Lonely Planet™ · Thorn Tree Forum · 2020 |

# Factory wants to ground Real Tonga Airways' MA-60 Country forums / Pacific Islands & Papua New Guinea / Tonga
h2ooh 17:21 UTC 01 Mar 2014 | China's AVIC Xi'an Aircraft Industry (Group) has applied to ground its MA-60 planes after two instances of landing gear failure this month... see http://news.airwise.com/story/view/1393510259.html |
agingaquarian 04:01 UTC 02 Mar 2014 | That's really interesting. NZ has, for some time, been warning travellers to Tonga about this aircraft and the Tonga government has been complaining that NZ is adversely affecting its tourism. It seems NZ was right. This link shows the warning on the NZ government Safe travel site. https://safetravel.govt.nz/tonga | 1
h2ooh 22:20 UTC 04 Mar 2014 | UPDATE... The Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) has grounded 15 MA60s after recent safety incidents involving the landing gear. I wonder what Real Tonga is going to do with their gift from the Chinese? Do they ground it? http://atwonline.com/safety/caac-grounds-15-ma60s-landing-gear-inspections | 2
pzleric 04:02 UTC 11 Mar 2014 | was just in Tonga and watched the MA60 take off on March 3. I think it was still fliying when I left a few days ago as well. everyone complains about the MA60, but I'm not sure the Harbin Y12 theyre leasing from Air Vanuatu is any better? Though it got me from place to place Edited by: pzleric | 3
h2ooh 17:46 UTC 11 Mar 2014 | I flew on it twice in September. It lands like a brick. That was with the Chinese factory pilot in the left seat! I watched it land a couple of times too. It just seems to fall out of the air after the flare. That may one of the reasons they have so many undercarriage problems. | 4