CASA rules Qantas maintenance below par

BY KATE HANNON

2/09/2008 12:00:00 AM

The air safety regulator has found evidence of emerging problems with Qantas's maintenance and performance, and ordered the airline to fix the problems quickly.

An independent safety audit of the airline by the Civil Aviation Safety Authority found the airline's maintenance performance had fallen below the airline's own high benchmarks.

But CASA found there was no evidence of systemic safety problems, nor any links between a string of in-flight incidents in the past 14 months and an increase in the rate of safety incidents.

International pilots and unions said yesterday the findings were ''a wake-up call'' for Qantas, which had been plagued for more than 12 months by stalled pay talks with its licensed aircraft maintenance engineers. These were finally resolved a month ago.

Qantas chief executive Geoff Dixon said yesterday the carrier would work closely with CASA to implement its recommendations.

Mr Dixon said, ''These issues are not about safety or compliance and we are working to bring our network performance back to the standards which have earned us a reputation as one of the best and most reliable airlines in the world. These difficulties, while improving, will continue for a few weeks yet as our policy of safety before schedule is sacrosanct.''

In releasing the safety review findings, CASA's deputy chief executive officer operations, Mick Quinn, said the regulator had found no direct link between recent safety incidents among them the explosion of an oxygen bottle on a 747-400 near Manila in July.

Mr Quinn said, ''We believe these are random events, the sort of events that would happen on any airline, on any given day, in any part of the world.

''Qantas is a safe airline and CASA has no doubt about that.''

Federal Transport Minister Anthony Albanese told Parliament the actions ordered by CASA had sent a signal to the public and the industry that Qantas was serious about maintaining its high safety standards.

Mr Albanese said, ''Australia can indeed be proud that we have a rigorous, world's-best- practice safety regime and that Qantas is rightly regarded as an airline with a reputation for safety that is second to none.''

Opposition transport spokesman Warren Truss said he expected the CASA review to help Qantas improve its maintenance and performance systems.

CASA has ordered the airline to produce a plan to tackle deficiencies in its maintenance performance. That plan would include a full maintenance audit of one of each major type of aircraft in the Qantas fleet. It has ordered a second audit of Qantas maintenance systems in response to CASA airworthiness directives and how recent failures to comply with directives have been handled.

''CASA has looked carefully at the Qantas maintenance systems and performance and uncovered signs of emerging problems,'' Mr Quinn said.

''The review found maintenance performance within Qantas is showing some adverse trends and is now below the airline's own benchmarks.''

The general manager of the Australian International Pilots Association, Peter Somerville, said the review uncovered issues that had been raised by pilots and engineers for some time.

''The ball is well and truly in Qantas's court now ... There's a real wake-up call in this for all involved.''

source: CASA rules Qantas maintenance below par
The Canberra Times, Australia - 1 hour ago

CASA urges Qantas to improve maintenance

September 1, 2008 - 7:19PM

The civil aviation watchdog has ordered Qantas to improve aircraft maintenance and will rigorously inspect some of its fleet amid signs of "emerging problems".

The Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASE) on Monday released the findings of a review sparked by a series of emergencies, including engine problems and July's mid-air drama that saw an exploding oxygen tank blow a hole in the fuselage of one Qantas plane.

CASA's deputy chief executive of operations Mick Quinn cleared Qantas of any systemic failings, but said the airline must work to improve its maintenance and engineering systems.

"We did not find any evidence that the recent spate of incidents - which is largely why the review was called - has any systemic failure," he said.

"We believe these are random events, the sort of events that would happen on any airline, on any given day, in any part of the world."

But Mr Quinn said the review found Qantas was failing to meet its own standards and CASA would work to ensure the airline lifted its game.

Qantas will be forced to offer up three planes - one from each of the major models flown by the airline - for inspection by CASA officials.

"This will involve checking all maintenance documentation for each of these aircraft to see it has been completed, as well as physically examining the aircraft on the ground," a statement from CASA said.

Mr Quinn moved to reassure passengers that Qantas was safe.

"Qantas is a safe airline and CASA has no doubt about that," he said, but added there were concerns.

"CASA has looked carefully at the Qantas maintenance systems and performance and uncovered signs of emerging problems.

"The review found maintenance performance within Qantas is showing some adverse trends and is now below the airline's own benchmarks."

National AMWU secretary Dave Oliver said the CASA report should serve as a "wake up call" for Qantas, and said the airline must guarantee no more maintenance jobs will be lost or sent offshore.

"We've sought on many occasions guarantees that work would not be sent offshore or contracted out and we are yet to see such guarantees," he said.

"(Qantas must) ... have a long, hard look at their maintenance operations and start giving the guarantees that are needed in respect of maintaining a strong, viable, high-quality engineering and maintenance facility that has given them the reputation of being the safest airline in the world."

He accused Qantas of focusing more on cost-cutting than the quality of its maintenance.

"When you start outsourcing work you lose control of your quality and in the airline industry, when we're talking about quality obviously we are talking about safety as well."

Qantas chief executive Geoff Dixon sought to pass much of the blame for maintenance issues on to industrial action by engineers.

"As we have publicly acknowledged, certain key performance indicators and despatch reliability have been significantly impacted by the industrial dispute between Qantas and the Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers' Association over past months," he said.

He stressed that CASA had found no link between any two incidents.

Federal Transport Minister Anthony Albanese backed CASA's findings.

"This ongoing action sends a signal to the aviation industry, and to the travelling public, that CASA and Qantas are very serious about maintaining Australia's high safety standards," Mr Albanese told parliament.

© 2008 AAP

CASA urges Qantas to improve maintenance
The Age, Australia - 1 hour ago

CASA urges Qantas to improve maintenance

September 1, 2008 - 7:19PM

The civil aviation watchdog has ordered Qantas to improve aircraft maintenance and will rigorously inspect some of its fleet amid signs of "emerging problems".

The Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASE) on Monday released the findings of a review sparked by a series of emergencies, including engine problems and July's mid-air drama that saw an exploding oxygen tank blow a hole in the fuselage of one Qantas plane.

CASA's deputy chief executive of operations Mick Quinn cleared Qantas of any systemic failings, but said the airline must work to improve its maintenance and engineering systems.

"We did not find any evidence that the recent spate of incidents - which is largely why the review was called - has any systemic failure," he said.

"We believe these are random events, the sort of events that would happen on any airline, on any given day, in any part of the world."

But Mr Quinn said the review found Qantas was failing to meet its own standards and CASA would work to ensure the airline lifted its game.

Qantas will be forced to offer up three planes - one from each of the major models flown by the airline - for inspection by CASA officials.

"This will involve checking all maintenance documentation for each of these aircraft to see it has been completed, as well as physically examining the aircraft on the ground," a statement from CASA said.

Mr Quinn moved to reassure passengers that Qantas was safe.

"Qantas is a safe airline and CASA has no doubt about that," he said, but added there were concerns.

"CASA has looked carefully at the Qantas maintenance systems and performance and uncovered signs of emerging problems.

"The review found maintenance performance within Qantas is showing some adverse trends and is now below the airline's own benchmarks."

National AMWU secretary Dave Oliver said the CASA report should serve as a "wake up call" for Qantas, and said the airline must guarantee no more maintenance jobs will be lost or sent offshore.

"We've sought on many occasions guarantees that work would not be sent offshore or contracted out and we are yet to see such guarantees," he said.

"(Qantas must) ... have a long, hard look at their maintenance operations and start giving the guarantees that are needed in respect of maintaining a strong, viable, high-quality engineering and maintenance facility that has given them the reputation of being the safest airline in the world."

He accused Qantas of focusing more on cost-cutting than the quality of its maintenance.

"When you start outsourcing work you lose control of your quality and in the airline industry, when we're talking about quality obviously we are talking about safety as well."

Qantas chief executive Geoff Dixon sought to pass much of the blame for maintenance issues on to industrial action by engineers.

"As we have publicly acknowledged, certain key performance indicators and despatch reliability have been significantly impacted by the industrial dispute between Qantas and the Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers' Association over past months," he said.

He stressed that CASA had found no link between any two incidents.

Federal Transport Minister Anthony Albanese backed CASA's findings.

"This ongoing action sends a signal to the aviation industry, and to the travelling public, that CASA and Qantas are very serious about maintaining Australia's high safety standards," Mr Albanese told parliament.

© 2008 AAP

CASA urges Qantas to improve maintenance
The Age, Australia - 1 hour ago

Qantas plane makes an unexpected stop in Frankfurt

Sydney - The run of technical problems for Australia's Qantas Airways continued Sunday with a Singapore-London flight landing in Frankfurt after the captain of the Boeing 747-400 decided to shut down one of the engines.

A Qantas spokeswoman said a vibration had developed and 'as is standard procedure, the engine was shut down.' The 350 passengers were put on other flights.

'There was no safety issue at any time and the aircraft continued to Frankfurt, where it landed without incident,' she said.

Last week a faulty rudder delayed a plane from London for 15 hours and an internal flight was forced into an unscheduled landing because ground crew had forgotten to empty its toilet tanks.

Two weeks ago engineers in Singapore discovered a body panel had fallen off a Qantas jumbo flying in from Melbourne.

Australia's aviation safety watchdog, the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA), is investigating the run of technical hitches.

CASA said on Friday that the initial finding that an exploding oxygen cylinder had forced a Qantas jet to make an emergency in Manila on July 25 had been correct.

The oxygen tank in the cargo bay punched a 3-metre hole in the fuselage of a 747-400 flying from Hong Kong to Melbourne, forcing the pilot to descended from 29,000 feet to 10,000 feet in about five minutes and make an emergency landing in Manila.

A week after Qantas' Manila scare a domestic flight was forced to return to Adelaide after a wheel bay door on a Boeing 767 failed to close properly.

Just days after that, a flight bound for Manila returned to Sydney after the pilot declared an emergency and dumped fuel because of a leak in the hydraulics operating a wing flap.

source: Qantas plane makes an unexpected stop in Frankfurt
Monsters and Critics.com - 8 hours ago

Turmoil for Qantas as craft grounded

QANTAS yesterday grounded a 747 aircraft because a crucial piece of equipment needed urgent maintenance, leaving the plane's tail at risk of breaking away.

The airline confirmed that QF31, due to depart Sydney for London via Singapore, had been delayed because of "maintenance requirements associated with a horizontal stabiliser jack screw".

The union representing aircraft maintenance engineers warned last night that if the jack screw was not lubricated regularly it could seize up and lead to a disaster.

Eight years ago an Alaska Airlines MD-80 jetliner crashed off the coast of Los Angeles, killing all 88 people on board, after its horizontal stabiliser jammed.

Steve Purvinas, the secretary of the Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association, told the Herald: "The jack screw is an important component that has been known to seize up in the past. Regular lubrication and checking of the jack screw is vital because corrosion poses a real risk and must be eliminated to prevent this key component from seizing up."

He said the manufacturer, Boeing, had advised airlines that the jack screw needed to be overhauled between June last year and February. "Boeing issued a directive that this component needed to be checked more rigorously and more regularly."

A spokesman for Qantas confirmed that "there was a maintenance issue involving the lubrication of a jack screw on a Boeing 747-400. Qantas found this through a routine check of our maintenance records.

"The jack screw had been inspected and the aircraft will operate tomorrow."

But the spokesman rejected any comparison with the Alaska Airlines crash.

"There is no connection at all with any other aircraft incident. The Alaska incident involved a different aircraft type and design with different safety features," the spokesman said.

In a day of turmoil for Qantas, it was also revealed that a flight experienced an in-flight engine shutdown as it flew to Auckland, while a 767 was grounded in Melbourne because of a problem with the flap indicator in the cockpit.

A Qantas spokeswoman said all passengers aboard QF438 from Melbourne to Sydney were able to take alternative flights within 2½ hours. Qantas also confirmed that on approach into Auckland one of the four engines on its 747-300 was "reduced to idle".

The crew restored power and the jet landed without incident.

The union also claimed that Australia's air safety monitoring body had warned Qantas more than five years ago of potential problems with the forward pressure bulkheads on its 737-400 fleet, which it grounded on Tuesday afternoon.

click : Turmoil for Qantas as craft grounded
Sydney Morning Herald, Australia

Aviation: MAS - Qantas Staff Monitored Work

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia Airlines (MAS) said yesterday that when Qantas sent one of its B737-400 aircraft to Malaysia Airlines Engineering & Maintenance (MAS E&M) in Subang for a heavy maintenance check (HMC) in May, the Australian carrier had also sent 12 of its own engineering personnel to oversee activities carried out on the aircraft.

"They constantly monitored and audited all HMC activities throughout the check and reported those items which they felt needed improvement," MAS said in response to reports in the Australian media that a Qantas jet had been grounded on Thursday despite a maintenance check in Malaysia earlier.

The Australian media alleged that the Qantas aircraft returned from Malaysia with 95 defects.

"All the problems were rectified to the satisfaction of the Qantas team before the aircraft was delivered to Australia. The Qantas team had been very helpful to our personnel to ensure the maintenance standards of Qantas were strictly observed," said MAS senior general manager E&M, Mohd Roslan Ismail.

With regard to the "string of faults" reported in the Australian media, MAS said its E&M team investigated and established that they were unsubstantiated.

"This is based on the fact that all these aspects were originally checked and found to be free from defect during the maintenance check-and-test flight, with the concurrence of the Qantas team."

As for the case of a Qantas flight attendant experiencing a static/mild electric shock, MAS said E&M had investigated and identified the root cause of the issue.

The media had also alleged that a galley was badly installed, posing a fire risk.

MAS said although it was not possible to ascertain if the defect originated from the HMC work at MAS E&M, this issue had been incorporated as an additional monitoring initiative for future work to eliminate such instances from recurring on all aircraft handled by MAS E&M.

MAS E&M is a certified approved Maintenance & Repair Organisation by the Malaysian Department of Civil Aviation, European Aviation Safety Agency and the US Federal Aviation Administration .

Meanwhile, Bernama reports that a Qantas jet grounded in Melbourne on Thursday because of noise from an air-conditioning fault, was the same plane that returned from routine maintenance in Malaysia two months ago.

The Canberra-bound Boeing 737 jet returned to the terminal and passengers were transferred to another plane, finally leaving Melbourne 90 minutes later.

A Qantas spokesman said QF850 had problems with an air- conditioning duct unit while taxiing towards the runway. She also confirmed that, as with any maintenance work undertaken overseas, the work was carried out with supervision by Qantas Australian engineers.

The 737 had been back in service for seven weeks after the defects were repaired, she said.

The incident was the latest in a recent run of setbacks for Qantas. The spate of problems started last month when an explosion ripped a hole in the fuselage of a Qantas jet en route from Hong Kong to Melbourne, forcing an emergency landing at Manila.

Last week, a domestic flight was forced to return to Adelaide after a wheel bay door failed to close.

A Qantas Boeing 767 flight turned back to make an emergency landing at Sydney airport on Aug 2 after a hydraulic fluid leak was discovered.

On Monday, a jet was grounded for almost three hours after a technical fault was discovered in a pre-flight inspection at Sydney airport.

(c) 2008 New Straits Times. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.

click here: MAS: Qantas Staff Monitored Work
RedOrbit, TX -

Aviation: Probe of Qantas in Malaysia

AUSTRALIAN regulators are investigating maintenance operations in Malaysia after the return of a Qantas Boeing 737-400 with a string of defects.

However, Qantas said yesterday a decision not to send two more 737s to Malaysia for heavy maintenance was unrelated to the CASA investigation.

Qantas engineers claimed two months ago that defects on the 737-400 included a galley so badly installed that a flight attendant received an electric shock, and problems with the navigation system and rudder.

Malaysia Airlines this weekend described the union claims as unsubstantiated. A spokesman said the repairs had been overseen by 12 Qantas engineers and all problems had been rectified to the Qantas team's satisfaction before it was delivered to Australia.

CASA spokesman Peter Gibson confirmed yesterday that the regulator was investigating the Malaysian maintenance operations. "We certainly have looked at it and we certainly still are looking at it," Mr Gibson said. "We haven't given them a clean bill of health but neither have we said that there are serious problems."

Qantas executive general manager, engineering, David Cox said the CASA review was not responsible for the airline's decision to overhaul two aircraft in Australia rather than Malaysia. "They've asked us some questions as a result of the interest in this check but they've made no directive at this stage," Mr Cox said.

Work at the airline's Tullamarine engineering facility had been deferred, and this had opened up the opportunity to bring the two 737s back in house.

click here Probe of Qantas in MalaysiaNEWS.com.au, Australia