17 APR 2009 _______________________________________ *Boeing 777 fire raises alerting issue *AAIB: final report on Boeing 777 electrical fire event *Canadian man jumps out of airplane over Arctic *Small plane carrying nine crashes in Indonesia *IATA Signs Agreement With CIS To Improve Aviation Safety *JetBlue promotes Maruster to COO position *Chew relinquishes COO post at JetBlue *HNTB wins O'Hare International Airport runway design contract *Casa Grande Man Indicted for Inspecting Airplane Without Proper Certification; Plane Later Crashed *United to gain Pacific edge under ADS-B agreement **************************************** Boeing 777 fire raises alerting issue An electrical fire beneath the flight-deck floor of a United Airlines Boeing 777-200 reached a temperature well in excess of 1,000degC without generating any fire or smoke warnings for the pilots to act on, according to a UK Air Accident Investigation Branch report. The event occurred at London Heathrow airport on 26 February 2007 just after the crew had started the engines on aircraft N786UA, and the fire was identified when a tug driver told the crew that smoke was coming from main equipment centre (MEC) vent. The fire began when intense arcing and short-circuiting took place in and around the contacts of the right generator circuit breaker (RGCB) and right bus tie breaker (RBTB) in the P200 power panel just after the power from the integrated drive generator (IDG) came on line following engine start. Molten metal from the P200 panel started dripping onto the insulation blankets below it, which ignited despite their flame-retardant characteristics. The crew received several electrical system warnings on their engine indicating and crew alerting system (EICAS) displays, including ELEC AC BUS R, a separate indication when the right IDG power supply was interrupted, and another to show that the bus tie connection had tripped. The flight data recorder shows that, 40s after the failure the MEC smoke detector activated, tripping the MEC cooling fan system which generated an EQIP COOLING OVRD message on the EICAS. The crew shut down the right engine and taxied the aircraft (N786UA) to a nearby stand where all on board were safely evacuated via steps. The AAIB sayz the initial cause of the fire was the failure of contacts in the RGCB and RBTB, but the root cause of that failure is not known because of the damage caused by the intense heat. One recommendation is that a tray must be sited below the power panels to catch drops of molten metal should a contact fail again, because this will prevent the drips igniting the insulation blanket below them. Among other recommendations, however, the AAIB says that the crew should be warned directly of smoke in the MEC, and the power panels should be designed to isolate automatically contacts that are short-circuiting. The FAA and Boeing are acting on these. The AAIB notes that, because power panel contacts had failed before, the manufacturer was already seeking remedies before the Heathrow event took place. Source: Air Transport Intelligence news ************* AAIB: final report on Boeing 777 eletrical fire event The AAIB released their final report of the invesigation into a accident involving a United Air Lines Boeing 777 at London-Heathrow in February 2007. The accident occurred during engine start after pushback from the stand. After the right generator came online an electrical failure occurred in the right main bus. The failure resulted in severe internal arcing and short circuits inside the two main power contactors of the right main bus. The heat generated during the failure resulted in the contactor casings becoming compromised, causing molten metal droplets to fall down onto the insulation blankets below. The insulation blankets ignited and a fire spread underneath a floor panel to the opposite electrical panel (P205), causing heat and fire damage to structure, cooling ducts and wiring. The flight crew responded to the bus failure and a burning smell by shutting down the right engine and taxiing to a nearby stand. The Airfield Fire Service attended the aircraft when it arrived on stand and entered the Main Equipment Centre where they discovered significant smoke but no fire. The passengers were evacuated uneventfully via steps. CAUSAL FACTORS: 1. An internal failure of the Right Generator Circuit Breaker or Right Bus Tie Breaker contactor on the P200 power panel inside the Main Equipment Centre resulted in severe internal arcing and short-circuits which melted the contactor casings. The root cause of contactor failure could not be determined. 2. The open base of the P200 power panel allowed molten metal droplets from the failed contactors to drop down onto the insulation blankets and ignite them. 3. The aircraft's electrical protection system was not designed to detect and rapidly remove power from a contactor suffering from severe internal arcing and short-circuits. 4. The contactors had internal design features that probably contributed to the uncontained failures. (AAIB) (aviation-safety.net) ************* Canadian man jumps out of airplane over Arctic CAMBRIDGE BAY, Nunavut (AP) - A man aboard a small passenger plane fought to push open the aircraft's door at 23,000 feet over northern Canada and leaped to his death, forcing the pilot to make an emergency landing with the door ajar, police said Thursday. The Adlair Aviation plane with two pilots and two passengers was flying from Yellowknife to Cambridge Bay, a community in western Nunavut, when the man jumped Wednesday night, said Staff Sgt. Harold Trupish of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. The Beechcraft King Air 200 twin-turboprop was about 110 miles (180 kilometers) from the Cambridge Bay airport when the man jumped, he said. Police were searching for the body of the 20-year-old, whose name was not released. Trupish said the pilots reported the passenger became unruly and they struggled to keep him from pushing the door open and leaping out. "The plane came in with the door open," he said. "Somehow they were able to control the aircraft to land. The three other people are all OK." Paul Laserich, general manager of the small family-owned airline that has operated in the Canadian north for more than 25 years, praised the pilots for getting the plane and their remaining passenger down safely with frigid Arctic air roaring into the cabin through the opening. "They brought the ship safely back. Everybody is OK. They are a little shaken up. They are OK. That is what is most important," Laserich said. He said the pilot was too distressed to talk to reporters. *************** Small plane carrying nine crashes in Indonesia TIMIKA, Indonesia - A small plane carrying election officials and ballots from last week's parliamentary elections crashed Friday into a densely forested mountain in Indonesia's easternmost province of Papua, police said. It was not immediately known if any of the nine people on board survived. Bagus Ekodanto, the local police chief, said search and rescue teams were headed to the site. Several villagers had spotted the plane's smoldering wreckage but were unable to reach it because of the rugged terrain, he said. The single-engine Pilatus Porter PC-6 aircraft was carrying several local election commission staffers and ballots to the remote village of Mulia when it went down, Ekodanto said, adding that it was not clear what caused the accident. Two crew members and seven passengers, including a child, were on board, he said. There are few roads in Papua, which occupies the western half of New Guinea, and air travel is a necessity. It is considered one of the world's most dangerous places to fly. Many areas are mountainous and prone to dangerous low clouds and sudden weather changes. A cargo plane crashed in the district of Wamena last week, killing all six people on board. ***************** IATA Signs Agreement With CIS To Improve Aviation Safety KUALA LUMPUR, April 16 (Bernama) -- The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has signed an agreement with the Interstate Aviation Committee (IAC), to improve aviation safety throughout the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). Under the agreement, both parties will promote IATA Operational Safety Audits (IOSA), IATA's Integrated-Airline Management System (IAMS), IATA Safety Audits for Ground Operations (ISAGO) and other similar initiatives as well as the deployment of professional resources of the IAC. Both parties will also develop and enhance civil aviation infrastructure in the states united by the IAC, including implementation of the ICAO standard for Reduced Vertical Separation Minima (RVSM) and Performance-Based Navigation, IATA said in a statement today. "Safety is our priority and the performance of the CIS is far below the global average. All IATA airlines, including the 15 in the CIS, are on the IOSA Registry," said IATA director general and chief executive officer Giovanni Bisignani. -- BERNAMA ************** JetBlue promotes Maruster to COO position NEW YORK (AP) - JetBlue Airways Corp. said Thursday that Rob Maruster will take over as chief operating officer in June. Maruster, 37, succeeds Russ Chew, who will become a senior adviser. Chew, 56, who was also tapped to serve as president in September 2007, is a former COO of the Federal Aviation Administration and former executive of AMR Corp.'s American Airlines. Chief Executive Dave Barger will take on the additional role of president once Chew steps into his new position, the low-cost airline said. Barger, 51, has been CEO since May 2007 when the company's board asked founder and then-CEO David Neeleman to step down. Maruster joined JetBlue in 2005 and has been senior vice president of airports and operational planning since 2006. Last year he took on the additional responsibilities of the customer services group, which includes in-flight service, reservations and system operations. Before JetBlue, he worked for Delta Air Lines Inc. for 12 years. Forest Hills, N.Y.-based JetBlue has struggled, along with other airlines, to battle deteriorating demand as consumers pull back on travel spending. The carrier has also faced increasing competition from carriers like Southwest Airlines Co. Southwest said earlier this month that it would begin eight daily nonstop flights to Chicago Midway and Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport from New York's LaGuardia Airport in June. JetBlue offers flights to the cities from its home base at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport. JetBlue will also go up against Virgin America when JetBlue begins service from New York to Los Angeles International Airport in June. The carrier is also looking for international opportunities. Barger said at an investors conference last month that JetBlue might join a major airline cooperative, such as the Star Alliance, and was looking for more international pairings. The carrier already has partnerships with Irish carrier Aer Lingus as well as stockholder Lufthansa Airlines and Lufthansa-owned Swiss Airlines. **************** Chew relinquishes COO post at JetBlue After abandoning Hawaiian Airlines in favour of JetBlue Airways two years ago, JetBlue president and COO Russ Chew will step back from the low-cost carrier, taking the role as senior advisor. JetBlue executive Rob Maruster will become COO effective 1 June while airline CEO Dave Barger assumes the duties and title of president on the same day. Chew's latest move comes after a couple of career changes in 2007. Weeks after Chew was confirmed as Hawaiian's executive vice president of operations in February of that year, the former FAA official was named COO of JetBlue, where he was responsible for the carrier's airports, operational planning, system operations center, flight operations, technical operations, inflight services and safety. JetBlue gave Chew the additional title and responsibilities of president in September 2007 as then long-time president Barger was elevated to CEO after airline founder David Neeleman became non-executive chairman of the board. Chew joined New York-based JetBlue after three and a half years with FAA, where he served as the regulator's first COO. Prior to the FAA, Chew spent 17 years at American Airlines, where the line-qualified captain rose to become managing director of system operations control. Chew's replacement, Maruster, joined JetBlue in 2005 as VP of operations planning after a 12-year career with Delta Air Lines. At Delta, Maruster worked in marketing and customer service departments and ultimately held the role of VP of airport customer service at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International airport. At JetBlue he was promoted to SVP of airports and operational planning in 2006. Then last year, his responsibilities expanded to include JetBlue's customer services group, including inflight service, reservations and system operations. Source: Air Transport Intelligence news *************** HNTB wins O'Hare International Airport runway design contract HNTB Corp. has won a contract to design a new runway at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport, part of the city's $6.6 billion airport modernization program. HNTB spokesman John O'Connell said Thursday that the Kansas City-based company isn't disclosing its fee for the contract or how the contract ranks among all its business, but he said it is an important contract for HNTB. "This is a key step in the O'Hare Modernization Program's plan to reconfigure the airfield to six parallel runways in an east-west direction," HNTB Project Manager Bob McAndrews said in a release. "The new airfield configuration will allow the airport to land aircraft on three runways simultaneously during bad weather conditions, reducing weather delays by as much as 95 percent and overall delays by 79 percent." Chicago officials estimate that the modernization program will generate an additional $18 billion for the local economy and create an additional 195,000 jobs. http://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/stories/2009/04/13/daily33.html *************** Casa Grande Man Indicted for Inspecting Airplane Without Proper Certification; Plane Later Crashed A Casa Grande man faked FAA certification when he conducted an inspection of a small airplane that later crash-landed, says a federal indictment. Wesley Glen Forsythe, who worked at a maintenance facility at the Casa Grande Muncipal Airport called "The Plane Man," was not a fully qualified airplane mechanic yet still worked on airplanes, the feds say. On two occasions, Forsythe signed off that he'd completed a 100-hour inspection on an old Alon Aircoupe like the one pictured above. The formal process requires paperwork that Forsythe fudged; he jotted down a certification number issued to another man in 1968, the indictment alleges. Not only didn't Forsythe have the Federal Aviation Administration certificate he needed to work on the airplane, but he had previously failed the certification test three times. As it turned out, the shoddy inspection had real consequences. The airplane's owner took to the sky on August 1, 2008, just after Forsythe had deemed the plane airworthy. After an hour in the air, the engine quit. The pilot managed to escape injury after bringing the plane in for a crash landing, but the Aircoupe was totally destroyed. FAA officials later determined the malfunction had been due to a fuel pump that hadn't been properly inspected. Forsythe is facing five years in prison on each of five federal counts. He could not be reached for comment; the phone at "The Plane Man" is disconnected. http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/valleyfever/2009/04/casa_grande_man_indicte d_for_i.php ************** United to gain Pacific edge under ADS-B agreement United Airlines signed an agreement with the US FAA on 13 April that will see the carrier installing automatic dependent surveillance - broadcast (ADS-B) equipment on 12 of its Boeing 747s for use in passenger flights over the Pacific Ocean, initially on the San Francisco-Australia route. By transmitting the highly accurate ADS-B position data over satellite links, the FAA says the airline will be able to benefit from decreased in-trail spacing as well as and time-saving altitude and route optimisations. The agreement is one in a growing number of incentive programs designed to help airlines see the financial benefits of installing the next-generation GPS-based surveillance technology, says the FAA. Most recently the agency funded US Airways to equip its new A330s with ADS-B software that will aid in the airport environment as well on transatlantic flights. Without ADS-B, carriers seeking better fuel economy by switching altitudes are required to gain multiple approvals from air traffic control. Similar to US Airways, the FAA will pay for United's ADS-B equipment and its installation while United will cover the pilot training. No timeline has yet been worked out for the installation and initial operations of the equipment, says the FAA. Source: Air Transport Intelligence news ************** Curt Lewis, P.E., CSP CURT LEWIS & ASSOCIATES, LLC