Indonesian Lion Air Crashes into Sea

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fountainhall

Indonesian Lion Air Crashes into Sea

Post by fountainhall »

An Indonesian Lion Air flight has crashed into the sea shortly after take-off from Jakarta. 188 passengers and crew were said to be on board. The Lion Air flight was going to the city of Pangkal Pinang off the island of Sumatra. The plane, a Boeing 737 Max 8 model, is said to have requested to turn back to Jakarta. It then lost contact with the air-traffic controller at 6:33 am, 13 minutes after take-off, the airport authorities said.

https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/lion-ai ... fp-1939033
Jun

Re: Indonesian Lion Air Crashes into Sea

Post by Jun »

Whilst it is a little premature to blame the airline, particularly with an incident involving a relatively new version of the 737, I do think it makes sense to avoid airlines with a poor track record.
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Re: Indonesian Lion Air Crashes into Sea

Post by gerefan »

Jun wrote:Whilst it is a little premature to blame the airline, particularly with an incident involving a relatively new version of the 737, I do think it makes sense to avoid airlines with a poor track record.
I suspect you are repeating what you have heard in the press about new aircraft. Its just the press and can be disregarded.

New aircraft types are just as prone (if not more so) than older proven types. Think of the Comet disasters or more recently the battery problems with the Boeing 787. There are many other examples too.

I do agree with your view about avoiding Airlines (or countries) with a bad track record.
Jun

Re: Indonesian Lion Air Crashes into Sea

Post by Jun »

gerefan wrote:New aircraft types are just as prone (if not more so) than older proven types. Think of the Comet disasters or more recently the battery problems with the Boeing 787. There are many other examples too.
Perhaps my previous post wasn't clear, but it was intended to imply that I think we should not prematurely blame an airline, when they are using a new variety of aircraft, because new aircraft have teething problems.

So we are in complete agreement about that point. So much so, that I think there is a case for blacklisting airlines with a track record of accidents and also avoiding flying on new aircraft designs for a few years.
Apparently, whilst the FAA will sign off new aircraft, it's policy not to allow the president to fly on an aircraft design that's not been in service for 5 years. Following that ourselves will be more difficult, when airlines get a mix of proven 737/A320 designs and the new versions, with new generation high bypass ratio engines, plus multiple other modifications. When booking the flight, how do we know which plane will be on the route ?
Also, the Comac competitor will eventually hit the market.

The Comet, is of course a bit of a special case, since metal fatigue was not well understood at the time AND they were trying to make the thing extremely light so it could use their own De Haviland engines, rather than the more powerful & adequate Rolls Royce ones.
fountainhall

Re: Indonesian Lion Air Crashes into Sea

Post by fountainhall »

Jun wrote:I do think it makes sense to avoid airlines with a poor track record.
Few Indonesian airlines had a good safety record until relatively recently. Even Garuda was banned from both European and US airspace for a while.

But what about their subsidiaries? Do they also qualify as having poor track records? Thai Lion Air is one of the most successful low cost carriers within and out of Thailand with regular flights on 35 routes.
Jun wrote:The Comet, is of course a bit of a special case, since metal fatigue was not well understood at the time . . .
Hard now to believe that had the Comet been a success, Boeing would have been on a very long catch-up, for the Comet was then regarded as the future for jet aircraft.

Only once did I fly in one when an originally scheduled BAC1-11 had to be replaced at short notice. I was on a package holiday in Crete. When my friends and I saw the Dan Air Comet 4 arrive our spirits really sank! The Comet 4 was a major redesign of the first models though. The structural failure of the early Comets was a result of their square windows. Apparently this led to far greater stress at the corners that soon led to early metal fatigue and the total loss of three aircraft in fairly quick succession. Future models replaced these windows with round ones which then became industry standard.

The charter airline Dan Air remained confident in the Comet’s future and had 49 Comet 4s in its fleet. The last was retired in 1980. Despite being a huge charter operation, Dan Air got into financial difficulties and was eventually sold to British Airways for £1.
Jun

Re: Indonesian Lion Air Crashes into Sea

Post by Jun »

The stress concentration arising from the "Square" windows was an issue, however the whole concept of fatigue cycles was not properly understood.
If the only problem with the plane was square windows, then one design modification would have fixed the problem, however the square window thing is simplifying the story.

In reality, the plane needed further countermeasures all over the structure.

When they started subjecting the Comets to pressure cycles to simulate cabin pressurization & depressurization, other crack initiation points were found. Also, the structure had very little to prevent crack propagation.
Even the Comet avoided perfectly square windows and had corner radii which were similar to those on the early Boeing aircraft with square windows. Essentially, the larger the radius, the less the stress concentration factor.



As for modern day safety, well my concept of blacklisting airlines works providing there are better alternatives, or if you decide going somewhere is not important. If you intend to go somewhere and none of the airlines are any good, then it's more difficult. That's when I have to make compromises.
fountainhall

Re: Indonesian Lion Air Crashes into Sea

Post by fountainhall »

This is more than a little disturbing. Although very early in the investigation it does seem there might be a mechanical issue that requires correction on the new 737 Max jets.
Boeing has sent instructions to airlines using its 737 Max jet about how pilots should react to erroneous readings from sensors, an issue investigators believe was a key factor in the Lion Air crash in Indonesia, in which all 189 people on board were killed.

Aviation experts said the initial findings indicated that the the pilot and first officer of flight JT610 did not know at what speed they were flying, similar to the problem experienced on Air France flight 447, which plunged into the Atlantic sea in 2009.

Boeing said it had issued an operations manual bulletin, advising pilots on how to deal with “erroneous input from an angle of attack (AOA) sensor”. The Federal Aviation Administration, the US aviation regulator, said it would order airlines to abide by the bulletin and would take “further appropriate actions” depending on the result of the investigation.

The AOA sensor sends out information about the angle at which the aircraft is flying, which indicates to the captain and first officer whether the plane may be at risk of stalling. An AOA giving out erroneous data can lead to incorrect speed readings, potentially causing confusion among the flight crew and a rapid loss of altitude.

An AOA had been changed by mechanics on the ground in Bali the day before the crash, after similar problems had occurred on previous flights, Indonesia’s National Transportation Safety Committee said.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... ets-report
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Re: Indonesian Lion Air Crashes into Sea

Post by Gaybutton »

Lion Air plane hits lamp post in Bengkulu

November 08, 2018

By The Jakarta Post
Asia News Network
Jakarta

As the investigation into last week’s crash of a Lion Air jet into the Java Sea is ongoing, another aircraft belonging to the low-cost carrier was involved in an accident, as its wing rammed into a lamp post on the apron of Fatmawati Airport in Bengkulu on Wednesday evening.

Pramintohadi Sukarno, the Ministry of Transportation’s acting director general for air transportation, said Flight No. JT633 had been canceled and the pilots grounded after the accident.

“We grounded the aircraft and the pilots for an investigation,” Pramintohadi said in a statement, as quoted by tempo.co.

No injuries were reported in the incident that damaged the aircraft’s wing.

According to Pramintohadi, the Boeing 737-900 ER aircraft was scheduled to depart for Soekarno-Hatta International Airport near Jakarta at 6:20 p.m.

Lion Air spokesman Danang Mandala Prihantoro attributed the accident to wrong directions given to the pilot by ground control staff.

“The pilot only followed the instruction and directions from the Aircraft Movement Control (AMC) officer,” Danang said in a statement.

AMC personnel of the airport had been questioned by the authorities over the accident, he added.

Lion Air assigned another jet and different crew to fly the 145 passengers out at 10:48 p.m.

“The airplane arrived at Soekarno-Hatta airport at 11:50 p.m.,” Danang said.

As of Wednesday, a joint search team had identified 44 victims of the Lion Air JT610 crash.

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/detail/ ... s/30358151
fountainhall

Re: Indonesian Lion Air Crashes into Sea

Post by fountainhall »

Ground control staff have a tough time at even the busiest airports. Remember this incident involving an A380 at JFK?



And the basic reasons for that accident?

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