Austrian air navigation service provider Austro Control and German aerospace research centre DLR are testing at Vienna airport specially erected panels near a runway threshold as part of an effort to reduce aircraft wake vortices and shorten separation between arriving flights. The structure consists of a series of roughly parallel panels – approximately 9m (30ft) long and 4.5m tall – which have been installed in the approach area of runway 16, close to the instrument landing system's localiser antenna. While wake vortices at altitude tend to quickly descend, drift away and dissipate, they can hover for "some time" near the ground, DLR says. "The very first evaluations of the new measurements in Vienna show that the wake vortices near the [panels] decay noticeably faster," states Frank Holzapfel of DLR's Institute of Atmospheric Physics. The test in Vienna is scheduled to run until September. But DLR says that work is under way with its partners to design and install a permanent structure by 2021.

Sources: FlightGlobal

Another SpiceJet aircraft suffered a runway excursion, the second such incident in two days. On 1 July evening, one of the airline’s Boeing 737-800 overran the runway at Mumbai Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj airport after landing in heavy rain. The aircraft was operating flight SG6237 from Jaipur. SpiceJet says there was no injury to the passengers or crew, and that everyone was evacuated “normally”. As a result of the incident, the airport’s main runway, the 3,660m-long 09/27, had to be shut down. The airport operator tweeted that operations to restore services on 09/27 could take up to 48 hours.

Source: FlightGlobal

Australian carrier Regional Express (Rex) has fired back at what it called “anonymous malicious attacks” on its safety record. In a tersely-worded statement, the airline has defended its safety record, saying that it is “second to none”.
Rex was responding to Australian media reports which alleged that the airline had been lax in safety. The Sunday Telegraph published a report submitted to the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) in Australia, alleging that Rex pressured its maintenance crew not to report defects. The Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers’ Association, which was behind the report, had urged the authorities to revoke the airline’s licence to maintain its own planes, effectively grounding its entire fleet. A Rex engineer was allegedly disciplined after he spotted corrosion on a propeller shaft, and was told that he was not meant to inspect that part of the aircraft. Rex’s chief operating officer Neville Howell pointed the blame on CASA, charging that it was the authority which leaked the information. “Realising that these baseless accusations are not getting any traction, some are now taking the despicable and cowardly approach of launching anonymous malicious attacks on Rex in the press,” Howell says.

Source: FlightGlobal