If the repairs are going to cost north of US$ 5-7 million and 6-8 months out of service then the airline might choose to junk this plane and pick up any of the 340-300s or even 340-600s selling now for US$ 6-10 million depending on the hours left before major OH...... Some of it is going to depend upon whomever the plane's owner is, too. If the plane is leased, there's a residual value that the leasing company is going to be expecting the plane to be worth at certain points in time. A leasing company could choose to take the insurance money and finish out the lease by providing a replacement plane of a like model.

Is this correct??? What's going to happened to 4R-ADA?

That photo certainly shows that the aircraft had a very hard landing, and that is a tail strike, how else would it get that damage ?
Auto landing gone wrong?, i very much doubt that, surely this was a pilot error.., nose too high on landing !
I said this on here, or the Facebook post before, i spoke to some good friends (cabin crew) while they were on a stop over here in London, they said ALL SriLankan staff have been instructed NOT to talk about this incident, so obviously someone is trying to cover something up ??
Regards
Dave

The runway at VCBI is currently using the CAT I ILS if i'm not mistaken, which in an auto land situation, only guides the plane to 200ft above the runway threshold after which point the auto pilot disengages and the pilot has to manually land the aircraft. So taking that into consideration, either way, whether it be a manual or an auto landing, it would most likely have to be pilot error in some way although I could be wrong.

i dont think we use CAT 1 ILS, isnt it CAT III ??? maybe i'm wrong....

From what I've heard going around in the Engineering department is that the scrapping of 4R-ADA has halted. This is due to some technician "accidentally" wiping off the FDR of 4R-ADA. Currently the #2 and #4 engines of the 4R-ADA have been removed from the aircraft to replace the engines of another A340 in the fleet, one of the PAC units has already been cannibalized, the APU has also been removed. Any maintenance and other investigations done by the Engineering Department has been stopped, and the investigations as I've heard are being conducted by the CAA of Sri Lanka. I'll keep updating on what's happening if I get to know any new news.

definitely not CAT III, we have CAT II capability but don't use it often apparently

Looks like she wont fly again for loooooooong time if not the worse case - NEVER :S ;(

Sri Lanka national carrier needs experienced management to be profitable - Colombo Page

Guys.. Share your ideas how SriLankan Airlines could be developed as a Best Airline in Asian Region?

Increase efficiency(ops, sales), reduce cost, service excellence, new equipment. Its not only management that matters. Above should apply from top to bottom.

Take it away from Government interference, and bring back Emirates, or another quality partner airline.

Dave I do not agree with Emirates. It is true they increase the efficiency. But ultimately Emirates used UL rights, they took all key brains from UL. Ultimately they didnt increase any of the UL assets(including skilled human resources) or retain them. At the time they leaving we didnt had something for our own, while they just grew them selves with the help of UL. Emirates was built with help of PIA and grew with UL. Now devastating along with Qantas . Still its a doubt that will benifit Qantas, or they will aslo ended up similar to Sri Lankan, where EK will grow through Qantas map and leave them aside in future.

Hard landing UL-266 flight recorder France-bound for reading

The cockpit voice recorder of a SriLankan Airlines A340 aircraft damaged while landing at Bandaranaike International Airport on July 2, was sent to the French Bureau d’Enquêtes et d’Analyses (BEA) for reading, Civil Aviation Director General H.M.C. Nimalsiri said. The BEA is the French authority responsible for safety investigations into accidents or incidents in civil aviation. It has categorised the occurrence as a “serious incident”, based on initial assessments by SriLankan officials.

SriLankan Airlines flight UL 266 was returning from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, when it experienced a tail strike incident, causing some damage to the tail section of the aircraft, while no injuries were reported, SriLankan Airlines said last week. The matter is now under investigation by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) of Sri Lanka, while the aircraft remains grounded, a statement from the airline said current.

The tail strike was caused, in technical terms, by a “high sink rate and flare followed by hard landing”. The aircraft itself is more than 19-years-old, with its maiden flight in 1994. It is reported to be one of the oldest A340s in service in Asia. The Sunday Times last week erroneously quoted CAA Chairman Gen. Rohan Daluwatte as saying initial investigations into the accident had indicated that a pilot error caused the incident. What he did state was that the incident was being probed.

Gen. Daluwatte said it was premature to comment on the cause or causes of the accident. SriLankan Airlines, too, said that it would be “speculative” to blame the tail strike on pilot error until the inquiry is completed. Mr Nimalsiri confirmed that the incident was serious, but that it could have been worse. On July 6, a tail strike suffered by an Asiana Airlines aircraft landing at San Francisco Airport, USA, started a fire onboard injuring more than 130 passengers and killing two. It is reportedly the first time a SriLankan Airlines aircraft has had a tail strike.

“We are primarily concerned with what really went on, with a view to rectifying the system,” Mr Nimalsiri said, of the investigation. “We must have an overall assessment. We may have completed one part, but that doesn’t give us the position to disclose the cause of the accident, because there might have been other things that also contributed.”

The Airline Pilots’ Guild of Sri Lanka said last week that the pilot had, in fact, done an auto-land on this particular flight. “We are required to conduct an auto-land every 45 days,” said Guild President Capt. Ruwan Vithanage. “It is a legal requirement tailored to keep current pilots to land in low visibility conditions. This pilot’s auto-land currency was expiring in two days, which was why he chose this option.”

However, the aircraft had sunk in the last 50 feet before touchdown. “This had caused the aircraft to have a low bounce, at which point the pilot-in-command had disconnected the auto-land and carried out a manual landing,” Capt. Vithanage reported. He said that, while a SriLankan aircraft had experienced a gear collapse in Chennai many years ago, there has never been an incident as serious as this before.

Ownership under Srilankan government but 100% foreign and private managememt please.

Retaining human resources is a skill...it is very simple...You pay peanuts then you get monkeys!!!

This is an additional requirement for Sri Lanka respect managment inputs without political interference.

Indika how do you explain there is 20% staff increase since Emirate exit.