JAL 747 flew 7mths with engines on wrong side

[Denny Yen 0]

Wednesday December 21, 2005  3:53 PM

Kyodo News Agency

 

JAL B747 jumbo in sky for 7 months with engines on wrong side

 

(Kyodo) - Japan Airlines had been flying a Boeing jumbo jet for seven months without realizing the plane's left and right outer engines had been placed on the wrong sides during maintenance in Singapore in February, airline officials admitted Wednesday.

 

Some components of the engines are required to be inspected once every 650 flights, but as a result of the mistake, one of the engines completed about 850 flights without being examined.

 

The officials said there were no safety problems but the Land, Infrastructure and Transport Ministry instructed the airline to take measures to prevent any recurrence.

 

In February, JAL commissioned ST Aviation Services Co. Pte Ltd. in Singapore to conduct maintenance work on the four-engine Boeing 747. The plane resumed service after the overhaul was completed in April.

 

It was not until a regular maintenance checkup in November that the engines were discovered to have been attached wrongly.

 

Reversing the engine locations results in air flow toward the fuselage instead of away from it during reverse thrust. However, it does not create any difference during normal thrust and thus poses no safety problems during flights, the officials said.

 

They said JAL will revise in-house procedures to ensure that inspections on the planes are conducted after outsourced maintenance work. The current policy only calls for checking documents after the completion of maintenance work.

 

 

 

[Rozhan 0]

How could ST be so clumsy! They also do heavy maintainence for Air Asia right?

[Sandeep G 1]

Is there any further inquiry on behalf of CAAS into the operations of ST Aero? That's quite a big mistake... usually one would check multiple times and crosscheck with various sources for the locations of the engines...

 

what engines are JAL using? Did cabin crew notice that this aircraft was louder on reverse thrust than other aircraft??? JAL took a long time to notice the defect... ST aero do maintenace for AXM but hopefully, someone in malaysia will begin MRO ops and AXM will move back home for cheaper and hopefully better service!

[Y. J. Foo 0]

what engines are JAL using?

21788[/snapback]

 

Depends on models. All 747 classics use PW but they switched to GE on 744s.

 

JAL seems to be in lots of maintenance problems recently aren't they? First those PW4000s on 777s (on both JAL and ANA) need to have their parts replaced, then this, what next???

 

Also, what would happen if you switched the engines on wrong sides?