Midnight Mike
2006-09-28, 01:48 PM
Israeli airline 747 went into dive over London
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
LONDON -- An Israeli El Al flight carrying 450 passengers briefly went into a dive over London earlier this year, plunging 2,800 feet after a glitch in its electronic landing system, authorities disclosed Wednesday.
The Israeli airline's Boeing 747 was 10 miles east of London's Heathrow airport on Jan. 10 and flying on autopilot toward the airport when the aircraft began to descend from 4,000 feet, according to a British aviation authority report.
An onboard system ordered the aircraft into a rapid descent and the plane dropped on autopilot to a height of 1,200 feet, the report said.
"The computer system recovered," a spokesman for the Department of Transport said while speaking on condition of anonymity in line with departmental policy.
Crew members noted the incident in a log but did not submit an incident report after arriving at Heathrow. Investigators did not find out until weeks later and posted their report on the Internet earlier this month.
Investigators concluded the incident was caused by a failure of the plane's glidescope, part of a system which tracks flight path and angle of descent during landing, the spokesman said.
Authorities declined to specify the city from which the plane originated.
El Al spokeswoman Amalia Glaser said that the flight crew had acted in accordance with regulations and had reported the incident to all relevant authorities.
"This was a malfunction ... that was reported to all the relevant authorities immediately," Glaser said.
She said the incident did not constitute "a safety emergency in any way," adding that the plane was never in danger. The malfunction in the automatic pilot involved only the plane's communications with the airport, she said.
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
LONDON -- An Israeli El Al flight carrying 450 passengers briefly went into a dive over London earlier this year, plunging 2,800 feet after a glitch in its electronic landing system, authorities disclosed Wednesday.
The Israeli airline's Boeing 747 was 10 miles east of London's Heathrow airport on Jan. 10 and flying on autopilot toward the airport when the aircraft began to descend from 4,000 feet, according to a British aviation authority report.
An onboard system ordered the aircraft into a rapid descent and the plane dropped on autopilot to a height of 1,200 feet, the report said.
"The computer system recovered," a spokesman for the Department of Transport said while speaking on condition of anonymity in line with departmental policy.
Crew members noted the incident in a log but did not submit an incident report after arriving at Heathrow. Investigators did not find out until weeks later and posted their report on the Internet earlier this month.
Investigators concluded the incident was caused by a failure of the plane's glidescope, part of a system which tracks flight path and angle of descent during landing, the spokesman said.
Authorities declined to specify the city from which the plane originated.
El Al spokeswoman Amalia Glaser said that the flight crew had acted in accordance with regulations and had reported the incident to all relevant authorities.
"This was a malfunction ... that was reported to all the relevant authorities immediately," Glaser said.
She said the incident did not constitute "a safety emergency in any way," adding that the plane was never in danger. The malfunction in the automatic pilot involved only the plane's communications with the airport, she said.