When would you get on an A300-600?
 

We are flying to Europe this weekend, and we needed to change our schedule - Seats were found - change made, and then I asked what was the equipment (expected a 777) and told an A-300. I gave a very polite no thank you and asked for a different routing that would not have us on that aircraft. The silence on their safty (and what the fix is ) is perplexing. This artical - borrowed from another Topic is excellent, and yet the industry remains silent? Any thoughts? http://www.aero-news.net/ (third story down)

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Askworldtraveler, EXP,4 million AA miles+++Hilton Gold (thanks to EXP)

Even if it turns out that the theory about the vertical stabilizer is true, the thing you have to keep in mind is that these rare structural stress failures can happen on any type of aircraft at any time. If there was a known pattern of the same failure recurring on one model of aircraft, yes it would keep me off until the defect had been corrected, but if you start adding planes to the "won't fly" list because one particular aircraft had a structural fatigue problem, in addition to the A300, you can also add:

1.Boeing 737 - Top of the fuselage
sheared off on a Aloha or Hawaiian Air
flight in Hawaii.
2.Boeing 747 - The side of the fuselage blew
out on a United flight leaving HNL.
3.McDonnell-Douglas DC-9 - A rudder screw
malfunctioned due to structural fatigue on
an Alaska Airlines flight near LAX.

Id fly the airbus. I haven't been on it for longer than 90 min's however (intra-european), but safety would be a concern---comfort would...

If it gets me from point A to point B within the parameters of my schedule, I don't care what type of equipment is used.

News flash: Avoid the following types of aircraft as they have been involved in accidents: 707, 727, 737, 747, 757, 767, 777, DC8, DC9, DC10, MD80, L1011, A300, A320....you get my point.

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Addicted to airline miles? Check out: Mileage Workshop

Quantas, definatley fly Quantas. Need toothpicks with my cheesballs, Uh-oh, 10 minutes to Wapner.

Don't want to tempt fate but one aircraft model in the above list hasn't suffered any hull losses or been involved in any serious incidents that's included fatalities (yet).

The 777, A330, A340, and the 717 are still hull loss free.

I think the proper qualification would be that no aircraft with as much flight time under its belt has not had an accident ...

God forbid, but lets face it, accidents do happen, and most of the planes in the list above will likely have an accident sooner or later ...

I would fly on an A300 with no problems. There's no arguing against the math on the probability of you being in and surviving from an accident. I will take those odds any day & every day.

Actually, there have been hull losses for one of the above. Crash on a pre-delivery flight while demonstrating some flying tricks. Another of the same type apparently has been written off (for insurance purposes) due to some chemical spill in its hold.

Re: the A330....
An Air Transat of Canada A330 landed in the Azores on 24 August without engine power and had extensive fuselage damage.

Don't think I've ever flown on one, but I don't think the original poster was really understood. I think they're just saying, fine, go ahead and check the fleet to be sure that the flutter, identified as a known problem, is not a potential catastrophe in waiting - when the planes have been checked over for this specific potential problem and cleared, THEN they wouldn't have a problem flying the plane.

To put it in perspective, if you were driving your family around on those recalled Goodyear tires, wouldn't it be prudent to have them checked or replaced once a known problem has been found? It's not an issue of being frightened to fly, or statistics showing how safe it is to fly versus driving, it's about using common sense. If AA and the NTSB are checking all the planes, what is so bad about waiting for the results, given that you have a choice to fly another plane? Maybe, just maybe they'll find a problem with one plane and prevent another accident.

For the record, I wouldn't have flown all the other planes you're mentioning either if within a few days they suspected a design flaw, until they had checked the planes. I love statistics as much as the next guy, but to blindly quote them as a defense against anything bad that happens with planes is not using a lot of common sense in a situation like this, at least when you're minimalizing the other person's reasonable caution in a situation like this.

Just for the record

The recalled tires are FIRESTONE

Geez - I replaced the wrong tires!!! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/biggrin.gif

p.s. thanks for that correction!

3.McDonnell-Douglas DC-9 - A rudder screw
malfunctioned due to structural fatigue on
an Alaska Airlines flight near LAX.

just FYI, AS doesn't own any DC-9's. the aircraft involved was an MD-80.

and my two cents is that i've never felt safe aboard the A300 (going back several years). maybe that fact that Airbus is a government subsidized company has something to do with it? http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

When would I get on an A300? Well, probably never, since I don't fly American very often and they are the only US carrier that uses them. And even if I did fly them a lot, they only have six of them.

Now, if I was to book a flight on American and they put me on and A300, would I care?

No more so than when I flew on 757s and 767s on United after the attacks. I even took United 185 from IAD to LAX, which is, as you know, one of the routes the terrorists hijacked and the number is just one different than one of the doomed planes.

In other words, I wouldn't sweat it.

AA has (had) 35 Airbus in their fleet, and other then UPS and FEDEX the only ones who fly them.

I wouldn't get on an A300 just because they are uncomfortable.

Arguably the B767 could be added to the list of safe planes - I can't recall a B767 hull loss that was definitely a mechanical problem - the cause of the EgyptAir crash is still not completely known.

There was the Lauda Air 767 where the thrust reverser deployed in flight; I forget if it was entirely mechanical or if the pilots did something wrong that was supposed to keep it shut off. But that issue has long been fixed by Boeing.

I'd fly on an A300. This seems like a really weird accident, the way the tail and rudder are cleanly seperated.

And flew out of the Azores a few days later. I don't think TransAt's botching an engine replacement counts as an indictment of an airframe.


[This message has been edited by skofarrell (edited 11-16-2001).]

If you carry the thought to the extreme, I'd recommend not getting on any aircraft built by humans, flown by humans or maintained by humans. According to most statistical analysis I've seen, human error accounts for roughly 80% of all causes for aviation accidents.

Huh? The hijacked flights were:
An AA flight from BOS-LAX
An AA flight IAD-LAX
A UA flight BOS-LAX
A UA flight EWR-SFO

No UA flight hijacked out of IAD.

Well, so long as Airbus' insurers are holding a reserve on the loss, it's an indictment of the airframe.


[This message has been edited by paullevi (edited 11-16-2001).]

The MD-80 family was designed by McDonnell Douglas as an improved version of the popular Douglas DC-9. Based on the DC-9 Series 50, the MD-80 was initially known as the DC-9 Super 80. It was not until 1983 that the design was christened the MD-80 to reflect the merger of Douglas into McDonnell Douglas.

My bad. The point is, though, that despite the fact that 757s and 767s were used in the attacks, and despite the fact that an IAD to LAX flight was hijacked, and despite the fact that United had two of its planes used, I still got on a UAL 757.

In other words, I didn't sweat it. Also, I was wrong on the number of A300s -- looks like AMR uses 35 of them.

I fly at least 20 times/year on Lufthansa A300-600 between CDG and FRA .

No problem at all.



[This message has been edited by ahrz (edited 11-16-2001).]

There was no hull loss. The aircraft in question had damage to the landing gear. My understanding is that the repair was completed and the plane in question is back in service.

[This message has been edited by skofarrell (edited 11-16-2001).]

Just flew on a Lufthansa one yesterday BER to FRA. If you avoid one airplane type because it was in an accident then you'd never fly. As it turns out the AA a300 was in a very severe turbulance incident in South America in the past and the theory is that there was hidden structural damage that was undetected from that incident which attributed to the final failure. A +/- 3 degrees of slip couldn't cause that failure on it's own. My 2 cents worth.

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Cheers Scott

How different is an A320 from an A300?

When I fly nonstop SFO-PHL on UA, it's on an A320.

Kathy

A320 = Narrow body, single aisle aircraft (like a B737) http://www1.airbus.com/products/A320_family.asp

A300 = Widebody twin aisle aircraft (like a B767) http://www1.airbus.com/products/A300_family.asp

Originally posted by skofarrell:
There was no hull loss. The aircraft in question had damage to the landing gear. My understanding is that the repair was completed and the plane in question is back in service.


Skofarrel: You are confusing total loss with hull loss. There was absolutely a hull loss, one that certainly cost a nice bit of change [have you priced a landing gear assembly lately?]. Total losses are very rare in commercial aviation. A $50M plane can have $20M in damage (and this can often happen even with passenger fatalities in say a runway overrun, ala AA MD-80 in Little Rock) and so long as the salvage is worth less than $30M, the plane is not a total loss.
In other words, whether or not a plane is a total loss vs. just a hull loss is usually more a function of salvage value than anything else. Dont confuse aviation with car insurance.


[This message has been edited by paullevi (edited 11-16-2001).]

paullevi,

For the purposes of this discussion ("Should I fly an A300 since I'm worried it may not be safe"), my definition of "Hull Loss" is lifted directly from the Boeing paper: Statistical Summary of Commercial Jet Airplane Accidents Worldwide Operations 1959 – 2000

Here's what they say:

Hull loss: Airplane damage that is substantial and is beyond economic repair. Hull loss also includes events in which:

• Airplane is missing.
• Search for the wreckage has been terminated without it being located.
• Airplane is substantially damaged and inaccessible.

Boeing says: "These definitions are consistent with those of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO)."

I think you are confusing "Hull Loss" with "Substantial Damage" which Boeing describes as: "Damage or structural failure that adversely affects the structural strength, performance, or flight characteristics of the airplane and would normally require major repair or replacement of the affected component. Substantial damage is not considered to be:

• Engine failure or damage limited to an engine if only one engine fails or is damaged.
• Bent aerodynamic fairings.
• Dents in the skin.
• Damage to landing gear.
• Damage to wheels.
• Damage to tires.
• Damage to flaps."

So the TransAT flight is considered by Boeing to be "not relevent/not reportable" for their statistics (or this discussion), since the damage did not "adversely affect the structural strength, performance, or flight characteristics of the airplane."

I'm sure the TransAT Pax and Crew thought it was a bigger deal than Boeing does.


[This message has been edited by skofarrell (edited 11-16-2001).]

skofarrell:

The TransAt flight would not be considered by Boeing at all, it was an A330.

I'll just say without citation thay my definition is the prevailing one used in both the legal and aviation worlds.

Actually it would, take a look at the Boeing paper I've linked above, it covers all commercial aircraft.

With regards to "Hull Loss", doesn't Boeing's statement: "These definitions are consistent with those of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO)." count for anything?

Doesn't "Loss" connotate something a lot more severe than simple damage?


[This message has been edited by skofarrell (edited 11-16-2001).]

Here is the FAA incident report about the severe turbulence which N14053 encountered on 11/28/1994.

http://makeashorterlink.com/?N20931B2

[This message has been edited by UA*AA (edited 11-16-2001).]

UA*AA,

There's a nifty website called http://www.makeashorterlink.com that makes long links short (duh) and infopop accessable.

[This message has been edited by skofarrell (edited 11-16-2001).]

I was just fixing it as you were typing. It makes things so much easier.

skofarrell, Nice link to the makeashorterlink.com, thanks.

I finally found a UBB "editor" (for Mac) that is a third-party freeware. It allows me to compose my post in a window and does all the bolding, italics, quotes and links as text in pretty much one click (sorry, off topic).

The severe turbulence incident happened seven years ago! Could structural damage have gone undetected for that long a time?

Kathy

Kathy,

If the damage 7 years ago was enough to introduce a slight flaw in the metal/composite, and the number of cycles that aircaft did over the next few years furthered the weakening, then yes.

It looks like the buffeting by the adjacent 747 was enough to cause the flaw to "break", in other words the event that caused the failure.

This is the first failure of the tail section so AA and Airbus probably never thought to inspect for the flaw in question. The FAA has ordered inspections, so hopefully if the same flaw exists on other aircraft, it will be caught before another one goes down.

There is also the chance that this was a fluke. Severe turbulence 7 years ago introduced a flaw in the tail section of this particular aircraft. The damage went undetected for 7 years, all the time getting worse, until the aircraft encountered stress that forced the flaw to break.


[This message has been edited by skofarrell (edited 11-17-2001).]