Cathay defends its record after warning
VICTORIA BUTTON
Cathay Pacific yesterday defended its safety record after an internal e-mail, which warned pilots were relying too often on automatic systems to correct potentially dangerous errors, became public.
However, the airline's spokeswoman, Lisa Wong Lai-shan, refused to detail the number of incidents of early wing flap retraction on Airbus planes, saying this was an internal issue and was not related to safety.
She also refused to say whether any or all of the incidents had been reported to the Civil Aviation Department. "Cathay Pacific . . . is one of the safest airlines in the industry. We do have a very strict system to monitor our operations and will continue to identify ways to improve," she said.
The unspecified number of incidents was small compared to the number of flights Cathay operated, she said.
In the July 31 e-mail, entitled Flap Retraction Again, chief pilot of the Airbus fleet, Richard Hall, warned: "We are relying on our protected aircraft to look after us rather than good airmanship . . . one day we may step outside the capabilities of the protections and get badly bitten."
Pilots were being detected retracting wing flaps on take-off before the plane was going fast enough to fly without them extended, causing an automatic system to intervene to increase the plane's speed, the e-mail said.
It made it clear there had been repeated incidents but did not go into detail.
Former head of the Civil Aviation Department, Peter Lok Kung-nam, said Cathay should report all such incidents to the department. "It's a deviation from standard operating procedures and . . . potentially could result in a serious incident or accident."
He said the incidents were not that dangerous but said conflict between human and computer commands could end in disaster.
According to the Civil Aviation Department, Cathay reported only one incident this year.
A department spokeswoman yesterday said that such incidents did not need to be reported: "It's not a safety issue . . . there's no mechanical failure."
However, after learning of Mr Lok's view, she said that whether a report was required or not depended on the outcome of the flight crew's manoeuvres.