Flight Safety Information April 14, 2011 - No. 076 In This Issue Damaged Southwest jet repaired, leaves for Texas Air France jet makes emergency landing in Venezuela FAA ends single-controller tower staffing Reports show business aviation safety record remains strong American moves toward spin-off of Eagle unit Damaged Southwest jet repaired, leaves for Texas 5-foot gash appeared in Southwest Airlines-operated 737 earlier this month PHOENIX - (AP) A Southwest Airlines jetliner that had a fuselage rupture above Arizona this month has left the state after being repaired, an initial step for the plane to be put back into passenger service. The Boeing 737-300 has been patched and repainted and there is no sign of the 5-foot hole that opened in the plane's roof on April 1, Yuma International Airport spokeswoman Gen Grosse said. The jet flew to Southwest's home base at Love Field in Dallas on Wednesday morning, company spokeswoman Brandy King said. The plane made a brief stop and then took off again for a flight to a facility where more permanent repairs can be made. Boeing worked with Southwest to design a repair plan to the jet. Aircraft with that extent of damage are commonly repaired and placed back in service. The aircraft tracking website Flight Aware showed the final destination as Greensboro, N.C., site of a major private repair facility. The plane never went over 10,000 feet Wednesday, meaning it could fly without pressurization. Following the emergency, the Federal Aviation Administration ordered inspections of all older model 737-300s, -400s and -500s with at least 30,000 takeoffs and landings. The order applies to about 10 percent of the 6,000 737s in service worldwide. Southwest inspected its 79 737-300s and found five others with the same kind of cracks believed to have caused the emergency earlier this month. About 100 other planes worldwide are required to have inspections by the end of April and hundreds more will need them when they reach the FAA threshold. International airlines including Qantas and SAS were inspecting their fleets. In addition, the FAA emergency airworthiness directive requires re-inspections of the suspect jetliners every 500 flights. For Southwest and other carriers that fly their planes on multiple short hops every day, that would require crews to examine the planes with specialized crack detectors every couple of months. Flight 812 was nearing 35,000 feet and just 18 minutes into a flight from Phoenix to Sacramento when it experienced what is known as an explosive decompression, a rip in the pressurized fuselage. Passengers had to scramble for their oxygen masks as the pilots declared an emergency and rapidly descended to 10,000 feet, where oxygen isn't required. The pilots then diverted to the Marine Corps Air Station in Yuma, which shares runways with the private airfield. Southwest decided within hours to pull its similar planes for inspections, leading to hundreds of flight cancellations. The action came days before the FAA order. The airline found five more of its planes with fatigue cracking similar to the cracking that National Transportation Safety board investigators believe led to the tear in a riveted joint in the plane's skin. Back to Top Air France jet makes emergency landing in Venezuela, official says all passengers OK CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) - An Air France jet has made an emergency landing in Venezuela and a government official says no one was hurt. The flight carrying 207 passengers took off from Caracas' international airport Wednesday night bound for Paris. Justice Minister Tareck El Aissami said there was a problem with the Airbus A330's landing gear. The plane returned and landed at Simon Bolivar International Airport nearly three hours after it took off. El Aissami said on Twitter afterward: "All the passengers fine. Thanks to God!" The Venezuelan rescue organization Rescate Humboldt said in a statement that the problem was detected 29 minutes after takeoff and that the jet circled the airport to burn fuel as a precaution before making the emergency landing. Back to Top FAA ends single-controller tower staffing WASHINGTON, April 14 (UPI) -- A second air-traffic controller will be added to 27 U.S. control towers that currently have one controller on duty overnight, federal air-safety officials said. The decision, effective immediately, follows a Wednesday morning incident in which a lone controller at Nevada's Reno-Tahoe International Airport fell asleep while a medical flight carrying an ill patient was trying to land, the Federal Aviation Administration said. The controller did not respond to radio calls for 16 minutes, and another control facility handled the flight's arrival, the FAA said. The controller, whose name was not reported, was suspended while the agency investigates. "I am totally outraged by these incidents. This is absolutely unacceptable," Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said in a statement. "The American public trusts us to run a safe system," he said. "Safety is our No. 1 priority and I am committed to working 24/7 until these problems are corrected." FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt said, "We absolutely cannot and will not tolerate sleeping on the job." "This has to stop," U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., said. The FAA "needs to do whatever it takes to keep air traffic controllers from sleeping on the job." Wednesday's incident was the fifth time in three weeks that controllers were found to be sleeping at work. In the first incident, March 23, which brought the issue to light, a controller working by himself at Washington's Reagan National Airport nodded off around midnight, forcing the pilots of two jetliners to land on their own. Adding a second person on the midnight shift means no airport with a tower that operates overnight will be attended by a single controller, the FAA said. The National Air Traffic Controllers Association, the labor union that represents controllers, had no immediate comment but has urged the FAA for years to end single- person staffing of towers during midnight shifts for safety reasons. Back to Top Reports show business aviation safety record remains strong The latest editions of the two most widely recognized annual reports on general aviation flying show that business flying safety remains comparable to airline flying safety. One of the reports also shows a dramatic reduction in business flying fatalities in 2010 compared to 2009. The 2010 Annual Business Turbine Aircraft Accident Review, released this month by Robert E. Breiling Associates of Boca Raton, FL, shows fatalities in business turbine aircraft dropped by more than 40 percent in 2010, to 19. The previous year, the report counted eight fatal accidents resulting in 32 fatalities. The Breiling review includes business-related mishaps involving U.S.-registered aircraft in foreign countries and those operating under FAR Part 135, but does not include piston-powered business aircraft. The 2010 Air Safety Institute (ASI) Nall Report, which focuses on aircraft weighing less than 12,500 pounds maximum gross weight and categorizes aviation accidents differently, also found an outstanding record for fixed-wing business flying. By ASI methodology, business flying by professional pilots had "the best safety record in general aviation," with a 2009 accident rate of just 0.09 (less than one-tenth of one percent) per 100,000 flight hours. Fixed-wing business flights commanded by FAA-certificated non- professional pilots had a low rate of 1.10 accidents per 100,000 flight hours. ASI calculated business flying fatality rates for 2009 at 0.42 per 100,000 hours. For the second year, the ASI Nall Report also tracked accident rates for helicopters, and found that business flights in helicopters flown by professional pilots suffered an accident rate of just one per 100,000 hours. Those flown by FAA-certificated non-professional pilots had a rate of 5.58 per 100,000 hours. By comparison, scheduled airlines in 2009 had a total of 22 accidents, with 50 fatalities, according to National Transportation Safety Board statistics. Both Breiling Associates and ASI cautioned that the very small number of aviation accidents each year could cause dramatic swings in the calculated accident rates. http://www.blueskyexecutiveaviation.co.uk/issue121/reports_show_business_a viation_safety_record_remains_strong.htm Back to Top American moves toward spin-off of Eagle unit American Airlines is edging towards a spin-off of its regional airline to shareholders as part of efforts to cut costs. But opposition from its pilots threatens to disrupt the process. In June 2010, American said that it was looking to divest its American Eagle subsidiary, reviving a plan that it first broached in 2007 but discarded as the recession took hold. American says it is reviewing all options but insiders note that selling Eagle would be difficult because there is little market appetite for regional airlines - carriers paid fixed rates to feed short-haul passengers to more lucrative long-haul routes. A spin-off, however, would give American certainty about timing and could help reduce its costs, which are higher than peers due to generous staff pay. James Higgins, with Soleil Securities, estimates spinning off Eagle, which had revenues of about $2.3bn in 2010, could create a company with an equity value of up to $410m. Still, a spin-off has its own challenges. American hopes that having an independent Eagle compete for work will reduce the cost of its regional flying. But the pilots say their prices are already market rate. While American can proceed regardless of the objections at Eagle, disgruntled pilots have crippled previous airline deals. Much will depend on the contracts American and Eagle eventually sign. Eagle would prefer to lock in work through long-term contracts, while American is pushing for a shorter deal so it can reap the benefits of competition sooner. "It is distasteful, it is immoral, it is unconscionable, and it is angering," the local union committee wrote of American's plans to make Eagle reduce pilot costs in a recent newsletter. Still, the union says it will remain involved in the process. A spokesperson said a spin-off could allow Eagle to win work for other airlines, but said the union is reviewing its options. The union thinks American could make a decision at its May board meeting. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c9a099d2-65e6-11e0-9d40- 00144feab49a.html#axzz1JUlNzXfg Curt Lewis, P.E., CSP CURT LEWIS & ASSOCIATES, LLC