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Southwest Airlines B737-700 Uncontained Catastrophic Engine Failure

9/8/2018

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ASG STATEMENT
South West Airlines Flight WN 1380 17 April 2018.

​On 17 April 2018 a South West Airlines Boeing 737-700 experienced an in-flight engine failure on climb-out from New York La Guardia airport which resulted in the death of one passenger who was partially sucked out of a shattered windows during a cabin depressurisation.
​The NTSB have confirmed that a fan blade from the left-hand engine (a CFM56-7B)    had separated from the engine hub and an initial examination has shown evidence of metal fatigue where the blade became detached.


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On the soapbox: the threats facing the aviation industry

6/8/2018

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Nigel is an aviation consultant and flight operations auditor with over 35 years of experience in commercial aviation with both passenger and cargo airlines.  He specialises in flight operations support, operational control and supervision.  He is the holder of an FAA Part 65 Flight Dispatcher licence and an aviation safety advisor to the PACTS (Parliamentary Council for Transportation Safety) and an independent expert to European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA). 

Nigel Johnstone has been involved with civil aviation over 35 years.

“Commercial aviation has an enviable reputation for safety and is frequently held up as an example to aspire to. That reputation has been hard won; coming from the efforts of aviation professionals spending decades learning from incidents and accidents that have befallen the industry.


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How Working on the Flight Deck has Changed During the Last 50 Years by Ian Frow - ASG Committee Member

4/8/2018

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How Working on the Flight Deck has Changed During the Last 50 Years by Ian Frow ASG Committee Member
FLIGHT DECK/FLIGHT CREW CHANGES IN PAST 50 YEARS
A Personal Note

Once I had started to write this blog it turned into something slightly different with a more personal remembered slant. (My personal reminiscences are in italics) For my entire career I was a long-haul pilot although, especially in the early days, we flew a number of short haul type sectors in both Europe and elsewhere in the world. This essay reflects the changes primarily in the BOAC/long haul world but with some BEA/short haul comparisons where applicable.



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FATIGUE – Tired Aircraft Maintenance Engineers (AME) Can Make Mistakes With Disastrous Consequences

4/8/2018

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And you think you’re tired….
We all know how concentration suffers when we’re feeling tired, and that the hours
we work - and their timing - have a strong influence over this. We also know we aren’t the only link in the chain of getting safely from A to B without human error creeping in. We’re talking about the engineers maintaining your silvery birds.
Inevitable commercial pressures within the organisations they work for, as well as the vagaries of their own personal circumstances can, and often do, motivate them to work extensive hours. There have been some serious incidents where fatigue has been cited as a contributory factor leading to the initiating maintenance error.

The most recent high-profile event was the BA A319 in May 2013, which suffered a double cowl loss following maintenance by two engineers on a night shift. In the preceding 14 days the certifying engineer had worked four 12-Hour day shifts and eight 12-Hour night shifts (not including breaks) and the non-certifying engineer wasn’t far behind. Thankfully BA have now amended procedures to more appropriately control hours, and of the five safety recommendations made in the AAIB report, the first one related directly to implementation of Fatigue Risk Management Systems (FRMS’) for maintenance organisations.
This is not the only instance where maintenance error has occurred on a night shift when circadian rhythms are at a natural low; fatigue has been implied or directly cited as a factor in the maintenance errors that led to the following serious incidents and, sadly, catastrophes:



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