China Eastern Airlines: Rumors that the hidden danger of the “fork” component is related to the crashed plane are untrue
In response to a reporter’s question about China Eastern’s self-maintenance of the 737-800 “pickle fork” (pickle fork), Liu Xiaodong, director of China Eastern’s propaganda department, introduced that the rumors that the hidden dangers of components commonly known as “pickle fork” were related to the crashed plane were untrue. First of all, I would like to stress that the only authoritative information channel for accident investigation is the accident investigation team, and China Eastern is actively cooperating with the investigation. Second, the crashed aircraft did not involve maintenance of this component.
In early October 2019, according to the safety tips of the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), Boeing carried out a joint component of the fuselage and wing of the global 737 NG aircraft, commonly known as “pickle fork” (pickle fork). The emergency inspection involved thousands of registered passenger aircraft with serial numbers around the world, including one aircraft of China Eastern Airlines Yunnan Co., Ltd., and China Eastern Technology Yunnan Branch, under the cooperation and authorization of Boeing, carried out professional maintenance, and fully met the airworthiness requirements of civil aviation.
Currently, the aircraft has been withdrawn from the fleet on September 8, 2020. The aircraft B1791 in this accident was only 6.8 years old and flew a total of 8,986 sorties. Therefore, the 3.21″ accident aircraft does not involve the maintenance of this component at all. The information transmitted on the Internet is not true.
China Eastern ensures that safety maintenance costs do not drop but increase
Regarding the reduction of maintenance costs of China Eastern Airlines, Liu Xiaodong, director of the publicity department of China Eastern Airlines, introduced at the press conference that even during the epidemic period, the number of flights decreased. up 12% year over year. As a listed company, China Eastern Airlines has public and well-documented data. We are also concerned that the relevant media have withdrawn inaccurate reports.