AIR TRANSPORT
12 | Flight International | 19-25 January 2016 flightglobal.com
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flightglobal.com/dashboardT
aiwan’s Aviation Safety
Council (ASC) has concluded
that a flight instructor who
showed “insufficient” levels of
airmanship and proficiency was
the main cause of a belly landing
involving a Daily Air Dornier Do
228 twin-turboprop in late 2014.
Registered B-55565, the aircraft
took off from Taitung airport for a
training mission at nearby Green
Island on 21 December 2014.
The ASC found the instructor
pilot and the training captain
failed to follow procedures and
did not conduct a pre-landing
checklist. This resulted in the
crew neglecting to lower the land-
ing gear, causing the turboprop to
land on its belly.
The tutor also overloaded the
training captain with instructions,
impairing situational awareness
in the cockpit. He subsequently
failed to take control of the aircraft
after the landing gear warning
went off, says the ASC.
“His airmanship and the profi-ciency was considered insuffi-
cient,” it adds.
Investigators found the instruc-
tor failed to follow the mandated
training programme, further
degrading flight safety.
The ASC also determined Daily
Air did not provide adequate
training for instructors and lacked
proper supervision of its flight op-
erations.
Crews on the Dornier fleet regu-
larly ignored the carrier’s standard
procedures in daily operations,while parts of its operations man-
uals were inconsistent with prac-
tical conditions.
Daily Air must develop and
conduct appropriate recruitment
and training programmes for its
flightcrew, as well as enhancing
the selection and assessment of
instructors, recommends the ASC.
Flightglobal’s Fleets Analyzer
database records that the 1996-
built aircraft, owned by Daily Air,
remains out of service following
the accident. ■safety mavIs Toh singapore
Instructor faulted for poor airmanship
Belly landing of Daily air Dornier turboprop in 2014 attributed to failings of tutor, whose actions impaired training captain
L
ong-haul low-cost operator
AirAsia X has cancelled 11
Airbus A330-300s in favour of tak-
ing 11 re-engined A330neo jets.
Airbus has revealed the
agreement in its full-year order
and delivery data for 2015,
released during a briefing in Paris
on 12 January.
AirAsia X is taking the
A330-900neo version of the new
long-haul jet. The change raises its
A330-900neo orders from 55 to
66, and effectively wipes out the
carrier’s A330-300 order backlog.
Airbus has secured accumulat-
ed orders for 160 A330-900neos,
with the smaller -800neo account-
ing for another 10.
South African Airways also
firmed its order for five
A330-300s. The agreements, re-
corded in December, took overall
A330 orders for 2015 to 140.
Airbus had been facing anairbus
malaysian carrier has increased its -900neo commitment to 66orders slump for the A330, which
spurred it to reduce monthly pro-
duction to six aircraft ahead of its
transition to the A330neo.
But chief operating officer for
customers John Leahy, speaking
during the Paris event, claimed
the airframer was now “produc-
tion-constrained” on the type and
indicated there was room to raise
the rate to seven or even eight.
Meanwhile, Latin American
operation LATAM Airlines Group
has converted another six A350-
900s to the larger -1000 variant,
according to Airbus’s full-year
order and delivery figures.
The company had originally
ordered 27 A350-900s but
swapped six of these for the
A350-1000 in October 2015.
LATAM is still taking 15
A350-900s – its Brazilian division,
TAM, received the first of these in
late 2015. ■r
esearchers from the US
Federal Aviation Administra-
tion and the Department of
Defense (DoD) plan to “dissect” a
passenger aircraft as part of a
study into cyber security threats to
aviation. Susan Cabler, assistant
manager of the FAA’s design,
manufacturing and airworthiness
division, says the DoD is leading
the effort at the request of the
National Security Council.
Cabler says the project is
expected to last 18 months. Offi-
cials are looking to acquire the
right aircraft for the study, she
says, but provides no details other
than it needs to be a “commercial
research jon hemmerdInger washington Dc
nose-to-tail examination
for cyber security threats
sales davId kamInskI-morrow parisairasia X switches to a330neo
airteamimagesUs officials are concerned about the danger posed by hackers
passenger aircraft”. Her comments
came during an aviation cyber se-
curity forum sponsored by the Air
Traffic Control Association near
Washington DC on 12 January.
Cabler, who sits on the FAA’s
cyber security steering committee,
says investigators will “go over
the aircraft from nose to tail to see
if there are cyber vulnerabilities
not yet identified”.
Security concerns surfaced last
year, after a hacker claimed he had
been able to access and manipu-
late critical avionics systems dur-
ing a flight, allegedly through the
aircraft’s entertainment equip-
ment. ■