Concerns over ageing DC-10s still being used at Shannon to carry US troops.

Run_to_da_hills

Awesome aircraft to look at, but some of these are over 25 years old. Shannon must be one of the few remaining airports in Europe to witness these come and go on a regular basis. However there are some concerns raised about their reliability.

Dr Horgan, a former Irish Army commandant, said: “I am particularly concerned about the safety of DC-10s which seem to experience an inordinate number of engine problems. These are old aircraft now and they are also licensed to carry munitions, which makes them a significant additional hazard.”



http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2011/0815/1224302451394.html

highlydebased

All a smokescreen for the fact he doesn't want troops in Shannon, but I won't go into that.

Blue Punto

Absolute 100% Waffle and Bull

This story shouldnt be given the time of day

Delta Kilo

Isnt he the guy that handed back all his medals and left because he suddenly had a realisation that armies and war are bad...

Anyways, I was going to work the other morning, just got out of my car in the car park (right under the flight path to RWY 24), about 200m from the threshold, and one of those DC10s came out of the mist and passed directly over me, it really was a phenomenal sight and made it a little bit easier to make it into work that day!

Delancey

Horgan's motives are , to say the least , questionable.

moss.ie

Blue Punto wrote: »

Absolute 100% Waffle and Bull

This story shouldnt be given the time of day

i totally agree, that dude needs to find a hobby to occupy his time,


the Grinch who tried to close shannon!

Shane Slv

N270AX was manufactured in 1988, 23 years old.... She was actually the last DC 10 ever built!

Here she is with world airways in 95,


She was leased from World to Nigeria Airways early 90's


It seams she was with Malaysia Airlines in 95


Back with World in 96


With world in 2004


Finily with Omni Air International in 2005


Hear she is back in may



A true workhorse, Id say she has some storeys to tell

xflyer

I read the original article with a cynical smile. My main reaction was to think it rather pathetic. Is that all he's got now? Concern over the airworthiness of aircraft. Horgan is the poster boy of the so called anti war movement. An ex army officer gone over to the dark side. :rolleyes: They can point to him and claim they're not all crusty left wing loonies with an anti American agenda. They've had a bad time it lately with Obama in the Whitehouse. They had a whale of a time when 'the evil' Bush was in power. Not a sign of a protest when O'Bama came to town.:D

I would applaud his sudden concern for the welfare of US troops. It it wasn't politically motivated it would be touching. Maybe he should address his concerns to the US DoD. Clearly they don't know their job.

On the other hand Horgan clearly knows little about aircraft.

moss.ie

xflyer wrote: »

I read the original article with a cynical smile. My main reaction was to think it rather pathetic. Is that all he's got now? Concern over the airworthiness of aircraft. Horgan is the poster boy of the so called anti war movement. An ex army officer gone over to the dark side. :rolleyes: They can point to him and claim they're not all crusty left wing loonies with an anti American agenda. They've had a bad time it lately with Obama in the Whitehouse. They had a whale of a time when 'the evil' Bush was in power. Not a sign of a protest when O'Bama came to town.:D

I would applaud his sudden concern for the welfare of US troops. It it wasn't politically motivated it would be touching. Maybe he should address his concerns to the US DoD. Clearly they don't know their job.

On the other hand Horgan clearly knows little about aircraft.

imho its a half arsed response to the following rte news
http://www.rte.ie/news/2011/0812/shannon.html

"Speaking in 2007, General John W Handy had said that they were told the Irish Government was afraid that if they withdrew from Shannon following the attacks, it would send out a signal that the protesters had won and the Irish State did not want that."

here N810AX, one of the 'dangerous aircraft' touching down on rway 06 in SNN,

,

markpb

Other than a load of photos, does anyone have any good reason to say that the planes are or aren't airworthy?

Delta Kilo

If it is flying then it will have either a dual release EASA form 1 or 8130, depending on wherever the company is based aswell as a certificate of airworthiness. This signifies that the aircraft is airworthy and it is legal to fly.

A company that has a large contract with a US state department doesnt go and play roulette with their aircraft and serviceability.

Being an older aircraft may make it less reliable, (older parts etc) but being less reliable and being airworthy are two entirely separate things.

xflyer

markpb wrote: »

Other than a load of photos, does anyone have any good reason to say that the planes are or aren't airworthy?

Well he mentioned engine problems. If you know anything about aircraft engines you'll know that the age of the aircraft is irrelevant to the age of the engines. They will have been changed multiple times over the years. The engine itself will have been refurbished several times complete with module swaps. Engines are like the proverbial old sweeping brush. It's had ten new heads and five new handles but it's still the same old brush.

If there's an airworthiness issue with these aircraft, you can be quite sure the pilots, the military and the US public won't be waiting for Edward Horgan to point it out.

moss.ie

from AVherald.com

"A Delta Airlines Boeing 757-200, registration N704X performing flight DL-196 (dep Nov 19th) from Philadelphia,PA (USA) to Paris Charles de Gaulle (France) with 152 passengers and 17 crew, needed to shut down the right hand engine (PW2037) following the failure of the engine while enroute at FL350 overhead the Atlantic and diverted to Shannon (Ireland). The airplane landed safely on Shannon's runway 06 and vacated the runway, emergency services checked the right hand side of the aircraft before the airplane continued to the apron."


"An American Airlines Boeing 757-200, registration N177AN performing flight AA-210 (dep Jul 6th) from New York JFK,NY (USA) to Manchester,EN (UK) with 164 people on board, was enroute at FL380 over the Atlantic east of W30, when the crew needed to shut the right hand engine (RB211) down, drifted down to FL250 and diverted to Shannon (Ireland) where the aircraft landed safely on runway 24."

i spose he'll be trying to get American And Delta banned from shannon as well.

280special

Load of round hairy objects.

Why does someone resort to this sort of rubbish to make their point? all this has done is erode his creditability.

Tenger

markpb wrote: »

Other than a load of photos, does anyone have any good reason to say that the planes are or aren't airworthy?

The fact that the US DoD are still using them shows how off the wall his claims are. All aircraft types have incidents. In the early 1990's an airline called ValueJet in the US south east had a few safety incidents, in 1995 the Dod instructed serving military not to travel with them. This was the start of a downhill journey for ValuJet.

If there were a problem with the World/Omni aircraft then the US military would not use them.

Delancey

Although we on this forum see Horgans utterances on the airworthiness of aircraft as total bollox there are the , shall we say , ' less well-informed ' out there who may actually attach credence to this nonsense.

Andrew33

moss.ie wrote: »

from AVherald.com




"An American Airlines Boeing 757-200, registration N177AN performing flight AA-210 (dep Jul 6th) from New York JFK,NY (USA) to Manchester,EN (UK) with 164 people on board, was enroute at FL380 over the Atlantic east of W30, when the crew needed to shut the right hand engine (RB211) down, drifted down to FL250 and diverted to Shannon (Ireland) where the aircraft landed safely on runway 24."

Do east bounds not fly at odd number FL's? and west bounds at even numbers?

tu2j2

To say they "experience an inordinate number of engine problems" is a bit strong, they ain't exactly reliable but how this makes them fail to be airworthy I don't know.

cyrusdvirus

280special wrote: »

Load of round hairy objects.

Why does someone resort to this sort of rubbish to make their point? all this has done is erode his creditability.

he has credibility?

highlydebased

Andrew33 wrote: »

Do east bounds not fly at odd number FL's? and west bounds at even numbers?

In European Airspace they follow RVSM as you described, but on the atlantic it can vary sometimes for traffic reasons etc.

veetwin

Happened to be on that aircraft once and engine no.3 failed 2 hours into the flight. Landed without issue but was grounded then until it could be repaired leaving us stranded. I know that could and does happen to brand new aircraft but it failed 100% of the time I was on it!

pclancy

Lol how is this even news, they're a lot better maintained then some of the ****e that ends up at Shannon...

donkey balls

Jaysus lads I'm just after reading the Times article and have just been on the phone to an ex colleague of mine in ops telling him to ground the worlds biggest fleet of DC 10 as their old and non airworthy:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:.
FFS it boils my blood when you have gimps spouting sh*te many a time Iv'e flown on aircraft built before I was born utter crap reporting surprised the aviation guru/expert gerry byrne has'nt mentioned anything,Also many DC10 over the years have had there FD upgraded to the MD11 FD which then became MD10 with no need for the men&women who sat sidewards to be on board.

roundymac

Typical lazy journo's. Don't even bother check to see if there is any truth in the story, just take it a face value and publish it. They don't care who's reputation they damage, but try and do or say anything about them (Press) and they are screaming, freedom of speech, civil right's etc,:mad: