'Concerted effort' ongoing to improve aviation safety: TransAsia

admin - News | 2015-07-03 00:51:10

Taipei, July 2 (CNA) The head of TransAsia Airways (復興航空) said Thursday that the company has been making "a concerted effort" to enhance its aviation safety, including a six-month safety overhaul to be launched in mid-July, about five months after a deadly crash involving one of its planes.

TransAsia President Fred Wu (吳滬生) said the airline has been asking aviation experts, as well as the manufacturers of the ATR and the Airbus, to carry out safety checks on all its fleet and to train its personnel since Feb. 4, when flight GE235 crashed in Taipei en route to the outlying county of Kinmen.

A full-scale improvement plan for flight safety is being drafted by Yannick Malinge, chief product safety officer of Airbus, who is conducting on-site inspections, Wu said during a press conference that was held right after the Aviation Safety Council (ASC) disclosed factual data relating to the air crash.

In addition, Wu stressed that all 61 of its ATR captains have passed the appropriate inspections by the Civil Aeronautics Administration, adding that a new flight crew training center will be inaugurated in mid-August.

New ATR72 and A320 simulation aircraft have also been purchased for use in the company's training programs, which will be available by the end of 2016, Wu said.

The company has also increased its personnel by nearly 20 percent and gave pay raises of between 4-6 percent in March in an effort to retain talent, he said.

However, in response to whether the ill-fated flight should have been given clearance to take off after the crew reported a system abnormality during taxiing, as shown by the ASC earlier in the day, Wu said: "I can't answer that."

He declined to reveal the company's standard operating procedure under such circumstances, although flight instructors told the ASC during the investigation that the flight should not have been allowed to take off.

The system glitch led to the auto-feathering of the plane's No. 2 engine, which triggered a power loss.

Instead of shutting down the non-functioning engine, however, both pilots mistakenly pulled back the throttle for the other engine, which was working normally at the time, causing the crash, according to the black boxes.

Flight GE235 crashed three minutes and 23 seconds after getting clearance at 10:51:13 to take off from Songshan Airport in northern Taipei en route to the outlying county of Kinmen.

Fifteen of the 58 people on board survived the accident while 43 were killed.

The aircraft was less than a year old but had experienced engine problems before.

The plane swerved over tall buildings in Taipei's Nangang District shortly after taking off before careening toward the Keelung river, clipping an overpass and a taxi before crashing upside down into the river.

http://focustaiwan.tw/news/asoc/201507020026.aspx

人氣343