Flight Safety Information November 2, 2010 - No. 223 In This Issue UPS pilots charge company with safety lapses A runaway Russian teenager was safe on the plane's landing gear Airlines Advised To Avoid Flying Over Volcanic- ash-filled Java Island. Fake Parts 'Endanger' Flight Safety Lion Air 737 overshoots runway in Indonesia FAA proposes Pratt & Whitney 777 engine directive UPS pilots charge company with safety lapses UPS pilots accused the shipping company of failing to protect them from terrorism. UPS said screening methods are adequate. Pilots with UPS say current standards in air cargo screening are "inadequate" UPS says the company has processes in place to ensure crew safety (CNN) -- Pilots for UPS charged Monday that their employer is failing to protect them from acts of terrorism. "Our crew members deserve a reasonable expectation of safety. We believe that current standards in air cargo screening are inadequate," Brian Gaudet, spokesman for the Independent Pilots Association -- the union for UPS pilots -- said. Since August 1, federal law mandates screening of all cargo aboard passenger flights, but there is no such requirement for flights transporting cargo. Rep. Edward Markey, D-Massachusetts, announced he would introduce legislation to require complete screening of packages on board freight carriers. "Air cargo on cargo-only planes is much more vulnerable to being exploited by al Qaeda than cargo on passenger flights," said Markey. A package containing a hidden explosive device, sent from a UPS office in Yemen and bound for Chicago, was located Friday at England's East Midlands Airport. UPS adamantly denies it is placing any employees in danger. "We have a multi-layered approach, we have processes and procedures in place to ensure safety of shipments and our people," said UPS spokeswoman Elizabeth Rasberry, who would not provide details of security measures. The Cargo Airline Association also argues screening is adequate. "Better intelligence is the answer," said Steven Alterman, president of the association. "And the intelligence worked in this case." Back to Top A runaway Russian teenager was safe on the plane's landing gear after a 50-minute flight MOSCOW, Russia - A Russian teenager was safe from a 50-minute flight while hiding on the landing gear of an airplane which was going towards Siberia. The said teenager runaway from foster home and robbed a store before hiding on the landing gear of the plane. The airplane was an Antonov An-24 plane. The said teenager was only wearing a light coat but did survive. Just this year, when another 20-year-old Romanian hid on the landing gear of an airplane from Vienna, which was going towards London. In 2007, a Russian also rode on the plane's landing gear from Ural Mountains going towards Moscow wherein he had been hospitalized because of hypothermia. http://www.allvoices.com/ Back to Top Airlines Advised To Avoid Flying Over Volcanic-ash-filled Java Island (RTTNews) - Indonesia's Transport Ministry has advised airlines to avoid flying on some routes over Java island that are badly affected by the volcanic ash. Mount Merapi volcano, which killed 38 people and forced thousands to evacuate a week ago, erupted on Tuesday, for the third time in a week. It spewed more clouds of hot ash and unleashed jets of searing gas into the sky but did not cause casualties, reports said. Ministry spokesman Bambang Ervan said AirAsia and Silk Air canceled flights to Yogyakarta and Solo, two central Java cities closest to the volcano, despite a green signal given by Indonesia's aviation authorities for planes to land at the airports. About 40,000 people were either evacuated or fled by trucks and cars before and after the volcano erupted three times on October 25. Residents around Merapi died from burn injuries caused by hot ash spewed by the volcano. The eruption followed about 500 volcanic earthquakes that were recorded on the 2,968-meter tall mountain. Scientists expressed doubt if it could be the beginning of the most powerful eruption in years due to the pressure building beneath the volcano's dome, alarming the government to issue an evacuation notice to people living within a 10 kilometer radius around the crater. Located on the border between Central Java and the ancient city of Yogyakarta, Mount Merapi erupted regularly since the 16th century. Thousands of people live on mountainous villages on the flanks of the volcano. The eruption threat returns at a time when the East Asian country is struck by another natural calamity. A tsunami unleashed by a 7.7-magnitude earthquake that struck off Sumatra on October 24 killed nearly 500 people. Back to Top Fake Parts 'Endanger' Flight Safety The St. Petersburg Times MOSCOW - A large number of counterfeit spare parts for the aviation industry enter Russia from former Soviet republics, jeopardizing flight safety on both military and commercial aircraft, Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov said Thursday. Ivanov cited Transportation Ministry statistics from an inspection of more than 60,000 aircraft parts that exposed about 14,500 counterfeits. "In plain Russian, they're all fakes," Ivanov said, Interfax reported. In 2009 and 2010 alone, the Federal Customs Service filed 19 criminal cases and more than 300 misdemeanor cases in connection with aircraft parts imports, he said. Most of the counterfeit parts are imported to Russia illegally from bordering countries, he said. Ivanov mentioned Ukraine, Lithuania and Latvia as transit points for counterfeit parts made in third countries and said much of the counterfeit production comes from CIS countries. Back to Top Lion Air 737 overshoots runway in Indonesia A Boeing 737-400 aircraft operated by Indonesian carrier Lion Air overshot the runway while landing at Pontianak in West Kalimantan province today. No one was injured in the incident, says a Lion Air spokesman. He could not comment on whether there was any damage to the aircraft. The 737 was landing at Pontianak after a flight from Jakarta when it overshot the runway and landed in a field, say reports. There were 169 passengers and six crew members on board the aircraft. Source: Air Transport Intelligence news Back to Top FAA proposes Pratt & Whitney 777 engine directive The US FAA plans to issue on 2 November an airworthiness directive (AD) requiring US operators of Pratt & Whitney PW4074 and PW4077-powered Boeing 777s to remove or inspect certain high pressure compressor disks from the turbine engines. The agency says that as of 30 June, it had received maintenance reports of cracks in 53 disks from the 15th stage high pressure compressor (HPC) sections of the engines. The cracks, located in the front rail of the load and lock slots of the disks, could lead to failure of the disks and uncontained engine failures, says the FAA. Engineering investigations have determined that the cracks are being initiated by thermal mechanical fatigue. The FAA estimates there are 44 of the affected engines installed on US-registered aircraft. The proposed airworthiness directive calls on operators to replace the 15th stage HPC disks within 12,000 cycles since new. For engines already beyond 12,000 cycles, FAA is requiring borescope and eddy current inspections of the disk rims until the disks can be replaced during normal engine maintenance cycles. Source: Air Transport Intelligence news Curt Lewis, P.E., CSP CURT LEWIS & ASSOCIATES, LLC