EgyptAir and Flight 990

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http://www.4utah.com/news/national/

(Cairo, Egypt-AP) -- EgyptAir is welcoming comments from a top U-S investigator who says more studies must be done to determine the cause of the Flight 990 crash. The head of the airline says he hopes the statement will end speculation about what caused the crash. The chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board is disputing an Associated Press report that says investigators are increasingly convinced the jet was crashed deliberately. Jim Hall says ``no hypothesis'' for the cause has been accepted. EgyptAir has rejected suggestions that a co-pilot was responsible for the October crash that killed 217 people. The airline's chairman says he believes something happened to the plane's tail mechanism -- and that resulted in the near-sonic speed dive before the jet crashed.

-- boop (leafyspurge@hotmail.com), January 24, 2000

Answers

Want to look back in time?

-- Heaven Forbid (allwhopr@y.com), January 24, 2000.

The satellite pic of the particle beam fired from MASS. that downed that baby is all over the internet, what's the mystery? heh.

-- Hokie (Hokie_@hotmail.com), January 24, 2000.

Hokie, I bet if we had one of those little Particle Beam Gizmos we could solve the Chemtrail Puzzle. You're a pretty smart "guy", whatta ya think. Thanks for previous...I was almost right.

Been busy trying to figure out what a "Dollar" "is" relative to market. I sometimes feel overwhelmed trying to figure all this stuff out. Sorta like a Rubiks Cube but I can't help but believe it is all interrelated. Corruption is everywhere it seems. Sometimes I put on my Pragmatic Hat and just utter "Ignorance is Bliss". I guess the "Sherlock" in me can't help but draw me back to search for the truth. The only axiom I have at this point is "Follow the Money" (just can't find two economists who agree as to what "money" is). They all know the cost of everything but the value of nothing.(stole that from someone but can't remember who)

-- Larry (Rampon@Dallas.com), January 24, 2000.


Hokie, care to post a url ?

-- merville (merville@globalnet.co.uk), January 24, 2000.

Think the story below might have a bearing on why the Egyptians are asking questions about the rudder???

Rudder decision could cost Boeing

Saturday, March 20, 1999

By JAMES WALLACE SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

Anyone who has flown on a modern commercial jetliner has probably heard similar reassuring words from the co-pilot shortly before landing:

"Folks, from the flight deck, we should be on the ground in about 10 minutes. Uh, sunny skies, a little hazy," First Officer Charles Emmett told the 127 passengers aboard USAir Flight 427 as the Boeing 737-300 approached Pittsburgh International Airport the

evening of Sept. 8, 1994.

"(We) certainly 'ppreciate you choosing USAir for your travel needs this evening. Hope you enjoyed the flight."

Two minutes later, at 7:02 p.m., as the airplane descended through 6,000 feet, it rolled to the left, flipped on its back and dived toward Earth, striking the ground nearly perpendicular at 300 mph. Only fragments of the plane and the 132 people aboard were left in the smoldering scar gouged in a forested gully near Aliquippa, Pa.

Within hours, investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board were on site, searching for clues to what caused Flight 427 to fall out of the sky. That mystery has turned into the longest and most complex air crash investigation in U.S. history.

But next week, in perhaps its mostly closely watched decision ever, the board is expected to finally say that the probable cause was a malfunction of the 737's rudder power-control unit, and may recommend a costly redesign, according to people familiar with the NTSB draft final report on Flight 427.

Such a finding and recommendation would further heighten rudder safety concerns that have long shadowed the 737,

the world's most popular jet

liner.

The rudder is the movable part on a plane's tail that controls side- to-side movement. (A pilot turns by using ailerons that raise or lower the wings, not by moving the rudder.)

Over the years, there have been many incidents in which 737 pilots have reported uncommanded rudder movements.

Most recently, a US Airways Metrojet traveling from Orlando, Fla., to Hartford, Conn., on Feb. 23 experienced an unintended rudder movement at cruising altitude. The pilots recovered control of the plane and made an emergency landing at Baltimore-Washington International Airport.

Three years before the USAir accident, a rudder malfunction was suspected in the crash of a United Airlines 737 as it approached the Colorado Springs, Colo., airport March 3, 1991.

All 25 people aboard Flight 585 died when the Boeing jet rolled to the right and nose-dived nearly vertically into the ground from several hundred feet.

The Boeing Co. has maintained that a violent atmospheric disturbance known as a "wind rotor' flipped over the jet.

The NTSB couldn't determine the cause of the United crash, one of only four commercial airplane crashes in the United States that the safety board has not found probable cause for since it was formed in 1967.

Although the FAA is under no obligation to order any redesign of the 737 rudder power-control unit based on NTSB recommendations, it will be under pressure to do something, given the high profile of the USAir case and the incidents of uncommanded rudder movement that 737 pilots still report.

"If the FAA doesn't take action, we should hold hearings to find out exactly what is going on," said Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., who sits on the House aviation subcommittee. He recently asked the FAA to ground older, or "classic," 737s (737-100s, -200s,

-300s, -400s and -500s) that have not been retrofitted with an improved rudder power-control unit used on "next-generation" models (737-600s,

-700s and -800s).

In 1997, the FAA ordered the new units installed on classic 737s by Aug. 4, and FAA Administrator Jane Garvey said there are no plans to change that deadline. As of March 1, only 484 of 1,025 classic 737s in the U.S. fleet were flying with the improved rudder power-control unit.

Any NTSB recommendations for further changes to the 737 rudder also would put pressure on Boeing, which could find itself and its airplane under an intense news-media spotlight for weeks and months.

The five-member safety board and staff members who investigated Flight 427 will meet Tuesday morning in Springfield, Va., to consider the draft final report and to make final recommendations. The staff- prepared draft continues to be revised before the public meeting.

Mike Denton, former chief 737 project engineer who has been Boeing's point man on 737 rudder issues for two years, said, "If recommendations were directed toward The Boeing Co. for making some further changes, or considering some further changes, our response would be that we want to understand the analysis behind their conclusions and recommendations, that we would want to spend some time seriously reviewing that data so that we can understand the basis for the recommendations. . . .

"We would not take a long time to make that kind of study," Denton added. "But we will not make a flip answer next week that says we know the answer."

Investigators from Boeing, the NTSB and the FAA agree that only a rudder swinging all the way to the left could account for what happened to Flight 427 as it flipped over and dived into the ground.

But the FAA and Boeing maintain that there is not enough evidence to know for certain whether the rudder malfunctioned or whether it swung hard over to the left because of actions the crew took to recover from the wake vortex of a 727 that Flight 427 likely encountered just before the plane rolled over and began its fatal dive. A wake vortex is a mini-tornado swirling off an aircraft's wing tips.

In the United and USAir crashes, investigators have focused on part of the rudder power-control unit known as the dual concentric servo valve. It consists of a primary slide that moves inside a secondary slide and controls the flow of hydraulic fluid to move the rudder.

The design is unique to the 737.

Under extreme conditions created in lab tests, the 737 rudder on older models can move in the opposite direction from that commanded by pilots. This rudder reversal can happen only if the secondary slide in the dual concentric servo valve jams and hydraulic ports misalign.

The FAA says there are three scenarios to explain what happened to Flight 427:

When the plane started to roll, perhaps because of the wake vortex, the pilots pushed on the right rudder pedals, but a rudder reversal resulted in the rudder deflecting full left.

Because of a malfunction, the rudder deflected full left without any command from the crew.

The crew did something in response to the wake vortex. Tom McSweeny, the FAA's associate administrator for aircraft regulation and certification, said at an FAA news-media briefing Monday that there is not enough evidence to know which scenario occurred.

He said airworthiness directives the FAA has issued since the Pittsburgh crash have addressed all three scenarios and that he does not believe more design changes are needed to the 737 rudder power- control unit.

"I have not heard any good arguments about what still needs to be fixed," McSweeny said.

The possibility of a rudder reversal has been eliminated by the redesigned rudder power-control unit on the Next Generation 737 and now being retrofitted on older 737s, he said.

The FAA, Boeing and the airline industry, McSweeny said, have addressed the scenario of an improper crew response to a wake vortex by developing new procedures to teach pilots how to quickly recover from unusual aircraft upsets.

The FAA also has ordered that a new yaw damper coupler and a hydraulic pressure reducer be installed on 737s by August 2000.

The hydraulic pressure reducer limits the amount of rudder deflection that can occur. It would have prevented the full rudder deflection that occurred in the USAir crash.

A yaw damper coupler makes small movements to the rudder to control the side-to-side motion of a plane. Without the yaw damper coupler, the fishtail motion of a plane would sicken passengers.

The 737 has a history of yaw damper coupler malfunctions. Often, these malfunctions have resulted in a maximum rudder deflection of about three degrees left or right. (In the USAir crash, the rudder is believed to have deflected about 19 degrees.)

A three-degree deflection is not

an unsafe flying condition, Denton said.

But it is enough to knock someone off his feet at the back of an airplane. It also can startle the crew, Denton said.

The new yaw damper coupler required for 737s is of solid-state design and can shut itself down if it malfunctions, Denton said.

"We really believe today that we have a safe airplane and that we

are making it safer every day," he said.

But even with all the attention on the 737's rudder power-control unit after the crashes of United Flight 585 and USAir Flight 427, there continue to be 737 rudder incidents that can't be explained.

The Feb. 23 rudder deflection on the Metrojet perhaps troubles investigators the most. The 737 had a new rudder power-control unit, but not a new yaw damper coupler or hydraulic pressure reducer.

The plane was on autopilot at 33,000 feet when it began to roll. At no time did the roll exceed five degrees, according to the FAA's McSweeny. The plane had an older flight data recorder that did not measure rudder movement. But analysis techniques developed from the USAir crash determined that the rudder probably moved on its own about eight or nine degrees, McSweeny said.

A yaw damper coupler malfunction has been ruled out as the cause. The rudder power-control unit was shipped to the manufacturer for examination, but nothing unusual has been found so far.

"We are scratching our heads and trying to understand what happened," Denton said, adding: ". . . It sounds like something is going on there that we still have not figured out."

---------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------

P-I reporter James Wallace can be reached at 206-448-8040 or jameswallace@seattle-pi.com

Link to story...

http://www.seattlep-i.com/business/ntsb20.shtml

-- Carl Jenkins (Somewherepress@aol.com), January 24, 2000.



Right after the crash happened, I heard a few reports about there being 30 some Egyptian officers on board that plane coming back from special training in the U.S. Also, one report said that the plane had landed at an air force base en route from L.A. or something. I never heard this mentioned again. Killing the officers would seem like a terrorist motive (even without publicity). Anybody hear anything to corroborate?

-- none (none@none.nonet), January 25, 2000.

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