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Flights delayed around SA
11/11/2007 22:47 - (SA)
Cobus Coetzee, Beeld
Johannesburg - Various flights were delayed at the weekend, some by several hours, after a flying ban on 30 Boeing 737 jets across South Africa.
The grounding order followed an incident last Wednesday when a Nationwide Boeing lost an engine while taking off from Cape Town International Airport.
The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) sent a notice on Friday to all local airlines, with details of the ban.
Airlines had to wait for inspectors to check all the clamps and struts used to mount the engines to the wings of the aircraft.
CAA spokesperson Phindi Gwebu said once a report had been submitted and been ratified by the authority, the aircraft were allowed to fly again.
Planes airborne again
CAA aviation inspector Bheki Mhlanga said in announcing the ban: "The purpose is to prevent a possible repetition, which could be catastrophic."
The CAA emphasised that the order for the inspections did not refer to the cause of the incident at Nationwide.
Solomon Makgale of Airports Company South Africa (Acsa) said late on Sunday that there still were delays on domestic flights at OR Tambo and other airports in the country.
"At the weekend various flights were delayed by half an hour, to three hours and more."
OR Tambo control tower manager Johnny Smit confirmed there had been various delays, "but it did not disrupt things too badly".
Glenda Zvenyika of Comair, which runs Kulula.com and British Airways in South Africa, said that immediately after the Nationwide incident they'd started inspecting their Boeing 737-200s.
She said on Sunday: "We expect to be back in operation full steam by this afternoon, but the inspections didn't affect us too badly."
SAA, SA Airlink, SA Express and Mango said on Sunday they had not been affected by the groundings.
This was because most of these four airlines used Boeing's 300 series and newer aircraft.
Nationwide executive chief Vernon Bricknell told Llewellyn Prince on Sunday that his company had co-operated fully with CAA in carrying out the inspections on their planes.
Nationwide also had been in contact with Boeing, the American manufacturer, but "they were unable to do anything until they had full details of last week's incident", said Bricknell.
He said all their planes were airborne again.
Gwebu could not confirm how many of the affected planes had been given the green light by the CAA.
She said: "The CAA will compile a report on Monday to say who's allowed to fly again."
- Beeld
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