wall street journal: focus on wing flaps!
Focus on Wing Flaps
In Spanair Jet Crash
No Evidence Found
Of Engine Failure
In Preliminary View
By ANDY PASZTOR
August 25, 2008;*Page*A7
The Spanair jetliner that crashed during takeoff from Madrid last week apparently didn't suffer an engine shutdown or fire before impact, according to people familiar with the details, but investigators suspect movable panels on the wings weren't properly extended.
As preliminary information trickled in over the weekend about the accident, which killed 154 people, an international team of experts continued to comb the wreckage looking for parts of the McDonnell Douglas MD-82 used to extend its flaps, these people said. The flaps are movable panels at the rear of the wings designed to provide extra lift during takeoffs.
Another major goal of the team is to determine whether some internal fault or engine-control setting may have caused a malfunction in the twin-engine jet -- a workhorse for international airlines since the 1980s.
At this point, investigators believe the engines were working properly and putting out adequate thrust.
It's still too early for investigators to draw definitive conclusions, and Spanish government officials and a spokesman for the airline, which is owned by Scandinavian airline SAS AB, have declined to comment on the direction of the investigation.
Several people familiar with the effort said various portions of the plane that have been recovered, along with video footage taken by cameras at the airport, don't show any signs of fire or explosion during takeoff. Initially, eyewitness reports and comments from airport officials indicated that flames were coming out of the left engine during takeoff.
Investigators believe both engines were turning as the plane struggled to get airborne using much of the roughly 10,000-foot-long runway, flew briefly and then smashed back to the ground.
Investigators in the next few days intend to enhance video images, while the U.K.'s Air Accidents Investigation Branch will attempt to determine what happened by examining the plane's so-called black boxes, which record flight parameters and cockpit conversations. At this point, investigators don't believe that a defect detected in an outside-temperature sensor before takeoff played any significant role in the accident.
According to people familiar with the Spanair probe, investigators are looking at a variety of possible causes but they are focused on trying to determine whether the pilots may have been distracted during the pre-flight checklist, or received incorrect indications about flap settings. Two U.S. jetliners have crashed since the 1980s because pilots failed to deploy flaps as part of their normal checklist procedures before takeoff.