Jet missing screws 'was safe'
By Yang Jian |
November 30, 2011, Wednesday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
A CHINESE aircraft maintenance company has played down safety fears after a passenger jet it had worked on flew thousands of kilometers with screws missing from a wing.
The Air France Airbus 340 arrived in Xiamen in southeast China on October 4 to undergo routine maintenance from the Taikoo Aircraft Engineering Company and set off to Paris on November 10, the company said in a statement yesterday.
The aircraft, that can carry 250 passengers, stopped at Charles de Gaulle Airport for three days before flying on to Boston in the United States.
There, 30 out of 90 screws on a protective panel between the fuselage and a wing were found to be missing, according to French media reports.
Air France immediately grounded the aircraft until the screws were replaced.
Taikoo and Air France said flight safety was not placed at risk as the missing screws had nothing to do with the plane's major structure.
Air France and Taikoo are investigating the incident.
"It's still unclear whether the screws went missing during maintenance, and we are investigating with the Air France," Xu Linlin, a Taikoo press official, told Shanghai Daily yesterday.
Aviation expert Zhou Jisheng told Shanghai Daily that if the screws were only for protective panels that needed to be opened every time the aircraft landed for maintenance, their absence would not have caused a problem during flight as the panel would not have come under any stress.
But Zhou, a civil aviation researcher and former deputy designer of China's first domestically developed jet, the ARJ-21, said he could not state categorically there was no safety risk because he did not know the exact location of the missing screws as Taikoo had not provided this information.
However, an insider, who asked not to be named, told Guangzhou Daily yesterday that there would have been a safety threat because the screws were on the wing.
Taikoo - that Air France says enjoys a "high reputation" - was founded in 1993 with total investment of 2.8 billion yuan (US$438 million).
The main shareholders in Taikoo include the Hong Kong Aircraft Engineering Co Ltd, Xiamen Aviation Industry Co Ltd and Cathay Pacific Airways.
The company has aircraft maintenance licenses from civil aviation authorities in China, Singapore, United States, Japan and Europe, according to the company's website.
The Air France Airbus 340 arrived in Xiamen in southeast China on October 4 to undergo routine maintenance from the Taikoo Aircraft Engineering Company and set off to Paris on November 10, the company said in a statement yesterday.
The aircraft, that can carry 250 passengers, stopped at Charles de Gaulle Airport for three days before flying on to Boston in the United States.
There, 30 out of 90 screws on a protective panel between the fuselage and a wing were found to be missing, according to French media reports.
Air France immediately grounded the aircraft until the screws were replaced.
Taikoo and Air France said flight safety was not placed at risk as the missing screws had nothing to do with the plane's major structure.
Air France and Taikoo are investigating the incident.
"It's still unclear whether the screws went missing during maintenance, and we are investigating with the Air France," Xu Linlin, a Taikoo press official, told Shanghai Daily yesterday.
Aviation expert Zhou Jisheng told Shanghai Daily that if the screws were only for protective panels that needed to be opened every time the aircraft landed for maintenance, their absence would not have caused a problem during flight as the panel would not have come under any stress.
But Zhou, a civil aviation researcher and former deputy designer of China's first domestically developed jet, the ARJ-21, said he could not state categorically there was no safety risk because he did not know the exact location of the missing screws as Taikoo had not provided this information.
However, an insider, who asked not to be named, told Guangzhou Daily yesterday that there would have been a safety threat because the screws were on the wing.
Taikoo - that Air France says enjoys a "high reputation" - was founded in 1993 with total investment of 2.8 billion yuan (US$438 million).
The main shareholders in Taikoo include the Hong Kong Aircraft Engineering Co Ltd, Xiamen Aviation Industry Co Ltd and Cathay Pacific Airways.
The company has aircraft maintenance licenses from civil aviation authorities in China, Singapore, United States, Japan and Europe, according to the company's website.
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