Flight Safety Information July 5, 2010 - No. 131 In This Issue Air ambulance crashes just after takeoff from remote West Texas airport Report: Midair Near-collisions Up in D.C. Region Winging It: Airlines complain about government interference FAA Orders Cockpit-Door Fixes on Boeing Planes Chinese airline industry faces corruption allegations ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Air ambulance crashes just after takeoff from remote West Texas airport, killing all 5 aboard ALPINE, Texas (AP) - A patient and his wife were among the dead when an air ambulance crashed shortly after takeoff from a West Texas airport, killing all 5 people on board. The crash happened about 12:15 a.m. Sunday about a mile east of Alpine-Casparis Municipal Airport, around 200 miles southeast of El Paso. The twin-engine Cessna 421 had just taken off for Midland International Airport in Midland when it went down in an open area, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. The aircraft was carrying a patient and his wife to Midland, the Texas Department of Public Safety said. It identified the dead as 78-year-old patient Guy Richard Folger of Alpine, his 59-year-old wife, Mary Folger; two flight nurses, 49-year-old Sharon Falkener of Fort Davis, and 42-year-old Tracy Chambers of Alpine; and 59-year-old pilot Ted Caffarel of Beaumont. Caffarel was apparently trying to make an emergency landing when the plane hit a rut in the muddy field, overturned and burned, the DPS said. The FAA listed the aircraft as registered to O'Hara Flying Service II LP of Amarillo. Company owner Denny O'Hara declined to comment to The Associated Press. The National Transportation Safety Board will lead the investigation, FAA spokeswoman Elizabeth Corey said. Back to Top ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Report: Midair Near-collisions Up in D.C. Region WASHINGTON, D.C. - A disturbing report about the safety in the skies. The Washington Post reports there have been 22 near-collisions in Washington region in the first six month of 2010. There were only 18 incidents in all of 2009. Last year, 949 errors were blamed on air traffic controllers. According to the Federal Aviation Administration, none of the 177 controllers who handle in-flight traffic for the Washington region, which is the third busiest in the nation, have been decertified this year, but 49 of them have yet to be certified in all aspects of their job. A near-miss accident last Monday, where a 120-seat United Airlines plane bound for Reagan National Airport (web | news) from Chicago narrowly avoided colliding with a business jet departing from Dulles, is also being called an air traffic controller error. This comes as new air traffic controllers are being trained to replace retiring controllers. The FAA says the turnover of controllers could be the blame for the mistakes as many controllers are still in training for the job. Harking back to the Reagan era, when following the 1981 strike during which President Ronald Reagan fired virtually the entire staff of controllers. They are now required to retire at age 56, or after 25 years of service. In March, the NTSB mandated that midair near-collisions be reported. Since then, nationally, the NTSB is investigating almost a dozen of those incidents. Similar incidents over the Washington region range from planes being ordered in the way of jumbo jets to mistakes that could've led to midair collision, involving commercial airliners carrying hundreds of passengers. http://www.news8.net/news/stories/0710/752356.html [http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?et=1103541769164&s=6053&e=001pc3TgOhv9l3WPSG33heKMqcO64ndJSIfdUWWEVLio6VM8aOit47YIy4nIK9ccxCA0mJTXjyeWmdqsNXIQbDHY-lKjuqlS8R6x4xhVol2TG-ztJQ1Nqb7x3ScBRWBW2vZZM9fMmggZtm6tjkxK573iRiCN2-Oi3a5] Back to Top ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Winging It: Airlines complain about government interference By Tom Belden Complaining about the government has always been a popular American sport. This year, the voices of protest seem to be louder than ever, including those of some of the people who run airlines. Doug Parker, US Airways' chief executive officer, speaking to an industry group in Washington recently, said that some in the Obama administration and Congress seem "hell-bent on changing the rules" and making it harder for airlines to make money, according to a report by the Reuters news service. "It's a disturbing state of affairs when we're out working as hard as we are, trying to improve this business, to not be allowed to do it," Parker said. "The biggest threat to our viability is government intervention." From an airline-management standpoint, it's easy to see what he's talking about and why he's angry. The U.S. Department of Transportation has moved aggressively to impose rules on how airlines treat their customers and the safety of their operations. A carrier that strands people on a plane on an airfield for more than three hours could pay a massive fine: $27,500 for every passenger affected. Compensation for a passenger being bumped has almost doubled. Congress and the administration are contemplating requiring airlines to more clearly display the full cost of a trip, including fares and all fees for the services that once were included in the ticket price. DOT's enforcement division has proposed or collected almost $2 million in fines for consumer-related violations since the start of 2009, Reuters reported. The Federal Aviation Administration has stepped up enforcement of air-safety regulations in the last two years, although some of that happened before Obama was elected. Airlines voluntarily reported some of their own lapses in complying with aircraft-maintenance rules. The FAA, at the urging of the National Transportation Safety Board, is preparing new rules for how long airline pilots can fly without resting. The impetus for the rules was the crash of a Colgan Airways commuter plane that killed 50 passengers and crew members near Buffalo on Feb. 12, 2009. The "underwear bomber" who tried to blow up a Delta jet on Christmas Day also increased pressure to make flying more secure. But the airlines are opposed to a proposed $1 per passenger per flight increase in the security fee that's now added to the cost of a ticket. The industry believes all taxpayers should bear the costs of security and that every tax or government fee airlines must collect makes it harder for them to compete because customers only see the bottom-line cost. When making that argument, of course, the airlines seem to ignore their own love of fees for checked bags, premium seats on planes, changing a ticket or myriad other services. Customers often have no choice but to pay the charges, which can easily cost more than government-imposed taxes and fees. Let's not forget that the Bush administration, using the mantra of keeping the country safe after 9/11, did its part to add to the airlines' burden by shifting airport security to a new federal bureaucracy, supported in part by security fees. Republicans in Washington now are among the harshest critics of the efficiency and effectiveness of the Transportation Security Administration. Two other issues linked to the Obama administration have angered some airlines. An appointee to the National Mediation Board, which oversees airline and rail labor law, shifted the political balance on the board and made it easier for airline workers to join unions. Delta Air Lines, where only the pilots are now unionized, is likely to face a unionization vote from its 30,000 ground workers. The airlines collectively are trying to decide whether to appeal a federal judge's ruling last month that upheld the mediation board's action. US Airways is angry because DOT won't allow it to swap dozens of landing-and-takeoff slots at Washington's Reagan National and New York LaGuardia airports with Delta. Those airports are among only four in the country where the number of flights is limited in an effort to reduce air-traffic congestion. DOT rejected the US Airways-Delta swap plan because it would give too much market control to Delta in New York and US Airways in Washington, but said it would approve the airlines swapping fewer slots. On Friday, the airlines said in a regulatory filing that they wouldn't do the deal under the conditions DOT imposed and would appeal DOT's ruling in federal court. But US Airways thinks the rejection is part of a wholesale philosophical shift that seems to malign or misunderstand the airline industry. At US Airways' media day this spring, senior vice president C.A. Howlett said there's "a feeling in Washington now" that the airlines are more of "a public good than a private industry." My full response to that assertion and the other airline complaints about government interference will have to wait until next week. For now, I have just a couple of thoughts. Most regulation of airlines is in place because the public demanded it in response to the industry's bad behavior. The tough airfield-delay rules are the most glaring example. And if the airlines, like all forms of transportation, aren't operated for the "public good," then what good are they? Read more: http://www.philly.com/ [http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?et=1103541769164&s=6053&e=001pc3TgOhv9l0Pjj4vhThXwRLOT9Vh3HE8oCMRaZotUSVtUZp5NMP-WvKMU2hEeui_WQ-oQnRAZMb7CYwFOrwm6H2Lup9f2IDysAtM8SjG6NX65Dr_emIA4g==] Back to Top ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ FAA Orders Cockpit-Door Fixes on Boeing Planes By ANDY PASZTOR For the fourth time in as many years, federal aviation regulators have ordered U.S. airlines to fix unspecified defects that could cause fortified cockpit-doors on potentially thousands of jetliners to malfunction. A pair of directives issued Thursday by the Federal Aviation Administration indicates that a certain "feature of the flight deck door is defective" on a wide range of Boeing Co. jetliner models. Without identifying the problem, the FAA documents say failure of this "feature" could jeopardize safety and that element of the doors must be quickly replaced or modified. Chicago-based Boeing and the FAA declined to discuss the nature of the defects or indicate how many aircraft may be affected. But the directives mention everything from narrow-body MD-80 and Boeing 737 models to long-range, wide-body Boeing 747, 767 and 777 jetliners. An FAA spokeswoman said she couldn't provide details because the directives focus on security matters. A Boeing spokesman didn't have a comment Thursday evening. The directives refer to FAA mandates in 2008 and 2009 to fix cockpit doors on the same models. U.S. and European aviation authorities, among other things, previously ordered carriers to ensure that the electrical controls of bolts used to secure cockpit doors can't jam or fail to operate properly, according to people familiar with the details In the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, regulators required airlines to fortify cockpit doors and install what were supposed to be foolproof locking mechanisms. But over the years, regulators and industry security experts began to discover potential gaps and malfunctions in many of the systems. In September 2009, for example, the FAA without any public disclosure ordered U.S. airlines to fix the electrically operated locking mechanism of reinforced cockpit doors on some 800 Boeing 747 passenger and cargo jumbo jets. Starting in August 2008, the European Aviation Safety Agency ordered European carriers to install upgraded bolts and overheat-protection systems on roughly 1,600 narrow-body Airbus A319, A320 and A321 models. The latest FAA directives indicate that failure of the problematic "feature" on the doors "could jeopardize flight safety." Boeing and two companies that fortify flight-deck doors against bullets and potential intruders previously issued their own service bulletins covering the same Boeing models. The FAA documents, officially called airworthiness directives, were posted on the Federal Register's website Thursday and officially appeared in the publication Friday. The FAA usually provides more details and analyses of safety issues when it orders carriers to make hardware changes, adjust maintenance cycles or adopt new operational procedures. But when security concerns, rather than traditional safety issues, are paramount, the FAA typically refuses to elaborate on its mandates. In the past, the agency has distributed safety-related directives to airlines without releasing their contents or even publicly acknowledging the existence of the directives. http://online.wsj.com/ [http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?et=1103541769164&s=6053&e=001pc3TgOhv9l3CcEo5nAKcgIWo9wXT0q1u361t_wJvklLvYw-NBgqgqRzuMfAE0QyJY4SERnV5zJqeBATzB9KAcBQpHNfOKsP4QKQJOhtaPZPsywlehAMI6w==] Back to Top [http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?et=1103541769164&s=6053&e=001pc3TgOhv9l1-HHEiSe3G60m4wtPcPEZrzUQhmT9KJicoCAA5hvCXDMkSw2B1Q_21mLJHpPuzU7BzEyFRoMg89I005UpPzquY] ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Chinese airline industry faces corruption allegations A widening investigation into alleged corruption in China's aviation industry has reportedly led to suicide of one official, and the replacement of several company executives. Liu Yajun, director of the Civil Aviation Administration of China's (CAAC) central and southern regional administration, died after a high-speed train knocked him down in Guangzhou on 24 June, say state media. His death follows an investigation by Chinese authorities, focusing on alleged payouts by airlines in exchange for landing slots at the country's airports. Among the officials who have lost their jobs due to the investigation are several executives from China Southern Airlines, including its chief engineer Zhang He Ping. Zhang stopped working for the company in June "due to job arrangement", says the carrier. Beijing Capital International Airport's former executive director and chairman Zhang Zhizhong, who stepped down in March, was also reportedly embroiled in the investigation, say reports. Source: Air Transport Intelligence news Back to Top ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Curt Lewis, P.E., CSP CURT LEWIS & ASSOCIATES, LLC