Showing posts with label 737-800NG. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 737-800NG. Show all posts

09 January, 2020

Why did the Ukraine International Airline's 737-800 crash in Iran?

Photo AP
There were no survivors from a Ukraine Airlines Boeing 737-800NG which crashed on Wednesday 8th January near Tehran International Airport.  

Flight PS752 took off from Tehran just after 6am local time,  it had climbed away from the airport to around 8000 feet but then flight data seems to have come to a sudden halt three minutes into the flight. Five minutes after that the aircraft came down and a scene of complete devastation greeted rescue workers and first responders at the crash site.

The flight to Kyiv was carrying 176 people on board at the time of the crash, according to Ukrainian officials, 82 of those were Iranians, 63 came from Canada, 11 people including 9 crew were Ukrainian nationals. 10 were from Sweden, 4 from Afghanistan, 3 from the UK and 3 Germans.

Yet even before the human remains of those people had been collected, speculation as to the cause of the disaster began to swirl at record speeds and in all directions with little signs of slowing down.  At first, it was believed and widely reported that the jet had been bought down by a missile fired by Iran during an attack on US-based in Iraq. These persisted for some time despite the fact that the events took place hours apart and not in the same area from where the rocket attacks were launched from. Some aviation commentators jumped on that bandwagon,  highlighting some images of parts of the fuselage showed "obvious projectile holes" indicating it was a definite "shootdown event". Yet, the very same images when enlarged seem to change those holes into rocks. Even if some holes, these can be caused by a number of things, such as an uncontained engine failure, only a forensic like examination will tell for sure. 

Iranian officials stipulated that it was a technical fault with the aircraft that caused the tragedy, an engine problem most probable.  However, these were hotly disputed by Ukrainian Airlines, saying the aircraft was one of its best,  just three years old and had its most recent maintenance check on Monday of this week. "The flight was operated on a Boeing 737-800 NG aircraft (registration UR-PSR). The aircraft was built in 2016 and delivered directly to the airline from the manufacturer. The last scheduled maintenance of the aircraft took place on 06 January 2020." read a statement by the carrier.  Ihor Sosnovsky, UIA Vice President Operations doesn't believe crew error was responsible for the disaster either, saying "Given the crew's experience, error probability is minimal. We do not even consider such a chance."

13 November, 2019

FAA expands area to inspect for cracks in Boeing 737 NG planes

                                              The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said on Tuesday it was revising its order requiring checks for structural cracks in Boeing  737 NG planes to cover a larger area after the company said additional cracks had been found. The FAA first said in September it was ordering checks for cracks on what is known as the “pickle fork,” a part that attaches the plane’s fuselage, or body, to the wing structure. Checks were required within seven days on planes with heavy usage, Reuters is reporting.

Boeing said on Tuesday after completing a round of inspections for cracking on some 737 NGs with a large number of take-offs and landings, one aeroplane was found to have a small crack in an adjacent location.

“Boeing has asked those operators to also inspect the adjacent area to ensure any potential issue is identified and repaired,” the company said in a statement.

“The additional inspections are already underway. We regret the impact to our customers and have a repair plan in place to address any findings.”

02 November, 2019

Cracks on Qantas 737 NG's


Following urgent inspections on its fleet of 33 Boeing 737NG aircraft, the Australian airline Qantas has found three with cracks between the wing and the fuselage.

The cracks relate to the ‘pickle fork’ structure, located between the wing and fuselage and are starting to appear on aircraft that had all completed around 27,000 cycles. Any aircraft with more than 22,600 cycles was inspected, in line with advice from regulators.

Qantas says these three 737NG's have been removed from service for repair and it will try to minimise customer impact whilst the aircraft are grounded.  The airline is working with the Civil Aviation Safety Authority and Boeing to resolve these issues, which involves some complex repair work. It is hoped the three aircraft will be back in service before the start of 2020.

22 June, 2019

RwandAir expands route network with services to Guangzhou and Tel Aviv,

Guangdong 


RwandAir, the flag carrier of the Republic of Rwanda, has expanded its route network with a new service from his home base to Guangzhou, the provincial capital of Guangdong and the third largest city in China.

The airline will fly to Guangzhou three times a week on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. Guangzhou will be tagged to the existing Mumbai route and will be operated by the African Airlines Airbus A330 with triple-class cabin and equipped with state-of-the-art technology, Wi-Fi onboard, in-flight entertainment and comfortable seats with more legroom making it very convenient for long haul flights.

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