13 NOV 2008 _______________________________________ *US experts believe Mexico plane crash was accident *Fatal air crash report points finger at Transport Canada *Pilots worried about 'stupid hobby' of shining laser lights at planes *Hawaiian Airlines buys another jet *Obama to face tough choices in aviation *Boeing Delays 737 Deliveries, Will Fix Existing Fleet *************************************** US experts believe Mexico plane crash was accident MEXICO CITY (AP) - U.S. investigators have found no evidence of foul play in a mysterious plane crash that killed Mexico's second-most powerful official, the American ambassador said Wednesday. U.S. National Transportation and Safety Board experts say that, so far, nothing in the flight data recorder, cockpit recorder or other evidence indicates that "sabotage or criminal activity caused the crash," Tony Garza said in a statement. "The preliminary evidence indicates the crash was a tragic accident," he added. The NTSB team has been in Mexico for a week to help investigate the Nov. 4 crash that killed Interior Minister Juan Camilo Mourino, who was the equivalent of Mexico's vice president and the closest confidant of President Felipe Calderon. Five people on the ground and nine people on the plane were killed when the Learjet 45 suddenly plunged into an upscale Mexico City neighborhood. Also among those on board was former anti-drug prosecutor Jose Luis Santiago Vasconcelos. From the start, Mexican investigators have said the crash appeared to be an accident. They ruled out a bomb last week, saying no trace of explosives was found at the crash scene. Despite the lack of evidence, many Mexicans immediately suspected the crash was another attack by drug cartels, which have increasingly targeted security officials. Vasconcelos had been the target of at least one previous assassination plot. Garza said the NTSB investigators would leave Mexico on Thursday but the agency would continue to help examine evidence and run simulations to determine what happened. He gave no indication of whether investigators were close to determining the cause, saying only that "we must now all await the final conclusions" of Mexican aviation officials. Mexican officials have offered a wide range of possibilities, from human error to turbulence from another plane. They ruled out engine failure last week. The crash occurred in clear weather, and in their last recorded radio conversation, the plane's flight crew calmly discussed radio frequencies and speed with controllers. The tape went silent just as radar lost the plane's altitude reading. **************** Fatal air crash report points finger at Transport Canada Proper oversight by regulator found lacking Transport Canada broke its own rules when it cancelled an audit program just months before a fatal plane crash during its transition to a self-policing civil aviation system. The information was contained in a confidential draft report obtained by Canwest News Service. The Transportation Safety Board's draft investigation report, dated Aug. 1, 2008, documents the events leading up to a Transwest Air (TWA) crash in Sandy Bay, Sask., on Jan. 7, 2007. In addition to finding "repeated" and "routine" regulatory infractions on the part of King Air pilots at the regional airline -- to the point where crew were "likely unaware that many were actual policy and procedural deviations" -- the board found big gaps in Transport Canada's role as regulator. "Although Transport Canada safety oversight processes identified the existence of supervisory deficiencies within TWA, the extent of the deficiencies was not fully appreciated because of the limitations of the current inspection/audit oversight system." Two flight crew and two emergency medical technicians were aboard a King Air aircraft en route to pick up a patient from the Sandy Bay Health Centre when it crashed into trees near the runway after an aborted landing attempt. The 52-year-old pilot died of his injuries; the other three suffered non-life-threatening injuries. The board's findings, related to causes and contributing factors, focus on TWA's deficient supervision of the King Air operation and failures of the crew. But the board also identifies several "findings as to risk" concerning Transport Canada's deficiencies. It's one of three crash reports expected in the coming months to single out the department's failure to provide proper oversight during the implementation of the safety management system (SMS). The system is similar to changes being made to Canada's food inspection, where the onus shifts to companies to identify hazards and manage their own risks. The pilot's widow, Debbie Wolsey, is challenging the findings. In her brief to the safety board, she places blame on Transport Canada's failure to properly regulate the company, to which her husband Rick Wolsey voiced concerns about his 24-year-old crew member. "It all ties in to Transport Canada not fulfilling their responsibility in ensuring safety in the aviation industry," Wolsey said in an interview. "I do not want Rick's death to have been worthless. If it has to prove a point in regards to the safety of the aviation industry, so be it," she said. At the time of the crash, TWA was at Phase 2 of SMS implementation, championed for civil aviation under the previous Liberal government, which introduced SMS to the railway industry in 2001. The draft report said TWA was not yet in a position to identify hazards in any proactive way, and Transport Canada was not slated to conduct an on-site SMS assessment until April 2007. http://www.canada.com/calgaryherald/news/story.html?id=b3f461b1-690f-4155-91 99-6a402d4b520d ************** Pilots worried about 'stupid hobby' of shining laser lights at planes Reported incidents hit 11-year high Laser pointers can damage the retina or cause temporary blindness if they hit someone's eyes. (CBC)Canadian pilots aren't happy these days about the increasing number of laser beams being pointed at their cockpits. Transport Canada statistics regarding the number of reported incidents of lasers beam being pointed into the cockpits of airplanes have some pilots concerned the dangerous activity is becoming a growing trend. "We don't want this to become a bigger hobby - a bigger, stupid hobby," said Serge Beaulieu, spokesman for the Air Canada Pilots Association. Transport Canada's latest civil aviation daily occurrence reporting system reports show that 62 incidents of the bright lights being pointed into cockpits have been reported so far in 2008. Six of those incidents occurred at Montreal Trudeau International Airport in just the last week. Several incidents have also been reported in Winnipeg, Calgary and Toronto. According to the reporting system, a total of 101 laser beam incidents have been reported since 1997. In 2007, Transport Canada received 21 reports of lasers being directed at airplanes. While in 2005, there were only three reported incidents. Playing with safety "We want to put people on notice that this is dangerous, not funny, and you're potentially playing with the safety of people," Beaulieu said. Shining bright lights into the eyes of pilots can potentially be blinding, Beaulieu said, and it's especially of concern since many of the reported incidents have taken place during landings. "When we're doing takeoff or landing in an airplane, it's quite a busy time and we want to be full-up dealing with the task at hand," he said. "It's no time to get some yahoo flashing laser lights in the flight deck." The lasers that are being directed at planes at Trudeau appear to be coming from a location north of the airport, Beaulieu said. Astronomers' beams could be issue The lasers are likely the powerful green light beams used by astronomers that can travel several kilometres, said Andrew Fazekas, president of the Montreal branch of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada. "It's so powerful that the beam travels many kilometres into the atmosphere and the end of this green laser actually looks like it touches the stars," Fazekas said. "They can cut through thick cardboards . You can light a match across the room just pointing this [type of] laser." The powerful lasers are widely available and cost about $1,000, he said. Smaller ones can be purchased for as little as $80. The number of reported incidents are increasingly becoming a safety concern, said Barry Wiszniowski, acting technical and safety division chair with the Air Canada Pilots Association. "If it's a distraction during the most critical time of the flight where the pilot's being totally disoriented or temporarily visually impaired it could have catastrophic ramifications," Wiszniowski said. Pilots are being told to look down and avoid making eye contact with the laser beam if one is being pointed into the cockpit, Wiszniowski said, and to report all incidents. Retina damage possible If pointed directly into a person's eyes, the lasers can cause permanent damage to the retina, which could jeopardize a pilot's career. Beaulieu said the pilots association will be "pushing very, very hard" to make sure anyone caught pointing the lights at airplanes "are dealt with harshly." Under the federal Aeronautics Act, people found guilty of shining lights at aircraft can be fined a maximum of $100,000 or face five years in prison. Earlier this year, a 29-year-old Calgary resident became the first person in Canada to be charged with endangering a flight by shining a bright light into the cockpit. He was fined $1,000 and ordered to forfeit his laser. http://www.cbc.ca/canada/manitoba/story/2008/11/12/planes-lasers.html *************** Hawaiian Airlines buys another jet Pacific Business News (Honolulu) - Hawaiian Airlines has bought another wide-body Airbus A330-200 jet. The new jet will join the two other A330s announced two weeks ago. The company, a subsidiary of Hawaiian Holdings (Nasdaq: HA), said the jet, along with one of the other two jets, will join the airline's fleet in the second quarter of 2010. The third jet will join the fleet in 2011. "These commitments to increasing the size of our fleet and to bringing the new aircraft to Hawaii two years earlier than planned deepen Hawaiian's already substantial investment in our home state and its economy," said Mark Dunkerley, Hawaiian's president and CEO, in a statement. "This is great news for the future of our company, our employees and Hawaii's visitor industry." The wide-body A330-200 jet seats 298 passengers in a two-class configuration, increasing the carrier's seating capacity. In February, the company announced its $4.4 billion deal for 12 new jets from Airbus with purchase rights for 12 more. Those jets are scheduled to be delivered in 2012. Shares of Hawaiian Holdings stock closed down 4.3 percent to $6.37. ************* Obama to face tough choices in aviation When he takes the oath of office in January, President-elect Barack Obama will inherit a poorly funded Federal Aviation Administration, an aging air-traffic-control system and a domestic airline industry eyed for takeover by foreign rivals. "It doesn't get any more broke than this," says Kevin Mitchell, chairman of the Business Travel Coalition. http://www.smartbrief.com/news/asta/storyDetails.jsp?issueid=5C2906AD-7402-4 AA6-9078-E544A41BECC9©id=F980A610-5199-4DA8-8CE9-E2044F7DD698 *************** Boeing Delays 737 Deliveries, Will Fix Existing Fleet Nov. 12 (Bloomberg) -- Boeing Co., working to restore aircraft production after an eight-week strike, said it's delaying deliveries of 737s and will have to repair existing planes after a supplier failed to protect some parts from corrosion. The bad nutplates -- inch-long fasteners used to attach wiring and other parts to the inside of the 737's body -- have been in use since August 2007, said Vicki Ray, a spokeswoman in Seattle for Chicago-based Boeing. The company delivered 394 737s between August 2007 and October 2008, according to its Web site. "It's a big deal," said Michel Merluzeau, an aviation consultant at G2 Solution in Kirkland, Washington. "They're going to miss their production numbers by a huge margin this year." The situation with the 737, the world's most widely flown airplane, complicates Boeing's effort to resume shipments after a strike by machinists idled factories for two months through Nov. 2. The world's second-largest commercial planemaker, which was building more than 30 737s a month before the walkout, hasn't yet given customers a new timetable for their planes on order. "We're still assessing our delivery schedule, so this is one of the many things we're factoring in as we start up our delivery line," Ray said. Boeing is working with the Federal Aviation Administration on a plan to inspect and repair the affected planes that are already in use by airlines, she said. "It's not an immediate safety-of-flight issue," Ray said. "It's an issue that would potentially lead to early corrosion. The part itself is structurally fine." Spirit AeroSystems The nutplates were made by one of three suppliers to Wichita, Kansas-based Spirit AeroSystems Holdings Inc., which builds the fuselages and sends them on trains for final assembly at Boeing's plant in Renton, Washington. About 30 percent of the nutplates -- or everything made by that one supplier, which Spirit declined to identify -- weren't coated in the cadmium they need to keep them from corroding the aluminum fuselage. There are "several thousand" nutplates on each 737 fuselage, said Ken Evans, a Spirit spokesman. Spirit employees discovered the problem "a couple of months ago" and the company immediately suspended deliveries from that supplier and returned the ones in stock that weren't cadmium-coated, he said. "We're working with our supplier to investigate the root cause of this issue to make sure it won't happen again," Evans said. Spirit is a former Boeing unit. Flightglobal.com's Flightblogger, an aviation-industry Web site, said earlier today that there are 3,000 to 4,000 nutplates attached to each fuselage, depending on the model. FleetbuzzEditorial.com, another industry Web site, said Nov. 7 that Spirit and Boeing had tested the strength of the faulty nutplates and found no problems. The 737, which began flying in 1968, is used on short- and medium-range routes. The most recent models are valued at an average of $67.5 million at list prices and can hold from 110 to 189 passengers. Boeing has 2,299 737s on order, making up 62 percent of its total backlog through October. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=amf7ul5hrO.o&refer=us **************