Airliner on face
American spokesman Tim Wagner said the Boeing 767-300ER airplane was at American’s Alliance base in Fort Worth for a heavy maintenance check.
“The maintenance had been completed,” Wagner said, “and during some of our functional tests before putting the aircraft back into service, the nose gear retracted and put the aircraft on its nose.”
The wide-body jet “has been out of service for repairs since that time,” Wagner said.
Wagner disputed comments from the Allied Pilots Association, which said in a Thursday evening message to members that “initial investigation rumors indicate the aircraft may be damaged beyond repair.”
“We’re still in the process of assessing the extent of the damage,” Wagner said, “so we do not have an estimate yet for when the airplane will be returned to service.”
Wagner added that nobody was hurt when the airplane fell to the concrete.
“American will complete an internal investigation of the incident to determine exactly what happened and how another occurrence of this kind can be prevented in the future,” he said.
The union said the airplane was the youngest in American’s fleet of 58 Boeing 767-300ER jets, delivered between 1988 and 2003.
The Boeing 767-300ER is a wide-body aircraft that seats 225 passengers – 30 in business class and the remainder in the coach section – in American’s configuration. American, which received its first Boeing 767-300ER in February 1988, was the first airline to put the aircraft type into service.
Neither American nor the Boeing Co. discloses the prices American pays for its airplane. Boeing’s 2009 list price for a Boeing 767-300ER is $144.5 million to $161.5 million, but American has acknowledged it gets a steep discount.
The current market value of the airplane would depend on a variety of factors, including its age, the number of its takeoff and landing cycles and its general condition.
American uses the aircraft heavily on international routes. From Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, the Boeing 767 flies two of three daily London flights as well as American’s daily flights to Madrid, Spain; Frankfurt, Germany; Paris; Santiago, Chile; and Sao Paulo, Brazil, as well as some domestic routes.
Wagner said the incident will not affect American’s schedule.
“With our capacity decreases recently, we have some flexibility with our aircraft to meet our schedules and have spare aircraft, as well,” he said. See http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/bus/industries/airlines/stories/072509dnbusairplane.70d1c570.html