From the Flightstory Archives: Best of – Part 2
Why you shouldn’t fly with Adam Air – Originally posted 2007
1. Horrible maintenance situation – Happened that aircrafts have been recorded as fixed already just before the plane actually arrived.
2. Once during entire monsoon season, all of their 732s had no weather radar. Despite that, they were forced to fly during nighttime through areas of dense cumulus and cumulonimbus clouds.
3. Once at cruise GEN2 failed. The engaged APU GEN failed due to a flat battery. However the flight was continued.
4. Once an aircraft was in such bad habbit (loss of instruments) that the crew refused to fly that aircraft. The Passengers were left wondering till they found another crew to fly, without any fixes made.
5. Pilots have protested because of a maintenance delay due to missing parts to fix a wing. All have been fired.
6. During flight hydraulic pressure was lost. However the flight was continued. Resulting in a complete loss of nosewheel steering during landing. The plane stopped on the runway, blocking it completely. Since no pushback truck was available, passengers and bags were droped on the runway. It was pushed back using raw muscle power. See pictures below.
This problem was caused by a defective hydraulic line. The line was not replaced but just got “fixed” with duct tape. Not the first time duct tape was used…
7. Several times flights have been made with both fuel flow gauges lost.
8. The management forced an aircraft with lost instruments to fly because it was carrying “valuable cargo”.
9. During flight the first officer panel went completely dead. After arrival the called maintenance just told “no problem, you can still use the other one”.
10. One engine made problems. Instead of fixing or replacing it, the crew was told just to fly under reduced N1. During C-Check this engine was not fixed either. Instead it was moved into another aircraft again flying with reduced N1, for serveral weeks, till it gave up completely.
11. Cargo has top priority. No matter if the maximum weight is reached. Company policy: “If there’s space, why not fill it?”
12. Once an aircraft was overloaded by 700kg. Offloading was no option, the captain had to burn off 700kg of fuel before takeoff. It took 15min, standing on the runway with full throttle.
13. Often the Flight Ops department couldn’t get the actual weather of a destination. There is no telex, the ONE excisting photocopier has to be shared with other departments (including sales and ticketing).
14. To save fuel costs, the amount of fuel was reduced to a minimum several times, just to reach the destination. Need to divert or abort landing due to bad weather? (quite common in a monsoon area) No way!
15. During windy conditions landing got not aborted, following in a tail strike literally braking the plane. See pictures below.
16. During that accident the crew refused to open the emergency exits. The passengers had to force the crew to do so.
Click here to view newspaper photo
17. Pilots did not follow the emergency checklist to lower spoilers and flaps.
Click here to view newspaper photo