26 JAN 2008 _______________________________________ *Helicopter crashes on busy L.A. freeway; 1 killed *Investigators in 777 crash looking at fuel systems *Lion Air will be subject to intense scrutiny in Australia *FAA: Controller at fault in runway incident *Embry-Riddle Expands Research Capability **************************************** Helicopter crashes on busy L.A. freeway; 1 killed LOS ANGELES (AP) - One person was killed when the small helicopter they were flying crashed into a freeway, officials said. The helicopter crashed Friday night on the southbound lanes of Highway 110 in south Los Angeles, Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman Ron Myers said. Fire crews arrived at the scene to find the aircraft burning. One body was pulled from the charred fuselage. The victim's identity was not immediately released. Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Bruce Nelson said the helicopter was a two-seated Robinson R22. Investigators from the FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board were at the scene of the crash. Debris was scattered across several hundred yards of the freeway. There were no immediate reports of any other injuries, though some cars may have driven over debris, Nelson said. **************** Investigators in 777 crash looking at fuel systems Investigators studying last week's crash landing of a British Airways Boeing 777 said Wednesday they are looking closely at the possibility that the accident was caused by an interruption in the flow of jet fuel to the engines. The cause of the Jan. 17 crash at London's Heathrow airport has not been established. Even if it is a fuel-flow interruption, that doesn't necessarily exonerate Boeing. But this focus of the investigation seems to increase the possibility of an external cause such as contamination of jet fuel loaded before the 777 took off from Beijing. Alternative scenarios, such as a software control-system failure, clearly would be the manufacturer's responsibility and could bring into question the safety of the airplane. "All possible scenarios that could explain the thrust reduction and continued lack of response of the engines" are being examined, the U.K.'s Air Accidents Investigation Branch said Wednesday. "This work includes a detailed analysis and examination of the complete fuel-flow path from the aircraft tanks to the engine-fuel nozzles." The plane, carrying 136 passengers and a crew of 16, lost power about 2 miles from touchdown at a height of 600 feet. It was the first crash in the more than a dozen years that airlines have flown the 777. The U.K. agency leading the investigation made clear that, contrary to some initial reports, the jet's two Rolls-Royce engines did not fail at precisely the same moment, and neither failed completely. The aircraft was approaching with the autopilot engaged when the autothrust system commanded the pilot to increase thrust from both engines. "The engines both initially responded but after about 3 seconds the thrust of the right engine reduced," the report said. "Some eight seconds later the thrust reduced on the left engine to a similar level. ... Both engines continued to produce thrust at an engine speed above flight idle, but less than the commanded thrust." The accident resulted in few injuries. The co-pilot was credited with heroic skill in keeping the plane aloft over nearby houses and putting it down onto the grass 1,000 feet short of the runway. The report said that "the autothrottle and engine-control commands were performing as expected prior to, and after, the reduction in thrust," suggesting that the primary software controlling the system functioned as it should. Singling out fuel flow suggests investigators are zeroing in either on fuel contamination - perhaps from an external fuel source or maybe from some internal leakage of other fluid into the fuel tanks - or on some leakage in a fuel line serving both engines. After fueling in Beijing, the plane flew nonstop to London. The fuel tanks would have been low as the jet came in to land at Heathrow. A contaminant at the bottom of the tanks potentially could have blocked the fuel flow to both engines. If that was the cause, Boeing executives, engineers and mechanics will let out a sigh of relief. As a large, twin-engine airplane, the 777's ability to serve airlines on ultra-long-haul routes depends upon the reliability of its engines. Engines occasionally have failed in flight for various reasons, and the affected 777s have continued flying safely on the remaining engine. No 777 has previously had two engines fail together. Unlike a typical uncontrolled plane crash into the ground, the jet survived the crash landing largely intact, providing investigators a great deal of information on its condition. Boeing is providing technical assistance to the investigation, company spokesman Jim Proulx said. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2004144384_777crash25.html **************** Lion Air will be subject to intense scrutiny in Australia An Indonesian low-cost airline is facing a searching examination by air safety officials as it attempts to fly international routes from Australia. Lion Air, which has been flying Indonesian domestic and international routes since 2000, has set up a joint venture, Lion Air Australia, in which it has a 49 per cent stake, with a small Brisbane-based charter operator, SkyAirWorld, which has been in business for only a few months. Because the joint-venture company is majority Australian-owned by SkyAirWorld, it will be able to use Australian air rights to fly overseas. However, entrepreneur Rusdi Kirana, Lion Air's founder and chief executive, has told Indonesian media the joint venture will be controlled and operated by Lion Air. That is now being contradicted by SkyAirWorld, which says it will be an Australian carrier with "Australian regulation, Australian pilots, Australian cabin crew and Australian maintenance". Lion Air Australia has yet to apply to the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) for permission to operate as an Australian company but it faces intense scrutiny. In less than eight years of operations, Lion Air has written off at least three aircraft in landing accidents, one of which killed 25 people in 2004. In October and December last year it was involved in two other incidents that raised questions about its flight operations and maintenance. In the first, a near-new Boeing 737-900ER had a 21/2-metre hole ripped in its fuselage during a "tailscrape", which occurs when an aircraft's nose is pitched up too high during takeoff and the tail scrapes along the runway. In the second, part of an engine cowling and a tail-pipe assembly fell off a Boeing MD90 plane after what an airline spokesman described as "a mistake in the workshop". An Indonesian Government air safety inquiry said poor airport conditions - specifically a blocked drain that flooded a runway - were the main cause of the fatal accident at Solo City in Java. But poor airmanship and flight operations were also blamed, as the aircraft was attempting to land when it was short of fuel. Poor airmanship, poor cabin crew training and poor maintenance were also factors in the other two aircraft write-offs. However, David Charlton, the chief executive of SkyAirWorld, who has described Lion Air as "an aviation leader in Asia", says he does not foresee problems gaining an Australian Air Operator's Certificate for the joint venture, or in getting the Australian public's confidence. "We welcome that [CASA scrutiny]," Charlton says. "We have a very close relationship with the regulator now. We are very comfortable that we can satisfy their requirements. Apart from sharing a brand and taking aircraft from Boeing [as part of Lion Air's order for 122 Boeing 737-900ERs] and sharing common pathways for sourcing spares, tooling, training and support, that's the only linkage." Peter Gibson, a spokesman for CASA, says Lion Air Australia will face a detailed audit, not only of its crew training and maintenance programs but also of its entire management structure. In a paper recently distributed to Australian airline chief executives, CASA boss Bruce Byron reinforced the authority's message that "management has to play a day-to-day role in safety", Gibson says. "We will be examining not only their [Lion Air Australia] maintenance programs but also their risk-management systems and the role that overall management plays in safety," he says. http://www.theage.com.au/news/news/airline-faces-aussie-rules-test/2008/01/2 4/1201025079053.html **************** FAA: Controller at fault in runway incident The Federal Aviation Administration has determined that a recent runway incursion at Lindbergh Field was due to an air traffic controller's error. An agency review of the Jan. 16 incident determined that a Lindbergh controller erred when he cleared a Southwest Airlines flight for departure while a small corporate jet was on the runway, FAA spokesman Ian Gregor said Friday. He said the Southwest aircraft lifted off about 2,500 feet away from the corporate jet, which had stopped on the landing strip due to a mechanical problem. Melvin Davis, a San Diego-area chapter president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, said he believes the FAA initially tried to cover up the incursion. Earlier this week, Gregor said the agency had reviewed the incident and decided it posed no safety hazard. He later said that FAA safety officials in Washington, D.C., were taking a deeper look. The controllers union and the FAA have been locked in a bitter and long-running dispute over staffing levels and the future of air traffic operations nationwide. http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20080125-1312-bn25runway.html *************** Embry-Riddle Expands Research Capability New College Of Business Building To Open Next Week When managers at AirTran Airways needed to improve efficiency and effectiveness in passenger boarding strategies, ground equipment use, and employee distribution, they turned to the College of Business at the Daytona Beach, FL campus of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. Since 2005, College of Business faculty and students working in the Aviation Operations Simulation Laboratory have used advanced technology and teaching methods to identify best business practices for airlines and airports. Currently under development are simulation and optimization models for boarding the Airbus A380 and the new Boeing 787 Dreamliner. "Healthy, efficient, and sustainable aviation and aerospace industries are vital to meeting the needs of people throughout the area and the world," said Dr. Daniel Petree, dean of the College of Business. "Providing a place where scholars, industry leaders, and other stakeholders can focus on bringing state-of-the-art business, management, and economic theories and tools to bear on real-world problems represents a very real asset to the community and the wider world." Embry-Riddle's research capability will expand next week when the new College of Business building officially opens. "Our new home represents a tangible sign of the university's continuing commitment to enhancing the research and cutting-edge learning technologies that the aviation and aerospace industries tell us they need as they meet the complex challenges of an increasingly dynamic global economy," said Dr. Petree, who observed that this will be the first time that the entire College of Business will be housed together. The grand opening of Embry-Riddle's newest academic hall will be held Thursday, January 31, at 5:00 pm. The event will include a ribbon-cutting ceremony and brief remarks by Dr. John P. Johnson, Embry-Riddle president; Dr. Thomas Connolly, chancellor of the Daytona Beach campus; Dr. Daniel Petree; Glenn Ritchey, Embry-Riddle trustee and mayor of Daytona Beach; and Rick Hale, chairman of the College of Business Industry Advisory Board and president/CEO of Winner Aviation Corp. Refreshments and tours will follow the ceremony. The two-story building contains faculty and administrative offices; wireless, energy-efficient classrooms; seminar and conference rooms; computer labs with 90 workstations; graduate research facilities; a Business and Transportation Research Center that includes the Aviation Operations Simulation Lab; a Marketing Focus Group Suite; and a Collaborative Decision-Making Suite. The building also houses Information Technology offices and workspace. The College of Business offers a nationally accredited Bachelor of Science in Business Administration with majors in air transport management and general management along with an MBA available in a full-time residential format as well as a technology-mediated format. The new building, which cost $13 million and measures 54,225 square feet, is part of an investment of $125 million in new and planned construction at the Daytona Beach campus. Future projects include additions to the aviation complex, a university/campus administration building, and a headquarters building for the worldwide division. A residence hall and a fitness center were completed in 2007. FMI: www.embryriddle.edu aero-news.net ****************