Aviation

Citation

(2002), "Aviation", Disaster Prevention and Management, Vol. 11 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/dpm.2002.07311aac.006

Aviation

Aviation

7 June 2001 – Concorde

New tyres have been unveiled as part of a range of safety measures to get the supersonic BAe/Aerospatiale Concorde back into the skies. Manufacturer Michelin claimed the tyres were harder to puncture and would satisfy those responsible for rebuilding the new, safer Concorde. The entire Concorde fleet has been grounded since an Air France Concorde (F- BTSC) crashed in Paris last July, killing 113 people. Investigators believe the crash happened when a piece of metal on the runway punctured the aircraft's tyre. The tyre exploded, sending rubber debris hurtling against a fuel tank which ruptured, triggering a fire. The new tyres were unveiled by manufacturer Michelin at a news conference in Paris today. Michelin spokesman Pierre Desmarets said the tyre had passed the tests specified by The European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company, the body responsible for getting Concorde airborne again. The tyres are designed to be more resistant to damage and to operate at Concorde's take-off speed of 400kph even when 40 per cent deflated. They have gone through tests designed to mimic the conditions of the Concorde crash last July. Michelin said the tyres remained "fully functional" when punctured by a 30cm blade. Damaged tyres were able to withstand take-off and landing, without losing pressure or disintegrating, said Michelin. EADS spokesman Daniel Deviller said the company was happy with the results. Safety experts are also looking at ways to make Concorde's fuel tanks more fire resistant. Linings made of Kevlar – the material used to make bullet-proof vests – have been put inside the fuel tanks to strengthen them. These were fitted earlier this year and have been tested to see if they can survive heavy impacts. All the tests on Concorde should be completed later this summer. Both Air France and British Airways – the only two companies which operate the aircraft – hope to resume their Concorde services in the autumn. The return to service ultimately depends on the reissue of a certificate of airworthiness by the Civil Aviation Authority and its French equivalent. It is hoped the modifications will help the aircraft gain the certificate.

7 July 2001 – Compensation payments worth about $120 million to victims of last year's Concorde air crash outside Paris will begin next week, German lawyers said today. "The deal has been completed", lawyer Gerhart Baum, who with a group of other lawyers represents about 95 per cent of the victims, said. "The first checks go out next week." Another attorney said the total compensation package was worth about $120 million to be distributed to about 730 relatives. Depending how close they were to the victim, survivors will get between $100,000 and $1 million, he said. Baum, a former German interior minister, declined to say how much money relatives of the victims would receive but said it was in line with US standards rather than more modest German traditions. Another attorney said the victims received unusually large payments by European standards because the Concorde was en route to the USA. "In general with this type of disaster it takes between three and five years to reach a deal", Fernand Gamault, representing insurers for Air France and other firms implicated in the crash, was quoted as telling France's Le Figaro newspaper. "We have managed to reach a deal in less than a year, which is quite exceptional." The paper said that around 50 other relatives had still not reached terms, but Gamault said the matter would be resolved by 25 July – the first anniversary of the crash. Since the accident, interested parties have launched a series of lawsuits. Among others, Air France and its insurers last year sued Continental Airlines, and in January relatives of three German victims filed a suit in New York against Air France, Continental, and several manufacturers including General Electric and tyre firm Goodyear.

17 July 2001 – Concorde has successfully completed its first supersonic test flight since it was grounded a year ago. The aircraft landed at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire at 17.40, BST after a three hour 20 minute flight over the Atlantic. Captain Mike Bannister said the flight had been "absolutely fantastic" and the aircraft had "performed brilliantly". He said there would now be another verification flight and he was "getting very confident" of Concorde getting back into service. The plane took off from Heathrow airport, London at 14.20, BST. During the flight, it reached its top speed of 1,350mph –around twice the speed of sound. British Airways and Civil Aviation Authority staff on board the test flight were testing how the aircraft responded to the safety modifications it has undergone. The supersonic plane's fuel tanks have been lined with Kevlar to prevent a repeat of last year's crash in France. The liner is made of a rubber compound successfully used in military helicopters and Formula One cars. The result of the test flight will be submitted to the Civil Aviation Authority and its French equivalent, with the aim of winning back certificates of airworthiness suspended in the wake of the Paris crash. The BA fleet has undergone a £17 million safety overhaul since the crash and the airline hopes to resume Concorde's passenger service in September.

10 June 2001 – helicopter crash near Ardal, Iran

A helicopter sent to a remote village in central Iran to help with the presidential election crashed, killing all ten people on board, the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported today. The helicopter crashed yesterday near the village of Ardal, about 250 miles south of Tehran, in a mountainous region of Chaharmahal-Bakhtiyari province. Among those killed were at least four election and security officials from Ardal, as well as a nomadic woman and her son. The news agency had initially reported nine people killed. It was not clear why the two nomads were on board or whether the helicopter was carrying ballot boxes from Friday's election, in which President Mohammad Khatami won a second term by a landslide. The news agency said three helicopters had been dispatched to the province to allow voting in remote regions.

18 June 2001 – EgyptAir Boeing 767-300 RE (SU-GAP)

The 1999 crash of EgyptAir Boeing 767-300 RE (SU-GAP), which killed all 217 people on board, could only have been caused by someone in the cockpit, not by equipment failure, the then head of the US National Transportation Safety Board said today: "The information that I have very carefully reviewed when I was chairman left no question in my mind … that there is no way that the events could have occurred as a result of a mechanical failure but occurred as a result of pilot actions", James Hall, who retired in January as head of the panel, said on the NBC television program Today. Investigators have focused on co-pilot Garnil Batouti, who was at the controls when the aircraft went into a final dive on 31 October 1999 in the Atlantic off Massachusetts. On Wednesday (13 June), Egypt challenged preliminary findings of a US investigation that found no mechanical cause for the crash of the aircraft. Egyptian civil aviation authorities, responding to the April draft report by the safety board staff, submitted to the US agency their own "analysis and conclusions" of the crash of EgyptAir Flight 990, a spokesman for the airline said. Hall did not answer directly when asked whether the cockpit voice recorder proved that Batouti tried to crash the aircraft and succeeded. "But the voice analysis and careful review of the actions of the pilot and first officer … indicated that there were efforts by the captain, his voice analysis, his actions were consistent with events we've seen in the past to recover the aircraft during this danger dive", Hall said. "That was not seen in the actions of the first officer or the voice analysis of the first officer", he added, referring to Batouti. Egyptian authorities have long rejected any suggestion that Batouti may have deliberately crashed the aircraft. They have urged US investigators to look more closely at the Boeing 767's elevator panels – movable components on the tail that control the up-and-down movement of the aircraft – to determine if they malfunctioned. Hall said the final US report on the accident will be wrapped up later this year. "Now that we have the input from the Egyptian government, the final report of our investigators, along with their input and input from other parties to the investigation. will go to the board members for a final report", he said.

3 July 2001 – crash, Irkutsk area, Siberia

A Russian Tupolev TO-154, Yekaterinburg for Vladivostok, crashed near the Siberian city of Irkutsk early Wednesday (3 July), killing all aboard, the Civil Aviation Authority said, according to the ITAR-Tass news agency. The report did not give a figure for the number of victims, but previous reports said the aircraft carried 133 passengers and ten crew members. The aircraft, belonging to the Vladivostokavia airline, disappeared from radar screens at about 21.10, Moscow time, today. The aircraft was to have stopped in Irkutsk for refuelling and no problems had been reported on take-off from Yekaterinburg, state television RTR reported. The wreckage was discovered near the village of Burdakovka, about 20 miles from Irkutsk.

4 July 2001– A press report, dated 3 July, states: Both "black box" flight recorders were recovered today from a Russian jet which crashed in Siberia killing more than 140 people, including 12 Chinese, a Russian official said. All passengers and crew died when the Tupolev TU-154 plunged into woods and exploded on a Tuesday evening flight from the Urals city of Yekaterinburg to Vladivostok in Russia's far east, as it approached the city of Irkutsk for a scheduled stop. It made two abortive attempts to land and crashed on its third approach, Russian media said, dropping from the sky about 18 miles away from Irkutsk and bursting into flames. "We have found them both", Emergencies Ministry official Pyotr Dovgolyuk said of the flight recorders. He said 136 passengers and nine crew had died. Officials initially said 133 passengers and ten crew were on board the aircraft. Not only Russians had boarded the doomed flight, Dovgolyuk added. "According to my information, 12 Chinese died", he said. NTV television showed a scorched clearing strewn with smoking wreckage. Only the plane's rear wing was intact, bearing the logo of its operator, Vladivostokavia airlines. A mangled engine, wheel and fragments of white fuselage lay nearby. Charred bodies were also visible. The aircraft disappeared from radar screens at about 21.10, Moscow time, near the village of Burdakovka. Russian news agencies quoted witnesses describing a large explosion and fire in a district where many locals have dachas, or small country homes, not far from Lake Baikal. The Kremlin Press Office said President Vladimir Putin ordered Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov to form a commission to investigate the crash. Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov was to chair the commission. Emergencies Minister Sergei Shoigu arrived in Irkutsk to oversee the investigation, agencies reported.

4 July 2001 – Failure of all three engines caused the crash of a Russian passenger aircraft in which more than 140 people were killed, Russian Emergencies Minister Mr Sergei Shoigu said today. All 144 or 145 passengers and crew (death tolls varied), aboard the three-engined Tupolev TU-154 jet were killed when the aircraft crashed near Irkutsk in southern Siberia yesterday. The aircraft was on a flight from Yekaterinburg, in the Urals, to Vladivostok in the Far East and had been due to make a brief stopover at Irkutsk. The two black-box flight recorders have been recovered in good condition. A total of 200 rescue workers are searching the wreckage, and so far the bodies of 42 passengers have been recovered, NTV television reported. Russian President Mr Vladimir Putin has set up a commission to investigate the crash. Earlier, an executive with the Vladivostokavia regional airline, which owned the aircraft, said the crash could have due to "a breakdown of the plane's fuel transmission system" that would have caused an explosion. The TU-154 is no longer in production, having been discontinued in 1996, but more than 1,000 are in service around the world, NTV said. The crash was one of the worst in Russia's aviation history and the fourth accident involving a Russian TU-154 since 1994, ITAR-TASS said.

7 July 2001 – The remains of nearly half the 145 people who died when a Russian Tupolev Tu-154 crashed in Siberia this week have been identified, investigators said today. Seventy people have been identified, and the procedure is expected to be completed by Sunday (8 July). Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov, the head of the commission investigating the crash, told the Interfax news agency that six of the 12 Chinese passengers who were on board the aircraft have been identified, and arrangements were being made for their bodies to be returned to China. The aircraft, belonging to the Vladivostokavia airline, crashed on Tuesday while trying to land at Irkutsk. The aircraft's flight data recorders arrived in Moscow this morning, Interfax reported. Experts will remove noise from the recordings to help determine possible causes of the crash

10 July 2001 – Human error caused the crash of a Russian Tupolev Tu-154 aircraft at Irkutsk, Siberia, in which 145 people died last week, an investigating committee headed by Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov said today. "After analysing the black boxes, which were in very good condition, the committee of inquiry concluded that the engines and the controls had functioned normally", Klebanov told a press conference.

13 July 2001 – crash, Puerto Cabello, Venezuela

A Skytruck M-28 aircraft has crashed on the north-western Venezuela coast, killing eight Polish nationals and five Venezuelans. The aircraft crashed moments after taking off from Puerto Cabello airport, 124 miles from Caracas. There were no survivors. Rescue workers went to the scene to try to identify the bodies and determine the cause of the accident.

14 July 2001 – crash near Moscow, Russia

A Russian IL-76 cargo aircraft crashed yesterday after taking off from a military airport near Moscow, killing all ten crew members on board, defence officials said. The aircraft was taking off from the Chkalovsky military airport, about 20 miles north-east of Moscow, when it went down, the Defence Ministry duty officer said. All ten crew members died, the duty officer said. There were no passengers on board the aircraft, he said. The aircraft belonged to the Rus commercial aviation company and was being flown by a civilian crew, the ITAR-Tass news agency said, citing a spokesman for the Emergency Situations Ministry. It was carrying a cargo of building materials and cosmetics, the report said. Radio contact with the aircraft was lost two minutes after it took off, ITAR-Tass said. It had reached an altitude of about 150ft when it crashed about 550yd from the end of the runway. The aircraft had full fuel tanks and a fire broke out immediately after the crash, the report said. Airport firefighters extinguished the blaze after about 40 minutes, ITAR-Tass said. Nearly 300 emergency personnel and firefighters were at the scene of the crash and they had already recovered the aircraft's flight recorders, the Interfax news agency said. The aircraft had been chartered to fly from Moscow to Norilsk, a major nickel-producing region in northern Siberia, 120 miles north of the Arctic Circle, the Defence Ministry duty officer said. Although it was flying from a military airfield, it was not carrying military cargo, he said. Interfax said the aircraft was carrying about 40 tons of civilian cargo, and speculated that it may have been overloaded when it crashed. Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov was informed about the accident and a commission to investigate the accident has been set up, ITAR-Tass said.