02 FEB 2008 _______________________________________ *Six Killed In Surry County Plane Crash *King Air Down NC, Six Confirmed Lost *Turkish Airlines jet and Israir plane in near collision at Ben-Gurion *Pilots' union wants more cockpit security *Bolivian Plane Makes Emergency Landing *Air Jamaica Charged With Safety Violations *Indonesia Rain/floods cause travel chaos *Jet collides with three aircraft at airport *************************************** Six Killed In Surry County Plane Crash MOUNT AIRY, N.C. -- A small plane carrying six passengers en route from Georgia to Virginia crashed Friday around 11:30 a.m., killing all six people on board. The plane crashed in a neighborhood of at least 40 to 50 homes, however no one on the ground was injured. "I heard a loud noise, and I went and got in my car," said Diane Murray, who lives near the scene of the crash. "I came down Janice Drive and there was a plane that had crashed there on the right side of the road in the yard -- and it's in thousands of pieces," she said. The plane, a five-passenger King Air C90A, was attempting to land at the airport in low fog. The wreckage fell in a grassy area between two homes. Surry County EMS Director John Shelton told WXII12 News the plane originated from Polk County, Ga. and was carrying passengers traveling to Patrick County, Va. for a hunting excursion. Shelton said weather could have played a factor in the crash. http://www.wxii12.com/news/15194588/detail.html ************* King Air Down NC, Six Confirmed Lost Plane Inbound From Georgia Officials with Surry County emergency services confirm there were no survivors onboard the aircraft. Six people were reportedly onboard, heading for a hunting trip in Virginia. Witnesses told local media the King Air missed its first approach to Mount Airy Airport (MWK) and was circling back when the aircraft crashed for as-yet undetermined reasons. Authorities say weather may have been a factor. The aircraft impacted in a residential area, but there were no injuries reported on the ground. Original Report 1345 EST: A King-Air turboprop is reported down in the vicinity of Mount Airy Airport (MWK) in North Carolina, with the six persons onboard lost in the crash. Early reports cited witness accounts, saying the plane took off from the airport shortly before the accident at 11:30 am. However, online flight tracking information from FlightAware.com shows a King Air C90A scheduled to land at the airport at the time. That information correlates with reports from airport officials, who told area television station News-14 the King Air turboprop was inbound from Polk County, GA. Records cited by the television station show the plane is registered to Blue Sky Airways, of Dallas, GA. The aircraft impacted a residential area east of the airport, off Highway 52, according to WXII-12. No one on the ground was injured. "I heard a loud noise, and I went and got in my car," said witness Diane Murray, who lives near the scene of the crash. "I came down Janice Drive and there was a plane that had crashed there on the right side of the road in the yard -- and it's in thousands of pieces." A current METAR for MWK -- about two hours after the crash -- shows 10 statute miles visibility and calm winds, under a broken ceiling at 300' and overcast at 1100'. ANN stresses all information is preliminary at this point. We will update this story as more information becomes available. FMI: www.flightaware.com, www.faa.gov aero-news.net ************** Turkish Airlines jet and Israir plane in near collision at Ben-Gurion A Turkish passenger airliner nearly collided Friday morning with an Israir jet in the skies over Ben-Gurion International Airport. A senior aviation official told Haaretz that the near-hit was extremely dangerous, and that alert systems had warned the planes were perilously close and could potentially collide. T Advertisement he Israir jet, which was practicing landing, was apparently authorized by air traffic control to begin his approach. The order was given despite the fact that the Turkish Airlines airplane was approaching behind the Israir jet at a distance that did not meet safety standards, The Israel Airports Authority (IAA) has established a committee to investigate the incident. "An initial inquiry points to misjudgment on the part of the air traffic controller," said the IAA. "The controller immediately realized his mistake, and took the necessary steps in order to bring both planes in safely." "In accordance with Ben-Gurion International Airport regulations, following the incident, the controller was replaced," the IAA added. http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/950378.html ************** Pilots' union wants more cockpit security OTTAWA - For a relatively small investment, Canadian airlines could plug a security gap that could potentially allow terrorists to seize control of an airplane, says a pilots' union. But so far, neither the industry nor Transport Canada have been willing to act, the Air Canada Pilots Association says. Though Transport Canada requires all cockpit doors to be reinforced and locked during flight, there's a "window of opportunity for someone of ill-intent" whenever pilots open the door to use a washroom or obtain food, said association president Andy Wilson. The pilots argue the solution is a "secondary barrier" - a retractable gate the cabin crew can deploy before the cockpit door is opened. "If there's an attempt to invade the cockpit, it allows time for the crew to be alerted to it and to retreat into the cockpit and close the door," Wilson said in an interview. "It buys you a substantial amount of time." United Airlines, which had two of its flights hijacked during the 9-11 attacks, began voluntarily installing secondary barriers in its aircraft in 2004. United's retractable barriers are made of lightweight steel cables and extend almost from floor to ceiling. When deployed, they lock into position, blocking access to the galley, forward lavatory and cockpit. According to Wilson, a similar barrier would cost about $5,000 per plane to install. "At a very low cost, you can plug a pretty big hole." He said the pilots association has pitched the idea to Air Canada and Transport Canada, but: "I don't think we have had quite the response we were looking for yet. "I just think nobody has wanted to pay for it or make it a priority. We see it as a big priority. This is an extremely low-cost fix that we see as plugging one of the bigger gaps." Lucie Vignola, a spokeswoman for Transport Canada, said the department is not currently considering making secondary barriers mandatory, in part because it isn't convinced they are necessary, given the multiple security measures already in place. Finding a barrier that would work with all types of aircraft is a further complication, she said. Authorities in the United States have taken a similar view. Les Dorr, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Authority, said the FAA believes the barriers "would be too costly to mandate for the little additional safety benefit they would provide." But that's not the way pilots see it. Last July, the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) International called on Canadian and American authorities to require secondary barriers on all airliners by 2010. The barriers, the association said in a white paper, "would significantly augment the fortified door and add an important layer of security to prevent hostile takeover of the cockpit." Fred Gaspar, spokesman for the Air Transport Association of Canada, said the industry doesn't necessarily object to installing the barriers but isn't yet convinced they are required. He said government should do a "data-driven risk analysis" to determine how much additional security secondary barriers actually would provide. "If the analysis is done and the risk is more than acceptable, then certainly we would be quite open to it, because safety and security is of paramount importance," he said. The industry would expect government to help with the cost, Gaspar said, since it's collecting $80 million more in security charges than it spends on aviation security Wilson he's baffled by the reluctance to spend relatively modest sums on the barriers, given the high costs a major terrorist incident would impose. "If there's another security incident on an aircraft, it would shut down the entire world airline system for a day or a week or a month. It would be extremely expensive. It could affect the world economy. Airlines will go bankrupt." Gaspar said Canadian airlines follow established procedures when pilots open the cockpit door during flight, including drawing curtains to block passengers' view. As well, many North American airlines have instructed flight attendants to position a beverage cart diagonally across the aisle when the cockpit door is open during flight. But ALPA's paper said such precautions "do not establish a predictably reliable system capable of significantly slowing and deterring a hijacker. "Delaying a potential attacker by five seconds, via a secondary barrier along with standardized crew procedures for flight deck door transitions, would add greatly to the security of the flight deck," the paper said. http://www.canada.com/reginaleaderpost/news/story.html?id=22cc6e56-c305-4afc -adb4-67733df1bb68&k=706 *************** Bolivian Plane Makes Emergency Landing LA PAZ, Bolivia (AP) - A charter jet flown by airline Lloyd Aereo Boliviano was forced to make an emergency landing Friday in a flooded forest outside the eastern lowland city of Trinidad. No one was killed, according to the airline's regional manager in Trinidad, Patricia Aruz. But several passengers were taken to a nearby hospital for injuries, according to Juan Carlos Zambrano, a reporter at the scene for Radio Patuju. Passengers interviewed by local radio stations said the plane first lost power and suffered serious damage when it landed. "We noticed the engines went out, and there was this calm," said Paolo Bravo, a Bolivian senator who survived the crash, in an interview with the radio network Erbol. "Then they told us, 'Crash positions! crash positions!' and it was just another two or three seconds before we hit ... "The plane fell, the wings broke off, but the fuselage was OK," he said. The Boeing 727 was turned away by fierce storms at its destination - the northern city of Cobija - and then headed south to Trinidad, some 370 miles away. The plane then lost power a few miles short of the runway. LAB, Bolivia's former state airline, was privatized in 1996 but has been in and out of bankruptcy in recent years. The company now runs a skeleton fleet of only a handful of planes on a charter basis only. LAB was operating the Boeing 727 as a charter for Transporte Aereo Militar, another small Bolivian airline. In recent months TAM has chartered LAB flights to carry overflow passengers during a heavy Bolivian rainy season that has washed out roads throughout the country. ***************** Air Jamaica Charged With Safety Violations NEW YORK -(Dow Jones)- Air Jamaica Friday was charged with multiple violations of U.S. aviation safety regulations in federal civil action filed by federal prosecutors and the Federal Aviation Administration. In the complaint, the state-owned air carrier was accused of being at fault after one of its planes made an emergency landing on Dec. 17, 2001 due to incorrectly installed air conditioning panels that cracked and prompted a loss of hydraulic power to the landing gear. *************** Indonesia floods kill 12, cause travel chaos JAKARTA, Feb 1 (Reuters) - Floods and landslides triggered by heavy rain have killed at least 12 people across Indonesia and the capital's main airport was briefly shut on Friday as more than 40 flights were delayed due to low visibility. Scores of cars were stranded and people had to wade through murky knee-high water in many parts of Jakarta, a city of 14 million that is regularly hit by floods at this time of year. Jakarta's main airport had been forced to close on Friday morning, after rain and fog cut visibility to less than 300 metres, Hariyanto, an official at Soekarno-Hatta airport, said. More than 40 flights had been delayed, with some planes diverted to Jakarta's smaller Halim Perdanakusuma airport, while several flights coming to the capital were forced to return to Singapore. "The airport has reopened since three o'clock (0800 GMT)", Hariyanto, who uses only one name, said later by telephone. Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono was forced to abandon his bullet-proof presidential car after his motorcade tried to pass through knee-high flood waters in the capital. The president's security escort had to usher Yudhoyono into a sport utility vehicle after his Mercedes Benz got stuck on a main road about 2 km (1.2 miles) from the presidential palace. By dusk the rain had stopped and waters had subsided in some areas, an official at the city's flood management centre said. Last year about 50 people died in Jakarta, many due to electrocution, and more than 400,000 people were displaced after days of heavy rain. After the 2007 floods, the then governor of Jakarta said the city administration needed more help from the central government to deal with the annual hazard. There were no reports of deaths in Jakarta on Friday after floodwaters rose to 20-50 cm, but a health ministry official said four people were killed and thousands displaced from their homes after heavy rain in parts of Java and Sulawesi islands. More than 10,000 houses in East Java's Pasuruan region were inundated by floods, forcing people to erect tents on streets, Rustam Pakaya, head of the health ministry's crisis centre, said. In the Singkil district of Aceh, a province on the tip of Sumatra island, eight people died and one person was missing after a landslide buried two houses, Pakaya said. During Indonesia's rainy season deadly landslides often occur as tropical downpours can quickly soak hillsides stripped of trees with little vegetation to hold the soil. A weather agency official said the rain was likely to continue until Saturday. ************** Jet collides with three aircraft at airport FORT LAUDERDALE (AP) - Fort Lauderdale officials say a business jet collided into three aircraft as it taxied out of a hangar at an airport, but no injuries were reported. Ted Lawson, spokesman for the city, says after 3 p.m. Friday the jet was taxing out of a hangar at the Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport and its wing clipped a propeller of a Cessna. At some point the jet hit another aircraft that was being tugged and a third aircraft that was parked on a ramp. According to the Federal Aviation Administration, the jet is registered to Qualint LLC. in Wesley Chapel. A telephone listing for the company could not be found. **************