26 NOV 2007 _______________________________________ *Passenger jet makes emergency landing in Petersburg *EU to send another team to review Indonesian air safety *NTSB: Weather A Possible Factor In 2006 Citation Landing Accident *'Drunk crew' claim grounds flight *Man Arrested For Threatening To Kill UA Pilot *Adam Air To Double Fleet Size *************************************** Passenger jet makes emergency landing in Petersburg ST. PETERSBURG, November 25 (RIA Novosti) - A passenger jet bound from Beijing to Paris made a safe emergency landing at the St. Petersburg airport, the regional emergencies center said on Sunday. "At 5:25 p.m. Moscow time [2:25 p.m. GMT], a Boeing-777 plane, flying from Beijing to Paris, made an emergency landing at Pulkovo," the emergencies center said. According to preliminary information, the passenger jet carrying 304 passengers made an emergency landing due to failure of its left engine, the emergencies center said. http://en.rian.ru/russia/20071125/89503935.html ************* EU to send another team to review Indonesian air safety JAKARTA, Nov. 24 (Xinhua) -- Jose Manuel Barroso, the president of the European Commission (EC), currently on an official visit to Indonesia, said Saturday that the commission would send another team to review air safety in the country. The EU in July banned 51 Indonesian airlines, including national flag carrier Garuda Indonesia, from flying to Europe following a series of air accidents here. Barosso said that the flight ban imposed on Indonesian airlines was a "technical matter," local newspaper The Jakarta Post reported Saturday. Recent crashes included an Adam Air plane that plunged into the sea off Sulawesi island on New Year's Day, killing all 102 people on board, and, in March, a Garuda jet that burst into flames on landing in Central Java, killing 21 people. An expert team from the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) visited Jakarta early this month to verify the fight safety standards of the country's major airlines. Director General of Air Transportation Budhi M. Suyitno said at that time that the results of the verification should have been reported to the EC's regular meeting in Brussels on Nov. 19. However, no decision has been announced so far. Barosso, who met President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono on Friday, said the European Commission will do everything to speed up all the procedures and to work in close contact with Indonesian authorities so that the issue "can be solved in full respect." Meanwhile, the president said that Indonesia is "in the midst of serious efforts to improve our regulations and the safety of our aviation industry." ************** NTSB: Weather A Possible Factor In 2006 Citation Landing Accident But Questions Remain In Crash That Killed Two Pilots Poor weather conditions may have played a role in a 2006 runway overrun involving a Cessna Citation 560 in Iowa, according to the National Transportation Safety Board... but many questions about the fatal accident still remain. According to the NTSB's interim factual report on the July 19, 2006 accident, the Citation was on an IFR flight plan from Oxford, MS to Rochester, MN. The jet attempted to land on Runway 33 at Ellen Church Field Airport (CJJ) in Cresco, IA, but overran the 2,949-foot concrete runway, skipped over an adjacent highway and impacted a cornfield. Pilots Clyde Lewis and William Eisner were killed in the accident. Two passengers onboard were injured, reports The Associated Press, and had to be cut out of the wreckage. The NTSB notes no alternate airport was filed by the Citation's flight crew, and the factual report does not say why the plane was attempting to land in Cresco. A witness told investigators a "very dark bank of clouds" was to the west and northwest, with lightning and light rain in the vicinity. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed at the time of the accident, according to the Board. Other witnesses described the plane's unusual approach to the airport. A witness driving along Highway 9 told investigators he noticed an airplane with its landing lights on approaching the airport from the southeast -- which "seemed odd with the wind from the south that he would land from that side." A second witness heading east on the highway said he "saw a plane look like it was going to land, but then [he] thought it was going too fast." A third witness said the Citation descended "quite fast," and watched the jet go past the airport hangars and cornfield adjacent to the runway. The accident aircraft, N636SE, was operated by Jackson Air Charter, according to the Board. FMI: www.ntsb.gov aero-news.net ************** 'Drunk crew' claim grounds flight A British Airways transatlantic flight was abandoned after police were told a member of the cabin crew was drunk, the company has confirmed . Around 150 passengers who were due to fly on the BA1503 Manchester to New York flight were forced to travel from Heathrow instead. Greater Manchester Police had received an anonymous tip-off that members of the cabin crew were drinking in a city hotel. http://ukpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5iy45vv4FNE3Ft1nq2HNWMm5dclAQ *************** Man Arrested For Threatening To Kill UA Pilot Five Passengers Restrain Drunk While En-Route An apparently inebriated passenger was restrained on a United Airlines flight and later arrested after threatening to kill the aircraft's pilot on Wednesday. Damien R. Sexton was charged in federal court with assaulting a passenger on board a San Francisco-bound flight after he allegedly stood up in his seat and blurted out, "I'm going to kill the pilot," according to court records. The intoxicated man the stepped on the thigh of passenger Patricia Mace trying to gain access to the aisle of the plane while it was en route from Philadelphia on November 21, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. Mace's thigh muscle and nerves were damaged by Sexton's actions, that came moments after he threatened to kill the pilot, authorities said. Sexton was restrained by four or five passengers, Assistant U.S. Attorney Allison Danner wrote in court papers. A flight purser gave the passengers duct tape and handcuffs while restraining Sexton, according to reports. Sexton was arrested upon arrival at San Francisco and charged Wednesday in U.S. District Court in San Francisco with assaulting a passenger and threatening to injure the pilot. FMI: www.united.com, www.faa.gov/data_statistics/passengers_cargo/unruly_passengers/ aero-news.net ************* Adam Air To Double Fleet Size May Buy As Many As 60 Jets Officials with Adam Air, an Indonesian low cost carrier, are planning a fleet expansion with a plan that could increase its size from 50-to-60 jets in the next five years, according to AFP. Adam Air, a privately owned airline operating from Jakarta, began operation in 2003 and is the largest low fare airline in Indonesia's market by passenger number. "We plan to add more planes to our fleet, four or five additional aircraft, each year. So in five years we will have about 50 to 60 aircraft. Right now we have 23," said Adam Air spokesman Danke Dradjat. Dradjat said that Adam Air has not made a decision to fly only Boeing 737 series jets, or make a switch to Airbus aircraft. He indicated that the "terms and conditions" that are offered by the world's two largest commercial aircraft manufactures will be deciding factors in the jet type for its expansion. Adam Air had previously offered its plan to expand with Airbus aircraft, according to a company press release. Dradjet did not offer cost estimates for the fleet expansion or a timeframe for delivery needs, but added that the rapid expansion of other low cost carriers in India and China were making it harder to obtain lease aircraft and causing costs to soar, forcing Adam Air to look for a fleet purchase deal. Adam Air opened a new domestic route this week to Banjarmasin, the capital of South Kalimantan province on Borneo Island, and was studying opening flights to Ambon and Kupang in the east, Dradjat said. Passenger numbers have resumed to previous levels after one of its jetliners crashed into the sea on New Year's Day, with average passenger loads at 92 percent'" Dradjat said. The disaster killed 102 people, as reported by ANN. "We had quite a bad time the first and second month after the accident, but then conditions rebounded very quickly, especially after the Garuda accident when people saw it could happen to any airline," the airline spokesman said. FMI: http://www.adamair.co.id/ aero-news.net