Page:CAB Accident Report, Braniff Airways Flight 542.pdf/15

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_ Braniff Airways accepted delivery of the aircraft at the factory, Burbank,
 * halifornia, on September 18, 1959. Acceptance had been preceded by a total of

three production test flights and one accsptance flight.

The four propellers and three engines in Nos. 2, 3 and 4 pos1tions had been installed new (zero time). The No 1 engine had accumulated 26 hours and 25 minutes of operation at the time of installation.

Upon arrival of N 97050 at the Braniff Airways Base at Dallas, Texas, an accept— ance inspection was conducted incorporating the operations of Nos. 1, 2, 3 and 4 maintenance and inspection procedures. After the acceptance inepection N 97050 operated apprOXimately 122 hours in scheduled and training flight (total time was 132 hours and 33 minutes); therefore the first or No. l inspection due at 205 hours had not been performed. As a result only preflight serVice checks and nonroutine items were accomplished during the ten days of Operation.

The only areas of chronic difficulties with N 97050 appeared to have been with the radio, naVigational equipment and the generator malfunctioning during the last few flights. This latter generator malfunctioning was reported to have been corrected.

Several incidents to other Electras were investigated. These consisted of- (a) po551bility of exoessive fuel tank pressures; (b) review of a report concerning a landing gear tire failure caused by eXceSSive brake temperatures that resulted in an explOSion of the tire apprOXimately 30 minutes after takeoff. This caused exceSSive damage to the nacelle structures; (c) loss of an intermediate tail pipe cover in flight; (d) review of starter bottle compressor difficulties (This last item has

,een a chronic difficulty fleetwise and the No. 2 compressor in the No. 3 nacelle nad been de—activated in N 97050 at the Dallas Terminal some two hours prior to the final flight); and (e) an over—all general monitoring of L—lBS difficulties for any correlation with the findings to date.

All areas investigated resulted in.negative findings. All squawk items during factory flight tests were signed off as corrected. All maintenance items on this aircraft, including all checks and inspections as well as correction of all items pertaining to airworthiness appearing in the flight log (squawks) had, according to company records, been complied with by Braniff personnel in full accordance with prescribed and approved methods.

Braniff Airways maintains a speCial technical group to monitor the Lockheed E~188 operation. A folder is kept for each aircraft as a means for keeping indi- tidual aircraft chronological records. No Significant entries were found.

On September 22, one week before the disaster, the aircraft was used on a routine training flight. Recovery from a planned stall was made incorrectly and a secondary stall developed, attended by buffeting more severe than normally allowed. The Braniff captain in command expressed the opinion that structural integrity was not impaired and that no inspection was needed.

Crew Histogy

Captain Wilson Elsa Stone completed Lockheed Electra L-188 ground school train— ‘ng on April 10, 1959. The course CODSlBth of 120 hours of instruction on aircraft