25 DEC 2008 _______________________________________ *De-Icer Fumes Enter Cabin Of Alaska Airlines 737 *Market for Corporate Jets Goes Into Free-Fall *Trouble Started On Jet Before Swerving Off Runway *O'Hare has 3 jetliner incidents **************************************** De-Icer Fumes Enter Cabin Of Alaska Airlines 737 Twenty-Five Passengers And Crew Treated For Minor Discomfort Seven crewmembers onboard an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737-800 were taken to the hospital Wednesday, when fumes from the de-icing liquid being sprayed on the snow-covered airliner entered the cabin. CNN reports the seven were treated for relatively minor issues including eye irritation, dizziness and nausea. Eighteen passengers were also treated at the scene, according to officials with Sea-Tac International Airport. Flight 528 to Burbank, CA was being sprayed down with propylene glycol de-icing fluid when passengers started complaining of eye irritation, and difficulties breathing due to the fumes. A number of emergency vehicles responded to the scene, though some passengers complained of being held onboard the plane for as long as 45 minutes until they were finally allowed off. Propylene glycol has largely replaced ethylene glycol as the base for aircraft de-icing solution, due to the toxic properties of the latter. Generally consider safe in small doses -- propylene glycol is used in a variety of products, including food, cosmetics, and medicines -- large concentrations of the agent may still cause discomfort. As a rule, flight crews typically shut off the aircraft's auxiliary power unit and the heating and cooling packs to prevent fumes from entering the cabin during deice operations. Ground crews avoid spraying de-icer fluid near air inlet vents. Initial reports of two people being in critical condition after being overcome by the fumes were erroneous, said Alaska Airlines spokeswoman Caroline Boren. All 143 passengers ticketed on Flight 528 were later flown to Burbank on another plane. FMI: www.alaskaairlines.com aero-news.net ************** Market for Corporate Jets Goes Into Free-Fall Gulfstream A few months ago, there was a waiting list to buy the Gulfstream G650, above. Now, the demand for private jets is low. The automaker is dumping its corporate jets into what some participants say is the worst market they have ever seen. Just seven months ago, hundreds of mega-millionaires, including Ralph Lauren and David Geffen, were elbowing one another in the lineup to buy a $60 million Gulfstream G650, which was not expected to hit runways until 2012. It did not matter that $500,000 had to be wired to Gulfstream's account at a Midwest branch of JPMorgan Chase at exactly 12:01 a.m. on April 15, or that bidders who secured a place in the waiting line could not sell their rights if they changed their minds, according to one bidder. Some eager moguls even tried to improve their chances of getting a jet quicker by opening accounts at Chase's Midwest office. Among high-ticket status symbols, "me and my brand new jet" was it. But that was another era - before the credit crisis and before billions of dollars in corporate and individual wealth were lost. "The jet market stinks," said Richard Santulli, the chief executive of Netjets, the private jet company owned by Berkshire Hathaway, the holding company led by Warren E. Buffett. To control costs, companies including Citigroup and Time Warner are selling their jets. Alcatel-Lucent has allowed leases on two jets to expire without renewing them and has put its third jet up for sale. And the public relations fiasco that engulfed the chief executives of Detroit's automakers when they flew to Washington on company planes to seek a government bailout has underscored how inappropriate such travel can seem in this recession. General Motors, which leases seven planes, put the majority of them on the market before the government said it must do so as a condition of government assistance. The automaker has also closed its air transportation services unit, which had 49 employees. "We could not justify an in-house aircraft operation," a G.M. spokesman, Tom Wilkinson, said. "We are negotiating to transfer the remaining planes to another operator. Ford too has shut down its flight department." Jet brokers, who normally have a worldwide clientele, say the market has constricted abroad in recent months as well. "Our inventory is up dramatically, and demand is way down," said Josh Messinger, of J. Messinger Corporate Jet Sales, a jet broker. "The decline is particularly pronounced for those who bought more recently because prices had soared so much." "I spent a week in Dubai, and the front page of the paper there had articles every day about their economy having issues due to real estate issues," he said. Mr. Santulli said that the Russians had been big buyers of jets. "But the fall of the Russian stock market has had a huge impact," he said. "The Indian stock market stinks, and the dollar has gotten stronger, which hurts airplane sales." Because jets are priced in dollars, they become more expensive for foreigners as the dollar gets stronger. Among jets, the large-cabin, long-range segment of the market is suffering the most, said Bill Quinn, director of aircraft sales and acquisitions at Cerretani Aviation, based in Boulder, Colo. That includes planes from Gulfstream, Bombardier and Falcon. Carrying costs are high. A Gulfstream G550 costs about $47 million. Though expenses can vary by state, one mogul's business manager estimated that annual costs run about $1.3 million, including $500,000 for property tax and $400,000 for pilots and stewards. Typical operating costs are more than $2,000 an hour in the air, he said. The corporate side of the business is particularly vulnerable because of public scrutiny. "They are not going to do employee layoffs and keep the jets," said Mary Hevener, a tax adviser who specializes in executive compensation at Morgan Lewis & Bockius. Besides, Congress stripped away the deductibility of personal travel for executives in 2004 by allowing companies to deduct from taxes only the rough amount of a first-class ticket, far less than private jet travel costs. Corporate chiefs concerned about public scrutiny are more inclined to look for alternatives than to return to the airlines. Some are examining whether they should take delivery of planes already ordered. One company had been looking to upgrade its two planes. "Now they are weighing whether or not to buy new planes or keep what they have," Mr. Quinn said. Some are downsizing. "Some of these guys just move the deck chairs around," he said. "They get rid of the big planes and go to fractional ownership, or they go to charter, or they come back into the marketplace with a leased plane," he said. But every part of the private jet industry has been affected. Netjets lets people buy a fractional ownership in planes, and it sells Marquis jet cards that give customers access to the fleet in 25-hour increments. Those businesses, too, are seeing a slowdown. "People have lost a lot of money, and are careful about how they spend it," Mr. Santulli said. "I have never seen it like this," said Mike Silvestri, the chief executive of Flight Options, which sells shares in jets as well as plans that cover a fixed number of hours a year of private jet use. "Customers are just not flying as much." Some customers are stretching out the hours bought for a single year over a longer period. Flight Options has laid off 134 people, including 104 pilots, and hopes it will be able to bring them back. Mr. Santulli said that the jet market usually picks up three months after the stock market has reached a bottom. There is no indication of an uptick yet. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/25/business/25jets.html?em ************** Trouble Started On Jet Before Swerving Off Runway HOUSTON - Investigators spent another full day inside the wreckage of Continental Flight 1404 near a Denver runway as key findings took shape in the probe of what happened to that flight, Local 2 Investigates reported on Tuesday. National Transportation Safety Board teams said they found no evidence of problems with the engines, the landing gear, the tires, or the brakes before the flight crashed on takeoff Saturday night. Tire marks were spotted at the 1,900-foot mark on the runway, some 700-feet before the plane veered left off the runway, NTSB Board Member Robert Sumwalt told a Monday night briefing. Sumwalt also revealed the cockpit voice recordings, known as black box recordings, sounded ordinary during the preflight and taxi portion of the flight. Forty-one seconds after takeoff, Sumwalt said, "There became a bumping and rattling that started and that continued through the end of the recording." Four seconds later, he said one of the crew members was heard calling for the takeoff to be aborted as the Boeing 737 jet kept building speed down the runway. NTSB investigators began interviewing the lead pilot, Capt. David Butler, of Houston, as he recovered in a Denver hospital on Tuesday. They also concluded interviewing 36-year-old First Officer Chad Levang, of Montgomery, north of Houston. Federal Aviation Administration records show Butler had logged 10,000 flying hours, including 4,900 in a Boeing 737 while Levang had logged 7,300 hours, including 1,500 in that model aircraft. Levang told investigators he noticed trouble at a speed of around 90-knots, but the NTSB found the plane kept accelerating to 119-knots, or 137 miles an hour. Sumwalt said, "He noticed a deviation from the runway center line and then a sudden left turn." While other pilots, including one veteran 737 pilot for Continental, told Local 2 Investigates the description of the "bumping and rattling" sounded like tire problems, the NTSB found no evidence that tires were to blame. Sumwalt said all tires on the main landing gear seemed to be inflated properly when the plane skidded off the runway, with only one tire showing a puncture that he attributed to the impact. "The brake manifolds showed no leaks," Sumwalt said, adding that the brakes had "plenty of life" left on them and they did not appear to have locked up during the takeoff or the crash. The front landing gear has not yet been inspected since it remains lodged beneath the wreckage, but other pilots told Local 2 Investigates they cannot envision a scenario where a damaged or blown tire would force the jet out of control or prompt a pilot to abort a takeoff at high speed, a maneuver called a "high speed abort." NTSB investigators said they heard no reports from other pilots or air traffic controllers that winds or wind sheer were issues around the time of the flight, and they had also found no debris on the runway that could cause such a crash. Also Tuesday, one NTSB team was planning to begin interviewing other Continental crew members who had recently flown with either the pilot or the co-pilot. Continental declined to identify any of its crew, including one pilot who was aboard the jet and helped to rescue several people from the fiery fuselage. That pilot had just flown the plane into Denver and was seated as a passenger when Flight 1404 crashed. He reported that the plane had no problems in its flight into Denver. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28371715/ ************* O'Hare has 3 jetliner incidents CHICAGO, Dec. 25 (UPI) -- Chicago's O'Hare International Airport had three minor jetliner incidents Christmas Eve, including one aircraft that slid off a taxiway officials said. The Chicago Tribune reported American Airlines Flight 1544 hit some ice and slid off the taxiway after leaving the gate at 6:42 p.m. None of the 54 passengers or crew of five aboard were hurt, American Airlines spokeswoman Mary Frances Fagan said. Alternate flight arrangements were being made for the passengers. Fagan said the aircraft, which was headed to Washington, was not going very fast and was making a turn onto the runway when the accident occurred. She said only the left main nose tire went off the pavement. The cause of the incident, which forced the temporary closure of the runway, was being investigated. In a separate incident, CNN reported officials said that shortly after 6:30 p.m. another American Airlines jetliner that had just taken off with 76 passengers and a crew of five en route to St. Louis was forced to return because of an engine problem. The aircraft was about 15 miles south of the airport when the pilot radioed in the "engine issue" problem, CNN said. "We were about maybe a minute or two into the flight, and we heard a loud bang that we thought was landing gear," a passenger told CNN affiliate WLS. "But then the plane kind of tilted a little bit and shuddered a little bit, and then the pilot came on about 10 seconds later and said our right engine had gone out, had blown, and we were going to turn around and make an emergency landing back at O'Hare." Meanwhile, the Tribune reported a fire department official said United Flight 766 from Orange County, Calif., landed safely after the crew requested that emergency crews stand by because of a suspected mechanical issue. That incident occurred about 9:30 p.m. ***************