Boeing to join Air NZ safety review panel

By CATHY ARONSON transport reporter

Giant planemaker Boeing will help Air New Zealand to review its engineering systems in the wake of Sunday's engine failure.

The findings will be made public, a move the national carrier says is important for its credibility.

Air NZ announced the review after an engine on a Boeing 767-200 failed at 3000m after takeoff from Brisbane for Auckland. It was the fifth scare in as many months.

The airline said yesterday that Boeing would send a senior representative next week to help to set up the review terms and timetable.

Operations and technical vice-president Craig Sinclair said Air NZ would make the findings and recommendations public for the sake of "credibility and transparency".

Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union national secretary Andrew Little said the Air NZ engineers welcomed Boeing's participation.

"They know they are in a job where there is no margin for error, and they take it very personally. I think they welcome a fresh pair of eyes to review the process."

Images on a website found by the Herald yesterday show the level of damage caused when part of the turbine disc broke off.

The website - www.members.optushome.com.au/vhrmm/nz767/ - also shows damage to the aircraft's leading wing edge.

An international transport accident expert, Professor Colin Boyd, who is visiting the University of Auckland from the University of Saskatchewan in Canada, said the accident could have been disastrous if the rotating disc holding in the engine blades had broken off on a different angle and struck a fuel tank.

"The really scary thing is what if it had come out on a different angle and had shot out on the inside rather than the outside of the wing root where the fuel tanks are.

"That could have been disastrous. It was only luck that stopped it."

Mr Sinclair was not willing to speculate on what would have happened if the disc fragment had come out at another angle, saying the airline had to concentrate on why the accident happened.

"That's why they are called uncontained failures, because anything that breaks through an engine casing can create further damage, so that's what makes this so serious."

The airline believed it had met maintenance and airworthiness directives but would review its compliance as part of the investigation, led by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau and including the New Zealand Transport Accident Investigation Commission, Boeing and General Electric, makers of the engine.

The engine has still to be released back to the airline and is expected to take three to four weeks to repair.

Mr Sinclair did not believe there was any link to an incident in Philadelphia two years ago on a Boeing 767 when a high-pressure turbine disc broke during a ground test and the metal hit a fuel tank, causing an explosion and fire. That aircraft had CF6-80C2B2 engines and the Air NZ engine was a CF6-80A2.