Dassault Falcon 7X grounded?
I have just heard that the Falcon 7X bizjet has been grounded due to a pitch trim runaway somewhere in Malaysia. Anyone have any more information?
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Falcon 7X Suspension of Flight Ops
Not my area of expertise but I thought worthy of mentioning in case anyone misses it.
http://www.caa.co.uk/docs/33/easa_ad_2011_0102_E.pdf If I read it correctly from 27 May 2011 on a temporary basis all Falcon X aeroplanes are grounded. |
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wow ! That's BAD...
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Ouch! That's going to hurt a lot of operators... not exactly what the biz jet op market needs at the moment... Nor Dassault. :ouch:
Well done the crew getting it down. |
Thanks a lot!!
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Any idea when this happened and which ac was involved?
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Some unconfirmed reports have the incident taking place in Malaysia. No mention of aircrafts nationality.
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If the AD wording is accurate, then I am impressed by the forthrightness of Dassault management in taking the somewhat courageous step of recommending that their flagship product be grounded; I wonder how many other managements in our industry, whether OEM, operator or anything else, would be as willing to take the flak to do the right thing?
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This is in some ways reminiscent of the Stab Actuator problems of the Learjet 45 resulting in a similar AD, circa 2003.
IIRC, the actuator was made by a contractor who had made unauthorised modifications. Hopefully there will be a quick resolution. |
Elevator trim runaway
Although my comment is not directly related to this incident;
On the advice of people older and wiser than myself (including flight engineers), on all the aircraft I have flown or managed I put a collar on the elevator trim circuit breaker so it could be located and pulled quickly if required. This act is triggered by the number of aircraft trim runaways that have historically occurred and the number of business jets where this has caused the loss of the airframe. Whilst the occurrences are not common they do happen. Well done to the crew for recovering from what can be a difficult problem to handle. MM |
...You're gonna have a hard time putting a collar on that CB in the 7x...
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Yes, it was in Malaysia. Aircraft involved HB-XXX.
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Mad (Flt) Scientist....that's what I love about Dassault they are are really good company and stand head and shoulders above the other OEMs :D
...having said that I'm surprised that this has happened...I would have thought the system in question was broadly the same kit as would be found on any of the other big falcons so it would be a surprise if this was a duff bit of design... Apparently it was going into KL as a previous poster indicated... FF |
It was going into SZB at 0408 local time and understood emergency was declared. Probably it's not a unique incident to this particular 7x thus Dassault reacted accordingly.Also, the French Air Force has one that flies the President!
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Well, they should be applauded for prompt and correct action. Brilliant to see a manufacturer taking an positive safety-first attitude.
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The Russians also have at least one (Presidential).:ouch:
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Anybody have any idea how to get some data on fleet grounding periods (perhaps an average) for similar AD's?
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You guys are killing me!
First, Dassault has the WORST customer service and product support of any manufacturer. This is confirmed every single year by the AIN survey. If you don't believe me, Google "AIN 2010 product support survey" Second, you don't really believe that the EASA gave them any choice in the grounding do you? The aircraft was uncontrolable in flight, think about it! Third, I would bet that since they have the FDR, there is a lot of information that they are not releasing. ... But you can think whatever you want. FR |
Have to agree on the amount of Dassault "pat on the back" comments here - its distasteful, everyone knows you should be honoured to fly one of their jets!
Appalling arrogance at Dassault which might now subside somewhat with a flagship product grounded. We can all hope. :ugh: |
US FAA has already issued an emergency AD to stop use of all Falcon 7X;
Emergency AD: Dassault Aviation Model FALCON 7X airplanes |
Yes, it was in Malaysia. Aircraft involved HB-XXX. |
Second, you don't really believe that the EASA gave them any choice in the grounding do you? The aircraft was uncontrolable in flight, think about it! You don't know what you are talking about. Dassault requested EASA/FAA to issue the AD. |
You don't know what you are talking about. Dassault requested EASA/FAA to issue the AD. First, Dassault has the WORST customer service and product support of any manufacturer. Appalling arrogance at Dassault LG |
Hey Zeffy, here's a copy and paste regarding the process for AD issuance. It's the same language found at most all FAA/EASA member sites. It says that the government makes the determination...
When is an AD issued? The FAA issues an AD addressing a product when we find that:
Second, Were you there when Dassault discussed this "request" with the EASA? I sorta doubt it. So I doubt you know what you're talking about. Third, Does a manufacturer EVER tell the FAA/EAASA what to do? (or is it always the Feds telling them/us what to do?) Fourth, here's a link to the wall street journal article. It spells it out clearly. UPDATE: EASA Grounds All Dassault Falcon 7X Executive Jets - WSJ.com Now, the article does say it was issued at the "request" of Dassault. This reminds me of a time when I heard a student pilot announce that he was low on fuel 30 miles out over a large bay. The controller asked if he wanted to declare an emergency, the student said "no", and without a pause, the controller said "OK, I'll declare one for you" So once again, do you really think that there was an option here? Could Dassault say "screw you guys" when faced with such a catastrophic system failure? I will say that Dassault did the right thing. When faced with a situation where there would no doubt be an AD issued by EASA, they took the high ground, acted virtuous, and demanded the AD be issued. It's the tactic we should all do when faced with "Write down this number, and call us after you land" FR |
@Atakacs
As far as I can tell there no such aircraft among the 10 7X registered in Switzerland... @FrankR Second, Were you there when Dassault discussed this "request" with the EASA? I sorta doubt it. So I doubt you know what you're talking about. Third, Does a manufacturer EVER tell the FAA/EAASA what to do? (or is it always the Feds telling them/us what to do?) To address this potential unsafe condition, Dassault Aviation has proposed to EASA to prohibit, from the effective date of this AD, any flight operations of Falcon 7X aeroplanes, to which EASA agrees by issuing this AD. |
You guys are killing me! First, Dassault has the WORST customer service and product support of any manufacturer. This is confirmed every single year by the AIN survey. If you don't believe me, Google "AIN 2010 product support survey" http://www.ainonline.com/fileadmin/t...ort_Survey.pdf Very interesting read! Continued weakness in the business aviation market appears to be reflected in a low response rate to the 2010 AIN Product Support Survey. This year’s survey invited 17,284 AIN readers to participate but only 921 completed the survey, for a return rate of 5.3 percent. Previous participation levels were 12 percent in 2009, 10.28 for 2008 and 10 percent in 2007. According to Forecast International of Newtown, Conn., which helped design and administer the survey with AIN, “While this response is a valid basis for determining subscriber opinion, the decrease in participation is discouraging and appears to be a cumulative, strong result of the poor condition of the business aviation community over the past few years.” According to this "so called survey", the GLEX guys/gals here won´t be very happy, eh? I can assure you, that the Dassault Service is Excellent! As far as I can tell there no such aircraft among the 10 7X registered in Switzerland... And there can't be as X is usually reserved for helicopters. I suspect that Captainprop put the Xs in not say that it was Swiss registered without revealing all detail about it. LG |
Read BAZL, there are 10 HB-....registered 7X`s That's what I was trying to say, but was not clear enough |
Yes, it's HB registered but not HB-X..., he was just trying to be discreet with the XXX.
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9M_JON - Spot on. Good to see that someone did not only get out of bed this morning, but actually woke up. :ok: In fact the registration is HB-XYZ :p:}
It is not official information yet so I will not post it here. CP |
Can´t vouch for the support of Dassault (other than that I once walked onto their holy ground in LBG, wearing full uniform, in my function as chief pilot of a DAX company and requested information on Falcon 2000/900 ldg/t/o performance and no-one was interested or did bother to contact me after leaving my business card there), but I know that for the 14 years I flew KingAir B200s commercially - one of with was bought 1 year old from Beechcraft - I never saw or heared anything from a Beech representative.
Yet they are rated number1 for new tp´s doesn´t mean anything as the only other contender would be Avanti....for older TP´s they are even beaten by Mitsubishi...! We bought a used CJ2 from a dealer in Germany and the very next day I was contacted by their techrep in Germany. Sorry for the tread drift. |
7X Reg Trim Runaway
All the Swiss reg 7X's are HB-J??.:ok:
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9M_JON - Spot on. Good to see that someone did not only get out of bed this morning, but actually woke up. http://images.ibsrv.net/ibsrv/res/sr...ies/thumbs.gif |
Interesting, not all 7Xs are grounded. Yesterday at least 3 Bermudan-registered and even one EASA-registered were flying within Eurocontrol airspace.
What EASA publishes is one thing, but Eurocontrol let these birds fly anyway. Go figure :ugh: |
ferry permit?
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I would say even 2 FA7X registered in EU were flying that day !
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FL480, absolutely yes but you know the military is sitting above EASA and it was only for protocol number 14 :oh:
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010010110001100001010011
Hope they get it sorted soon, currently SZB is overrun by the French. |
There is no such thing as an EASA regsitered aircraft.:=
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