The S'pore carrier says warm climate may shield its fleet
By VEN SREENIVASAN
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(SINGAPORE) The airline industry has reason to sweat over the crash of a British Airways (BA) Boeing 777, but Singapore Airlines (SIA) is convinced that the warm Asian climate will keep its own fleet safe.
British aviation investigators warned last week that there was a 'high probability' that a fault that caused a BA jet to crash-land at Heathrow in January 2008 could hit other Boeing 777s.
On the surface, this is alarming news for SIA, whose fleet of 77 B777s is the largest in the world and accounts for three-quarters of its aircraft.
None of the 152 BA flight passengers were seriously injured in last year's crash, thanks to the experience and expertise of the pilots. SIA is confident that its fleet, too, will escape unscathed.
Its spokesman Stephen Forshaw suggested that the conditions which caused the BA incident were somewhat different from the conditions under which the SIA planes operate.
'The BA incident was a result of a loss of power on approach to Heathrow after prolonged exposure to abnormally cold conditions. The bulk of our Rolls-Royce-powered 777s do regional routes where exposure to prolonged cold periods is rare,' he told BT.
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He added that the B777-300ERs that SIA uses on its longer-haul routes, including Europe/Moscow where temperatures get very cold in winter, were powered by GE engines, which use different fuel flow systems.
Last Thursday, a second interim report from the UK's Air Accidents Investigation Branch said that during the flight from Beijing, ice may have developed in the fuel pipes of the BA plane. The plane was powered by Roll-Royce Trent engines.
Ten months later, a Delta Air Lines Boeing 777 flying from Shanghai to Atlanta encountered similar 'engine rollback' or sudden power loss.
This has prompted the US Federal Aviation Administration to issue an air-worthiness directive to US carriers operating Boeing 777 aircraft.
US air accident investigators have also called for a component redesign to prevent future incidents.
SIA has been following the investigations closely.
'All our pilots have been briefed in detail on what actions to take to prevent ice build-up in fuel flow systems,' said Mr Forshaw.
There are currently 220 Boeing 777s with Rolls-Royce Trent 800 engines in operation with 11 airlines around the world.
These carriers are following the investigations with a degree of nervousness as any call to modify the fleet could affect their operations.
SIA is the world's single largest user of the plane, with 77 jets in its fleet of 101 comprising of this model. Of these, 58 B777s are powered by Rolls-Royce engines, while the remaining 19 have GE engines. The latter are used in long hauls.
'Typically, this incident is more likely when an aircraft flies the polar route both ways and ground temperature at the stopover point is well below zero,' Mr Forshaw said.
'The advantage of our planes coming back to Singapore quickly is its tropical climate. The only planes we use on the polar routes are the GE-powered aircraft.'
Meanwhile, British power systems giant Rolls-Royce, whose engines power more than half the planes in service, has said it will introduce a new modification to the fuel system that would allow it to cope better 'in the event of a fuel system ice release event'.
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