Tag Archives: aviation
Dreamliner fire serious; no sign of battery issue
Dreamliner fire serious; no sign of battery issue (Reuters) / 14 July 2013 Investigators classified the fire that broke out on a Boeing 787 Dreamliner parked at London’s Heathrow airport as a “serious incident” but have found no evidence it was caused by the plane’s batteries, Britain’s Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) said on Saturday. The question of whether the fire was connected to the batteries is crucial because the entire global fleet of Dreamliners, Boeing’s groundbreaking new flagship jet, was grounded for three months this year due to battery-related problems. The AAIB designation fell just short of a full-blown “accident” on the scale it uses to describe investigations. The agency’s preliminary probe is expected to take several days, opening up Boeing to more questions about its top-selling plane. Despite the uncertainty surrounding the blaze, airlines around the world continued to operate the Dreamliner. Some 18 787s took to the skies Saturday afternoon, about the same as Friday. The fire broke out on the Ethiopian Airlines plane on Friday afternoon, and was discovered when smoke was seen on the plane eight hours after arriving from Addis Ababa. No one was injured. “There has been extensive heat damage in the upper portion of the rear fuselage, a complex part of the aircraft, and the initial investigation is likely to take several days,” the AAIB said in a statement. “However, it is clear that this heat damage is remote from the area in which the aircraft main and APU (Auxiliary Power Unit) batteries are located, and, at this stage, there is no evidence of a direct causal relationship.” The Financial Times on Saturday reported that airline staff had discovered a problem with the aircraft’s air conditioning system during a routine inspection and had seen sparks but no flames. The Times, quoting Mark Mangooni, Ethiopian Airlines’ senior manager in Britain, did not make clear when this had happened. Reuters could not reach Mangooni for comment. Separately, Britain’s Thomson Airways said one of its Dreamliners that turned back during a flight from Manchester to Sanford in Florida on Friday had suffered a “minor technical issue” and had now had a small number of components replaced. Thomson said the aircraft had been fully tested and was being taken back into service at once. The airline declined to specify which components had been replaced. Thomson Airways, owned by the world’s largest tour operator TUI Travel, has a total of three Dreamliners and all are now operating normally, the airline said. Britain’s Sky News television channel said it had learnt that some 100 Thomson passengers had called the airline’s cancellation line asking to know if they were booked to fly on a Dreamliner. Sky News did not give a source for the information and Thomson declined to comment. The Heathrow and Manchester incidents were a new blow for Boeing after the entire global fleet of Dreamliners had to be grounded for three months, ending in April, after one high-tech battery caught fire and another overheated. Boeing shares closed down 4.7 percent at $101.87 on Friday, knocking $3.8 billion off the company’s market capitalisation. “Smoke throughout fuselage” Several airlines said they were continuing to operate their Dreamliners, including United Continental, the Polish airline LOT, Japan Airlines and ANA, the world’s biggest operator of the 787. Heathrow briefly closed both its runways to deal with Friday’s fire, causing delays and cancellations, but was back to normal operations on Saturday. Footage from the scene of the fire showed apparent scorching on the fuselage near the tail. The Dreamliner’s two batteries are in compartments located low down near the front and middle of the plane. The Ethiopian Airlines Dreamliner has been moved to a hangar at Heathrow where it is under technical investigation, the AAIB said, adding that the initial witness and physical evidence showed there had been smoke throughout the fuselage. The AAIB said the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), representing the state of design and manufacture, and the Civil Aviation Authority of Ethiopia, representing the state of registry and operator, had been invited to appoint accredited representatives to participate in the investigation. The AAIB also said it had also invited the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, Boeing, Ethiopian Airlines, the European Aviation Safety Agency and Britain’s Civil Aviation Authority to participate as advisers to the investigation. Boeing will be keen to reassure airlines, travellers and investors over the cause of the fire as quickly as possible but under aviation rules it will be up to investigators to decide how much information to release and when. Ethiopian Airlines, one of Africa’s top five carriers, said it would continue to fly its Dreamliner fleet. It has ordered a total of 10 Dreamliners, of which four have been delivered. “After a normal flight from Addis to London, passengers disembarked in the morning and the aircraft was cleaned. It was towed to a remote parking area as usual and parked properly with all internal and external powers switched off,” said an official from the airline’s public relations department. Continue reading
RTA could bring Dubai Metro expansion forward
Leaders at Dubai's Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) have confirmed that plans to expand the city's Metro network could be brought forward if the emirate's bid for the World Expo in 2020 is successful.The organisation is hoping to complete an AED 5 billion (£866 million) upgrade of the Red Line, but the project could be fast-tracked if the high-profile international event is staged in Dubai.Organisers of the city's bid have outlined potential sites to host the conference and it is likely to end up next to Dubai World Central Airport. If the showpiece is awarded to the sheikhdom, the RTA will be under pressure to provide Metro links between the airport and the rest of the region.Mattar Mohammad Al Tayer, chairman of the board and executive director of the RTA, said plans to expand the Red Line out towards the airport have been in place for some time, Gulf News reports.”As soon as the bid results are out and if we win – which we will Inshallah (God willing), we start the planning and development of the project,” he was quoted as saying.Dubai World Central has only been used to transport cargo to date, but the aviation facility is scheduled to launch passenger flights in October 2013.Conveniently, organisers of the World Expo 2020 are expected to announce the host city just one month later.Mr Al Tayer said the new-look Metro servive will also cover Jebel Ali, which is close to the Expo site, thus enabling even more people to travel to the venue.”We have already floated the tenders for the next stage of Etihad Rail's development. The entire project is expected to be completed by 2017, and that will bring additional traffic to the area,” he added.Earlier this week, the Bureau International des Expositions scrutinised each Expo 2020 bidder and confirmed that Dubai has moved on to the next stage of the process. Thailand's Ayutthaya has withdrawn from the competition, leaving just four contenders, including Izmir in Turkey, Sao Paulo in Brazil, Yekaterinburg in Russia and Dubai. Continue reading
Airlines Push for Global Measures to Control Carbon Emissions
By CHRISTOPHER F. SCHUETZE Fabrice Coffrini/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Geneva International Airport. Airline travel is thought to cause 2 percent to 3 percent of the world’s carbon emissions. Last week, airlines called on the aviation authorities to find a way to curb emissions after 2020.Despite the unpopularity of a European aviation carbon emission tax, the world’s airlines are ready to discuss global measures. The announcement , which calls on the International Civil Aviation Organization, the civilian sky’s U.N. regulating body, to adopt an across-the-board, market-based mechanism to offset emissions, was made during the International Air Transport Association’s 69 th annual meeting, in Cape Town. “We can give them a direction we want them to go,” said Tony Tyler, the head of the association, about the recommendations to the governing body in a video statement . The International Civil Aviation Organization hopes to steer governments away from a patchwork of national rules and toward a single, global, market-based mechanism. “Such a patchwork would be an administrative nightmare,” said Paul Steele, the association’s environmental director at a news conference . The industry group represents 240 of the world’s airlines, which operate 84 percent of all civilian flights. The association has called for environmental standards before, but this is the first time it has called for comprehensive binding regulations. Since 2010, the association has been in favor of a 1.5 percent annual increase in fuel efficiency from 2010 to 2020, with carbon neutral growth by 2020. By 2050, the association wants net emissions cut by 50 percent from 2005 levels. As Rendezvous reported last year , Europe and the rest of the world have been in disagreement over whether foreign carriers should take part in the European Emission Trading System when landing at European destinations. A European Union rule, in place since last year, would have taxed carbon emissions on flights terminating or originating in Europe, even for non-European airlines. Last summer, a group of non-European nations met in Washington to condemn such taxation. Then President Barack Obama disappointed environmentalists when he signed a bill into law that actually prohibits United States airlines from paying the tax when landing in Europe, in contravention of international law. Earlier this year, the European Union announced a “stopping of the clock” in its demand for non-European carriers to participate in its emission trading program. At the time, Connie Hedegaard, the E.U. commissioner for climate action, described the move as allowing the rest of world to catch up. The air association’s most recent announcement was welcomed in Brussels. “It is a very strong message that the airline industry seems ready to support a single global market-based measure to keep their emissions in check,” Ms. Hedegaard said in a statement sent to reporters last week. “The E.U. is ready,” she said. Airline travel is thought to cause 2 percent to 3 percent of the world’s carbon emissions. According to a National Geographic report , an average passenger airplane burns four liters, or a little more than a gallon, of jet fuel for each kilometer each a passenger flies. This number is already a 40 percent improvement over jet fuel efficiency in 2000. Though the number of flights may still be climbing (Rendezvous reported last year on the one billionth international arrival in 2012), new planes are becoming increasingly fuel-efficient. “This is a responsible industry. We are the only industry in the world that has set itself clear targets in terms of emission standards,” said Mr. Tyler, according to the video statement. Continue reading
