Sandeep G

TK, You must have responded with the standard Indian response of "Rog!" (pronounced "Raaaj!") Number 15 is pretty good for Mumbai.. kena once before in PVG - "Expect delay, you are number 4" Which we initially thought wasn't too bad... then an Aussia Dragonair Pilot request an update on his que number to which he was told number 2, and i'll never forget the completely Aussie response: "Number 2? We've been bloody number 2 for the past 3 hours! The only thing that you ain't lying about is the "Number 2" part!!!"... silence for 10 seconds..... "Sorry Dragonair.. now you number 3". We sat at the gate for 3 hours before pushing back... more than half the flying time.. then it was another 60 mins to get airborne...

Any news on new fleet developments with the "new" new management?

Yippee!

I believe KUL-JHB would be cheaper. KCH is "A380 ready" too isn't it?

That ain't no A330... That's a very common HK sample of an A-3-Dirty!!! Cathay birds make some MAS birds look clean as a whistle!

WSSS is already a nightmare during peak hours... that third runway is really in need now... hopefully they'll expedite connecting it with the existing infrastructure..

There is a Fuerza Aerea Columbiana B767 sitting on the North Remote Apron somewhere around stand 306 or TWY N3... Shot is probably possible from T1 Viewing Gallery. She looks like she's fitted for aerial refuelling too. Long way from home.

From previous years experience: If possible, take the charter flight in - so much more enjoyable - and quickly in and out! Traffic can be an absolute nightmare, especially when leaving at the end of the day - Public transport included. Alternatively, if you drive - leave early to prevent gettring stuck. All in all - a pretty enjoyable day out - Wonder if they'll let the EX-Red Arrow guys now at Cathay do their A330 stunts again. Skywest F50 and Q-Link 717 usually make an appearance too.

Incident: Firefly AT72 at Koh Samui on Mar 17th 2012, high powered communication exchange in cockpit, spiral dive in initial climb By Simon Hradecky, created Wednesday, Apr 18th 2012 14:47Z, last updated Wednesday, Apr 18th 2012 14:47Z A Firefly Avion de Regional Transport ATR-72-500, flight FY-3609 from Koh Samui (Thailand) to Kuala Lumpur Subang (Malaysia) with 70 passengers, was taxiing for departure when captain and second officer at the flight deck began to engage in a debate. While the aircraft lined up for departure on runway 17, flaps in takeoff position, shouting from the flight deck was heard in the passenger cabin. The initial takeoff run appeared sluggish, about half way down the runway engines were accelerated, the takeoff acceleration returned to normal and the aircraft rotated safely off the runway, shouting continued throughout the takeoff run. While climbing out of the runway flaps and gear were retracted, shouting still continued, at about 1500 feet AGL the aircraft rolled slightly right followed by pronounced roll to the left to beyond 45 degrees of bank, the aircraft lost about 500 feet of height before the wing rolled sharply level and the aircraft recovered from the dive. While shouting still continued on the flight deck the flight set course to Kuala Lumpur, about 15 minutes after departure the shouting ceased. The aircraft landed safely in Kuala Lumpur about 2 hours after departure. An aviation professional on board of the aircraft reported he heard the shouting throughout takeoff and departure for about 15 minutes. The takeoff run appeared sluggish initially, engines were accelerated about half way into the takeoff and a normal rotation and initial climb occurred, the aircraft was cleaned and reached about 1500 feet AGL in clean configuration, when the aircraft rolled slightly right followed by a pronounced roll to the left definitely beyond 45 degrees of bank, probably around about 60 degrees of bank. The body weight was nearly completely lost during that time, he saw out of the window and felt that the aircraft settled in a spiral dive losing an estimated 500 feet of height before the aircraft snap rolled wings level within a second. Shouting subsided about 15 minutes after departure. Besides the shouting he was not able to hear any other cockpit sounds including aural alarms or stick shaker. The professional filed reports with the airline, Malaysia's DCA and the aircraft manufacturer, only the airline replied stating they take the incident very seriously and both pilots have been suspended but offering no further explanation of the events. Another passenger reported he heard shouting from the flight deck during takeoff and believed the aircraft had been hijacked. The takeoff run was rather slow, engines accelerated during the run and the aircraft became eventually airborne. During the climb the aircraft rolled slightly right then rolled steeply left, he lost about 80% of his body weight at that time. The aircraft then rolled right to wings level, the weight returned to about twice his body weight. The shouting on the flight deck continued for about 15 minutes. The airline told The Aviation Herald: We deeply regret and apologise for any distress experienced by our passengers and would like to make the following clarifications. After a thorough investigation, it has been concluded that while taxing and during take-off from Koh Samui International Airport, there was a crew resource management failure by Captain in charge which resulted in a "high powered" communication exchange in the cockpit between Captain and the Second Officer. This failure had lead to the events which took place during the flight however at no time did the aircraft stall. The Captain initiated the necessary corrective measures and the flight continued on to its destination without further incident and landed safely and securely in Subang. We would like to put on record that this form of communication is not tolerated by Firefly management. These findings were established during the Technical / Fact Finding Inquiry that was held to investigate this incident, which in turn made the recommendations for the appropriate action to be taken against the pilots and crew to ensure that this do not happen again. The Captain is no longer serving with Firefly. Once again, we would like to express our sincere apologies to all passengers on FY3609. The airline did not follow up on questions that arose out this statement, that permits interpretations like the spiral dive was caused by the crew, unintentionally or even intentionally. Malaysia's Directorate of Civil Aviation (DCA) chose to not respond to the aviation professional's and The Aviation Herald's reports and questions.

Interesting. Anyhow, upper deck and lower deck both going to the same place..

Interestingly, we are also short of 777s for routes. How bizarre

New pics of the new biz class have appeared on the MAS website. take a look. 2/2/2 - but look spacious and possibly 180 flatbeds. Colour tones are nicer too. Stewardesses in marketing campaign are in present uniform - so no new uniform for now??

My, my.. Albert, tone it down.. We're not denying you are right. I for one don't appreciate your blanket call that all pilots are not up to mark when it comes to flying during any phase of flight. We are glad that in the D7 instances, the flights landed safely wherever it may be at OOL and BNE and the pax are safe - furthermore that the lessons are learned. As to your earlier qu, not many NPA's as oppose to PA's..but we prepare whenever we go somewhere we know the chances of an NPA'S are high.

Thank you for your clarification. Where do you teach BTW? Whilst we do rely on automation, it is usually governed by company policies and with good reason, which I'm sure your links to articles above will reiterate, to increase situational awareness in the flight deck amongst all tech crew. The use of Autopilot could have in fact saved the D7 pilots from making this mistake in the first place. Hand flying skills are important and we actually tend to handily approaches including intercepts in low workload environments more so FOR precision approaches. Briefs and running through all SOPs before will always increase the chances of a successful approach, and it's such cockpit discipline that will save lives.

That's a very broad statement. You speaking in your professional opinion as a pilot to pass judgment on ALL pilots? Back on Topic: Similarly however, the TR grounding in Australia was the result of multiple violations in this same regard. However, in TR's case - IIRC - it was the same pilot who commited the same offence on multiple occasions, and the regulators discovered that not enough re-training nor grounding of the pilot had ever occured which was indicicative of a lapse in safety training standards at the airline - which led to the Grounding of the airline. I'm suprised this news has come up again WRT D7 - thought it was very old news and had been written up before... I wonder if it's bad press for the benefit of an up and coming carrier? Pure speculation of course..

Might not see the 744 on static in the end as due to A380 wing rib inspections, redeployment of aircraft will require the use of the 744 on certain flights. B77W will op SQ334/333 SIN-CDG vv on 04-09FEB12. B744 will also be operated to MEL on the same days. Further schedule adjustments are expected through the remainder of the mont including the air show period. Hope they can spare a 744 though!

Sabah state government should lobby for Royal Brunei to capitalise on the neglect from MAS and use BKI as a hub for flights to North-east Asia/South-east Asia/Sub-Continent and perhaps even Europe!

Great... Even more congestion in an already tight area.. Well done CAG...

Great pictures! Looks like the weather was good for the occasion! Shame the missing lawn-mower in KLIA still hasnt been found... I suggest MWings spotters organise with MAHB a lawn mowing contract, then we'll have potentially one of the best spotting locations - runway side!

How much money is MAHB sinking on KLIA2 for LCC?? T2 Renovation was a while back now, but T1 was definately in need of a renovation as not much had been done since the airport had originally opened.

Hey Azahan - The weather that evening was Spectacular!! Haven't seen visibility that clear in a long time! The A380 was on Tow out of the Central T3 Apron, holding on TWY V6. The White tail to the left of the A380 on V6 is the new SIA B77W Star Alliance Livery. The A380 taxiing was SQ321. The B777 just touched down on 02L was SQ877 from TPE - with myself in the RHS. Thanks very much for posting this photo!! LH380 looks menacing! But love their clean look!

I'm very suprised at the announcement of the termination of Rome-FCO. 1. It doesn't speak volumes about the on-going mutual partnership discussions between QF and MH. Australia has a high population of migrant-italians whom still have links with their motherland. If MAS completely removes itself from FCO and Italy - there goes the potential for connecting traffic. OneWorld doesn't seem to benefit at all? 2. Are the network planners at MH asleep? or are they screaming their lungs off to the decision makers from a sound-proof room?? MH operates KUL-FCO on Monday/Thursdays/Saturdays. At present, MH also operates KUL-IST on Monday/Wednesday/Saturday. Here are the Schedules: KUL-FCO B772 DEP 2350 ARR 0535+1 FCO-KUL B772 DEP 1220 ARR 0650+1 Total Aircraft Transit IDLE time in FCO: 6 Hours 45 Minutes KUL-IST B772 DEP 0030 ARR 0600+1 IST-KUL B772 DEP 1500 ARR 0710+1 Total Aircraft Transit IDLE time in IST: 9 hours 00 Minutes Why not make the route KUL-IST-FCO/FCO-IST-KUL????? Crew may operate IST-FCO-IST as a shuttle service and thus layover in IST - cheaper than having the crew layover in ROME. Plus 9 hours of idle time in IST currently? Aircraft utilisation would improve markedly!!! Instead of sending 2 B777s in the same direction with questionable loads at roughly the same time - SEND JUST THE ONE! And perhaps increase frequency to cope with combining two flights from 3 - 5 a week - thus further improving aircraft/crew utilisation. The shuttle operations could actually help MAS restart a number of lost ports and improve aircraft utilisation and crew utilisation/productivity. Think of If it's a question of rights - then bang on the governments door and ask them to help with Traffic rights between IST-FCO - that's what MH SHOULD be banging on the govts door for, instead of the usual rhetoric.. For Example: SQ operates SIN-IST-ATH vv WITHOUT fifth freedom in IST, but loads are still healthy!!! WAKE UP MH! Remember the proverb: THERE ARE MANY WAYS TO SKIN A CAT!

actually, there are a few sprawling airports that have more than 1 tower. In this case, the second tower is required for Runway 3 as perhaps the original tower is not able to see as far. Furthermore, the new apron will require visual acquisition by tower personnel operating the 'ground' or 'apron' frequency - much like the mini-tower between the present SAT A and LCCT.

A big problem has been spiralling costs associated with the aged fleet - which should now come under some control with the new aircraft. However, despite this - I still think they have the wrong mix of aircraft for their intended operations. The B787 seems like a perfectly sized aircraft for medium haul destinations with multiple daily freq. (See JAL/ANA planned ops) As oppose to the A330 which can be used for more long-haul routes such as Japan/Northern China/Australia-NZ. The B77W seems the obvious choice for Long haul europes and USA flights - Clearly not the A380 for now. The B738 is perfect for regional flights, but they should add in B739ERs to the mix for lean medium haul destinations.. Furthermore - would love to see some revolutionary product from MAS for EY/J/F. Is it possible?

Thats because they have probably resuced operational costs to the 'minimum permissible' level to ensure handouts can still be made to outsiders left, right and centre.... THIS has GOT to stop..