Oct 21 1985
From The Space Library
The Canadian recovery ship MV Kreurtrum, chartered by the U.S. government, retrieved from the Atlantic Ocean the first piece of wreckage, a section of fuselage skin approximately 15 by 30 feet, of the Air-India Boeing 747 that crashed in June off Ireland, Aviation Week reported. Another Canadian recovery ship, the John Cabot equipped with a Scarab 2 underwater search and recovery vehicle, was also at the site. The two ships later recovered three other sections of the aircraft's fuselage and were in the process of lifting a fifth section. Recovery team members said they had confronted no serious problems but that the work was time-consuming.
The Scarab 2 itself lifted a smaller second piece of wreckage; high-capacity winches on the Kreurtrum lifted two other sections. Officials said it was taking 18 to 24 hrs to lift each piece of wreckage.
The ships' crews recovered the larger pieces by using four clamps that the Scarab 2 attached to each corner of a piece. Scarab 2 could take only two clamps down during a dive, and a third dive was necessary to carry down a lifting bridle to attach to the four clamps and a lift line to attach to the bridle. This method made it possible to raise large sections with as little additional damage as possible.
Since it takes two hours for the Scarab to dive to the 6,700-foot depth, two hours to do its work, and another three hours to swim back to the surface,” a recovery official said, “it's going to take some time.” Recovery officials believed wreckage retrieved as of the previous week was from the fuselage both fore and aft of the wing, and they were working to locate its position on the aircraft structure. They believed the fifth piece being recovered was a primary fuselage structure, including ribs and skin.
Recovery officials said they established a two-tier priority system for the order in which they recovered wreckage. They gave top priority to pieces that were likely to confirm or refute primary theories on the cause of the crash. Secondary priority was given to pieces considered likely to contain evidence of what occurred to cause the aircraft to break up in flight. Early efforts focused on fuselage structure.
The officials had located the aft pressure bulkhead of the Air-India 747 and scanned it with TV cameras, but said “there is nothing visible to indicate any common problem” with the August crash of a JapanAir Lines 474. Plans called for raising this bulkhead section toward the end of the recovery operation. (Av Wk, Oct 21/85, 32)
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