04 SEP 2008 _______________________________________ *Flaps not extended on ill-fated Spanair jet: report *Texas Manufacturer Emerges Victorious In Crankshaft Case Trial *NTSB: Main Rotor Separated From Air Evac Helicopter *South Korea gains highest USOAP safety standard compliance rating *NTSB: Jet engine caught fire before Reno crash *Regulators to Issue New Rules For 777s With Rolls-Royce Engines *FAA lets aerospace firms certify safety of their products *IATA keeps watch on vulnerable airlines *************************************** Flaps not extended on ill-fated Spanair jet: report WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Wing flaps on a Spanair jetliner that crashed in Spain last month killing 154 people were not fully extended before take off, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday. Citing people familiar with the investigation, the Journal said preliminary information from the MD-82's flight data recorder shows the movable flaps on the rear of the wings were not properly positioned. The flaps provide extra lift. Information from the "black box" data recorder also indicates that both engines were working properly and there was no fire before impact into a ravine at the edge of the Madrid airport runway, the sources told the newspaper. But the Journal also said investigators wanted to know why a loud horn designed to alert the crew to equipment problem apparently did not sound. They were also checking why the unextended flaps apparently were not noticed during the pilots' routine pre-departure equipment check. The August 20 accident was Spain's worst air crash in 25 years. Eighteen people survived. Investigators were not expected to reach conclusions for some time, and the probe could still yield other results. The MD-80 family is manufactured by McDonnell Douglas, which is now part of Boeing Co. Spanair is owned by Scandanavia's SAS. http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSN0331877920080903 ************** Texas Manufacturer Emerges Victorious In Crankshaft Case Trial Court Throws Out Appeal By Enginemaker Lycoming The Supreme Court of Texas has denied an appeal by airplane engine manufacturer Lycoming, effectively ending a six-year legal battle with a victory for a Texas company that made aircraft engine parts. The law firm of Rose Walker, L.L.P., which represented Navasota, TX-based Interstate Southwest, Ltd -- says the ruling affirms their client made no mistakes in manufacturing engine crankshafts for Lycoming engines that later failed, causing airplane crashes and deaths, and leading to a worldwide grounding of aircraft. "This Supreme Court decision means Interstate Southwest wins and Lycoming loses -- it's as simple as that," says attorney Marty Rose of Rose*Walker in Dallas, who represents Interstate Southwest. "A jury of 12 people looked at this and said that Lycoming was to blame. This decision affirms that." As ANN reported, in 2005 a jury in Grimes County, TX found Lycoming, a subsidiary of Providence, RI-based Textron, liable for fraud, and ordered the company to pay approximately $96 million to Interstate Southwest. An appeals court later reduced the amount to cover attorneys' fees only... but left in place a finding that wiped out Lycoming's $186 million counterclaim. The appellate court also upheld the trial court's judgment that Lycoming's own design defect was the sole cause of the crankshaft failures, and that Lycoming could not seek indemnity from Interstate Southwest for any other crankshaft failures. Lycoming since has been forced to recall thousands of additional crankshafts after more of them failed, and had wanted Interstate Southwest to pay for new crankshafts. The engine failures led to repeated worldwide recalls of most Lycoming aircraft engines. It also prompted class-action lawsuits on behalf of airplane owners who sued Lycoming in an attempt to get the company to accept responsibility. FMI: www.interstatesw.com, www.lycoming.com, www.rosewalker.com aero-news.net *************** NTSB: Main Rotor Separated From Air Evac Helicopter Identities Of Three Victims Onboard Released We're days away from the release of the National Transportation Safety Board's preliminary report on the weekend crash of a Bell 206B medevac helicopter in Indiana... but investigators released one important piece of the puzzle Tuesday. Decatur County Sheriff Daryl Templeton and NTSB spokesman Peter Knudson told The Associated Press it appears likely the helicopter's main rotor blades separated from the aircraft before impact, based on the location of the blades relative to the main wreckage site. "The rotor blades were separated and came to rest about 200 yards away," Knudson said, adding the main rotor hub was also recovered near the blades. "We have witness reports reporting the same thing." As ANN reported, the helo's crew of three was returning home Sunday from a community fundraiser for the Burney (IN) Volunteer Fire Department when the accident occurred. The helicopter reportedly plunged into a field almost immediately after takeoff, in a nose-down attitude. On Tuesday, Air Evac EMS -- which owns Air Evac Lifeteam, operator of the accident helicopter -- released the identities of the three crewmembers lost in the mishap. Pilot Roger Warren, flight nurse Sandra Pearson, and flight paramedic and base manager Wade Weston all flew from a recently-opened base at Rush Memorial Hospital in nearby Rushville. "Our focus at this time is taking care of their families and our employees and supporting them through this tragedy, as well as working to determine what may have caused this accident so we can prevent this from happening again," Air Evac President Seth Myers said in a statement. Air Evac has 79 bases in 13 states. The company has suspended patient-carrying operations from all four of its Indiana centers. "They will go back into operation when it is determined they are ready," the company said. Sunday's accident was the second fatal crash of an Air Evac helicopter this year. As ANN reported, three people were lost in January when their Bell 206A crashed near Tuscumbia, AL while conducting an aerial search for a missing hunter. In April 2004, another Air Evac helicopter crashed near Evansville, injuring three crewmembers but killing the patient being transported. The NTSB ruled the accident was caused by an improperly-set altimeter. FMI: www.ntsb.gov, www.lifeteam.net aero-news.net *************** South Korea gains highest USOAP safety standard compliance rating The South Korean Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs reports that ICAO has finished their safety audit, resulting in a safety standard compliance rating of 98.82 percent. So far 108 member states have had an USOAP (Universal Safety Oversight Audit Program) audit. Korea tops the list of 108 countries that have so far undergone the audit. In the first evaluation conducted by ICAO in 2000, Korea ranked 53rd with a safety standard compliance rating of 79.79 percent among 162 members. According to the interim results, Armenia ranked second with 96.32 percent and Canada third with 95.38 percent. (aviation-safety.net) ***************** NTSB: Jet engine caught fire before Reno crash RENO, Nev. (AP) -Federal investigators say a jet engine caught fire before an air tanker crashed near Reno, killing all three crew members. NTSB Investigator Tom Little says he has at least two accounts for eyewitnesses who saw the left engine of the aircraft in flames as it took off Monday evening from the Reno-Stead Airport. Little says the plane was no higher than 300 feet off the ground when it went into a roll and hit the ground less than 2 miles from the airport. He says there is nothing to indicate pilot error played a role. He says they are at a loss to explain what caused the fire or caused the pilots to lose control. ************** Regulators to Issue New Rules For 777s With Rolls-Royce Engines (By ANDY PASZTOR) U.S. and European air-safety regulators, concerned about potentially dangerous ice buildups in the fuel systems of certain long-distance jetliners, are about to issue new operating rules for around 220 Boeing 777 aircraft, according to people familiar with the matter. The mandatory safety directives apply only to planes with engines manufactured by Rolls-Royce PLC, which account for about one third of the roughly 730 Boeing 777 fleet world-wide, these people said. But under prodding from British safety officials, according to these people, Boeing will analyze whether similar precautionary measures should be extended to the rest of its Boeing 777 line. The rules are expected to be released in the next few days, perhaps as early as Thursday. In January, a British Airways PLC Boeing 777 crashed about 1,000 feet short of its intended runway at London's Heathrow Airport. All 152 aboard survived. But the accident -- believed to be the first of its kind involving a Boeing 777 - has attracted attention and concern throughout the global aviation community. Investigators suspect that the plane's fuel system became plugged from ice or slush that formed during a flight from China. The directives call for pilots to vary the engine-throttle settings during long flights when airborne temperatures are unusually low, these people said, and particularly revving up engines momentarily before starting a descent toward an airport The aim is to boost power as a way prevent internal ice accumulation from plugging up fuel systems, which could make engines unresponsive to pilot commands during critical maneuvers such as landing approaches. The safety directives follow voluntary operational changes Boeing has developed over the past few months and intends to distribute to American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Singapore Airlines, Cathay Pacific, Emirates and other carriers operating Rolls-Royce powered Boeing 777s. As part of the latest report updating the Heathrow crash investigation slated for release Thursday, Great Britain's Air Accidents Investigation Branch , or AAIB, is expected to call for more study about the general hazards of slushy fuel in Boeing 777s. Much of the focus is on aircraft following long polar or oceanic routes -- which can entail hours of flight in cruise requiring minimal changes in speed or engine power. Under the new procedures, periodic altitude changes will be done using greater engine thrust than normal. If pilots suspect a fuel-system blockage related to formation of slush or ice, they will be instructed to first pull back the throttles to idle as a technique to help the system clear itself. British Airways, Boeing Co., the AAIB and the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, which also is participating in the investigation, didn't have any comment. A spokesman for Roll-Royce couldn't be reached for comment. Alison Duquette, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration said, "We are closely monitoring the situation and will take whatever action is necessary" to ensure safety. The Jan. 17 crash had already prompted some airlines to reassess procedures to prevent ice formation in fuel systems. But until now, airlines using Boeing 777s hadn't received any official word about the advantages of making periodic adjustment to engine settings. The precautionary rules, among other things, are less tied to specific temperature thresholds than previous procedures. Carriers normally monitor outside air temperatures and keep track of fuel temperatures. If those inside temperatures creep too low, pilots currently have the option to descend to warmer air, or they can speed up to increase the heat generated by air friction against the plane's skin. The safety directives are expected to be interim steps, while Boeing and Rolls-Royce mull possible changes in the design of the oil cooler, which is where investigators believe the blockage most likely occurred in the British Airways crash. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122047986543596567.html?mod=googlenews_wsj *************** FAA lets aerospace firms certify safety of their products A new FAA program gives aerospace manufacturers such as Jamco America, and soon Boeing, the power to certify their own products as safe - an approach that concerns some critics. Jamco, a company that makes lavatories and galleys for the new Boeing 787, will begin self-certifying those parts. David Crotty is a Jamco manager. EVERETT - In a conference room at the Jamco America plant here, about 50 framed certificates hang on one wall. Each testifies that a Jamco project to upgrade an airline's passenger cabins complies with all Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) safety regulations. But the regulatory regime they represent will soon be replaced by greater reliance on a company's internal watchdogs. "Those on the wall were all signed by the FAA," said Jamco manager Dave Crotty. "In the future, I'll be signing those myself." Jamco, a supplier to Boeing and Airbus, last month became the first company in the Pacific Northwest authorized to self-certify that its products meet FAA safety requirements. It joins just eight other companies nationwide, among them Northwest Airlines and business-jet maker Gulfstream, that have so far been approved to self-certify under the new rules. But other large aerospace companies that do major work on airplanes, including Boeing, will shift to the new regulatory regime by next year. Delegating such responsibility to manufacturers has sparked criticism among some safety experts and FAA insiders. But the agency defends the new program as a smart way to farm out the simplest reviews while focusing its limited resources on the most critical ones. Even Jamco's seemingly innocuous installations - typically new seats, galleys, lavatories and entertainment systems - can raise aviation-safety issues. New materials for interior panels have to pass flammability tests; rods securing galleys in place must hold immense loads; the automatic fire extinguisher built into lavatory-wastepaper bins must suppress a fire. Under the new rule, designated Jamco engineers will act on the FAA's behalf: reviewing new designs, overseeing testing to ensure the products meet all applicable standards and signing off on certification. The FAA will only focus on any new design elements that Jamco's in-house inspectors flag as related to safety - for example, a new material that must be tested for flammability. It will also audit Jamco's work through spot checks after the products are certified. Jim Hall, a former National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) chairman and respected aviation-safety expert, criticizes the new approach. "The federal government, because of shrinking resources, is turning over key parts of transportation-safety oversight" to private industry, said Hall in an interview. "History tells us this could be a very dangerous path," Hall said. Delegating safety For decades the FAA has appointed inspectors - either employees within companies or outside contractors - to be its eyes and ears in the factory. Those in-house inspectors report regularly to FAA engineers and must be formally renewed each year by the agency. Jamco works with about 70 such in-house inspectors today. Under the new concept now applied to Jamco - called ODA, or Organization Designation Authorization - the in-house engineers assessing whether a product can be certified for safety will report to Jamco manager Crotty, not to the FAA. The FAA contends that only companies that have rigorously proved their competence can get the new authority to self-certify. But Hall cites the 1998 crash of Swissair Flight 111 off the coast of Nova Scotia as a possible example of fatal consequences when companies producing aviation products are allowed to self-regulate. The Transportation Safety Board of Canada concluded the wiring of a new inflight-entertainment system might have caused the electrical fire that led to the crash and the deaths of all 229 people on board. The FAA designees who certified the entertainment system, without the required oversight by FAA engineer, may not have properly integrated the entertainment system's power supply with that of the airliner, the report said. After that report, the FAA promised to tighten interaction between its certification engineers and the designees working within companies. But critics say the new regulatory approach will mean less interaction with the agency, not more. Conflict of interest? For Jamco and its customers, the new regulatory authority could mean saving time and money. A subsidiary of a Japanese company, Jamco employs about 250 people in Everett. As well as installing complete airplane-cabin interiors, it designs and manufactures its own cockpit doors, galleys and lavatories. It manufactured the luxurious first-class suites on the Airbus A380 superjumbo jet for Singapore Airlines. It will use its new FAA authorization for the first time on a contract for a major upgrade of the interiors on 33 Emirates 777s. On such projects, getting timely FAA certification has often been a struggle, Crotty said. "By delegating to us, we control our own schedule, our own resources, and our own fate," he said. He's confident that there's no reduction in safety. "We never forget for one moment that I represent the FAA's interest first," said Crotty, who has spent nearly 40 years in aerospace and worked for the FAA in safety engineering before joining Jamco in 2005. "There's no denying the fact that my paycheck comes from Jamco. There is an element of conflict of interest," Crotty said. But such conflicts exist in the established system of designees as well, he said. Besides, he said, the change is not as dramatic as it sounds. Under the previous rules, the FAA kept a close eye only on safety-critical issues and spot-checked everything else. "In today's world, they delegate 99 percent of this," Crotty said. "They never see this stuff, these test reports, these analysis documents and drawings." FAA insider concern Still, the shift toward more self-regulation troubles some inside the system. One FAA-certification engineer who asked not to be identified for fear of losing his job said relying on audits isn't good enough because it happens after "the airplane is out flying carrying passengers." He said that inserting a layer of company management between him and the company's engineers increases "the chance of undue pressure" on those doing the detailed engineering reviews. Tomaso DiPaolo of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA), a union that represents air traffic controllers and about 600 aircraft-certification technical experts at the FAA, said the new system "hands the keys over to the companies." DiPaolo said the union isn't worried about protecting jobs - there is more than enough work for the FAA - but about reduced oversight of safety issues. Yet Ali Bahrami, the Renton-based manager of the FAA Transport Airplane Directorate, insists that the FAA isn't abdicating its regulatory role. With a swelling workload, the agency must focus on those areas that are deemed critical, rather than reviewing every routine element of an airplane design, he said. "This is more [FAA] involvement where involvement is necessary," Bahrami said. "Resources aren't going to be such that you can be there every step of the way. That's just wishful thinking." Boeing on board Boeing's transition to the new system by November 2009 will be less dramatic than Jamco's. Much of its inspection work is already delegated to more than 400 company in-house inspectors who, though appointed by the FAA, for the past decade have reported their findings largely through an internal Boeing organization, said Scott Peterson, director of regulatory- and quality-systems oversight at Boeing Commercial Airplanes. Freeing the agency from the "adminisitrivia" of managing all those oversight staff "allowed the FAA, rather than work the day-to-day minutiae, to put more focus on the key safety factors," he said. "We're not bogging down the FAA," Peterson said. "It's a win/win." Back at Jamco, director of sales and marketing Shawn Raybell acknowledged the additional responsibility that the FAA has placed on company engineers. "They've put a lot of faith in us," Raybell said. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2008152462_faa02.ht ml ************** IATA keeps watch on vulnerable airlines IATA is monitoring the financial condition of 11-15 carriers as spiking fuel prices and sluggish demand have already driven roughly 26 carriers to suspend or terminate operations this year. Association director general and CEO Giovanni Bisignani today during a conference call with reporters declined to predict the number of carriers on IATA's watch list who might survive. Yet he cautioned that "the months ahead of us are the most difficult", as carriers face debt levels of $190 billion. Alitalia, which has entered extraordinary administration under Italy's revised bankruptcy laws, recently made a 50 million Euro deposit to IATA to stay in the association's settlement system. More than 80% of worldwide carrier revenues are ticketed through IATA travel agencies in its settlement system. Traffic statistics for July released by IATA today show a sharp decline for one of the strongest months of the year, a concerning sign as carriers enter one of the weakest times for demand. Traffic in July fell to 1.9%--its lowest level in five years. It was roughly one-quarter of the 7.3% growth airlines posted a year ago. "Remember July is one of the best months of the year," says Bisignani. Capacity growth by carriers vastly outpaced demand, growing 3.8%. Airlines are facing a projected loss of $5.2 billion in 2008, based on oil prices per barrel of $113. The latest revision to carrier profitability trends toward the more pessimistic forecast IATA offered in June of $6.2 billion in losses based on an oil price of $135 per barrel. The association's optimistic view targeted a $2.3 billion loss based on per barrel prices of $106. North American carriers remain the most vulnerable as their losses this year are projected to reach $5 billion. Airlines in Latin American stand to lose $300 million despite commodities in that part of the world supporting traffic growth, says Bisignani. Losses for African airlines will mount to $700 million. No global region is projected to improve profitability this year as European profits are estimated to shrink seven-fold from $2.1 billion last year to $300 million in 2008. Profits in the Asia Pacific region should shrink from $900 million to $300 million. Even Middle Eastern carriers are expected to see a decline in profits by $100 million to $200 million despite enormous traffic growth, says IATA's CEO. Airlines could post a modest $1 billion profit in 2009 if oil prices per barrel reach $94. But IATA's latest forecast shows a $4.1 billion loss next year based on oil prices of $110 per barrel. While carriers slashing non-fuel unit costs by 18% since 2001 is "good news," Bisignani says that is not enough to cover the $50 billion jump in fuel costs this year. Source: Air Transport Intelligence news ***************