Fri, Jun 30, 2006
Improperly Calculated Weight & Balance Led To Runway
Crash
We're learning a lot
more about the crash during takeoff of an MK Airlines Boeing
747-200 freighter in Nova Scotia two years ago. The Canadian
Transportation Safety Board Thursday released its findings in the
accident, during which the jumbo jet went down in heavy woods near
the end of the runway in Halifax.
The TSB says that, in the end... it was a simple input error
that brought down the jumbo jet. While calculating weight and
balance, the board says the flight crew entered the plane's weight
wrong -- telling the flight management computer the aircraft was
220,000 pounds lighter than it really was.
Canada's CNEWS reports the acting chairman of the safety board,
Wendy Tadros, told a Thursday news conference in Ottawa that input
errors have become a worldwide problem, and she called on the
industry to come up with safeguards to prevent that sort of
error.
The new findings come after the lead TSB investigator found the
flight crew aboard the Ghana-registered 747 (file photo of
type, below) tried to take off with the throttles far
below the necessary power levels. That was confirmed by the flight
data recorder, which showed the plane hadn't developed adequate
thrust for takeoff.
As Aero-News reported, the
plane's tail bumped the runway twice before it broke up, and plowed
into the woods in the October 14, 2004 accident. All seven people
on board were killed.
Family members of the crew say their loved ones were bone tired,
and weren't sufficiently trained up on the 747's flight software.
The airline, based in London, denies that.
In fact, a spokesman for MK says the jumbo jet went down because
of a problem with the engines... a claim the TSB says it's been
able to disprove.
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