Aviation News

Massive plane: Mohd Salleh (centre) and MAS staff members giving the thumbs up in front of the Airbus A380.

SEPANG: Hundreds of thrilled Malaysians got a joyride onboard the new and massive Airbus A380 which took to the home skies for the first time.

Organised by Malaysia Airlines (MAS), the joyride also served as a route proving flight for it to obtain the regulatory approvals ahead of its first commercial flight on July 1.

Among the guests was former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, who beamed jovially as he shook hands with excited passengers on the plane yesterday.

The other passengers comprised MAS staff, members of the media and its BigFlight competition winners.

One of them, Amirul Ashraf Md Yazid, 19, said he thoroughly enjoyed the ride despite some turbulence during the journey.

He was impressed with the amenities, including its extensive in-flight entertainment selection.

“This was a fantastic opportunity for us to enjoy what would otherwise be a very expensive trip,” he said, adding that his winning video had been a collaboration with friend Raja Syahiran Raja Azharianshah, 19.

MAS Customer Experience head Datuk Mohd Salleh Ahmad Tabrani said the Airbus A380, which is the world’s biggest passenger airliner, was a launch pad for its new branding efforts.

He told reporters that numerous changes have been made to enhance its passengers’ experience with the airline, with “high quality” and “consistency” being the keywords.

Mohd Salleh said significant fuel savings on the aircraft were also due to the new technology used in creating the materials onboard, including tableware.

He said compared to the old tableware, the new tableware used in economy class alone would reduce the plane’s weight by as much as 250kg.

With 494 seats, including 350 on the main deck and 70 in the upper deck, the plane is also equipped with a Muslim prayer area, snack counters and bassinet points.

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Dana Air crash

LAGOS, Nigeria — Emergency workers in Nigeria used cadaver dogs and cranes to search for corpses Monday at the site where an American-built airliner plunged to earth, killing all 153 aboard. Rescue officials said they fear many more people may have perished on the ground.

A Nigeria Red Cross report said that 48 bodies had been recovered, with more being dug out from the rubble.

The pilots reported engine trouble before the plane crashed on its way into Lagos. Two years ago, the same Boeing MD-83 lost engine power due to a bird strike, according to an aviation database.

On a clear Sunday afternoon, the Dana Air jetliner smashed into businesses and crowded apartment buildings near Lagos’ Murtala Muhammed International Airport, the worst air disaster in Nigeria in nearly two decades.

“The fear is that since it happened in a residential area, there may have been many people killed,” said Yushau Shuaib, a spokesman for Nigeria’s National Emergency Management Agency.

At the crash site Monday, police with cadaver dogs searched for bodies inside the wreckage.

Overnight officials brought in a large crane from a local construction company to lift pieces of debris away. They also brought blow torches to cut through what remains of the plane. The debris still smoldered Monday morning. Some wore masks to try and protect themselves from the stench of the dead.

Rescue workers used the crane from the construction site to lift the tail of the aircraft. The metal shrieked as it lifted skyward and was dropped down. Investigators then climbed ladders to begin to look at its tail.

Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan arrived Monday to the crash site and spent about 20 minutes looking at the wreckage with federal lawmakers. He said the crash was a setback to Nigeria’s Aviation Ministry.

“We will make sure this will not repeat itself in this country,” he said.

However, that is a difficult challenge in a nation with a history of major passenger plane crashes in the last 20 years.

The cause of the crash remained unclear. The pilots radioed to the Lagos control tower just before the crash, reporting engine trouble, a military official said. The official spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to speak to journalists. Rescue workers searched for the aircraft’s black box recorders where flight data is stored, said Harold Demuren, the director-general of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority.

Demuren said the Nigerian registration number of the plane was 5NRAM. Aviation databases show the plane was exported to Nigeria in early 2009. It was first delivered in 1990 with the U.S. registration number N944AS to Alaska Airlines and it suffered two minor incidents while in the Seattle-based airline’s service, according to databases of the Federal Aviation Administration and the Aviation Safety Network. On Nov. 2, 2002, the plane made an emergency diversion due to smoke and electrical smell in the cabin, and on Aug. 20, 2006, the plane was evacuated after landing at Long Beach, California because of smoke in the passenger cabin.

Boeing said in a statement on its website that the company is ready to provide technical assistance to the Civil Aviation Authority on Nigeria through the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board.

Bobbie Egan, spokeswoman for Alaska Airlines, said she had no information on the aircraft that may have been used several years ago by the airline and referred calls to Alaska’s corporate communications office, which was not yet open.

On April 19, 2010, the made an emergency landing at Lagos due to loss of engine power after a bird strike following takeoff, according to the Aviation Safety Network.

The aircraft appeared to have come down Sunday on its belly onto the dense neighborhood that sits along the typical approach path taken by aircraft heading into Lagos’ Murtala Muhammed International Airport. The plane tore through roofs, sheared a mango tree and rammed into a woodworking studio, a printing press and at least two apartment buildings before stopping. The plane was heading to Lagos from Abuja, the capital, when it went down.

A white, noxious cloud rose from the crash site that burned onlookers’ eye. Pieces of the plane were scattered around the muddy ground.
While local residents helped carry fire hoses to the crash site, the major challenges of life in oil-rich Nigeria quickly became apparent as there wasn’t any water to put out the flames more than three hours later. Some young men carried plastic buckets of water to the fire. Fire trucks, from the very few that are stationed in Lagos state with a population of 17.5 million, couldn’t carry enough water. Officials commandeered water trucks from nearby construction sites, but narrow, crowded roads prevented them from reaching the crash site.

The dead included at least four Chinese citizens, the official Chinese news agency Xinhua reported late Sunday, citing Chinese diplomats in Nigeria. Officials at the Chinese embassy in Nigeria could not be reached for comment by the AP. Two of the crash victims were Lebanese, according to state-run Lebanon’s National News Agency. The NNA identified them as Nadim Chediac, an architect who has a Lebanese father and Nigerian mother, and Roger Awwad, an investor.

Nigeria, home to more than 160 million people, has a history of major aviation disasters, though in recent years there hasn’t been a crash. In August 2010, the U.S. announced it had given Nigeria the Federal Aviation Administration’s Category 1 status, its top safety rating that allows the West African nation’s domestic carriers to fly directly to the U.S.

But many travelers remain leery of some airlines. The country is beset by government corruption and mismanagement.

On Saturday night, a Nigerian Boeing 727 cargo airliner crashed in Accra, the capital of Ghana, slamming into a bus and killing 10 people. The plane belonged to Lagos-based Allied Air Cargo.

Lagos-based Dana Air has five aircraft in its fleet and runs both regional and domestic flights. It has announced on its website that all Monday flights have been canceled. Local media reported a similar Dana flight in May made an emergency landing at the Lagos airport after having a hydraulic problem.

Nigeria has tried to redeem its aviation image in recent years, saying it now has full radar coverage of the entire country. However, in a nation where the state-run electricity company is in tatters, the power grid and diesel generators sometimes both fail at airports, making radar screens go blank.

Sunday’s crash appeared to be the worst since September 1992, when a military transport plane crashed into a swamp shortly after takeoff from Lagos. All 163 army soldiers, relatives and crew members on board were killed.

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Cebu Pacific

IT’S a key part of any airline’s strategy – overbook flights to compensate for passengers who fail to turn up at the airport. However outrage from would-be passengers denied seats as a result has sparked a ban against the practice in the Philippines.

With the ban set to come in place on June 15, furious airlines have launched an appeal against the decision, saying it will severely damage their business model.

With the ban, airlines that fail to deliver seats to paying passengers will be fined 5000 pesos ($116) for each person bumped off a flight, on top of the ticket refund.

“There is a strong public outcry against these services,” Civil Aeronautics Board executive director Carmelo Arcilla told AFP.

“Of course if there is recurrent practice and bad faith it (an airline’s operating licence) can be suspended or worse. It depends on the magnitude of violations.”

Driven mainly by cheaper fares, Philippine airline traffic has grown at double-digit pace in four of the past five years, including a 12 per cent rise last year to 34.5 million passengers, according to Arcilla.

Budget carrier Cebu Pacific, the country’s largest airline by revenue and fleet size, said it would appeal the ban, arguing it would have to raise fares by at least 10 per cent to comply.

“Low fares, a social equaliser and the growth catalyst that has seen millions of people fly for the first time – and keeps them flying – will be history,” it said in a statement.

Cebu Pacific also said overbooking was “industry practice” for airlines, as well as hotels, ships and trains, around the world.

Australian airlines such as Virgin Australia and Qantas offer “incentives” or compensation for those bumped from an overbooked flight including a seat on another flight.

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Frances Macaskill, 58, is thought to have attacked a man on Jetconnect's QF37 flight on Saturday morning, and cabin crew had to restrain her before the plane turned back to Melbourne - an hour into the flight.

It’s reported that the grandmother was "heavily intoxicated" when she punched a male passenger in the face causing heavy bleeding.

Ms Macaskill, who was travelling to see her children in Wellington, was handcuffed and restrained across the shoulders, but continued to headbutt the seat in front of her.

She pleaded guilty to assaulting the passenger and behaving in a disorderly manner on the flight. As well as having to pay Qantas' cost of returning the flight to Melbourne, Ms Macaskill was fined $3,500 (£2,200) for the assault, and given a four-month jail term, wholly suspended over two years.

According to news.com.au, magistrate Luisa Bazzani said: "Those passengers affected by your appalling behaviour were unable to remove themselves from the situation.

"That the plane had to be re-routed and returned to Melbourne because of your behaviour is in itself illustrative of the level of disruption that you caused.The assault by you of a fellow passenger without any provocation is particularly concerning."

Macaskill has also been banned from flying with Qantas for at least 10 years.

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