BH with one of the Twin Otters in the background.

A glacier moving between the mountains.

click to enlarge

DHC-6 Twin Otter

 

Nur an an diesem Wochenende (vom 4. bis 7. April 2008) und nur bei SimMarket!!!

Wer an diesem Wochenende zuschlägt, der bekommt die o. g. Aircrafts im Doppelpack für 40 Euronen!

One of 15 people on board the Twin Otter (de Havilland Canada DHC-6) turbo propeller aircraft was slightly hurt, and one man on the ground was taken to a hospital, said Stefanus Yudi, a witness.

Sudarmadji, a regional airport head who like many Indonesians uses only one name, said one person in the crowd was killed when the plane plowed into it.

A local district chief had been on the plane and was unhurt, Sudarmadji added.

It was not immediately clear what caused the accident at the Sugapa Airport in Papua province, he said.

One of last year's worst accidents also involved a Twin Otter. See our earlier post here. 

Source: Yahoo News, Aviation Safety Network

By Szafi

Ascendiendo, no sé... ¡Pero descendiendo es Flash Gordon!

Hasta ahora nunca había visto un avión hacer semejante picado. Impresionante.

Officials at Nepal Airlines (formely known as Royal Nepal Airlines), Nepal's state-run airline, have sacrificed two goats last week to appease Akash Bhairab, the Hindu sky god (who is actually painted on the fusalage of the aircraft), following a long series of technical problems with one of their Boeing 757 airliners due to which Nepal Airlines has had to suspend some services in recent weeks (it was probably a noticabe part of their international services as it is one of only two mid-haul aircrafts at the airline - the domestic market is served by seven Twin Otters).

The goats were sacrificed in front of the troublesome aircraft on Sunday at Nepal's international airport in Kathmandu in accordance with Hindu traditions, an official said. They hope that after this sacrifice there will be no more (or not as many) technical problems to be fixed with this particular aircraft, and thus there will be less interruptions to their operations due to aircraft maintenance. "The snag in the plane has now been fixed and the aircraft has resumed its flights," said Raju K.C., a senior airline official, without explaining what the problem had been. Local media last week blamed the company's woes on an electrical fault. The carrier runs international flights to five cities in Asia, and this particular flight arrived to Hong Kong safely after the ritual. It is common in Nepal to sacrifice animals such as goats and buffaloes to appease different Hindu deities.

I have looked at comments, news and blogs about this ritual around the web, and was surprised that people didn't get the real message of it. The majority of the headlines are claiming that the airline ONLY used the sacrifice as to repair the aircraft. I personally believe these posts are wrong. If you read the news in more details and do not approach it with a negative prejudice, it becomes obvious, that they earlier had a number of interruptions to their services due to the maintenance times, when the aircraft had to be grounded while being repaired. So, in reality, the plane was repaired, then put back into operations. Then some other problem occured, so it had to be taken out of the schedule and being repaired again. After a number of such occasions, the airline decided, that upon one of the successfull repairs, they will carry out such a ritual as an addition, to prevent future failures and interruptions to their international services. It is being misinterpreted on many sites as the ONLY task they have done for this repair, and I feel sorry about it. It could even hurt the airline financially, as it is generating a bad image for them around the world.

We all know that Boeing and Airbus take their maintenance and repair issues very strictly, so it wouldn't go unnoticed if Nepal Airlines would actually not repair a problem, only use a ritual... On the other hand, let's face it, many other rituals and small ceremonies take place all around the world, on a daily basis, which are based on beliefs, customs and sometimes religion. Just think about the habit of cracking a bottle of champagne across a boat before it's released on the water. Or actually, having the fire-trucks of the airport giving a welcome shower to a new airline at a particular airport! It is a ritual. This was also a ritual, the only difference is that it is based on a religious belief and not a "long running tradition". This is a CULTURAL DIFFERENCE, which we should all accept, even if it happens in such a surprising contest! And I believe, that many Hindu passengers will actually feel more safe with Nepal Airlines from now on, only because they know that such a sacrifice has taken place!!

by balint01

There are some updates available by now, mostly about the cockpit flight recorder, which has been located by the search teams. Authorities said they would need specialist deep-water equipment to recover it, so it will probably take some time before the investigators (and hopefully us) learn what exactly happened in the cockpit before the DHC-6 Twin Otter and why the aircraft came down with 19 passengers and a pilot after taking off from the island Moorea on it's short hop to the local capital, Papeete.

Local authorities in Papeete said none of their vessels was stable enough to provide a platform for the underwater robot being sent from Paris to recover the recorder, discovered at a depth of around 430 metres (!). The plane climbed up to about 500 feet (~150 m) according to eyewitnesses before it went down, and according to this report, it sank almost three times deeper than how high it was flying...

Fourteen bodies have been recovered but six people remain missing and authorities hold out no hope of any survivors. Senior official Anne Bocquet said teams would continue to search for wreckage and bodies for a further two weeks and had asked local fishermen to report objects found at sea.

Moorea is one of around 118 islands scattered across an area the size of Europe in the South Pacific that make up France's overseas territory of French Polynesia and is a very popular tourist destination only a 10 minutes flight away from the more famous city of Papeete.

by balint01

Air Moorea, a subsidiary of Air Tahiti has suffered its first crash in 35 years of operation last Thursday (9AUG2007), with killing all on board a DHC-6 (de Havilland Canada) Twin Otter 300 aircraft (registration F-OIQI). The plane's airworthiness certificate was delivered on 9 November 2006 and it was operated by Air Moorea since 17 November 2006. The aircraft had a total of 30.833 flight hours since the beginning of its service and has passed the last technical control on 19 July, 2007. It has done 3 rotations between Tahiti and Moorea in the morning hours of last Thursday before it crashed. According to Air Moorea / Air Tahiti: Flight 1121 was under the authority of Captain Michel Santurenne, who was born on 6 September, 1954 and had completed a total of 3500 flight hours.

According to the news, 19 passengers (all but 5 French) and one pilot was on the plane, when it took off for an approximately 10 minute (17 km) flight from Temae airport in Moorea Island (MOZ), en route to the local capital Papeete (PPT), Tahiti, French Polynesia. Shortly after take-off while initial climbing and reaching about 500 feet in the air, it is said to have been veering to the right descending quickly and crashed into the ocean about 1,5 km off the airport. "The plane seemed to have difficulty gaining altitude,'' an airport employee who saw the crash said, adding "Then it plunged and you could hear the noise of the explosion.'' Aviation authorities said weather conditions at the time were clear. Local fishermen were on site of the crash as soon as about 30 seconds later, finding only debris and bodies on the surface of the ocean.

Some video footage by CNN from the scene while the rescue operations: http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/08/10/polynesia.crash.reut/index.html#cnnSTCVideo

by balint01