Word: plane
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Sept. 23, 1985, a Henson Airlines Beech commuter plane missed Shenandoah Valley Airport in Virginia by six miles as it tried to land through clouds and fog. The crash killed the two crew members and all twelve passengers. The NTSB investigation blamed navigational errors by the crew. But it cited a list of contributing factors: the cockpit was so noisy that the captain and first officer had either to shout or to use hand signals to communicate; both were relatively inexperienced; and Henson's training in its aircraft, which have differing instrument layouts, was inadequate. The crew members...
...duct on a DC-9's engine in April and reported to his supervisor that it would pose a fire hazard if the engine overheated. The supervisor nonetheless cleared the aircraft to take off for Pittsburgh. The horrified mechanic called FAA but could not reach an official before the plane left Chicago. In Pittsburgh, FAA grounded the aircraft while the engine was replaced. The pilot had not been warned that he was flying with a potential fire problem...
...Eastern violations became so numerous because each flight with a claimed maintenance problem counts separately. One Eastern plane flew five years before the airline repaired a landing-gear-assembly link that had been the subject of an FAA warning. Only when the gear failed on a landing at Norfolk, Va., was a fix made. FAA also cited Eastern for placing tape over a 4-in. crack in the leading edge of a horizontal stabilizer and making 156 flights in that condition. Most of the violations, however, appear to have involved the failure to document procedures that differed from standard practice...
Pinched airlines tend to defer repairs on items that do not require immediate grounding of a plane. One pilot admitted that he flew his jet even though in his cockpit 14 red tags were hanging from parts on which needed maintenance work had been deferred. While this may be legal, John Galipault of the Aviation Safety Institute insists that one airline assigns mechanics to fly in what repairmen call "hangar queens," airplanes that develop frequent problems. When a minor ailment arises, the flying mechanic "signs off" on the paperwork needed to permit the plane to keep operating, even though...
...captain reduced power on all four engines, although it would have been safer to check one of them at a time. The loss of speed took the Electra close to its stall point, but the first officer was not monitoring airspeed and altitude as he should have been. The plane stalled and struck the ground. The NTSB criticized the lack of crew coordination and concluded dryly, "The captain attempted both to determine the cause of the vibration and fly the airplane simultaneously, which he was unable to do." In fact, the open door would not have been a hazard...