Incidents and accidents
7 November 2007: Nationwide Airlines Flight 723, a 737-200, had its right-hand engine fall off a few seconds after liftoff from Cape Town International Airport en route to OR Tambo International Airport. The official South African Civil Aviation Authority (SACAA) report found that the Nationwide Aircraft Maintenance, the airline's air maintenance organisation had failed to implement the mandated service directive to inspect the rear engine mounting on the 737-200 series aircraft every 700 cycles and that this omission hid the existence of a stress fracture in one of the engine retaining bolts which failed at rotation. This retaining bolt failure put sufficient strain on the engine pylon that it completely detached from the wing (to prevent wing damage) while the pilots performed an emergency one-engine climb. The engine fell onto the runway, causing the airport to close and various other aircraft to be diverted to George Airport. During the accident, the aircraft also lost most of its 'A' system hydraulic fluid (and a substantial quantity of fuel from the right wing tank) via the now severed connections between the fuel and hydraulic system and the right engine. This kind of separation, and severance of the lines had been anticipated by Boeing engineers, but due to the nature of the separation, the break in the lines occurred deeper into the wing than the pre-planned breaking point. Amongst other failures, this also degraded the wheel brakes, and the nose wheel steering would not function. The undercarriage would also not extend normally and had to be lowered manually. Back at Cape Town, the detached engine remained to the east of the runway, and was only moved after an initial inspection by the accident investigators. Captain Trevor Arnold and First Officer Daniel Perry were in command of this flight, numbered CE723. Daniel Perry was the pilot flying at the time of the accident. No one was injured.
Captain Trevor Arnold was subsequently honoured through the receipt of the international Polaris Award for his airmanship and the handling of the emergency.
Grounded
29 November 2007: The existence of a pre-existing stress fracture in the engine retaining bolt (caused by mechanic error due to overtightening) and the lack of documentation showing compliance by Nationwide's Approved Maintenance Organization (AMO) with the engine bolt inspection airworthiness directive for a period of more than 3 years prior to the accident led the SACAA to ground all Nationwide aircraft for non-compliance with the applicable Civil Aviation regulations. The official SACAA report further highlighted that the airline's service organisation was not in possession of a certificate to operate for a month prior to and at the time of the accident. Numerous points of compliance raised by safety inspectors had remained open despite repeated inspections and audits during a period of some years hence the lack of a certificate to operate for the Nationwide Air Maintenance organisation at the time of the accident to CE723.
The airline had 30 days to either comply with the regulations or appeal.
7 December 2007: The SACAA granted the 767-300ER permission to fly on their Johannesburg to London route due to the fact that that aircraft was not maintained by Nationwide Aircraft Maintenance but by a European Airline's AMO. The airline had planned to resume domestic flights the following week.
24 December 2007: Nationwide aircraft had been granted permission to resume operations, but the airline had lost most of its holiday season passengers during the shut down and were operating with a reduced fleet size. According to Rodger Whittle, Nationwide's corporate quality director, the airline struggled to accommodate the remaining holiday season traffic and revenue were under stress.
