Chinese aircraft maintenance

[Lanya]

http://iagblog.blogspot.com/2007/01/chinese-aircraft-maintenance.html

I thought Plane would get a kick out of this story.  Now, reading the comments aftr the story, I am not sure what to think.  I guess there really isn't enough info to decide whether it's a hoax or not.  If it is and I'm just behind the times, I'll delete it.

[Plane]

I found the same story in several places , but not with any further documentaton or way to trackback.

So I don't really know.

That engine is not mounted on an aircraft in the picture , and those straps could be there for shipping .

The damage is tipical of FOD and can get that bad or worse in seconds.





http://www.strangetravel.com/content/item/120443.html

http://catchwa.org/




Globalisation vs Scaremongering: Australia Gets Jumpy About Outsourcing
Greg Barns (Political Commentator in Australia)


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On the other hand, a lot of Boeings work is being done in China.


http://www.glocom.org/special_topics/asia_rep/20060317_asia_s114/index.html

The decision by Dubai-owned DP World to shed its US port operations was not the only blow to globalisation last week. Rumours that the airline Qantas was going to shift maintenance jobs from Australia to China unleashed a similarly large dose of xenophobia and economic nationalism.

In both cases, rationality and facts were jettisoned as emotional rhetoric and scaremongering took centre stage. And in both cases, there are warning signs that xenophobia on the part of developed countries can derail greater global integration.

In the US, DP World had to abandon plans to run six ports because an unholy alliance of media outlets and politicians in the US Congress managed to turn public opinion overwhelmingly against the idea. The fact that some of America's ports operations should be in the hands of a company that hails from a moderate, pro-western Arab country - the United Arab Emirates - was a threat to national security, apparently.

It did not matter, as many national-security experts observed, that ownership of ports is irrelevant to customs and security checks of containers of goods coming into the United States. In the current environment, the fact that DP World is an Arab-owned company was enough to light the fuse of American xenophobia and fears.

The hostility that Qantas has experienced over the past couple of weeks in Australia - over the mooted plans to move maintenance jobs to China - was on a smaller scale. But it shows that, if the conditions are right, it is as easy to undermine globalisation in Australia as in the US.

As Chinese and Australian officials were winding up their latest round of free-trade talks in Canberra, 300 union delegates marched to Qantas' Melbourne headquarters to protest against the supposed move to China. The Australian Manufacturing Workers' Union (AMWU), which represents Qantas' maintenance crews, was just as shrill in demonising China as American politicians and the media were about the ports company.

According to AMWU national secretary Doug Cameron, Qantas would "no doubt" compromise its excellent safety record by sending maintenance jobs to China. "Qantas should be the spirit of Australia, not the spirit of China," he said, referring to the airline's slogan.

He even went so far as to say that Qantas' record of having no fatalities would be at risk if Chinese - as opposed to Australian - maintenance workers serviced the airline's fleet. "Why would you hand a 100-per-cent [no-fatality] record to someone else and put the Australian public in danger?" Mr Cameron argued.

But he and his supporters did not cite any rational reason why Chinese maintenance work on Qantas aircraft would not be as thorough as that performed by Australians. In fact, as Bernd Habbel of Luthansa Technik - one of the world's largest aircraft maintenance companies - observed recently, technical standards are just as high in China as they are in countries like Australia. Mr Habbel told The New Zealand Herald last month that his company has to "look for quality guarantees", and that "if you look at qualifications, [Chinese aircraft maintenance] workers are at the same level as European workers".

For now, Mr Cameron can rest easy. Qantas announced last week that it would merely relocate workers within Australia, for the moment. But the case has lifted the lid on the barely suppressed anti-globalist, anti-Chinese sentiment that is alive and well in Australia. And, no doubt, those Australians like Mr Cameron, who fear the spectre of China playing a much larger part in Australia's economic future, will take heart from America's retreat from globalisation last week.

[Plane]

Simular British story.

http://www.thetravelinsider.info/2005/email0304.htm


And British Airways is seeking $1 million from the US government, claiming that it was unreasonably required to return on of its planes back to Britain due to the alleged presence of a possible terrorist on board.

Well, one thing is for sure.  We now know how desperately BA hates having to turn its planes around once they've taken off.  We know this because, immediately after takeoff from Los Angeles on Saturday 19 February, a BA 747 had an engine failure.  Rather than land back at the airport, the pilot chose to fly his crippled plane all the way to London - eleven hours and 5000 miles away.  Well, actually, no, the plane didn't make it all the way.  Because a plane flying on only three engines can't fly as high, it burns more fuel while flying at a lower altitude (with more air friction), and so the flight had to declare a fuel emergency (on top of its engine 'non-emergency') and land short of London, in Manchester.

As this flight showed, a 747 can fly on three engines, indeed rumors persist that some airlines will routinely switch an engine off in flight if the plane is enjoying strong tail winds and is ahead of schedule.  It is okay to turn an engine off when you can always restart it at will, but to fly with a totally failed engine is a different story.  Think of it like driving your car without a spare tire - your margin for error is substantially reduced.  Yes, a 747 can also fly, more or less, on two engines, although fuel management and risk factors become even more extreme.

As many military pilots know, when one thing goes wrong with a plane, for whatever reason, other things become much more likely to also go wrong. Systems are more stressed, the cause of the first problem might impact on other systems, and who knows what else. When one thing goes wrong, the prudent thing is to immediately abort the mission/flight, call an emergency, and land asap.

FAA rules require US airlines to land at the nearest suitable airport after an engine failure.  A spokesperson for the FAA said about the BA escapade "we are concerned." How's that for a dynamic response.

Amazingly, BA would have us believe that financial issues had nothing to do with its decision to press on to London (or, as it turned out, Manchester).  BA first tried to tell us the engine failure occurred one hour into the flight (the engine failure occurred at 100 ft as the plane was taking off from LAX).  When that claim was contradicted by the facts, BA's Senior 747 Captain, Doug Brown, said the only issue was 'what was best for passengers'.  He also said the 747 is as safe on three engines as on four.

Question to Capt Brown :  Why don't you take one of the engines off all your 747s and always only fly with three engines?

There's an interesting footnote to this story.  At least one of the articles about this appalling event referred to BA as saving about $200,000.  Makes you wonder how BA calculates its $1 million claim for diverting its other flight, doesn't it.

[Plane]

http://onlyatest.org/jdjFiles/BadFlying.pps