View Full Version : King Shaka Airport / SA
New airport now fully operational
King Shaka International airport passed its first test with an inaugural commercial test flight that was completed without incident yesterday afternoon amid high emotion and cheers.
Smooth landing at Shaka - Times LIVE (http://www.timeslive.co.za/local/article426227.ece/Smooth-landing-at-Shaka)
Anyone been there yet, any place for the public to watch planes?
Springbok614
9th May 2010, 20:01
i saw something on a lamp post in joburg about some fuel supply problems at king shaka?
anyone know about this?
Shrike200
10th May 2010, 06:44
A great many of the welds in the fuel supply pipeline are apparently defective. Standard pipe lengths are 6m - the pipeline is about 10km, thats 16000 welds total (I forget how many they said are supposedly defective, but lets just say it's more than ten!) Standard engineering practice (according to my resident B.Eng) is to inspect a steel pipeline under construction every 50 metres built, or so, by sending somebody inside with a camera to take some photos and check on the weld quality. After construction, certificates to say that it's all been done properly must be produced. This seems to have been omitted. Normally, the contractor would be liable for failing to construct something to specification. The news articles seem to imply that ACSA is somehow going to have to fork out the cash, which should only occur if they had, in a fit of retardedness, said 'Sure, we trust you built it properly without any kind of supporting documentation!' Which is unlikely (even for them), so the focus should be on whoever was supposed to build the thing, if my understanding of the situation is correct.
Selfloader
10th May 2010, 09:30
Who ever has to cough up top fix the weldings is irrelevant. What is really scary is that engineers fear "the possibilty of an explosion within the 2 000ha airport grounds". The story goes on to say that parts of the pipeline pass through and beneath bustling sections of the airport, "including the 6 500 bay carpark". I don't think KSIA's garages are going to be congested... ever.