01 NOV 2007 _______________________________________ *Brazil Aviation Boss Quits Amid Crisis *Japanese fighter jet crashes on takeoff *Kitty Hawk Cuts Service, Jobs Following Bankruptcy Filing *IG Report Highlights Problems With FAA's Self-Audit Of Inspector Concerns *House Hearing On Suppression Of Airline Safety Survey Set For Wednesday *About Face: NASA To Reveal Safety Study After All *Easily Accessed Life Rafts Prevent Deaths, NTSB Safety Recommendation Shows *Former 787 chief says Boeing rethinking its global manufacturing approach *************************************** Brazil Aviation Boss Quits Amid Crisis BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) — The director of Brazil's Civil Aviation Agency resigned Wednesday under fire from the defense minister, who blames him for the country's monthslong aviation crisis. Milton Zuanazzi, who has presided over the agency during Brazil's two deadliest plane crashes, said the final factor in his decision to leave was Defense Minister Nelson Jobim's proposal to increase the required distance between airplane seats _ a move that would force carriers to raise fares, Zuanazzi said. "They don't want poor people to fly," he told a news conference in Brasilia. The civil aviation agency, run by a five-member board appointed by the president to five-year terms, oversees an industry plagued by poor infrastructure and air traffic control strikes that caused days of delays and passenger protests this year. Tensions rose in September 2006, when two planes collided in over the Amazon, killing 154, and worsened in July, when 199 people died in a crash at Sao Paulo's Congonhas airport. President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva appointed former Supreme Court Justice Jobim as defense minister following the Congonhas crash, to help reorganize the industry. Brazil's military oversees its air traffic control system and much of civilian aviation. ************** Japanese fighter jet crashes on takeoff, two pilots hurt A Japanese fighter jet crashed soon after takeoff and went up in flames at an airport in central Japan, lightly injuring the two pilots, an official for aircraft's manufacturer has said. The F-2B fighter was being taken up on a test flight prior to delivery to Japan's air force when it crashed, said Hideo Ikuno, a spokesman for the Daiya public relations firm representing the plane's maker, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, on Wednesday. Footage on commercial broadcaster TV Asahi showed the jet takeoff from the runway in Nagoya, only to suddenly tip downward and skid along the ground in flames. National broadcaster NHK showed the pilots jumping from the burning fuselage. The flames were extinguished about 10 minutes after the crash, Ikuno said. The two crew members, both Mitsubishi Heavy employees, were taken to a hospital with light injuries, Ikuno said. The two were the only ones aboard. Ikuno said the company was seeking further details about the cause of the crash. Nagoya airport was closed indefinitely, spokesman Shinji Ono said. The F-2 is Japan's operational support fighter. In August, a China Airlines Boeing 737 exploded in a fireball just seconds after all 157 passengers and eight crew had evacuated safely on to the tarmac at Okinawa's Naha airport in southern Japan.Send FeedbackNumber of votes cast: 2 Current Rating| Current Rating| ************** Kitty Hawk Cuts Service, Jobs Following Bankruptcy Filing Filed Chapter 11 Twice In Seven Years Beleaguered air freight and ground cargo operation Kitty Hawk Inc. announced this week it has shut down most of its operations, and will eliminate 500 jobs. According to the Dallas Morning News, Kitty Hawk Aircargo and KH Ground Inc., filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection from creditors two weeks ago... the second time in seven years it had done so. Kitty Hawk previously filed for protection in 2000, and reemerged in 2002. "Kitty Hawk's financial condition has deteriorated significantly over the last year, and the ceasing of network air and ground operations is necessitated by, among other things, a 25 percent decrease in year-over-year demand for its air product and a 15 percent year-over-year decrease in demand for its ground product," the carrier said. Kitty Hawk officials also cited record-high jet and diesel fuel prices as reasons for the grim news. The operation reported net losses of $19.9 million in the first six months of 2007... and over $34 million since January 2006. The cargo company is based at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, and has a hub in Fort Wayne, IN. The carrier said it plans to continue charter air cargo and on-demand operations. Kitty Hawk appealed to investors in August it would likely need more loans or equity to "fund our operations during the second quarter of 2008" -- but then filed for bankruptcy protection October 15. Shares in the air-and-ground operation will likely be delisted from the American Stock Exchange on Wednesday. Shares stopped trading upon its bankruptcy filing, at a whopping nine cents a share. According to its bankruptcy filing, Kitty Hawk has 776 employees, of which 671 are full-time workers. FMI: www.kittyhawkcompanies.com/ aero-news.net ************** IG Report Highlights Problems With FAA's Self-Audit Of Inspector Concerns Says Report Validates Safety Concerns During NWA Mechanics Strike The Professional Airways Systems Specialists (PASS), AFL-CIO, the union that represents more than 11,000 Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) employees including aviation safety inspectors, are applauding a recent Department of Transportation (DOT) Inspector General (IG) report, "Actions Taken to Address Allegations of Unsafe Maintenance Practices at Northwest Airlines (Report Number AV-2007-080)." "PASS is encouraged that the IG report addresses the critical need for the FAA to implement better internal review procedures to deal with inspector safety concerns," said PASS National President Tom Brantley. The union tells ANN the IG report validates safety issues uncovered by an FAA inspector represented by PASS during the August 2005 aircraft mechanics strike at Northwest Airlines. Specifically, the IG concluded that that FAA needs improved internal procedures to ensure that "comprehensive, independent investigations of safety allegations and recommendations are consistently performed." In the Northwest case, the IG findings have exonerated the inspector who sounded the alarm; however, many inspectors around the country continue to be discouraged from bringing forth serious safety concerns. "We commend the IG for calling attention to and authenticating our inspector’s concerns," said Brantley. "FAA inspectors should not be quieted when it comes to bringing forward safety issues involving airlines. It is their job to ensure that airlines are operating safely. The FAA must establish a process for formally addressing every safety concern, no matter how large or small." PASS states FAA inspectors take their oversight role to ensure public safety very seriously... but the union asserts FAA management is often more interested in airline operations, failing to give these safety issues the attention they deserve. In the Northwest situation, PASS claims, the IG stated the FAA was more concerned with discounting the inspector’s complaint rather than investigating the safety concerns. "It happened in this case and it’s happening all around the country," said Brantley. "Giving airlines a free pass on serious maintenance concerns brought up in the inspection process is despicable. The flying public deserves better from the agency charged with guaranteeing their safety. It is time for the FAA to start living up to that promise." FMI: www.passnational.org aero-news.net ***************** House Hearing On Suppression Of Airline Safety Survey Set For Wednesday Science Advocacy Group Says NASA Should Release Results Faced with considerable evidence NASA is withholding the results of a nationwide survey of pilots on airline safety problems -- fearing the findings would undermine public confidence and hurt airline profits -- the House Science and Technology Committee will hold a hearing Wednesday to try to determine why the agency has been sitting on the survey results for more than a year. "Americans must have access to the results of taxpayer-funded scientific studies," said Dr. Francesca Grifo, senior scientist and director of the Scientific Integrity Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. "Federal agencies have a responsibility to provide the public with information that has public safety consequences. Whether or not information was suppressed for political reasons, this incident highlights the need for more transparency in the federal government's handling of scientific information. "Just last week, the White House came under fire for censoring the Centers for Disease Control director's written testimony on the health consequences of global warming," she added. "Considering this track record, the administration should be bending over backward to make sure critical scientific information reaches the public." As ANN reported, NASA spent nearly four years to conduct telephone surveys of some 8,000 commercial and general aviation pilots, asking them about near misses in the air and on runways and cases in which air traffic controllers changed landing instructions at the last second. The Associated Press tried unsuccessfully to obtain the survey results under the Freedom of Information Act over a 14-month period. NASA Administrator Griffin told the AP that his agency will reconsider the news organization's FOIA request. "NASA should focus on how we can provide information to the public, not on how we can withhold it," he said in a statement. The agency's research and data "should be widely available and subject to review and scrutiny." Given the agency has been withholding the results for more than a year, UCS's Grifo was hopeful, but skeptical. "NASA Administrator Griffin's statement that data should be 'widely available and subject to review and scrutiny,' is encouraging," she said, "if it ever happens." FMI: www.science.house.gov, www.ucsusa.org aero-news.net *************** About Face: NASA To Reveal Safety Study After All Will The Facts Be Worse Than The Fears? The truth will come out after all. In his prepared remarks before a Congressional hearing, NASA Administrator Michael Griffin announced the agency will release the results of a controversial airline safety study after all. NASA spent nearly four years to conduct telephone surveys of some 24,000 commercial and general aviation pilots, asking them about near misses in the air and on runways and cases in which air traffic controllers changed landing instructions at the last second. News of NASA's withholding of the survey came to light last week. The Associated Press tried unsuccessfully to obtain the survey results under the Freedom of Information Act over a 14-month period. Griffin made several attempts to clarify NASA's position on suppressing the survey, most recently stating the agency "should focus on how we can provide information to the public, not on how we can withhold it." In the days since the story broke, public outcry has led to renewed concerns over the safety of air travel... which, not without irony, was the reason NASA used to justify keeping the survey results confidential in the first place. So... will the truth be scarier than those fears? Time will tell... as the results will reportedly be released soon. Stay tuned. FMI: www.nasa.gov aero-news.net **************** Easily Accessed Life Rafts Prevent Deaths,NTSB Safety Recommendation Shows As many as 15 people who died in helicopter accidents in-route to and from offshore oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico may have been saved if they could have reached life rafts or had used fully functioning signaling devices. A newly released National Transportation Safety Board Safety Recommendation (A-07-87 and A-07-88) reveals that as many as 15 lives were lost in Gulf of Mexico helicopter incidents and accidents between 2000 and 2005 because the life rafts onboard their aircraft were not retrieved from inside the cabin once the aircraft entered the water or because they lacked adequate locator beacons. The study recommends that the Federal Aviation Administration require helicopters with five or more seats operating over Gulf waters be equipped with externally mounted life rafts and that each passenger and crew member be issued personal flotation devices with water-proof global-position-system-enabled 406 megahertz locator beacons. To support the recommendation, the study mentions three incidents where helicopters with externally mounted life rafts experienced water landings. All occupants in these accidents survived the initial crash and were able to await rescue in the life rafts. The FAA has previously issued Supplemental Type Certificates for externally mounted life rafts manufactured by several companies. Only one company, Apical Industries, now a subsidiary of DART Helicopter Services, manufactures externally mounted life rafts that are integrated with aircraft floats, which are generally mounted to the landing skids. The integrated float/life raft systems are approved for use on most of the helicopters operating in the Gulf. Apicals life rafts are attached to the aircraft floats and are inflated once the helicopter has landed on the water and the rotors stop turning. The rafts are reversible or may be easily righted and include survival kits. Once inflated, the life rafts are designed to automatically detach from the mooring line and inflation hose if the aircraft sinks. Helicopters are a principal means of transportation for crews working on offshore oil platforms in the Gulf. The NTSB database includes information on 62 helicopter incidents and accidents between 2000 and 2006 resulting in 38 fatalities and 25 serious injuries. The NTSB Safety Recommendation describes several accidents where the passengers and crew were unable to retrieve life rafts stored within the cabin because the aircraft sank immediately after hitting the water. In one instance, the passengers and crew were able to exit the helicopter but did not retrieve the life raft from under a passenger seat. The inverted helicopter remained afloat for six hours after the incident, prompting one of the survivors to deflate his PFD and re-enter the cabin three times trying unsuccessfully to locate the life raft. The NTSB Safety Recommendation can be seen at: http://www.ntsb.gov/Recs/letters/2007/A07_87_88.pdf http://www.verticalmag.com/control/news/templates/?a=5840&z=6 ************** Former 787 chief says Boeing rethinking its global manufacturing approach The recently ousted head of the 787 Dreamliner program said Wednesday Boeing may build its next plane differently — axing the globe-spanning supply chain that has caused its recent problems and concentrating major partner factories at a single manufacturing super-site. But that big prize won't necessarily be in Washington state, said Boeing vice president Mike Bair. "The right way to do this would be to have all those big parts across the street so you could just roll them in," Bair told an audience of Snohomish County business people and politicians. "We'll see on the next airplane programs whether we can accomplish something like that." His audience reacted with warm smiles. It sure sounded like great news for Washington state. "Or someplace else," Bair elaborated in an interview afterward, puncturing the illusion. "It doesn't necessarily have to be here." As for the global network of suppliers working on the now-delayed 787, Bair had some blunt words. "Some of these guys we won't use again." And he said the company may return to its earlier practice of supplying complete designs to some of its major suppliers, rather than asking them to do design work as it did on the pioneering, composite-plastic Dreamliner. Just four years after the Legislature passed a blowout tax-incentive package to have the 787 built here, Bair's remarks set the stage for another competition between states within the next few years to build the replacement for the Renton-built 737 narrowbody jet. But the stakes could be even bigger, with a raft of supplier plants up for grabs along with Boeing's assembly plant. Deborah Knutson, president of the Snohomish County Economic Development Council (EDC) said Bair's comments are as significant as those made by former Boeing commercial airplanes chief executive Alan Mulally's in a 2003 speech when he famously summarized the state's competitiveness with: "We suck." "I cannot imagine that the 737 replacement will automatically come here," Knutson said, "From everything I've heard, we'll need to work for it." Two weeks ago, following the announcement of a costly six-month delay in delivery of the Dreamliner, Bair was replaced as 787 chief and shifted to a more strategic but less critical role at the commercial airplane unit: head of business strategy and marketing. Early Tuesday in Everett, Bair kept a pre-arranged date to give a breakfast address at the quarterly meeting of the Snohomish County EDC. His speech was both reflective and forward-looking, looking back to what went wrong on the 787 and ahead to future programs. On the 787, he said Boeing estimates that some 150,000 to 200,000 people round the world were working the program at its peak, a year or so ago. He said the problems in completing the first airplane resulted from the production system in Everett being overwhelmed with parts work that should have been done by the suppliers. "That whole production system is built for 1,200 pieces. ... Everything about it was designed for 1,200 parts," he said. "We threw 30,000 at it." Bair said some of the major airframe partners on the Dreamliner have performed so poorly that Boeing likely won't use them on future programs. He also said some engineering design work had to be pulled back inside Boeing when the partners couldn't deliver. "Some of them proved incapable of doing it," Bair said. In the interview after his speech, he expressed frustration that some partners seemed "unwilling, for whatever reason." "They just didn't do what we thought they could do," Bair said. "Who knows why?" Boeing's traditional model was to provide designs for suppliers to follow — a system it called "build-to-print." But on the Dreamliner, it asked suppliers to both design and build their airplane sections. But Boeing found that "a couple of them promptly turned around and sub(contract)ed out all their engineering work," Bair said. "There's a couple of (the supplier partners) where I could see us going back to a build-to-print solution," he said. Afterward, Bair declined to name the suppliers Boeing "won't use again." He said he was referring not just to the six first-tier airframe partners — Alenia of Italy; Mitsubishi, Fuji and Kawasaki of Japan; Spirit of Wichita, Kan.; Vought of Texas — but also to some of their suppliers in the second tier. For this region, the most intriguing part of Bair's speech came when he looked forward to future airplane programs. The 737 replacement jet is expected to fly around 2015, and selection of the manufacturing site would likely be made at least five years earlier. At one point, explaining the reason for the 787's global supply chain, Bair said it was difficult to ask the Japanese to invest money and then build their sections somewhere else than Japan. So is the supersite concept that he outlined — supplier factories located alongside final assembly — really practical? "I don't think it's outside the realm of what may have to be done," Bair said in the interview afterward. "Toyota builds as many cars here in the U.S. as in Japan." A supersite approach would make the next aircraft assembly operation a bigger prize than the 787 plant, which has not attracted many supplier jobs to Washington. Bair said when Boeing staged the 2003 to choose a 787 assembly site, ""We weren't being mean. Or trying to do anything heavy-handed." "Painful as it was for everybody, it spurred a lot of action here in Washington about the need to be competitive," he said. "The state and everybody responded beautifully." And now, his comments indicate, Washington may have to respond again. "It really was not a game Boeing was playing," in 2003, said Snohomish EDC's Knutson. "It came down to the cost of doing business. You are going to have to do that exercise again." Just like last time, she sees the southeast United States as this state's prime competition. She said the state should push workforce training, expanded tax breaks and other indirect incentives. "It's ours to lose," said Knutson. "We have to fight for it. ... This may be the first warning call." http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/boeingaerospace/2003986302_webbair01.h tml ******************* Curt Lewis, PE, CSP WEB: www.fsinfo.org