Schiphol hijack alert is 'false alarm': Air Europa
November 07, 2019
Spanish carrier Air Europa has admitted that a hijack alert which triggered a military police response at Amsterdam Schiphol airport was issued inadvertently. Dutch military police had stated that they were investigating a "suspicious" situation on board an aircraft at Schiphol airport, but had not detailed the nature of the 6 November incident. The police, from the Royal Netherlands Marechaussee, subsequently informed that passengers and crew were "safe". Although the police had not identified the flight involved, Air Europa has clarified that a warning which triggers procedures for responding to a hijack was "activated by mistake". "Nothing has happened, all passengers are safe and sound," says the carrier, adding that the situation was a "false alarm". Air Europa flight UX1094 to Madrid, operated by an Airbus A330-200, had been due to depart at 19:10 from gate D59. The airline has not indicated how the alert was transmitted, although cockpit crews can signal a hijacking by setting the aircraft's transponder squawk code to 7500. Schiphol airport's management company says that its pier D was "temporarily closed" as a result of the investigation by the Marechaussee, but states that regular operations have resumed. Operating under the Dutch defence ministry, the Marechaussee's duties include military policing roles, with such activities as security work at civil airports, combating illegal immigration, and national border protection.
Icelandic start-up budget carrier, "Play", plans A321 fleet
November 06, 2019
Icelandic investors have unveiled a new low-cost airline, branded Play, which intends to use a fleet of Airbus A321s. Play is aiming to operate services initially to Europe, it says. It plans to open routes to a number of North American destinations in spring 2020 and bring its fledgling fleet up to six aircraft for the summer season. The carrier will commence ticket sales in November, eight months after the collapse of a previous budget airline, Wow Air. Play says it has recruited personnel from Wow Air as well as Icelandic wet-lease specialist Air Atlanta. Its chief executive, Arnar Mar Magnusson, is a former chief pilot at Wow Air and headed the carrier's operations. Play wants to expand its fleet further, to 10 aircraft, within a three-year period.
Source: FlightGlobal
Airbus revises A320 logic after touch-and-go accident
November 06, 2019
Airbus is developing a retrofit to reduce the risk of system logic weaknesses that played a role in the SmartLynx A320 touch-and-go accident at Tallinn last year. While performing touch-and-go circuits for student pilots, the aircraft lost elevator control just after landing, a situation which the crew only discovered as the jet accelerated towards rotation again. It became airborne as a result of the horizontal stabiliser setting before bouncing heavily on the runway and entering a sharp climb with its engines damaged and elevators inoperable. Estonian investigation authority OJK found that, during each landing, the instructor pilot had been grasping the trim wheel to prevent the stabiliser from returning to neutral, in order to maintain a take-off setting. This action would have been observed as a discrepancy between the stabiliser's actual and commanded positions. In order for this situation not to be interpreted as a runaway, an override mechanism is designed to detect manual takeover, disengage the pitch-trim actuator and trigger three microswitches. But the inquiry found that the wrong sort of oil – with twice the viscosity of the oil required – was used in the override mechanism, resulting in a "non-standard" friction curve of the mechanism's clutch, and incorrect microswitch activation. Maintenance documentation does not require any test of the override during regular checks, it adds, and "could have contributed" to the wrong oil being left unnoticed. OJK says the instructor's manual grasping of the stabiliser trim wheel was not registered correctly by the override, generating erratic microswitch triggering and the loss of elevator aileron computer control. At the moment of the touch-and-go incident on 28 February last year, this sequence had rendered both elevator aileron computers unavailable. Airbus is developing a software modification for this computer, intended to "mitigate the consequences" of a failure to detect manual takeover of the horizontal stabiliser through the trim wheel, it adds. Certification of this upgrade and global retrofit is planned for mid-2020. When neither elevator aileron computer is available the system logic shifts pitch control to the spoiler elevator computer. But OJK also found that a "design flaw" allowed a single event – a shallow rebound during the landing – to trigger a consolidation logic discrepancy between the spoiler elevator computer's two channels, with one computing elevator orders in 'flight' law and the other computing orders in 'ground' law. It resulted in the loss of control of both elevators by both spoiler elevator computers, and subsequently to the elevators' moving and locking in the neutral position – setting up the failure to rotate when the A320 accelerated for take-off. Airbus has initiated developed of a modification which, the inquiry says, will improve the weakness in the consolidation logic and increase robustness of the spoiler elevator computer against landing-gear bounce. All seven occupants of the A320, including four student pilots, survived after the instructor and a safety pilot managed to use thrust from the damaged engines and horizontal stabiliser trim to return to Tallinn for an emergency landing. Both engines failed before the aircraft touched down and the jet was subsequently written off.
Source: FlightGlobal