![]() People) and hence will not be held liable. Not the administrators, moderators or webmaster (except for posts by these By reading these forums you acknowledge thatĪll posts made to these forums express the views and opinions of the author and Quickly as possible, it is impossible to review every message. Powered by phpBB® Forum Software © phpBB Limitedįor questions/comments please send them to the administrators and moderators of thisįorum will attempt to remove or edit any generally objectionable material as ↳ I have a great deal of aviation experience in:.↳ Perimeter Aviation / Bearskin Airlines.↳ Pacific Coastal Airlines Limited / Westjet Link.↳ Jazz Aviation LP - Air Canada Express.↳ Forum de discussion sur l'aviation en Français.↳ Accidents, Incidents & Overdue Aircraft. ![]() There is no way to make a piezo crystal force sensor "solid state" and for the time being, there's no reliable way to make even the mechanical piezo sensor work any better than a mechanical G switch. The future "was" here, now the past is repeating itself. The Kannad 406ATP is no longer in production and Thales (sales and support) sent a service letter out to operators to replace them with the 406AF model which the specification sheet says uses a "Mechanical G-switch sensor compliant with EUROCAE ED62 specifications". And just like a mechanical switch, it has moving parts (the mass and it's holding translation fixture) that can get jammed.Īnd it did. But.like I mentioned before, the piezo crystal depends on a mass that applies force on it. Like you say, that ELT does employ a piezo-electric G-switch. The agency has called for the Federal Aviation Administration to require an immediate check of all general aviation ELTs to ensure that they are mounted according to specification, and in the longer term to determine whether the mounting requirements are sufficiently robust in the light of this accident.Īzimuth aviation, it's interesting that you brought up the Kannad 406ATP. The ELT is designed to send a 406MHz signal relaying the aircraft's position by satellite to emergency centres, but it also transmits a homing signal on the VHF emergency frequency 121.5 MHz for search aircraft to use. The NTSB found that the Artex ME406 ELT, designed to broadcast signals via an externally mounted antenna, had become separated from its mounting tray and thus from the external antenna, so although the system was triggered by the crash, the signals were not transmitted. The NTSB found that it had crashed about 15min after take-off in high wooded ground 30km (18.6 miles) north of Dillingham in southern Alaska.Ī search by volunteer aviators along the planned route, with no help from the aircraft's transmitter, established the position of the wreckage, but the weather closed in and paramedics could not access the site until the following day to recover the survivors. It hit high ground in marginal visual meteorological conditions, killing the pilot and four passengers, and badly injuring the surviving four.Īlmost 4h after its departure, a telephone inquiry by a manager at the departure point asking about the aircraft's anticipated return, established that the aircraft had not arrived at its destination. The 9 August 2010 accident involved a de Havilland Canada DHC-3T single-turbine floatplane carrying nine people between remote fishing lodges in Alaska. The NTSB has voiced its concern that the widely used system is vulnerable to a similar failure in future. NTSB frets about emergency locator transmitter malfunctionĪ fatal general aviation accident in which four badly injured survivors' lives were put at risk by the failure of the aircraft's emergency locator transmitter has worried the US National Transportation Safety Board. New Zealand mandated the 406 a while back and now it appears the Artex 406s' are failing during their first re-certification test.īy coincidence, Spidertracks is a NZ company. JulAug.pdf, and this,, DCA/RAD/54, Pg 36. BUt the Artex does not hve a mechanical G switch does it? I couldnt open the unit up as I did not want to invalidate the warranty. It reminds me of a service bulletin from one of the old 121.5MHz ELT's that mentions the G switch becoming sticky over time and has to be activated every few months in order to loosen it up. It was only after knocking on it from the side against a table a few times that the G switch began working properly. I had one come in for recert and as much as I tried I could not get the ELT to activate through G force. Azimuthaviation wrote:Hey I was wondering if anyone had any info on the G switch of the Artex ME406 ELT.
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