact. The plane reached 690 feet and banked 35 degrees to the right, then rolled left banking at 50 degrees, demonstrating instability in the roll axis. Why? Ice.

    The ATR 72 had a decent safety record until the 1993 icing incident that caused a fatal crash. This problem was handled by Avions de Transport Regional, the planes designers, by adapting the icing characteristics of the aircraft. They added icing boot extensions to the wing leading edges. (A deicing boot is a ice protection system installed on aircraft surfaces to permit a mechanical deicing in flight.)

    The UTAIr 72 was not de-iced at Tyumen before the fatal flight. There’s not much benefit to adding a safety feature if it is ignored.

    The ATR 72-210 is equipped with PW 127 engines with a maximum certified takeoff rating of 2750 SHP, and a normal power rating of 2475 SHP. The ATR 72 employs a four bladed propeller. The engine has a reduction gearbox assembly . Because the ATR 72-210 is “stretched” ( much longer than the 42s) ATR 42 pilots are warned about taking off an ATR 72 with too excessive a takeoff pitch angle, which would cause the tail would strike the runway. The ATR 72 has a maximum takeoff weight of 47,465 lbs., and carries 11,020 lbs. of fuel. The engine noise and vibration from the props can get uncomfortable.

    Most pilots would not need to be reminded that de-icing is essential when the conditions for ice are likely.

    The NTSB has investigated fifty icing accidents and 202 fatalities from 1998 to 2007. We might be able to conjecture that at least some of these incidents would not have happened if the planes had been properly de-iced to begin with, though for some this is too simplistic an assumption.

    There were fatal consequences to ATRs which ignored de-icing as demonstrated by the UTair ATR 72 that crashed after taking off from Tyumen in Siberia, killing 31 and mangling 12.

    After the disaster, UTAir said that all UTAir planes would henceforth have mandatory de-icing, a change from allowing the pilot to decide whether or not to deice.

    Icing has also been determined as the as cause of two earlier fatal ATR 72 crashes:

    • -Aerocaribbean Flight 883 crashed near Sancti Spiritus November 2010 killing 68 when the plane encountered extreme meteorological conditions that caused it to ice up at 6,100 meters.
    • -American Eagle Flight 4184 crashed killing 68 when in a holding pattern over Chicago encountering a supercooled cloud and rain causing ice which had built up on the wings.

    Icing can take place in a temperature band from minus 12 to plus 4 Celsius.

    We have seen a dozen ATR 72 accidents caused by other events:

    • July 2011-The Eurolot ATR 72 collided with a baggage truck in Warszawa-Frédéric Chopin Airport in Poland.
    • Nov 2009-The Kingfisher ATR 72 skidded off the runway on landing at Mumbai-Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport in India.
    • August 2009-The Bangkok Airways ATR 72 that skidded off the runway and struck the Koh Samui Airport ATC tower in Thailand.
    • Feb 2008-The Air Bagan ATR 72 that skidded off the runway on takeoff from Putao Airport in Myanmar.
    • July 2007-The Jet Airways ATR 72 made a heavy landing before the mid-point of the runway and bounced a couple of times before going off the runway at Indore Airport, India.
    • March 2006-The Air Deccan ATR 72 that made a landing at Bangalore Airport that was so hard, the new plane had to be sold as spare parts.
    • Aug 2005-The Tuninter ATR 72 ran out of fuel, both engines quit and the plane ditched in the sea killing 16.
    • March 2004-The American Eagle ATR 72 that made a bounced landing before skidded off the runway injuring 13 while landing at Luis Munoz International Airport, Puerto Rico.
    • Dec 2002-The Transasia Airways cargo flight that crashed into the ocean killing 2 crew.
    • Jan 1995-The cargo ATR 72 that crashed in Taiwan killing 4 crew.
    • Dec 1994-The Air Gabon ATR 72 skidded off the runway and struck trees while landing at Oyem Airport.
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