Air scares: Govt orders action

By ALAN PERROTT and PATRICK GOWER

Passenger Alan Price heard a snap then a bang just moments after Air New Zealand flight NZ2 took off from Auckland for Los Angeles.

His first reaction was "Oops, there goes something".

It was too dark to see what happened, but Mr Price said it was clear something had fallen from the plane.

He and his sister Leeanne were in seats above the aircraft's right wing when they heard the bang during takeoff just after 9pm on Friday.

The pair from Manukau told flight staff, who said the pilot was aware of the situation.

"Some of the crew claimed they knew about it from the beginning and had been testing it out a bit," Mr Price told the Herald.

The aircraft had lost a 2m section of a wing flap, the second time in a week an Air New Zealand aircraft has lost a part of a wing soon after takeoff. The latest incident forced the pilots of the Boeing 747 to perform an emergency landing at Los Angeles.

The Government is demanding urgent answers on the cause of the two incidents to ease public fears.

Transport Minister Paul Swain will meet Civil Aviation Authority officials today to find out when their report on the latest incident will be completed. "Air New Zealand's safety record is second to none, but the critical thing is we've had two incidents.

"It's important the public is reassured on safety. The average punter, the average traveller, relies on everything being in order. Clearly there are some things to be answered here."

Mr Price said he was sure many of the passengers were worried about the potential danger as no one knew the extent of the damage until the flaps were lowered again as they approached Los Angeles.

The Prices sent photographs of the damage to their father, Larry Price, a former aircraft builder who said it appeared one of the flap's hydraulic control systems had broken off and the resulting torque effect tore the flap from the wing.

Another passenger, Auckland schoolteacher Norma Hall, knew nothing of the incident until she reached Scotland.

The 53-year-old flew on to London to attend an aunt's funeral in Scotland and heard what happened only when she phoned her Oratia home from Edinburgh yesterday.

Mrs Hall, who was in an aisle seat, said there was just one mention of "technical problems" when they circled above Los Angeles about to attempt the landing.

She thought her husband, Alan, was joking when he asked her about the missing flap.

Mrs Hall said after landing some people had spoken about a piece of the plane missing, but passengers had not been given any details.

"I thank the pilot for not reporting it because we would have been sitting there feeling alarmed."

Mr Hall had seen news reports about the flap and immediately phoned Air New Zealand to make sure his wife was safe.

He paraphrased Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest in questioning how Air New Zealand could have twice lost large pieces of wings: "To lose one wing is unfortunate but to lose both wings is careless.

"The attitude of Air New Zealand seems to be that these pieces of plane are just not important."

An inspection of the aircraft indicated the broken flap may have damaged the plane's tail when it fell off.

On August 24 a 10kg panel from a wing fell off an Air New Zealand flight to Japan and was found in a Manukau carpark.

In May last year a piece of a wing flap fell off another plane and smashed through a warehouse roof.

The part torn off on Friday night was the top section of the starboard wing's inboard flap. Each wing has two such flaps, inboard and outboard, which are divided into three segments. The flaps are used during takeoff and landing to control the aircraft while it is flying at low speed.

The incident is being investigated by Air New Zealand and two independent agencies, the Transport Accident Investigation Commission and the Civil Aviation Authority.

Civil Aviation Authority director John Jones said investigators were looking at Air New Zealand's safety systems and both damaged wing incidents. He said the authority's power could extend to withdrawing an operator's certificate, although that was unlikely to occur with Air New Zealand.

"Usually if something happens and they know about it they would probably come back in and land. I'm an ex-pilot and if I got told a piece of the wing had fallen off and my maintenance base was in Auckland with a nice long runway, where I'd just left, I'd be turning back."

Air New Zealand spokesman Cameron Hill said visual inspections had been conducted on the inboard wing flaps on the fleet's seven other Jumbos and no defects had been found.

He said an Air New Zealand pilot who was on board the flight as a passenger also spotted the damage and passed the information on to the flight crew.

The safety scares follow turbulent times for the airline, which needed an $885 million Government bailout last year after a disastrous alliance with the now failed Ansett Australia.

Despite reporting a $319 million net loss last week, the airline was given credit for achieving a $39 million operating profit after tax and before unusual items for the year to June.

The result was applauded given the volatility in the aviation industry. Last week the resignation of the airline's senior technical and operations vice-president, Bill Jacobson, was announced. Mr Jacobson, who had overall responsibility for Air New Zealand Engineering Services, has been with the airline for two years.

Mr Hill said although ANZES' operating costs had been cut by more than 20 per cent in the last financial year, that could be attributed to less work following the aviation downturn. Air New Zealand's maintenance programme had not changed.

- Additional reporting: Helen Tunnah