This article is from page 12 of the 2009-02-03 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 12 JPG
A SERIOUS incident involving an aircraft carrying US military per- sonnel from Shannon Airport to the US has been blamed on improper TPOT-BDOURoAT-N Aeon
It was discovered that three small parts were missing from the jets horizontal stabilizer which malfunc- tioned in flight.
The incident occurred on May 2, 2007 when an Omni Air Internation- al DC10-30 jet experienced the mal-
function of its horizontal stabilizer causing the nose to pitch downwards “ageressively”’.
The jet had commenced its descent in to Atlanta International Airport when the incident occurred.
The flight had left Shannon Airport at 3.30am en route to Atlanta on a non-scheduled passenger flight for the US Government.
The jet was operating under con- tract to the US Air Mobility Com- mand and was carrying 306 people including 294 US military person-
nel.
The captain told investigators that while flying at 13,000 feet and de- celerating to 250 knots, the autopilot out of trim light uluminated and re- mained on for five to six seconds.
The autopilot was then disengaged while the flight controls were guarded in anticipation of a change in pitch.
The official investigation carried out by National Transportation Safe- ty Board (NTSB) in the US and just published, has stated that as a result of the malfunction of the horizontal
stabilizer, the airplane pitched “ag- gressively” nose down and that a “demanding amount of elevator back pressure was required to maintain level flight’.
The captain declared an emergen- os The NTSB investigation concluded, “The omission of the parts resulted in fatigue failure of another pin and shear failure of the single installed pin. This prevented output of the horizontal stabilizer drive assembly being transmitted to acme screws of
the horizontal stabilizer (tail plane),” the report states.
The probe also established that the horizontal stabilizer drive assembly was overhauled on April 30, 1999 and installed in the airplane on April 23 2006.
The airplane had accumulated 2,421 hours and 473 cycles since the overhauled assembly was installed however no write-ups regarding the stabilizer trim had been made by crew members of flights during the ORO erO UNI TARO OE RAE