How Rex pilots narrowly avoided disaster after plane lost propeller
The Saab 340 had to make an emergency landing at Sydney Airport. Picture: Grahame Hutchison.
Senior writer
Sydney
The 26-year-old Regional Express turboprop that lost its propeller this month narrowly avoided catastrophe when the pilots took quick action to shut down an overheating engine, according to a source who has spoken to the crew.
Unlike jet engines, the aircraft’s turboprop engine has a gearbox, which pilot and aviation expert Byron Bailey says is its “weak link”. Mr Bailey said the crew was shutting down the engine because gearbox problems were causing the temperature to rise.
He said that had the pilots not taken action to shut it down, the propeller would have “been spinning faster and it could have impacted the fuselage”.
Rex has suffered three incidents this month, with another SAAB 340 turboprop having to return to Dubbo with engine trouble, while a third aircraft returned to Sydney after the crew heard air noise associated with the ground communications hatch. Industry experts say the root cause of these problems is the age of the Rex fleet, which at 23 years is the oldest of any public airline in Australia.
Rex compares poorly with other smaller airlines such as Virgin Regional, Airnorth and Cobham, which have a fleet age of 15-18 years. Its planes are three times older than those of Qantas and Virgin Australia.
Mr Bailey said the effective age of the Rex fleet was much older because its 52 Saabs had “very high utilisation”.
He said he was also concerned about the Rex pilots, who were worked very hard and paid poorly.
The age and fleet size of companies
Rex declined to answer a series of questions put by
The Australian about the age of the fleet and any plans the company might have to modernise it. However, the company provided a blanket response.
“Since Regional Express (Rex) started operations in 2002, Rex has carried out in excess of 1 million take offs and landings. Rex has had a perfect safety record and has never suffered any injury related to flight operations. This is a testimony to Rex’s extremely high levels of standards in both engineering and flight operations,” a company spokeswoman said in a written statement.
“Rex is constantly scanning and analysing the regional aviation environment and making plans for the long-term sustainability of services to regional Australia. The issues faced are complex and multi-faceted and several parameters need to be carefully considered when making such long-term plans. Rex will communicate its decision when definite plans have been made.”
Rex remains Australia’s largest independent airline, operating 1500 weekly flights to 58 destinations throughout Australia. The group comprises Regional Express, air freight and charter operator Pel-Air Aviation and the Dubbo-based regional airline Air Link.
Immediately after the company was formed in 2002, a group of Singaporean investors swooped and acquired more than 30 per cent of the shares. This ad-hoc group now has more than 50 per cent, plus two board seats.
Executive chairman Kim Hai Lim, who owns 17 per cent of the business, has warned that regional aviation in Australia is facing intense cost pressures.
“It would be ironic if the decimation and collapse of regional aviation in Australia took place under the Nationals’ watch,’’ Mr Lim said at the time when Brindabella Airlines, the business founded by the CASA chairman Jeff Boyd, went into receivership.
But Rex has been a profitable airline. While it recorded a $9.6 million loss in the 2016 financial year, Rex returned to the black in its latest half with a pre-tax profit of $8.6m. Aside from the 2016 loss, the business has generated sustained profits over the past decade.
Dick Smith is a big fan of the airline, which he says plays a vital role in regional Australia.
He said it was “quite a competent airline” and “we are fortunate to have them”. However, the business was a victim of increased costs imposed by CASA’s regulations, such as the new digital tracking system ADS-B.
He said big airlines could afford to pay for new safety systems because they amounted to a few dollars per passenger, but for smaller airlines “like Rex, that’s when they descend into bankruptcy”.
Aviation expert Byron Bailey praised the action taken by the pilots in the recent incident, saying it was a case of a “good crew and good training”.
“The engine was playing up and the pilots were in the process of shutting it down. The co-pilot looked out the window and that’s when the propeller came off. It was in a low power setting.”
He said colleagues who had flown the Saabs said that when they have gearbox problems, this raised the engine temperature. He believes the gearbox seized up.
“The engine had been fluctuating as the temperature was going up. The engine was overcoming the drag inside the gearbox.
“For the propeller to fly off, there must have been stress on the shaft. The only thing that could do that is the gear box seizing up.”