08 FEB 2008 ______________________________________ *Woman stabs pilots in hijack attempt *Sask. airline has emergency landing, blown window in separate flights *NJ Senators Block FAA Nominee *Concerns arise over regional airlines *Israeli combat pilots may soon fly high on Viagra *Global aircraft market worth $2.8 trillion by 2026: Airbus *Runway Safety Education and Awareness *************************************** Woman stabs pilots in hijack attempt A knife-wielding female passenger stabbed the pilots of a commuter plane and grappled with the controls during a mid-air hijacking attempt over New Zealand today. The 33-year-old woman, who had been seated at the front of the aircraft, entered the cockpit ten minutes into the flight claiming there were bombs on board and demanded to be flown to Australia. As the captain made a mayday call and requested clearance for an emergency landing, he and his co-pilot tried to calm the woman down but she attacked them with a knife, police said. During a bumpy descent caused by rough weather the woman lost her footing and the co-pilot was able to wrestle her to the floor. The plane landed safely at Christchurch airport after 26 minutes in the air. Swarms of police were waiting as it taxied to an isolated spot on the tarmac and the woman was handcuffed and arrested. Police said the other six passengers on board the 19-seater Jetstream J32 operated by Air National for Air New Zealand were evacuated safely. The pilots were later treated in hospital for minor injuries. A passenger who intervened was also slightly wounded. Flights to and from Christchurch, the main city on New Zealand's South Island, were suspended for two hours and the airport evacuated while the aircraft was searched. Two knives were recovered but police did not find any explosives. Police Superintendent Dave Cliff said the pilots had kept in touch with ground authorities during the crisis, although their conversation was "somewhat stilted". A taxi driver who took the woman, a resident in Blenheim where the flight originated, to the airport later said she had seemed "away with the fairies" when he dropped her off. "She was very nervous, very unsure of where she wanted to go for a while and what she wanted to do. It was a very strange ride," he told Newstalk ZB. The two pilots were praised for their courage and Air New Zealand said it was reviewing its security procedures. Passengers taking domestic flights out of Bleinheim airport are not subject to security checks and their hand luggage is not scanned. New Zealand's transport minister and the civil aviation authority initiated inquiries into the incident. The woman, originally from Somalia, was charged with hijacking and wounding with intent and will appear in court tomorrow. Hijacking carries a maximum sentence in New Zealand of life imprisonment. http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,2254686,00.html *************** Sask. airline has emergency landing, blown window in separate flights REGINA - A Saskatchewan airline had tense moments on a pair of flights Wednesday as one plane had to turn around in flight, while another had to make an emergency landing in Regina. In the first incident, a cockpit window blew out of a chartered flight by WestWind Aviation shortly after taking off from Saskatoon. The Beechcraft 1900 airplane was carrying 11 passengers and two crew en route to Prince Albert, Sask. Emergency crews at the scene of a where a plane had an emergency landing at the Regina International Airport on Wednesday. About 20 minutes into its flight, it turned around and headed back to Saskatoon, where the airline is based. There were no injuries. "It wasn't anything serious," said Dennis Goll, president of the Saskatoon-based airline. "It wasn't like in the movies. People weren't getting sucked out the window." A full-blown window is abnormal, he said, adding that sometimes one pane blows, but two is rare. In the last 20 years, Goll said, he's only seen it happen once. "It just gets a little noisy, that's all," he said, describing what it would have been like on-board the flight. The passengers were put on another flight Wednesday afternoon. Proof of the second incident was the plane sitting on its nose on the tarmac at Regina International Airport early Wednesday evening. The two pilots navigating the Beechcraft King Air 100 plane during its express flight from Saskatoon to Regina realized the nose gear of the plane would not extend fully, said the airline. When the two decided to land in Regina, emergency crews were notified, and police and firefighters met the flight. The plane landed around 5 p.m. local time with minimal damage and no injuries to the seven passengers and crew on-board. "In my 15 years of being with WestWind, I can't recall a day such as this one," said Dennis Baranieski, vice-president of business development with WestWind Aviation. "It's very unusual to have one occurrence let alone two. . . . But certainly we don't see that as any particular sense that there (are) issues." Both incidents will be investigated by Transport Canada and the Transportation Safety Board. Baranieski said the company was eager to co-operate in the investigation to determine the causes of the incidents. "We certainly take these incidents seriously and look at anything that may be a cause or an issue to bring them about," he said. http://www.canada.com/topics/news/story.html?id=004eff9f-b236-46d5-a578-9e3c 8faeddb2&k=42091 **************** NJ Senators Block FAA Nominee WASHINGTON (AP) — Two New Jersey senators said Thursday they would block President Bush's choice to head the Federal Aviation Administration, saying they are unhappy with the government's handling of widespread flight delays that often begin in their East Coast airspace. Democrats Robert Menendez and Frank Lautenberg said they would use a procedural device called a "hold" to block the nomination of Robert Sturgell from coming to the Senate floor for a vote. The move will not have any immediate effect on the agency, because Sturgell is already the acting administrator, but it reflects ongoing disputes between congressional Democrats and the administration over the best way to solve the flight delays that have plagued U.S. air travelers in the past year, as well as runway safety issues and air controller staffing. "I've had to make hard choices, sometimes unpopular choices during my tenure with the FAA. But we've learned to manage better and leaner. We've implemented financial management strategies that better serve the taxpayer while maintaining the standard of excellence under which we operate," Sturgell said at his nomination hearing Thursday morning before the Senate Commerce Committee. The government has announced new limits for takeoffs and landings at New York area airports, where many of the national delays begin. The agency is also redesigning airspace routes, which angers some communities worried about increased noise from jets. "It's time for President Bush to nominate an administrator who solves transportation problems, rather than creating more of them," said Lautenberg. ***************** Concerns arise over regional airlines By Alan Levin, USA TODAY Capt. James Langford had slept for less than one hour the night before reporting to work as a Delta Connection pilot last Feb. 18. On Langford's third flight of the day, his regional jet carrying 71 passengers skidded off a snowy runway in Cleveland, severely damaging the aircraft and injuring three people. He was not at the "best of his game" because of lack of sleep, he told investigators with the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). Rapidly growing regional airlines such as Shuttle America, which operated the flight Langford piloted under a contract for Delta Air Lines, have suffered a growing share of crashes in recent years. That's prompted several top aviation experts and federal officials to call for upgraded safety programs. Regional carriers had four fatal crashes that killed 85 people over the past five years, according to federal data. Over the same period, one person died in a major airline crash. "This is where the accidents are occurring," said NTSB Vice Chairman Robert Sumwalt in a speech he delivered on the subject. FIND MORE STORIES IN: Northwest | National Transportation Safety Board | Shuttle America | Roger Cohen The safety board has not issued its conclusions on the Shuttle America accident, but hundreds of pages of public records on that case and several other accidents and incidents in recent years raise questions about the level of safety at the nation's regional carriers. Regionals were slow to adopt safety programs introduced at major airlines and in recent years, many have lowered pilot hiring standards because turnover was so high, according to NTSB case files and private safety experts. Officials at the regional airlines insist that they run safe operations and that the number of accidents they have had compared with large carriers is a statistical fluke. Roger Cohen, president of the Regional Airline Association, said his members fly under the same regulations as large carriers and have spent millions improving safety in recent years. "It's safer to fly an airplane than it is to take a shower," said Jonathan Ornstein, chairman and CEO of Mesa Air Group, which operates regional airlines. "No fatalities last year. That speaks for itself." Regional airlines with lesser-known names such as Mesa, Shuttle America and Atlantic Southeast account for nearly half of all airline flights and carry more than 20% of passengers. Despite having more fatal accidents than major airlines, the odds of dying on a regional carrier are remote. Since 2003, there have been four fatal accidents out of more than 24 million regional airline flights. There were no fatal accidents on regionals in the five years prior to 2003. "We are seeing trends now that should give us cause for concern," former NTSB Chairman Jim Hall said. "You see a lowering of standards, an increased accident rate, an increase in the number of incidents." Regional airline safety has arisen in recent NTSB cases: •Pilot fatigue contributed to the crash of a Corporate Airlines plane trying to land at Kirksville, Mo., on Oct. 19, 2004. The flight, a connection for American Airlines, crashed into trees, killing 13 of the 15 people aboard. •A Pinnacle Airlines crew flying for Northwest Airlink crashed a jet in Missouri on Oct. 14, 2004, after the craft reached an unauthorized high altitude. In its final report, the NTSB said it had seen a troubling pattern of pilot sloppiness in recent accidents that involved regional carriers. Both pilots on the Pinnacle jet died, but no passengers were aboard. •Investigators looking into the case of a Pinnacle jet that slid off a snowy runway April 12 in Traverse City, Mich., found that about a pilot a day was quitting the airline, or about one-third of its pilot workforce each year. A Federal Aviation Administration inspector told investigators that Pinnacle Airlines had two "high-risk" concerns: high pilot turnover and too few employees, NTSB documents said. No one was injured, but the jet suffered substantial damage. Tighter rules In December 1994, after the third fatal crash of the year involving what were then known as "commuter airlines," Transportation Secretary Federico Peña announced that the government would step up regulation of carriers using propeller planes to ferry passengers from small communities to large airports. At the time, pilots on commuter airlines could work longer hours and had fewer training requirements than their counterparts at major airlines. The smaller carriers also got less scrutiny from federal regulators. A study by the NTSB found accident rates on commuter flights were twice as high as larger airlines. The rules, which went into effect March 20, 1997, ushered in a period of unprecedented safety at regional airlines. From that date until Jan. 8, 2003, not a single passenger died on a regional airline flight. During that time, the regional airline industry began to change dramatically. Prop planes were retired for regional jets, which flew faster and longer distances. As major carriers teetered into bankruptcy after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, regional carriers offered a low-cost alternative for transporting people. Growth in the industry exploded. "These are not your grandfather's or even your father's regional airlines," says Roger Cohen, president of the Regional Airline Association. "The airplanes, the people, the procedures are dramatically different than that old puddle-jumper perception." All but one of the large regional carriers has in recent years adopted a program begun over a decade ago at major carriers to get pilots to report safety problems. Still, regional carriers generally lag major airlines in adopting sophisticated data analysis of flight risks, according to airlines and federal data. "They are not identifying the risks of their operation as much as other larger operations would do," says Michael Barr, who teaches aviation safety at the University of Southern California. Fatigue policies A key area of the investigation into last year's Shuttle America crash has focused on airline policies. One month before the accident, Langford received a written reprimand for the high number of absences he had taken over the previous year, according to NTSB files. He could be fired if he missed work again, the letter said. In addition to sick time, his absences included a day he missed because he had not slept well during 11 hours off duty between trips, he told investigators. "You are not fatigued," Langford said an airline dispatcher told him when he tried to explain the absence. The NTSB considers fatigue one of its top safety issues and pilots who don't feel rested are supposed to be able to excuse themselves from work. Langford said later that he had been suffering from insomnia but was afraid he would be fired if he tried to miss work because of fatigue. Langford has declined to comment on the crash, and Shuttle America won't comment on the ongoing investigation. An airline report on the accident filed with the NTSB said its policy is to provide pilots with time to rest if they are tired. http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-02-06-regionalsafety_N.htm?loc=inte rstitialskip **************** Israeli combat pilots may soon fly high on Viagra JERUSALEM (AFP) — It might harm their reputation, but Israel's air force is considering giving its combat pilots Viagra to improve their performance -- in the air. A recent study conducted by Israeli doctors among mountain climbers in Africa found a link between erectile dysfunction drugs and improved performance in high altitudes, the mass-selling Yediot Aharonot reported on Thursday. The active ingredient in the drugs was found to make climbers perform better in an environment with less oxygen, which causes fatigue and dizziness. This has led army doctors to consider giving jet fighter pilots -- who can fly at altitudes of up to 50,000 feet (15,000 metres) -- the same drug, the report said. "The Viagra family of drugs is considered effective in these conditions because when there is a long shortage in oxygen it leads to high blood pressure in the lungs, and the drugs help fight that," the report quoted military medical sources as saying. ***************** Global aircraft market worth $2.8 trillion by 2026: Airbus LONDON (AFP) — European aircraft maker Airbus said Thursday that the global aircraft market would be worth 2.8 trillion dollars (1.9 trillion euros) by 2026, with total production at 24,300 planes. Airbus gave the figures as it unveiled its latest long-term outlook for the aerospace industry at a press conference in London. *************** Runway Safety Education and Awareness There has been an significant increase of runway incursions lately. In fact it is so serious that Jim Ballough (AFS-1) and John Allen (AFS-2) traveled to the Eastern Region and Southern Region to meet with key management officials from Part 121 carriers to focus on reducing pilot deviations. This week, Ballough has been holding similar meetings in the Central, Great Lakes, and Southwestern Regions, while Allen has West Coast duty in the Alaska, Northwest Mountain, and Western Pacific Regions. You can view the presentation on http://www.faa.gov/safety/programs%5Finitiatives/pilot%5Fsafety/deviations/R educingPDs/ 2. Oldie but goodie The FAA Runway Safety HF hand book from 2001. Still germane.. This booklet tells pilots and controllers what they can do to help prevent runway incursions. It alerts them to situations where extra vigilance is required. It also provides information on how pilots and controllers can help each other worktogether more effectively. Many examples of pilot and controller errors are included in this work. These incidents are included solely to highlight conditions that can lead even the most skilled professionals into making life-threatening mistakes.It is hoped that by sharing these examples, we can all come to a greaterunderstanding of the roles and responsibilities of pilots and controllers, and the causes and prevention of runway incursions.http://www.faa.gov/runwaysafety/handbook.cfm 3. May carriers are directing pilots to review the ALPA/AOPA online Runway Safety course. It is good, quick and you can print a certificate and get WIngs credit. http://flash.aopa.org/asf/runway_safety_alpa/html/index/runwaySafety_expandi ng.htm ***************