Five Kiwis presumed dead or air crash
November 28th, 2008 at 10:54 am by David FarrarVery sad news emerging that there were five of the seven people on board the Air New Zealand A320 which crashed in the Mediterranean today were Kiwis. The plane was being operated by the German XL Airways who had leased it for the last two years.
By coincidence it is 29 years to the day since the Erebus crash.
The dead Kiwis (the authorities say no survivors are expected) are an Air NZ pilot, three engineers and a CAA Inspector.
It seems the air craft just fell out of the sky and dropped 300 metres out of the sjy into the sea, and sank to 45 metres.
My thoughts and condolences go out to Air NZ and CAA staff, plus friends and families of the five Kiwis. Also to the families of the German pilots who also perished.
Tags: Air New Zealand, RIP
November 28th, 2008 at 11:12 am
[url=http://aardvark.co.nz/daily/2008/1009.shtml]I’ve always said it[/url] — the Airbus is a flawed concept (allowing the computer to have the final-say rather than the pilot.
Given the choice between flying Airbus and Boeing, I’ll take Boeing *every* time!
Vote:November 28th, 2008 at 11:12 am
Terrible news and I await the results of the investigation with considerable interest. The A320 is a very safe aircraft and there must have been a catastrophic systems failure for it to just “fall out of the sky”.
Not overly germain to this thread but if airline seats were to be rear facing it would increase survivorablity in a crash landing by about 50% … but that’s one measure we will never see introduced.
Vote:November 28th, 2008 at 11:15 am
Too early to speculate on the cause, but wasn’t a recent Airbus problem due to a fault in a computer program?
Ah, found it: A computer fault caused erroneous information to be sent to the plane’s flight control system, prompting the autopilot to shut down. The problem caused the plane to plunge about 650 feet, or almost 200 metres, and caused a second, less-severe drop. More than 70 people were injured, including some who suffered broken bones, as the Airbus A330-300 flew between Singapore and Perth.
Vote:November 28th, 2008 at 11:51 am
While it is tempting to enquire whether XL Airways use the same maintenance outfit as Qantas I won’t out of respect for the victims of this unfortunate incident.
Vote:November 28th, 2008 at 11:59 am
Tragic. My condolences to the families of the victims.
Vote:November 28th, 2008 at 12:32 pm
Silver lining to every cloud. ANZ is rid of a pile of junk and will bank a good insurance payout with which they can buy a better plane.
Vote:Not good for staff morale though and we can be thankful it wasn’t full of kiwi’s going to Aussie. And yes it was Qantas that nearly lost one of their Airbuss’es a few weeks back. Sounds like a similar issue.
November 28th, 2008 at 12:41 pm
Ross Miller: the US military has rear-facing seats for this very reason. Three- or four-point harnesses + rear-facing seats would be ideal, as would using JP1 insteaad of JP4. JP1 fuel is more expensive than JP4 but less flammable: the US presidential planes uses JP1.
What concerns me is the increasing number of long haul aircraft that use two engines: Murphy’s Law and all that.
http://www.kiwipolemicist.wordpress.com
Vote:November 28th, 2008 at 1:09 pm
Apparantly on a banking turn into the final approach. Not much opportunity to recover there if something does go wrong, no matter how many engines you have.
I’m sure a noticeable increase in 2 engine crash frequency would have become obvious by now. I suspect most crashes have next to nothing to do with how many engines planes have. Most will be pilot error and massive failure
Vote:November 28th, 2008 at 1:09 pm
I hadn’t realised that rear-facing seats had that sort of safety differential. I guess from a marketing perspective the first airline that introduced them wouldn’t want all its passengers being reminded of the possibility that they could fall out of the sky at any moment.
But if the government mandated it so they all had to do it at once, there might be a relatively brief blip in passenger numbers but, human psychology being what it is, we’d soon force ourselves to ‘forget’. After all, how rational is it to climb into an aluminium cigar tube stuffed full of flammable material and expect to get off at the other end with all your limbs attached, but thousands do every day.
I’d be interested in knowing why the differential is so high… on the face of it 50% suggests a lot lot of plane crash injuries are similar to cars, where forward momentum plays a role. But with the near-crash Ross Nixon mentions, most of the injuries were sustained by people being thrown upwards into the overhead lockers.
Vote:November 28th, 2008 at 1:14 pm
i doubt its 50%.
one other slight problem – i get sick if im facing backwards.. on a train, car, bus, boat… not cool!
Vote:November 28th, 2008 at 1:19 pm
Rex: the differential is due to those crashes that involve people flailing forwards against lap belts that cause internal injuries. In a survivable crash with rear-facing seats people would be pressed against the seat backs, and there would be reduced whiplash if the seat backs were high enough. Lap belts would still be very bad news.
I always take the rear-facing seats on the bus when possible – they usually give more leg room as well.
http://www.kiwipolemicist.wordpress.com
Vote:November 28th, 2008 at 1:22 pm
Sorry an early report said it was landing now it appears it was heading to frankfurt.
Vote:November 28th, 2008 at 1:23 pm
I’ve used the TVG between France and Switzerland quite a few times. I choose rear-facing seats wherever possible, notwithstanding the fact that in any derailment ‘rear’ could become ‘front’ (and vise versa) several times, and quite quickly.
I hope Airbus find the fault – and quickly. Their customers (the airlines) are already hurting and the prospet of their customers (you and I) adding safety concerns to economic strain can only be bad for the industry.
Vote:November 28th, 2008 at 1:27 pm
If the Qantas situation is anything to go by, is seems that the autopilot was disengaged and the pilot had to struggle to gain control. Altitude would have been their saving grace there. In this instance (and assuming it’s the same fault), flying circuits at 3000m doesn’t leave any time for a manual recovery.
Vote:November 28th, 2008 at 1:30 pm
There’s a press conference live on TV One at 3pm. For hearing-impaired viewers, there will be live captions available on Teletext 801.
Vote:November 28th, 2008 at 1:32 pm
I must point out here that when an aircraft hits a solid object at high speed or disintegrates in mid air from control failure or bomb damage or whatever it does not matter a lot which way round the seats are facing. It may be helpful in the case of a low speed crash though if decceleration forces are high enough the seats will merely rip out of there mountings and the passengers will be crushed as the seats impact each other.
Vote:Many years ago during my amateur flying days I remember reading the accident report of the Foxpine plane that crashed near Wanganui and it described how the remains of the instruments had to be cleaned and disinfected before checking for settings etc. because minced passengers had been forced through the spaces around control knobs in the impact. From memory the aircraft hit the ground around 300-350kph. Gives you some idea of the forces involved.
November 28th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
Johnboy – agree. Speed doesn’t kill (despite what our tax money is spent telling us). It just increases the consequences of sudden decceleration.
Vote:November 28th, 2008 at 2:06 pm
Johnboy: I agree, that’s why I referred to “survivable” crashes.
If the airlines wished they could make the seat mountings stronger, but that entails a higher fuel cost and airlines don’t market safety (it can backfire very easily) so there’s no gain for them.
Personally I’d be happy to pay a bit more (1-5% ideally, 10% tops) for rear-facing seats, crashworthy seat mountings and seats, car-type headrests (reduces whiplash), four point harnesses and JP1.
http://www.kiwipolemicist.wordpress.com
Vote:November 28th, 2008 at 2:08 pm
“If it ain’t Boeing, I ain’t going”.
Vote:November 28th, 2008 at 3:01 pm
Press conference on TV One in a few seconds.
Vote:November 28th, 2008 at 3:30 pm
I’d have thought, like Johnboy, that the direction of seats in a plane (as opposed to their sturdiness etc) wouldn’t make much difference in a crash, Kiwipolemicist, unless it hits something nose first. Four-point harnesses I can also see the point of, since the lap belts not only cause internal injury but also don’t prevent you from being yanked vertically when the plane loses altitude quickly, whacking your head on the roof as happened in the Qantas flight.
If indeed Airbuses give the computer the final say, as people are pointing out, then one has to ask whether the designers have ever driven using a GPS!? If it merely sends you the long way round you’re lucky… usually it wants you to drive into a river. When mine got stolen recently I couldn’t be bothered to replace it. To think that slightly more sophisticated versions are over-riding pilots is terrifying.
Vote:November 28th, 2008 at 4:03 pm
Rex: it’s not just nose-on impacts that that rear facing seats will help with (although such impacts are rarely survivable). Rear-facing seats are a major bonus if the plane does a crash-and-slide or a wheels-up landing. Consider the Dash 8 crash near Palmerston North. The plane flew into a hill (controlled flight into terrain they call it) and some survived: I think it is reasonable to assume that more would have survived and/or there would have been fewer severe injuries if the plane had been fitted with rear-facing seats. I’ve read the book: if my memory serves it hit a hill, skipped a gully, then hit another hill.
Vote:November 28th, 2008 at 4:40 pm
You’re right about that PN crash, Kiwipolemicist – a pilot friend of mine just missed being rostered on to that one. I take your point… rear facing seats mightn’t be any help in some situations but they are in others, whereas forward facing ones are of no help at any time.
Given that there’s a market of people prepared to drive Pruises to save the whales despite the fact that a Prius looks like a badly designed bread bin and handles even worse, surely there’s a market for safer planes? If I were a fledgling airline looking for an “edge” I’d be tempted to turn all my seats around and advertise my business as “the safest in the sky”.
Vote:November 28th, 2008 at 4:59 pm
“I’d be tempted to turn all my seats around and advertise my business as “the safest in the sky”.”
Airlines don’t do that because accidents do happen and then that sort of advertising blows up in your face.
Some people do get motion sickness if they travel backwards, but a few “suicide seats” on each plane would fix that.
The book about the PN crash is:
Vote:Dash 8 down : the inside story of Ansett Flight 703 / Michael Guerin.
If my memory serves Guerin is a pilot.
November 29th, 2008 at 9:04 am
Rob Fyfe has made kiwis proud with his impecable kindness and professionalism in assisting the families, staff and New Zealanders in general over this dreadful time. Thank goodness we have such a decent man at the helm of Air New Zealand.
Vote: