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Engines don't just fall off
04/12/2007 08:56  - (SA)  

Top CAA boss hits the road SA airlines all 'fully booked' Nationwide says 'sorry' Nationwide in UK flight deal Nationwide could shut down Chaos follows Nationwide shock 'We are dealing with human lives' Nationwide 'can be restored' Nationwide: 6 000 stranded Comair helps stuck passengers Passengers fume as flights cut Nationwide 'ignored CAA' All Nationwide flights grounded Nationwide may ground flights

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Con Conradie, News24 User

Since the Nationwide Boeing 737-200 lost its engine, the media have been questioning safety, dramatising minor technical hitches and have in general placed the aviation industry under the magnifying glass.

Aviation has always been upheld as one of the safest forms of mass transport and every accident is understandably reported on in much detail. However those responsible for the reports seldom have a working knowledge of the complexities associated with aviation such as the multitude of regulations that pertain to the industry.

Aviation Law dictates the legal framework from which operators may not deviate. Manufacturers in turn have stringent rules and standard operating procedures that operators need to comply with. The airlines in turn train their crew in accordance with the aforementioned requirements. It is because of these very strict rules of the game that aircraft are delayed for technical reasons.

A Boeing 747 as an example has four hydraulic systems. Failure of any one system allows the remaining three to provide the aircraft to function. Similarly there are four engines, three independent on board navigation systems, two pressurisation systems and the list continues.

Given its complexity and the reliability thereof, it is truly the eighth wonder of the world. Any system when it fails could delay the aircraft, but this does not however imply that safety is being compromised - it is a requirement defined in writing, either legally or by the manufacturer.

Ingested something?

The recent incident involving Nationwide is an unfortunate deviation from the aforementioned. The airline claims its engine ingested something and that is the reason for the engine seperation. Those engines do not fall off when they ingest foreign bodies.

The latter happens all the time. Birds being the most common form of ingestion - big and small. At the time, it seemed Nationwide was being somewhat disingenuous with this claim. Perhaps we now know why.

The Nationwide incident was not the first engine to fall of an airliner. A DC10 lost an engine at Fort Hare which caused catastrophic failure of the wing when the torque effect of the engine under full thrust snapped the wing off. The reason was traced to that airline's deviation from maintenance procedures.

Nationwide got very lucky with their incident. It was not the pilot's expert skill that saved the day - they are trained to fly aircraft with complete loss of power on one engine during take-off. Similarly airliners are designed to lose thrust and still fly with a fair amount of ease.

Seldom a single reason

Nationwide must rather admit that something went horribly wrong on the day and that maintenance is the real reason. Right now they are acting as if this was an act of God - something ingested! I believed at the time it was because of maintenance that the CAA grounded their aircraft. It seems I was right.

Airlines attempt to maintain high standards - some are obviously better than others. Quantas for one has never had an accident. SAA has lost a Viscount (the Rietbok) off East Londen, a Boeing 707 out of Windhoek (the Port Elizabeth, I think it was) and a 747 (the Helderberg) killing hundreds of people in the process.

It must be said though that Nationwide has not killed anyone, nor Comair, nor Kalula, and 1 Time also has an unblemished safety record (no hull losses).

This having been said, aircraft incidents and accidents can almost always be ascribed to a series of unfortunate events - it is seldom a single reason.

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