Aust, plane checks

Press, 27 February 1989, Page 12

Aust, plane checks

NZPA-AAP Canberra The Civil Aviation Authority yesterday reminded travellers that Australia had rigid checks for the type of structural damage which may have caused a United Airlines jet to be ripped open after taking off from Hawaii. A C.A.A. spokesman told a news conference in Canberra that Qantas was carrying out extra checks on its three aircraft of a similar type to the United Airline’s Boeing 747 jumbo jet. “Those structural checks are being made on a daily basis on all those aircraft,” he said. “We haven’t found anything. “We and Qantas now are obviously urgently looking at that situation again to

make doubly sure that if it is a structural problem that we don’t face that there.” The spokesman said information was flowing in on almost an hourly basis on what the United States Federal Aviation Administration was finding in its inspections in Honolulu. The public should have no concerns about the maintenance of aircraft flying in and out of Australia, he said. In Montreal, Air Canada said it was recalling its six Boeing 747 jetliners for inspection. An Air Canada spokeswoman, Christiane Brisson, said the company decided to recall the planes because they were similar to the United passenger jet which peeled open over the Pacific Ocean.