Post by corsair67 on Jan 2, 2006 12:18:00 GMT 12
This is an article which appeared in The Sunday Times (UK) about concerns being raised by British Air Safety authorities about the maintainence standards of British Airways aircraft.
Sorry about the length of the article. I was going to edit the article down and add the website address for the full text, but the link wouldn't work!
Watchdog slams BA’s air safety
January 01, 2006.
BRITISH AIRWAYS jets have suffered mid-air failures because of “systemic” problems with their maintenance, air accident investigators have revealed.
After inquiries into four mid-air incidents, the investigators say that there are safety problems that may be “widespread within the organisation”. They warn that it appears that shoddy working practices are accepted as the norm by some maintenance staff.
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.
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.
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.
They say the failure to check that the wing panels were installed on the Paris flight “seems not to have been an isolated case, but more symptomatic of the existing culture”.
They add: “Ineffective supervision of maintenance staff had allowed working practices to develop that had compromised the level of airworthiness control and had become accepted as the ‘norm’. Maintenance errors were not the result of wilful negligence, or any desire to perform a less than satisfactory job, but the result of a combination of systemic issues that had increased the probability of an error being committed.”
David Learmount of Flight International magazine said: “I’ve never seen a report like this before from the AAIB. They are saying, ‘It has already happened once and you’re still screwing up’. There’s no excuse for what has happened.”
A flight from Heathrow to Istanbul in November 2003 also reported oil fumes in the cabin; the plane flight from London Heathrow to Budapest. The captain flew on using manual control and peered through the cockpit window at the night-time horizon to keep the wings level.
The crew sent out a mayday call but they could not be heard because the radio had also failed. Most of the systems were restored after about two minutes and the flight continued to Budapest. Maintenance staff checked the plane on landing but could not find the fault and did not stop it flying. The plane was withdrawn from service for exhaustive checks only after the AAIB was informed of the mid-air emergency.
BA employs 6,000 engineers, compared with 9,500 in 1995 but its fleet remains at a similar size as 10 years ago.
BA said it took the AAIB’s latest report “very seriously”. Captain Rod Young, head of safety at BA, said: “The airline accepts the AAIB’s recommendations, which identified factors in the maintenance process which led to this incident (in September 2003). These factors were immediately rectified by February 2004 following the airline’s own investigation which was carried out in parallel with the AAIB’s investigation.
“British Airways prides itself on safety and recognises that we are always ready to learn from incidents and encourage open transparent reporting.”
BA reviewed procedures to provide clearer instructions and clearly define the role of each engineer. Maintenance staff had also changed procedures for serving engine oil to prevent over-filling.
Insight: Gareth Walsh, Jon Ungoed-Thomas and Jonathan Calvert
Sorry about the length of the article. I was going to edit the article down and add the website address for the full text, but the link wouldn't work!
Watchdog slams BA’s air safety
January 01, 2006.
BRITISH AIRWAYS jets have suffered mid-air failures because of “systemic” problems with their maintenance, air accident investigators have revealed.
After inquiries into four mid-air incidents, the investigators say that there are safety problems that may be “widespread within the organisation”. They warn that it appears that shoddy working practices are accepted as the norm by some maintenance staff.
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.
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.
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.
They say the failure to check that the wing panels were installed on the Paris flight “seems not to have been an isolated case, but more symptomatic of the existing culture”.
They add: “Ineffective supervision of maintenance staff had allowed working practices to develop that had compromised the level of airworthiness control and had become accepted as the ‘norm’. Maintenance errors were not the result of wilful negligence, or any desire to perform a less than satisfactory job, but the result of a combination of systemic issues that had increased the probability of an error being committed.”
David Learmount of Flight International magazine said: “I’ve never seen a report like this before from the AAIB. They are saying, ‘It has already happened once and you’re still screwing up’. There’s no excuse for what has happened.”
A flight from Heathrow to Istanbul in November 2003 also reported oil fumes in the cabin; the plane flight from London Heathrow to Budapest. The captain flew on using manual control and peered through the cockpit window at the night-time horizon to keep the wings level.
The crew sent out a mayday call but they could not be heard because the radio had also failed. Most of the systems were restored after about two minutes and the flight continued to Budapest. Maintenance staff checked the plane on landing but could not find the fault and did not stop it flying. The plane was withdrawn from service for exhaustive checks only after the AAIB was informed of the mid-air emergency.
BA employs 6,000 engineers, compared with 9,500 in 1995 but its fleet remains at a similar size as 10 years ago.
BA said it took the AAIB’s latest report “very seriously”. Captain Rod Young, head of safety at BA, said: “The airline accepts the AAIB’s recommendations, which identified factors in the maintenance process which led to this incident (in September 2003). These factors were immediately rectified by February 2004 following the airline’s own investigation which was carried out in parallel with the AAIB’s investigation.
“British Airways prides itself on safety and recognises that we are always ready to learn from incidents and encourage open transparent reporting.”
BA reviewed procedures to provide clearer instructions and clearly define the role of each engineer. Maintenance staff had also changed procedures for serving engine oil to prevent over-filling.
Insight: Gareth Walsh, Jon Ungoed-Thomas and Jonathan Calvert
