Watchdog slams BA's air safety

[empip]

....According to aviation analysts, the criticism from the government's Air Accident Investigation Branch (AAIB) is unprecedented for an airline that has won a reputation for being one of the best maintained fleets in the world.......

unprecedented Now that is a very strong word.

Wonder what the statisticians have to say about this then?
I am thinking ...' the best maintained stuff' came from an analysis of the compiled statistical data, by whom for whom ?
They service other airlines too ...
BTW What is this an overnight happening? I should coco !!

BA employs 6,000 engineers, compared with 9,500 in 1995 but its fleet remains at a similar size as 10 years ago.

 

[Richardp]

“British Airways prides itself on safety and recognises that we are always ready to learn from incidents and encourage open transparent reporting

oh! well thats ok then I'm useing the train next time, I wonder how long it'll take to get to diggers rest

 

[empip]

“British Airways prides itself on safety and recognises that we are always ready to learn from incidents and encourage open transparent reporting

oh! well thats ok then I'm useing the train next time, I wonder how long it'll take to get to diggers rest

Some f'ing pride ... heard the rumblings before, taken over 2 yrs to get to here.

 

[AdamW]

BA employs 6,000 engineers, compared with 9,500 in 1995 but its fleet remains at a similar size as 10 years ago.

Ah, but how has the MTBF and service intervals of airliners changed in 10 years though? There are 2-engined airliners rated for transatlantic and transpacific duty for now, but 10 years ago the 777 was only just in service

ETOPS, my fine Pirrip!

You need less people to service 2-engined planes than to service 3 and 4-engined ones. Also more advanced diagnostics on newer avionics allow faults to be traced and resolved more easily.

 

[empip]

Oh you mean the old .... Engines Turn or Passengers Swim

Evidence of slipshod work in BA's maintenance hangars included:

A door ripping off a Boeing 777 at 6,000ft which gouged the fuselage and narrowly missed a couple walking below when it landed. Maintenance engineers had failed to check that the door was shut properly after an inspection.

Fuel gushing out of a hole in the fuel tank of a BA jet shortly after takeoff from Heathrow, leaving a two-mile vapour trail. The screws and cap that should have plugged the hole had been removed and left inside the fuel tank.

A Boeing 757 that responded abnormally to flight controls. Two of the jet's wing panels were found to have been left on a storage rack in a hangar by maintenance staff.

Pilots forced to put on oxygen masks and land their Boeing 757 as their cabin filled with oil fumes. Engineers were later confirmed to have put too much oil in the jet.
Whoops ! no one told them there were only two engines...
Accident investigators are also studying a flight to Budapest last October during which the air crew heard a clunking sound. Simultaneously, the flight deck went dark and the navigation display, flight display and autopilot all failed; although the cause has not yet been established.

The AAIB's concerns about the failures in BA's maintenance regime over the past three years are highlighted in a report on the Boeing 757 which took off in September 2003 without two wing panels.

The flight, from Heathrow to Paris, also suffered from oil fumes in the cabin, which was the initial reason why the crew decided to abort the flight. It was found that the engine oil had been serviced incorrectly.

As the captain prepared to land and the autopilot was disconnected, the plane started drifting to the right, forcing him to take corrective action.

The accident inspectors highlight similar failures with a BA flight from Gatwick to Antigua in June 2003 that lost an underwing maintenance door in mid-flight.

Ho hum, engines eh? Two engines or twenty two do not themselves make an airliner..... The facts must be pretty bad if a press release recounts the above...

.....In addition to operating aircraft which are appropriately type-rated, an operator who conducts ETOPS flights must satisfy his own country's aviation regulators about his ability to conduct ETOPS flights. This is called ETOPS operational approval and involves compliance with additional special engineering and flight crew procedures on top of the normal engineering and flight procedures. Pilots and engineering staff must be specially qualified and trained for ETOPS. An airline with extensive experience operating long distance flights may be awarded ETOPS operational approval immediately......

A lot of use looking at wonderous set of data concerning Mean time between failure When the cabin door is hanging off before ones unseeing eyes !

Perhaps they hand 'em green shield stamps as well as approval ...

 

[andy]

Subject: aircraft mechanics logbook
AIRCRAFT MAINTENANCE WRITE-UPS AND CORRECTIVE ACTION TAKEN
Never let it be said that ground crews and engineers lack a sense of
humor. Here are some actual logged maintenance complaints by
QANTAS pilots and the corrective action recorded by mechanics. By the
way Qantas is the only major airline that has never had an accident.

P stands for the problem the pilots entered in the log, and S
stands
for the corrective action taken by the mechanics.

P: Left inside main tire almost needs replacement.
S: Almost replaced left inside main tire.

P: Test flight OK, except autoland very rough.
S: Autoland not installed on this aircraft.

P: No. 2 propeller seeping prop fluid.
S: No. 2 propeller seepage normal. Nos. 1, 3 and 4 propellers
lack normal seepage.

P: Something loose in cockpit.
S: Something tightened in cockpit.

P: Dead bugs on windshield.
S: Live bugs on backorder.

P: Autopilot in altitude-hold mode produces a 200-fpm descent.
S: Cannot reproduce problem on ground.

P: Evidence of leak on right main landing gear.
S: Evidence removed.

P: DME volume unbelievably loud.
S: DME volume set to more believable level.

P: Friction locks cause throttle levers to stick.
S: That's what they're there for!

P: IFF inoperative.
S: IFF always inoperative in OFF mode.

P: Suspected crack in windscreen.
S: Suspect you're right.

P: Number 3 engine missing. (note: this was for a piston-engined
airplane; the pilot meant the engine was not running smoothly)
S: Engine found on right wing after brief search.

P: Aircraft handles funny.
S: Aircraft warned to straighten up, fly right, and be serious.

>P: Radar hums.
S: Reprogrammed radar with words.

P: Mouse in cockpit.
S: Cat installed.

 

[Big_Spark]

Andy.are they genuine..had me in stitches....

Do you have a link to them...

OBTW..QUANTAS have had accidents, they just haven't had a passenger die in one during the Jet era..

http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/stories/s69092.htm

 

[empip]

It is Qantas you know.
Hopefully not flying in a clapped out transporter...
All airlines have 'incidents' .. some more than others.

Passenger service .. SIA 1 fatal incident in near 30 yrs ... Qantas none.
They will all have logged 'incidents'.

 

[Big_Spark]

Pip..they have had FATAL accidents though..just because it was not a fare paying passenger that died does not mean it is not a fatal crash..OK I would rather this type of crash that one with a plane load of passengers any day..but it is wrong to say Quantas have a Non-Fatal record..

 

[AdamW]

Pip, I suppose there is no counting for idiots!

What I was getting at though, was that the number of crew may have been reduced because the servicing is less frequent and/or less involving... Although it doesn't matter how frequently you do it, if you do it wrong it's not a lot of use at 35,000 feet!

 

[Big_Spark]

I think what we all need to remember is that aircraft are extremely complex machines, people are extremely fallible and prone to oversights..mix the two together and sooner or later a few insignificant events will conspire together to form an incident.

Of course all checks and balances need to reduce human errors to a minimum, but we can never remove them compeletly..and it only takes a human error to coincide with a structural or similar failure and we have an accident or serious incident..

The key is to continue the process of learning from them and improving the machinery, training and checks..

But so long as humans use machines, machines will fail and people willdie as a result..mores the pity.

 

[empip]

I would be interested to see reports on any Jet crashes (main carrier only no subsidaries) resulting in loss of life with regard to Qantas... Or Singapore Airlines, apart from the Taiwan 'wrong runway' debacle for the latter.

Incidents and accidents
It is often claimed, most notably in the movie Rain Man, that Qantas has never had a fatal crash. However, the company's official line is that it has never lost a jet aircraft. Prior to the jet era, Qantas had fatal crashes. One was on 16 July 1951, when De Havilland Drover VH-EBQ crashed in New Guinea after an engine failure, killing all 7 passengers and crew. Other fatal accidents occurred in 1927, 1934, 1942, 1943 (2), and 1944. Qantas' record in the jet era was spotless until Boeing 747-400 VH-OJH over-ran the runway by 220 metres while landing in a rainstorm at Bangkok in 1999. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/456110.stm There were no fatalities; however, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau criticised numerous inadequacies it alleged in Qantas' operational and training processes. http://www.atsb.gov.au/atsb/media/mrel008.cfm Repairs to the nine-year-old aircraft cost in excess of A$100 million and it was suggested at the time that this expense was to solely avoid a hull-loss being recorded, a claim Qantas denied. The following year a 747-300 was damaged when its landing gear collapsed while taxiing at Rome.

 

[empip]

Pip, I suppose there is no counting for idiots!

What I was getting at though, was that the number of crew may have been reduced because the servicing is less frequent and / or less involving... Although it doesn't matter how frequently you do it, if you do it wrong it's not a lot of use at 35,000 feet!

Easy to say, I do not think anyone would make such mistakes unless being chased for time ... Inadequate supervision ? Perhaps 'self certification' of work performed ... bring back the Inspector, if he has disappeared.
I do not think ETOPS really is such a big issue, although it is suggested that more is involved, on a particular aircraft type, rather than less... Isn't it just concerned really, with 'doing the job properly?' I mean why would one not monitor oil consumption against hours and investigate a change in that? we should do so with our cars.
Why 'not have' a crew repair a system and its backup, because they may make the same mistakes on both? the independent Inspector would probably solve that problem, together with using spares from different deliveries .. Oh, dear now we cut across the JIT process, we need carry more spares..
....and involves compliance with additional special engineering and flight crew procedures on top of the normal engineering and flight procedures. Pilots and engineering staff must be specially qualified and trained for ETOPS. An airline with extensive experience operating long distance flights may be awarded ETOPS operational approval immediately......
That final sentence may be crucial too ...

ETOPS, in the finality probably encourages things to be done right .. We, as passengers and innocent bystanders deserve that as a minimum.

 

[Big_Spark]

I would be interested to see reports on any Jet crashes (main carrier only no subsidaries) resulting in loss of life with regard to Qantas... Or Singapore Airlines, apart from the Taiwan 'wrong runway' debacle for the latter.

I know you say you don't wish to include it, but a fatal crash is a fatal crash..

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2000/nov2000/air-07n.shtml

However checking the Aircrash site..which has a wealth of information.. neither Singapore nor Qantas have hads a fatal passenger crash since 1970.

Further checking shows that whilst Qantas has 11 major incidents, 6 of which resulted in total aircraft loss, only two of these had fatalities, the last in 1968 and both these incidents involved Transport Aircraft. In one incident a Pan AM 727 passed too close on a runway and hit the Qantas Jet (A Super Constellation), parts from this aircraft fell off and hit ground crew, one of which died as a result of injuries sustained.

The second incident involved a private aircraft which crossed the path of a Qantas Transport (727) whilst landing. The two collided, killing all four people on the private aircraft and seriously injuring the Qantas crew as the landing gear collapsed and the plane caught fire and was a total loss.

From what I have found out, Qantas should be a little paranoid as they appear to be the unlucky victim of others mistakes, with the exception of 1 incident involving their staff, all their aircraft damage has resulted from other aircraft or natural incidents striking their aircraft or cutting into their path..One aircraft was a Total loss when Pinatubo erupted and the aircraft was in a hanger for maintenance..the hanger collapsed due to volcanic ash, doing enough damage to the airframe to write it off..

 

[andy]

Andy.are they genuine..had me in stitches....

im not sure if there genuine or not. someone sent me them a few years ago