PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - SR111 Disaster in the Air on UK TV tonite
Old 14th Jan 2004, 04:30
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Tony_EM
 
Join Date: Oct 2002
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It dealt with the basic facts quite competently, but in my view failed to deal with the issues of questionable contracters and technicians being used to instal the the IFE system.

In other discussions, it became apparent to me that the IFE wiring was attached to existing wire bundles in a way that disregarded the original care taken to prevent unwanted vibrational effects leading to chaffing, namely by using overly tight cable ties.

It also failed to address the many concerns about Kaptan wiring insulation and its unbelievable quality for spontaneous combustion and progressive 'flaring' within wire bundles when shorted/arced and supplied with current. Since it was only thought of as a real problem when and if pilots held in CBs that had popped thus feeding an arcing bundle with the power to cause fire/flaring, nobody considered the possibility of cowboy contracters installing an IFE system that could not be turned off through the cabin bus.

There are many other tangental issues that this accident revealed, such as the FAA's failure to adequately inspect the IFE installation and therefore pass it as airworthy when it probably was not.

I can't say I fully agree with some of the speculation, nor am I qualified to voice any conclusive opinion, but there is much more to this than the programme suggests, while some learned colleagues and families of the victims were disappointed that the final report failed to deal with some of these issues as they would have hoped.
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