F_I_2015_02_17_23_

NEWS FOCUS

flightglobal.com 17-23 February 2015 | Flight International | 27

Can Predator

prosper outside

NATO

NEWS FOCUS P29

S

ince the 4 February fatal
crash in Taipei of a TransAsia
Airways ATR 72-600, 49 pilots in
the carrier’s ATR fleet have taken
part in an examination of cockpit
emergency drills, at the orders of
Taiwan’s civil aviation authority

• which has since stated that the
  competency of some of them
  needed to be “strengthened”.
  Taiwan’s Aviation Safety Coun-
  cil (ASC) is investigating whether
  after TransAsia flight GE235 had
  suffered a No 2 (right-hand) en-
  gine flameout during the early
  climb its crew mistakenly shut
  down the good No 1 engine, leav-
  ing the aircraft effectively a glider.
  The ASC says it is reviewing the
  carrier’s training syllabus, crew re-
  source management records and
  engine-failure checklist. The re-
  cent accident, in which 40 of the
  58 people on board are known to
  have died, was the airline’s second
  fatal ATR 72 accident in less than a
  year. The other incident, a 23 July
  2014 non-precision bad-weather
  approach at night to Magong air-
  port in the Penghu Islands, saw the
  aircraft hit trees and crash during
  an attempted go-around, killing 48
  of its 58 passengers and crew.

EVIDENCE
After the Taipei crash, the ASC
took the unusual step of publish-
ing part of the flight data recorder
(FDR) printout for the crashed
ATR 72-600 almost as soon as it
had been downloaded. The print-
out it released concerned only the
data for the aircraft’s engines, and
is a series of graphical lines de-
scribing the state of 12 different
engine parameters against a time-

line, with barometric altitude also

displayed. The graphs provide

numerical values for some param-

eters, while others just show

whether a switch was on or off –

such as the fuel shut-off valve.

This data tells the investigators, in

great detail, what happened, but

still not at this stage why.

The total airborne time for

flight GE235 was only 2min 40s

after it took off from runway 01 at

Taipei’s Songshan airport, bound

for Kinmen. All was going well for

45s after take-off, but as the air-

craft was climbing through about

1,200ft (pressure altitude) the tur-

bine temperature for the No 2 en-

gine dropped and the engine auto-

feathered. This confirms that the

crew had suffered the engine

“flame-out” they reported in a

Mayday call to air traffic control-

lers – without specifying which

engine. The aircraft continued to

climb on the power from the re-

maining No 1 engine, reaching a

maximum height of about 1,650ft.

The FDR graph shows the crew

allowed the power lever (throttle)

of the failed No 2 engine to stay

where it was, and started slowly

pulling back the power lever of en-

gine No 1. When the lever had

been retarded almost to idle set-

ting, the fuel was shut off and the

left engine also feathered. Just be-

fore they shut off fuel to No 1, the

crew advanced the throttle of the

failed No 2 engine as far as they

could, as if it would provide them

with additional power.

From that time onwards, the

crew had 1min 15s of gliding time

before coming down in the Kee-

lung river. Describing information

from the cockpit voice recorder,

the ASC says that, with 27s to go

before impact, “the crew began

shouting to ‘restart the car’”. In

widely broadcast videos of the

final seconds before the crash,

both the previously feathered pro-

pellers were turning, probably in

the process of an attempted restart.

The ASC says 10 TransAsia

ATR pilots were to undergo in-

tensive retraining on emergency

procedures following tests, and as

Flight International went to press

there were another 19 who had yet

to be tested. The crew evaluations

have forced TransAsia to reduce

capacity on routes served by its re-

maining 11 ATRs at a time of high

demand due to the impending

Chinese new year holiday, and the

carrier is deploying Airbus A320s

to cope with the shortfall.

The airline says it is also plan-

ning a “comprehensive” pro-

gramme, lasting from six to 12

months, to improve its safety

management systems, assisted by

US and European specialists. This

process will start in early March.

Perhaps the most famous case in

which a disaster occurred because

an engine failed and then the crew

mistakenly shut down the good

engine rather than the damaged

one was the British Midland Boe-

ing 737-400 crash at Kegworth,

UK, in 1989. In that case 47 of the

126 people on board died.

The investigation into the latest

TransAsia accident continues,

with the work being led by the

ASC with co-operation from China

and French investigation authority

BEA, as well as technical advisers

from manufacturer ATR. ■

INVESTIGATION DAVID LEARMOUNT LONDON

TransAsia pilots fail in safety review

Taiwan’s aviation safety council presses airline to raise competency after skills assessment exposes serious shortcomings

Rex Features

Of the 58 passengers and crew on board the ATR 72-600, 40 are known to have died

The airline is planning

a “comprehensive”

programme to

improve its safety

management systems

Rex Features

A 2014 crash killed 48 people