24 JAN 2008 _______________________________________ *Polish Plane Crash Kills 20 *Qantas Boeing forced to make single-engine landing *FAA takes 2nd look at runway incident *How to Escape Down an Airplane Slide - and Still Make Your Connection! *FAA moving 2 top managers to regional headquarters *FAA Denies Airline Service To NM Airport *Branson Wants A Slice Of Indian Aviation *2nd Survey Finds Astronauts Haven't Drunk Before Flights *************************************** Polish Plane Crash Kills 20 WARSAW, Poland (AP) - A Polish military plane carrying 20 passengers and crew crashed in northwestern Poland, killing all aboard including a brigadier general, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Thursday. The plane was approaching an air base at Miroslawiec shortly after 7 p.m. Wednesday when it went down in a forest in northwestern Poland. Officials initially said seven were confirmed dead. "Soldiers, husbands, and fathers have died, and that is the most tragic result of this catastrophe," said Tusk. He called it a "huge loss for the Polish air force." THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below. WARSAW, Poland (AP) - A military plane carrying 18 officers and crew crashed Wednesday in northwestern Poland, killing at least seven people, officials said. The officers had been attending a flight safety conference in Warsaw. The plane was approaching an air base at Miroslawiec shortly after 7 p.m. when it crashed, Maj. Bogdan Ziolkowski, a spokesman for the base told The Associated Press. Fourteen passengers and four crew were on board, said air force spokesman Col. Wieslaw Grzegorzewski. Emergency services spokeswoman Monika Bak said seven people died. Grzegorzewski said some people were killed, but did not provide a number. The aircraft, a Spanish-built CASA C-295M military transport plane, was about 1 mile from the airstrip when it clipped trees on its approach, crashed into a wooded area and burst into flames, Ziolkowski said. "We don't know what the cause of the crash was right now," Ziolkowski said. He added that the passengers were officers attending an annual one-day conference in Warsaw on air safety. The plane had more people on board when it took off from Warsaw, but had already landed at three other military airports. It had two more planned stops in Swidwin and Krakow. Polish media were describing the accident as one of the worst military disasters in more than three decades. President Lech Kaczynski was cutting short a visit to Croatia to return to Poland on Thursday, a spokesman said. Prime Minister Donald Tusk and Defense Minister Bogdan Klich were rushing to the crash site late Wednesday. Tusk's spokeswoman, Agnieszka Liszka, called the accident a "shocking tragedy" and said the premier extended his sympathy to the families. A Polish military expert, Grzegorz Holdanowicz, said it was the first air disaster involving a CASA C-295M, a plane he called one of the safest in the Polish air force. The Polish military also uses the plane type in Iraq and in Afghanistan, where it supports the U.S.-led operations. The pilots of Wednesday's flight were from a transport squadron based in Balice, near Krakow, that had flown in Iraq and Afghanistan, the squadron spokesman, Cpt. Piotr Jaszczuk said. ***** Status: Preliminary Date: 23 JAN 2008 Time: 19:07 Type: Casa C-295M Operator: Polish Air Force Registration: 019 ? C/n / msn: S-043 First flight: 2007 Crew: Fatalities: 4 / Occupants: 4 Passengers: Fatalities: 16 / Occupants: 16 Total: Fatalities: 20 / Occupants: 20 Airplane damage: W/o Location: Miroslawiec AB (Poland) Phase: Approach Nature: Military Departure airport: Poznan-Krzesiny AB (EPKS), Poland Destination airport: Miroslawiec AB (EPMI), Poland Narrative: While attempting to land plane has crashed into a forest 800 metres short of the runway. The airplane was returning from a safety meeting in Warsaw. (aviation-safety.net) ************** Qantas Boeing forced to make single-engine landing A QANTAS pilot had to shut down one of his plane's engines after it malfunctioned on a domestic flight. The Australian Transport Safety Bureau has released its report into the in-flight engine malfunction on a Boeing 737-476 travelling from Brisbane to Sydney 18 months ago. The incident happened about 6km from Sydney Airport. A subsequent teardown of the General Electric engine revealed a pin had come loose and had damaged the rotor and other hardware. The flight crew had reported hearing "popping" noises from the left side of the plane on its descent. After determining it was not a problem with the landing gear, the pilot idled the left engine and ascended. The plane performed a single-engine landing. Nobody was hurt. Qantas has been contacted for comment. http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,23101678-662,00.html ************** FAA takes 2nd look at runway incident Situation 'serious,' aviation union says SAN DIEGO - Federal aviation officials are looking into a Jan. 16 runway incident at Lindbergh Field that the national air controllers union says is cause for alarm. According to the Federal Aviation Administration, a Southwest Airlines plane lifted off while the tail of a small corporate jet jutted onto the runway. When first contacted yesterday about the incident, FAA spokesman Ian Gregor said agency officials had reviewed data from the event and had decided it posed no safety hazard. He said the Southwest plane was cleared for departure and then lifted off about 3,000 feet away from the corporate jet, so there was never any risk of a collision. Late yesterday afternoon, however, FAA safety officials in Washington, D.C., decided to launch a fresh review of the incident, Gregor said. A representative of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association said he believes the FAA wants to downplay the event because it underscores the serious problems facing the nation's air traffic control system. "Essentially what we're looking at is a very serious runway incursion," said Melvin Davis, a San Diego-area chapter president with the union. The incident comes at a time of bad blood between the FAA and the union. In recent years, the FAA has reduced starting salaries for controllers, consolidated operations and imposed new work rules. Agency officials say the changes have cut costs and made operations more efficient without jeopardizing air safety. They point out that fatal air accidents have declined to record lows. But Davis and others worry the system is on the brink of collapse, noting there's been a sizable drop in the number of experienced controllers tracking the skies. The Southern California Terminal Radar Approach Control facility in San Diego, known as TRACON, has lost 40 percent of its fully certified controllers since 2004, largely due to retirement, the union says. Many have been replaced with trainees. Located near Miramar Marine Corps Air Station, TRACON services 21 airports, monitors 9,000 square miles of airspace and handles more than 2.2 million aircraft a year. Davis said the drop in certified controllers has led to a jump in overtime hours for those at TRACON and other facilities, including the control tower at Lindbergh. The union says TRACON spent $4 million on overtime last year, compared with $261,000 in 2004. The FAA could not immediately confirm the union's figures, but it said more is being spent on overtime, with much of it going toward training new controllers. Davis said air-controller fatigue, brought on by long hours, was a contributing factor in the Jan. 16 incident. He said the Lindbergh controller who was involved, a seasoned employee in his 50s, has been working six days a week. The incident occurred about 6 p.m., after a corporate jet - a British-made Hawker Siddeley - landed at Lindbergh and prepared to taxi off the runway. Anticipating the jet's exit from the runway, the Lindbergh controller cleared Southwest flight 1626 - bound for Las Vegas - for takeoff. "It was a mistake to do that," Davis said. "The runway was clearly occupied." As the Southwest aircraft roared down the strip, the tail of the Hawker jutted onto the runway due to a brief mechanical problem, the FAA's Gregor said. Davis said he believes the corporate jet was actually in the middle of the landing strip, near the runway's west end, when the Southwest plane took off. Gregor said it's not unusual for a controller to clear a plane for takeoff as a separate aircraft is wheeling off the runway. "I'm surprised that (the union) leadership is accusing one of its own controllers of committing an error while the FAA's safety office has yet to make any determination or ascribe any blame in this incident," he said. He said there are 15 fully certified controllers at Lindbergh, plus five trainees. He said the tower has a designated staffing range of 14 to 18 controllers. In December, congressional investigators in Washington said air travelers face a high risk of a catastrophic collision due to faltering federal leadership, malfunctioning technology and overworked controllers. According to the FAA, the last incursion at Lindbergh Field happened in late 2003, when a small plane approached the runway as a jet prepared to land. http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20080123-9999-1m23runway.html *************** How to Escape Down an Airplane Slide - and Still Make Your Connection! Emergency airplane evacuations happen more often than most people think: about once every 11 days in the U.S., according to a 2000 report by the National Transportation Safety Board. Some situations are more dire than others, of course, as when the plane is on fire, but in many cases, the biggest challenge of an evacuation can be the airplane slide. Last week at Heathrow Airport, when 136 passengers had to get off a British Airways Boeing 777 that had crashed short of the runway, they did it by escaping down the eight slides unfurled at the plane's exits. The deplaning, like the landing itself, was very successful, with no fatalities and only a handful of injuries. The investigation won't be done for months, but it is likely that some of those injuries happened during the evacuation - not the initial crash. Even in controlled drills, accidents are common. When the new, supersized Airbus A380 underwent mandatory evacuation tests in 2006, 33 of the 873 evacuating volunteers got hurt. One suffered a broken leg, and the remaining 32 received slide burns. And that was considered a success. So, in the unlikely event that you have to escape from a plane on an inflatable slide, here are some tips, compiled with assistance from Dan Johnson, an aviation safety expert who has worked for the airlines in various capacities for more than three decades. 1. Have a Plan: Don't wait until a flight attendant is shrieking at you to "Get out!" to decide what you're going to do. Aviation safety experts, even the most jaded ones, count the rows to their nearest exits whenever they sit down on a plane. They know that their brain will not work well under extreme duress, and their eyes will not see well in thick smoke, so they need to have a sense of their best escape routes before anything goes wrong. 2. Have Another Plan: Your fellow passengers often have trouble opening the exit hatches - it's not easy, for one thing, and even flight attendants often run into trouble. Plus, the slides malfunction more than you might expect. In the 2000 safety study, over one-third of the slide evacuations studied involved problems in the functioning of the slides. Smoke can also make your first-choice exit suddenly unusable. So instead of reading the Sky Mall catalog while you're waiting for the plane to take off, it would be wise to come up with two escape plans. 3. Get Out Fast: If all hell does break loose, remember that one of the deadliest mistakes passengers make is to lunge for their overhead luggage. This wastes precious time and clogs the aisle with obstacles. And yet, even if the cabin is full of smoke, passengers will almost invariably reach up to get their briefcases and garment bags. Video footage of emergency evacuations often shows people sailing down the slides clutching rolling suitcases. Chloe, 24, was a passenger on the British Airways flight. "I got to the door, and I realized I was holding a bamboo hat - and just thought, what am I doing rescuing a hat from a crashed plane?" she told the Coventry Telegraph. 4. Jump: Another big problem - especially among women and older passengers - happens at the top of the slide. People hesitate or try to sit down before sliding. If everyone were to jump instead, as flight attendants will scream at you to do, the evacuation could go 50% faster, Johnson says. Since a fire can burn through the fuselage on an airplane in 90 seconds, faster is much, much better. When everything works right, slides are built to handle 70 passengers per minute. Many now have two lanes. To see how fast - and scary - the slide can be, check out this video of an evacuation drill off of a Boeing 777, the same kind of plane involved in the Heathrow crash landing. 5. Keep It Together: To avoid burns and unintentional cartwheels on your way down the slide, keep your heels up and your arms crossed over your chest. A lot of injuries happen when people hit the ground and sprain an ankle or break a leg because they came in out of control. Also, women should avoid wearing spiked heels and pantyhose when they fly. Pantyhose can melt onto the skin in the heat of a plane fire (as if you needed another reason not to wear pantyhose). 6. Then Get Out of the Way: Just like on the playground, the area below the slide is not a good place to hang out. If you are the first passenger out, then you should help other people get off. Otherwise, you should get out of the way. Pile-ups at the bottom of the slide can be brutal - and can also make the slide much steeper for everyone else coming down. Congratulations! You've survived an emergency airplane evacuation. Now prepare to reflect on your experience - for hours. After an evacuation, even a successful one, passengers often have to spend hours in limbo, waiting for the authorities to release them back into civilization, often due to bureaucratic or legal paranoia. It is infuriating to passengers - and their families, who are often waiting anxiously for them - while they sit in a fluorescent-lit secure location wondering what became of the beverage cart. So, in fact, you won't make your connection. Sorry about that. But you will have a very good story for your next seatmate, should you ever fly again. http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1706188,00.html *************** FAA moving 2 top managers to regional headquarters Air traffic employees taking agency program jobs, representative says The Federal Aviation Administration's top two air traffic managers in North Texas are moving to the regional headquarters to work on agency programs. JoEllen Casilio, facility manager of the FAA's tower and traffic control office at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, will join a traffic analyst review program for the agency. Dan Gutwein, assistant air traffic manager, will work on strengthening technical training for terminal traffic control facilities. "They'll be working from the FAA's regional offices in Fort Worth," Tammy Jones, a spokeswoman for the agency, said Wednesday. Telephone messages left for Ms. Casilio and Mr. Gutwein were not returned. Ms. Jones said Ms. Casilio's replacement is Dawn Ingraham, an air traffic manager in Minneapolis. Rick Dillbeck, who currently works in Evansville, Ind., will replace Mr. Gutwein. The personnel moves are taking place while a federal investigation is being conducted into the operation and management of the air traffic control system at D/FW, which also oversees Love Field traffic. The investigation by the Office of Special Counsel began last July when a whistle-blower said air traffic controllers were repeatedly allowing airplanes in North Texas to fly into situations that could result in a crash. The investigation also is looking into whether upper management was systematically shifting the blame to the pilots involved. Since the investigation was first reported by The Dallas Morning News, additional whistle-blowers have come forward, according to the Office of Special Counsel. The probe was supposed to be completed last year, but the Department of Transportation asked for an extension. The agency's report is now due Feb. 22. Last week, air traffic controllers warned that staffing is inadequate at Terminal Radar Approach Control, also known as the radar room at D/FW. The facility has 65 certified controllers, well below the range of 83 to 101 that officials have planned for 2008, the National Air Traffic Controllers Association said. The controllers union said things are getting so bad that travelers could see flight delays and cancellations this summer. The TRACON oversees flights into about 25 airports in North Texas. The union also said that 38 planes have flown too close to one another in North Texas since Oct. 1. Three of those events were considered serious. The relationship between the union and the FAA has become increasingly strained since the government imposed new work rules in 2006 and lowered the pay for new hires. Recently, elected Texas officials met with the union and conferred with management in North Texas to try to resolve some of the morale issues and numerous early retirements within the controller staff. "We're looking forward to any action management takes to improve working conditions at Dallas/Fort Worth TRACON," Darrell Meachum, regional vice president of the union, said of the personnel changes. http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/bus/stories/DN-controllers_24bus .ART.State.Edition1.2b61ff7.html *************** FAA Denies Airline Service To NM Airport Says Taos Not Certified For Planes Over Nine Seats The northern New Mexico town of Taos only has about 5,200 permanent residents... but it's big enough to have an airline interested in providing scheduled service, especially during ski season. It wouldn't be the first time -- Westward Airways and Rio Grande Airlines both served Taos in years past. Both carriers are now out of business. New Mexico Airlines recently approached the town about flying in with single-engine Cessna Caravans, but it can't -- the FAA says the airport is not adequate for planes having more than nine seats but fewer than 31. New Mexico Airlines' single-engine Caravans carry only nine seats during New Mexico flights, but can hold up to 14. New Mexico Airlines CEO Greg Kahlstorf calls it surprising. He told the Associated Press, "I've never had the FAA reject an airport." The FAA ruled last month that Taos Regional Airport (SKX) does not have certification to accommodate the Caravans flown by New Mexico Airlines, a subsidiary of Hawaii-based Pacific Wings. The airline serves Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Carlsbad and Hobbs. Taos was on a planned list of new destinations including Ruidoso, Alamogordo and Midland-Odessa in Texas. Mark Fratrick, manager of the Taos airport, says he doesn't consider the lack of air service a hardship, just an inconvenience. Still, Kahlstorf said his airline has asked the FAA to reconsider its decision, a request the agency is not bound to honor. Taos has been without scheduled airline service since June 2005, when Westward Airways stopped flying after less than a year in operation. They followed a path similar to Rio Grande Airlines, which operated flights to Taos for a few years, before folding up shop in June 2004. FMI: www.taos.org, www.flynma.com aero-news.net **************** Branson Wants A Slice Of Indian Aviation MUMBAI - If Richard Branson has his way, Virgin Airlines will start flying within India, where the aviation sector is growing at about 25% annually. Branson said he has sought approval to start a domestic airline, since the government doesn't allow foreign airlines to take stakes in local carriers. The billionaire magnate was in India this week, accompanying British Prime Minister Gordon Brown on his first visit to the country. One of the issues on Brown's agenda was the need to free up restrictions on trade between India and Britain, and aviation was one of the areas to be discussed. "There should be no barriers to the entry of any company... this is in the interest of the consumer," Branson told reporters in New Delhi. Aviation officials have said in the past that they would review India's policy on foreign investment, but they wanted to first give domestic carriers a chance to find their feet. In 2004, India raised the limit that foreign companies--excluding airlines--could hold in domestic carriers, to 49%. In a nation of around 1.2 billion people, rising disposable incomes are seeing more people take to flying. A handful of budget carriers have started in the last few years, and intense competition has resulted in airlines slashing fares significantly. As a result, several of the airlines are reporting losses. Branson said he has spent 15 years "lobbying in trying to get international flights to and from India." He described listed Indian carrier Jet Airways as his closest competition. "Jet Airways, I suspect is the best airline in India and we will do our best to make sure Virgin India is even better." Branson, whose airline operates London to New Delhi flights, also hinted at a phone venture in India in a month, but didn't reveal any details. "I am coming back again in three weeks' time and on that occasion I may have more to say on the business ventures." India is the world's fastest growing mobile market, adding about 8 million subscribers every month. Also Monday, Vodafone's Chief Executive Arun Sarin said his company would invest $6 billion in India over the next three years, or $2 billion annually. "We have set a target of reaching 100 million subscriber base from the current level of 40 million," Sarin told reporters in New Delhi. http://www.forbes.com/2008/01/23/india-virgin-branson-face-cx_rd_0123autofac escan02.html *************** 2nd Survey Finds Astronauts Haven't Drunk Before Flights WASHINGTON, Jan. 23 - A new survey of astronauts and flight surgeons shows no evidence of crew members' going on space missions drunk or impaired by alcohol, NASA officials said Wednesday. The anonymous survey, taken over the Internet by all 31 NASA flight surgeons and 87 of 98 current astronauts, is the second recent investigation to find no indication of drunkenness among astronauts immediately before launching into space. The inquiries responded to a report last year that cited two unconfirmed incidents in which an astronaut was reportedly impaired by alcohol before flying. The new survey found one isolated incident involving "an apparent interaction between prescription medication and alcohol," Ellen Ochoa, deputy director of the Johnson Space Center and a former astronaut, said on a conference call with reporters. The crew member in the incident, which was in the final days before a mission, was subsequently cleared for the flight, officials said. "In response to a direct question regarding personal observations, all respondents reported never witnessing a crew member consume alcohol, on launch day, in the time leading up to launch," a space agency report said. Accusations of potentially drunken astronauts arose last July in a report by an independent committee looking into astronaut health care after the arrest of Capt. Lisa M. Nowak of the Navy on charges of attacking a romantic rival at an airport. Captain Nowak was dismissed from the astronaut corps. The NASA safety chief, Bryan D. O'Connor, investigated different reports. Mr. O'Connor said in a report in August that his interviews with astronauts and flight doctors had found no evidence that they were true. NASA officials said they did not know whether the drug-alcohol-interaction incident in the new survey was one of those in the original health report. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/24/us/24astro.html **************