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Faulty Australian aircraft grounded

AN Australian airline has grounded almost half of its fleet of Boeing 767 aircraft today after cracks were found in the engine mountings.

Ansett, the country's second largest airline, has suffered a series of problems in recent months. In the latest incident, the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) said Ansett engineers discovered cracks in the joins of engines to wings on three of its fleet of seven Boeing 767-200 planes.

CASA spokesman Peter Gibson said Ansett voluntarily grounded the planes after weekend safety checks and will inspect the remaining four 767 planes before they fly again.

-- Anonymous, April 09, 2001

Answers

If this is a basic problem with the 767 in general, we will soon hear about a recall, or grounding, from our own FAA. However, in the meantime, I can tell you that sometimes this sort of problem goes right back to faulty engine change procedures practiced by whatever maintenance facility Oz is currently using.

The tragic crash of a Douglas DC-10 shortly after takeoff from Chicago a few years ago was traced back to American Airlines engine change procedure. In order to cut some of the costly hours usually required to make an engine change, they came up with a quick method that severely stressed the engine mounting system, resulting in an engine falling off just after takeoff. Just can't always cut corners on these things, or you set up a real nasty problem down the line.

-- Anonymous, April 09, 2001