National Transportation Safety Board said an examination of the right engine of the US Airways A320-200 that ditched safely in New York City's Hudson River last week "revealed evidence of soft body impact damage." Three variable guide vanes were fractured and two missing altogether along with the CFM56-5B4/P's electronic control unit. "Numerous internal components. . .were significantly damaged," NTSB said, and "what appears to be organic material" was found in the engine and on the wings and fuselage.

Qantas retired the last of its six 747-300s. The airline operated the aircraft mainly on regional international and domestic transcontinental routes in recent years. QF was forced to retain the -300s for longer than desired because of the late delivery of its A380s. The aircraft have been replaced by A330s.

China took another step in its effort to manufacture a large commercial passenger aircraft with AVIC's launch of its commercial engine company in Shanghai on Jan. 18. AVIC President Lin Zuoming said the new venture is expected to be responsible for producing engines for a domestically produced150-seat commercial aircraft dubbed the "trunk liner" (ATWOnline, Nov. 5, 2008).

Rockwell Collins won a deal with Hainan Airlines to provide communication, navigation and surveillance avionics for 13 A320s. Products include RC's MultiScan Hazard Detection System, GLU-920 MMR, ADF-900, DME-900, HFS-900D Data Radio, CPL-920D Coupling Unit, VHF-920 transceiver and VOR-900 receiver. Deliveries will begin in 2010.

Jetstar Airways revealed that its first 787-8 will not be delivered until the latter half of 2010. The Qantas Group subsidiary was expecting the first aircraft in the second quarter of 2010 after the most recent delay in the 787 schedule was announced last month (ATWOnline, Dec. 22, 2008). A Jetstar spokesperson told The Australian yesterday that "it's obviously all predicated around the timing of first flight and how the program rolls from there.

The US Airways A320 that ditched safely in New York City's Hudson River following a bird strike last week previously had suffered a compressor stall on one of its engines, investigators said. A US National Transportation Safety Board spokesperson told reporters Monday that maintenance records of the nearly-10-year-old aircraft revealed the stall occurred on Jan. 13. The pilot on that flight will be interviewed by investigators.

Royal Australian Navy yesterday agreed to assist in the investigation into two air data inertial reference unit failures aboard Qantas A330s after initially denying that the joint Australia/US naval communications base in Exmouth, Western Australia, was to blame because it uses different frequency bands (ATWOnline, Jan. 8). The Harold E. Holt naval base uses very low frequency signals to communicate with US Navy and RAN submarines and it was reasoned they were too weak to penetrate an aircraft fuselage.

Gulf Air plans to ground five former SAS A340-300s and start a fuel hedging program in order to cut costs, according to the Arab Air Carriers Org. A340 lift will be replaced by four 777s. Gulf also plans to take delivery of four A330s and five A320s this year.