Air safety investigators have ordered the “black box” recorder pulled from an Ozjet Boeing 737-200 after a wing component failure near Norfolk Island on Saturday led to passengers being ordered to don lifejackets and prepare for an ocean ditching.
The Air Transport Safety Bureau confirmed last night it had launched an investigation into the incident and had asked for the flight data recorder as well as broken components in the leading edge slat on the right wing.
“We’ll look at the flight recorder first and see what the aircraft actually did and, of course, we’ll look at the broken mechanical parts,” the spokesman said.
The plane from Brisbane had an estimated 100 passengers on board and is still on the ground in Noumea, where it landed after diverting from Norfolk, about 750km away.
Travellers said they feared for their lives after bad weather forced the plane to abort a landing at Norfolk Island and the slat, a moveable panel at the front of the wing, partially broke loose.
“It was going from side-to-side, rocking,” a passenger from Brisbane told The Australian. “You’d go from the left, to the right, to the left as if the plane was sort of drunk. It was vibrating as well, the whole plane was shaking.”
The passenger, who did not wish to be named, said it took at least 10 to 15 minutes to stabilise the aircraft, but that was not before one of the pilots had ordered cabin crew to prepare for a possible water landing and passengers were told to don life jackets. “It was either they got the plane stabilised or we were going in,” he said. “That was it, that was the end of the story.”
The passenger said he doubted the plane would have survived a ditching, given the size of the waves below.
He said passengers were also required to review the brace position adopted in crashes prior to landing in Noumea.
He praised the efforts of the pilots and cabin crew in handling the upset, but criticised Ozjet for not debriefing passengers or providing them with enough information after the plane landed inNoumea.
The airline accommodated passengers at a local hotel and sent out another aircraft to pick them up the next day.
The passenger said he saw at least one fellow passenger collapsed at the airport after the ordeal and understood another had problems during the night.
The ATSB spokesman said the damaged plane was expected to return to Australia in the next day or so.
He said the decision by the crew to don life jackets and brief passengers was expected, given that the plane was over ocean.
Attempts to contact Ozjet were unsuccessful.
* The ATSB is investigating a second incident with an Ozjet aircraft yesterday. The Ozjet 737-200 was flying from Port Moresby to Brisbane when it developed severe vibrations.
The aircrew declared a mayday and returned to Port Moresby, where it landed safely.
A check on the ground found half a trim tab – which helps stabilise the aircraft’s lateral trim – had broken free.
Source : The Australian
By: steve rowell - 8th January 2008 at 00:34
Charter operator OzJet wants to apply for an international airline licence and increase services to Bali.
The Melbourne-based company, which unsuccessfully tried to launch a business-class airline in 2005, has four older Boeing 737-200s based in Australia.
It has been operating a mixture of charter and regular public transport flights to destinations such as Norfolk Island, Papua New Guinea and Derby in Western Australia.
It began flying twice-weekly services between Perth and Denpasar in September under a commercial agreement with IndoJet Asia, and has applied to the International Air Services Commission for an extra 306 seats per week on the route.
OzJet said it wanted to apply for an international licence to operate the services to international airline standards.
“OzJet and IndoJet Asia wish to provide and improve accessibility to Bali, one of Australia’s favourite international holiday destinations, by providing seat capacity combined with accommodation in the form of packaged holidays to the broad consumer market in Western Australia,” the application said.
“Equally, the initiative serves to also promote and increase Australian inbound tourism.”
The application comes as OzJet is under scrutiny by air safety experts after two of its planes were involved in incidents within three days.
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau is investigating an incident last Saturday in which a wing component failure saw passengers ordered to don life jackets and prepare for a potential ocean ditching.
The incident happened as weather forced the plane from Brisbane to divert from Norfolk Island to Noumea.
The ATSB is looking at information from the aircraft’s flight data recorder as well as broken components in the leading edge slat of the right wing.
The second incident, on Monday, involved a broken stabilising panel called a trim tab on a flight from Port Moresby to Brisbane.
The plane returned to Port Moresby after it developed severe vibrations.
In both cases the planes landed safely and passengers were accommodated on other flights
By: Ren Frew - 3rd January 2008 at 15:02
Hi Ren Frew,
They’re actually on airfleets mate, and from looking at one of them, it was originally delivered to Sabena back in 1975! 😮
Cheers, and sorry if this comes across as a bit patronising 😮
Cheers LD, I did in fact run ‘Oz-Jet’ through their search engine and didn’t find it…;)
By: Lawndart - 3rd January 2008 at 10:43
Does anyine know the operational history of Oz-Jet’s 732 fleet ?
Hi Ren Frew,
They’re actually on airfleets mate, and from looking at one of them, it was originally delivered to Sabena back in 1975! 😮
Cheers, and sorry if this comes across as a bit patronising 😮
By: steve rowell - 3rd January 2008 at 04:36
O.K. what was it then? a slat or a trim tab? Make your mind up “The Austrailian”
Rgds Cking
They were two separate incidents..the Norfolk Island was a slat and the Port Moresby was a trim tab
By: steve rowell - 3rd January 2008 at 01:01
Does anyine know the operational history of Oz-Jet’s 732 fleet ?
I know they’re around thirty years old and come from Paul Stoddart’s European Aviation..as for their operational history ..that i can’t answer
By: Cking - 2nd January 2008 at 20:21
O.K. what was it then? a slat or a trim tab? Make your mind up “The Austrailian”
Rgds Cking
By: Ren Frew - 2nd January 2008 at 14:08
Does anyine know the operational history of Oz-Jet’s 732 fleet ?
By: steve rowell - 2nd January 2008 at 03:08
Ozjet also suffered a fire in an oven on one of its West Australian flights on Monday, and a passenger reported that part of a roof panel on an Ozjet plane fell during a landing in September.
By: cloud_9 - 1st January 2008 at 17:07
Could this be a maintenance issue on OzJet’s behalf, or perhaps a sign that the lifecycle of their 737-200’s are coming to an end…?
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January 1, 2008 at 4:19 am