09 FEB 2009 _______________________________________ *Engine teardown to explore 737, A320 bird-strike similarities *FAA works with authorities for controllers to regain cockpit access *Cessna 650 Citation III Accident (Italy) *Overweight suspected as 19-seater crashes with 28 on board *24 bodies recovered from Brazil plane crash *EMB-110P1 Bandeirante Accident ( Brazil) *Boeing 747-475 Unable to Retract Gear (New Zealand) *Buffett’s NetJets Europe May Buy Airports to Win Runway Access *Qantas sacks fake engineer *FAA to loosen fuel-tank safety rules, benefiting Boeing's 787 *Southwest Airlines flight OK after haz-mat scare *Boeing Names Aldo Basile VP Of Sales For Europe, Russia And Central Asia *************************************** Engine teardown to explore 737, A320 bird-strike similarities Investigators are to strip down the engines of a Ryanair Boeing 737-800 next week to examine the extent of damage caused when the jet struck birds on approach to Rome Ciampino three months ago. As many as 90 starlings hit the aircraft as it prepared to land on 10 November, says the Italian investigation authority Agenzia Nazionale per la Sicurezza del Volo. There is particular interest in the inquiry, it says, because both CFM International CFM56 engines were struck and the incident bears "similarity" with the dual loss of thrust experienced by the US Airways Airbus A320 which hit birds before ditching in New York's Hudson River. Both the Ryanair 737 and the US A320 were fitted with CFM56s. ANSV says the tear-down of the 737's powerplants will take place at the GE Aviation's UK facilities in Cardiff. Some 20 personnel connected with the investigation will be in attendance. "The aim is to verify in detail the damage suffered by both engines, in order to understand better the engines' performance following the birds' ingestion," says ANSV. "Being the same engines involved in both events, the tear-down activity is of utmost importance, in order to gather data to see whether any commonality may exist between the two events." All 172 passengers and crew survived the hard landing which followed the Ciampino bird-strike but the 737 was badly damaged. Source: Air Transport Intelligence news ************** FAA works with authorities for controllers to regain cockpit access Staff at FAA are working to reinstate a programme allowing access to cockpits by air traffic controllers for learning purposes. The programme was discontinued after the September 2001 terrorists attacks due to security concerns, says agency COO of the air traffic organization Hank Krakowski in a recent update. Krakowski explains tightening access after the attacks also restricted fellow pilots from riding in the cockpit, but that issue has been solved through system to identify pilot legitimacy. FAA is designing a similar scheme for controllers says Krakowski, but it has become more complicated that originally anticipated. "We were hoping to have it done before Bobby [former acting administrator Robert Sturgell] left," he notes. "But we have to work with DHS and TSA to make sure we're doing it right." Source: Air Transport Intelligence news *************** Cessna 650 Citation III Accident (Italy) Status: Preliminary - official Date: 07 FEB 2009 Time: 06:30 Type: Cessna 650 Citation III Operator: Air One Executive Registration: I-FEEV C/n / msn: 650-0105 First flight: Crew: Fatalities: 2 / Occupants: 2 Passengers: Fatalities: 0 / Occupants: 0 Total: Fatalities: 2 / Occupants: 2 Airplane damage: Written off Airplane fate: Written off (damaged beyond repair) Location: Trigoria (Italy) Phase: En route (ENR) Nature: Ambulance Departure airport: Roma-Ciampino Airport (CIA/LIRA), Italy Destination airport: Bologna Airport (BLQ/LIPE), Italy Narrative: The Cessna Citation struck the ground at high speed. Weather about the time of the accident (05:30 Z) was reported as: LIRA 070515Z 14018KT 9999 -RA FEW018 SCT030 BKN070 13/10 Q0992= (at 06:15 local wind 140 degrees at 18kts, light rain, few clouds 1,800 ft., scattered clouds 3,000 ft., broken clouds 7,000 ft., temperature 13°C, dew point 10°C, 992 mb) LIRA 070545Z 16018KT 8000 -RA FEW014 SCT025 BKN070 13/11 Q0992= (at 06:15 local wind 160 degrees at 18kts, light rain, few clouds 1,400 ft., scattered clouds 2,500 ft., broken clouds 7,000 ft., temperature 13°C, dew point 11°C, 992 mb) (aviation-safety.net) *************** Overweight suspected as 19-seater crashes with 28 on board A Manaus Aerotaxi operated Embraer EMB-110 Bandeirante, crashed into the Manacapuru river near Manaus in the Brazilian Amazonas region, on 7 February leaving 24 of its 28 occupants dead. The aircraft, local registration PT-SEA, had an in-flight engine failure while enroute from Coari to Manaus, say local news reports, citing survivors from the aircraft. These reports say the pilot attempted an emergency ditching but the aircraft hit a tree and crashed into the river. The four survivors say they escaped through the rear door of the aircraft but because the aircraft quickly sank, the remaining occupants drowned. The Brazilian air force says it has retrieved 24 bodies from the river. The cause of the crash remains unclear but the aircraft had 28 people on board, which is more than this aircraft type is permitted to carry because the EMB-110 is a 19-seat passenger aircraft. A source at Manaus airport tells ATI the aircraft had 20 passenger seats. But there is no confirmation that the airline was certified to operate flights with more than 20 passengers. He also says the passenger list only includes 20 passenger names. There were also two pilots on board so that means six of the passengers apparently travelled without adequate documentation. An airline employee talking to ATI denies the aircraft was overweight. He was unable to give further information on how 28 people could have travelled on the aircraft except to say there were "several children travelling on their parent's lap". Some local reports say there were eight children on board. A local civil defence source says the police are already examining the documentation with the hypothesis that the aircraft was overloaded, making it hard for the pilot to manoeuvre it. "But the final cause will obviously be determined by the ANAC," says the source, referring to Agência Nacional de Aviação Civil, which is Brazil's civil aviation authority. Source: Air Transport Intelligence news *************** 24 bodies recovered from Brazil plane crash SAO PAULO (AP) — Brazilian authorities say they have recovered the bodies of 24 people who were aboard a small plane that crashed in the Amazon jungle after an apparent engine malfunction. Firefighter Maj. Jair Ruas Braga says the bodies were found inside the twin turboprop plane which crashed in a river about 50 miles (80 kilometers) from the jungle town of Manaus. Braga says seven children were among the dead, which also included nine women and eight men. A 9-year-old child was among four people who survived the Saturday afternoon crash. Relatives of the survivors say an engine apparently malfunctioned just before the plane went down. Braga said Sunday the cause of the accident was under investigation. ***** EMB-110P1 Bandeirante Accident ( Brazil) Status: Preliminary Date: 07 FEB 2009 Time: 13:50 Type: Embraer EMB-110P1 Bandeirante Operator: Manaus Aerotáxi Registration: PT-SEA C/n / msn: 110352 First flight: 1981 Engines: 2 Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6A-34 Crew: Fatalities: 2 / Occupants: 2 Passengers: Fatalities: 22 / Occupants: 26 Total: Fatalities: 24 / Occupants: 28 Airplane damage: Written off Airplane fate: Written off (damaged beyond repair) Location: near Santo António, Rio Manacapuru, AM (Brazil) Phase: En route (ENR) Nature: Domestic Scheduled Passenger Departure airport: Coari Airport, AM (CIZ/SWKO), Brazil Destination airport: Manaus-Eduardo Gomes International Airport, AM (MAO/SBEG), Brazil Narrative: The Bandeirante passenger plane departed the Amazon city of Coari on a domestic flight to Manaus. Press reports indicate that the pilot contacted Manaus ATC about one hour after takeoff. He stated his intentions of returning to Coari due to heavy rainfall en route. Contact with the flight was lost shortly afterward. The airplane descended and crashed in the Manacapuru River. Four passengers were found alive by rescue personnel. One of the four survivors told local media that one of the plane's engines failed during flight. The airplane involved, an EMB-110P1, has a (certificated) maximum number of passenger seats of ninenteen. On the accident flight 26 passengers had boarded the flight, including eight small children. (aviation-safety.net) *************** Boeing 747-475 Unable to Retract Gear (New Zealand) Date: 07-FEB-2009 Time: 7:15 pm loca Type: Boeing 747-475 Operator: Air New Zealand Registration: ZK-SUH C/n / msn: 24896/855 Fatalities: Fatalities: 0 / Occupants: 365 Airplane damage: None Location: Auckland - New Zealand Phase: Take off Nature: International Scheduled Passenger Departure airport: Auckland - AKL Destination airport: Los Angeles - LAX Narrative: The flight NZ-6 could not retract the landing gear after takeoff from Auckland. The crew decided to dump fuel and return to Auckland, where the airplane landed safely 90 minutes after takeoff. Sources: http://avherald.com/h?article=414ab182&opt=0 (aviation-safety.net) **************** Buffett’s NetJets Europe May Buy Airports to Win Runway Access Feb. 9 (Bloomberg) -- Warren Buffett’s NetJets Inc. private- aircraft venture may seek to acquire control of more small airports around Europe in order to improve access to runways and reduce travel times for its executive clientele. “If there’s a good opportunity to buy an airport, we may well do that,” Bill Kelly, chief executive officer of the venture’s NetJets Europe division, said in a telephone interview. He didn’t identify potential targets. NetJets is buying a small-plane airfield in Egelsbach, a commuter town south of Frankfurt, to provide private-jet travelers with faster trips to Germany’s financial capital. Kelly didn’t rule out acquiring more airports should doing so help London-based NetJets Europe offer better flight connections. NetJets has no interest in becoming an airport company and its only motivation is to improve runway access, he said. Global air-passenger traffic declined for a fourth consecutive month in December as the recession and financial crisis hurt travel, according to figures from the International Air Transport Association. The economic contraction has affected NetJets Europe, causing a drop in private-jet flights of as much as 20 percent since October, Kelly said. “Certainly, 2009 is going to be tough,” he said in the interview on Jan. 30. The company has pushed back “by a couple of years” deliveries of as many as seven light jets scheduled in 2009, and will add only three to five of these planes this year, Kelly said. Wealthy private clients have scaled back flights more than corporate customers, he said. Kelly declined to say whether NetJets Europe will make a profit this year. The company was profitable in 2008, he said, without providing a figure. NetJets sells time shares in private aircraft under a system known as fractional ownership. New Opportunities The financial-industry turmoil is also an opportunity to win more corporate travelers, Kelly said. “No CEO is going to go into his board in this day and age and say, ‘Can I have $50 million to buy a Gulfstream’” private jet. NetJets has “a number of prospects in the pipeline for fractional sales,” he said, without giving details. Egelsbach airport will be the first airfield owned by NetJets Europe, a unit of U.S. billionaire investor Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. NetJets is acquiring the strip from the municipality of Egelsbach and neighboring communities for about 3.7 million euros ($4.7 million) and plans to invest 30 million euros to 40 million euros on upgrades. Frankfurt ‘Chock-a-Block’ The private-jet company decided to bid on the Egelsbach assets after struggling to fly to Fraport AG’s Frankfurt international airport, 10 kilometers (6 miles) north of the suburb, which is “chock-a-block” amid constraints on flights, Kelly said. Frankfurt airport is Europe’s third-busiest by passenger numbers, after London’s Heathrow and Paris’s Charles de Gaulle, and is building a fourth runway to ease capacity limits. “When our customers want to go there, we have a success rate of perhaps 30-40 percent of getting access to Frankfurt,” forcing NetJets to fly to Frankfurt-Hahn airport about 100 kilometers to the west, Kelly said. The Egelsbach purchase will allow better connections to the city of Frankfurt, which is home to “lots of high-net-worth individuals,” he said. The transaction is a “huge opportunity to grow our German market.” Egelsbach airport doesn’t serve scheduled airlines. Its vendors had to invest about 500,000 euros last year to keep the unprofitable operation in business. “We don’t expect to be profitable at the airport until 2015- 2016,” Kelly said. Making the airport profitable “is not our No. 1 priority,” as the main goal is to “get more customers into NetJets.” Flights by NetJets may serve Egelsbach as early as midyear, Scott Forbes, the plane operator’s director of corporate strategy, said in an interview. *************** Qantas sacks fake engineer QANTAS has allowed an unqualified employee to undertake critical and specialist maintenance work on its aircraft, The Age can reveal, in the latest blow to the safety reputation of the airline. Last night the Civil Aviation Safety Authority said it had ordered Qantas to immediately identify all the work done by the employee over the past two years and assess the risk to air safety of each piece of work. A CASA directive identified the employee as Glen Townsend, and well-placed airline sources said the man had been working as a licensed engineer in Sydney, work he was not qualified to do, on aircraft used for domestic and international flights. The authority has also ordered an audit of the qualifications of all Qantas licensed engineers — a process that Qantas said it is undertaking. CASA spokesman Peter Gibson said the issue was serious as licensed engineers are required to have the highest-possible qualifications and sign off and supervise the maintenance work done by others. He said responsibility for checking qualifications lies with the airline that employs licensed engineers. The latest case follows the sentencing in December of Timothy McCormack to a minimum of two years' jail after he faked qualifications to work as a licensed engineer at Qantas. McCormack had been employed as a lower-level maintenance engineer but started wearing the uniform of a licensed engineer and performing more important tasks. It can often take 10 years training to work as a licensed engineer, with 25 basic exams, a four-year apprenticeship and hundreds of hours learning to work on a particular type of aircraft. A Qantas spokesman confirmed that the latest case involved an employee who was an aircraft maintenance engineer who was doing work "he was not licensed to do". The spokesman said the matter was being treated "very seriously" and the man's employment had been terminated. He was qualified to undertake Boeing 767 maintenance work but not to certify the work of other engineers. "We do not believe there are any flight safety issues," the Qantas spokesman said. Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association federal secretary Steve Purvinas expressed regret at the latest incident. "He is not a member of ours but it is very disappointing that people are falsifying records to try and acquire the same qualifications that we studied for many years ourselves to obtain," he said. Mr Purvinas said CASA was ineffective. "I don't blame Qantas; they only work within the framework and guidelines set by CASA," he said. "Some organisations are proactive, others with a little less foresight are reactive, but the only word we could use to describe CASA is inactive." Sources also blamed cut-backs to the Qantas training programs in recent years as part of the problem. The latest case follows a string of safety problems at Qantas last year including a mid-air drama where a 747 was forced to make an emergency landing after a hole was blown in its side. In another case an aircraft returned from maintenance in Malaysia with problems with its rudder and navigation systems while a flight attendant soon after received two electric shocks in the galley. Qantas was also involved with the engineers association in a long-running industrial dispute for much of last year that saw, at its peak in May and June, the grounding of scores of planes. The airline estimated about 100,000 passengers were either seriously delayed or had their flights cancelled during those eight weeks. http://www.theage.com.au/travel/travel-news/qantas-sacks-fake-engineer-20090 206-7zza.html ************** FAA to loosen fuel-tank safety rules, benefiting Boeing's 787 Boeing's 787 Dreamliner cannot meet the Federal Aviation Administration's current stringent standards for preventing sparks inside the fuel tank during a lightning strike, and the agency now calls those requirements "impractical" and proposes to loosen them. Proposed policy shift The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has quietly decided to loosen stringent fuel-tank safety regulations written after the 1996 fuel-tank explosion that destroyed flight TWA 800 off the coast of New York state. The FAA proposes to relax the safeguards for preventing sparks inside the fuel tank during a lightning strike, standards the agency now calls "impractical" and Boeing says its soon-to-fly 787 Dreamliner cannot meet. Instead of requiring three independent protection measures for any feature that could cause sparking, the revised policy would allow some parts to have just one safeguard. Boeing has worked closely with the FAA to make the change in time for the 787 Dreamliner, whose airframe built of composite plastic makes lightning protection a special challenge. But the move has stirred intense opposition inside the local FAA office from the technical specialists — most of them former Boeing engineers — responsible for certifying new airplane designs. The national union representing about 190 Seattle-based FAA engineers this past Tuesday submitted a formal critique to the agency, calling the new policy "an unjustified step backward in safety." In a lightning storm, the critique said, the less stringent rules could leave a commercial airliner "one failure away from catastrophe." FAA management, contradicting its own technical staff, argues that relaxing the spark-prevention standard is balanced by new technology to reduce fuel-tank flammability that will increase safety overall. And Boeing experts insist the 787 will be safer in a lightning storm than any jet flying today. Jim Hall, the former National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) chairman who oversaw the TWA 800 investigation, said he's disappointed in the FAA but not surprised. "It appears that management has overruled the judgment of the people that have day-to-day responsibility for the safety of aircraft," Hall said. The TWA 800 rule The average commercial airplane is hit by lightning about twice a year, Boeing estimates. A dangerous electrical spark may occur if current passing through an airframe reaches a small gap between metal parts and jumps across the gap. Yet because of well-developed protection systems, it's been more than 45 years since a U.S. airliner was brought down by lightning. The rules the FAA is now reinterpreting have been in place since 2001 after the investigation into the TWA 800 fuel-tank explosion that killed all 230 people on board the 747 jumbo jet. While investigators concluded that the likely cause of the spark that triggered that explosion was faulty wiring, they set up standards to prevent fuel-tank ignition from any source, including a lightning storm. The rules address two distinct areas: preventing sparks in the tank and reducing the flammability of the vapor inside the tank. Current policy dictates that airplane engineers must design three independent layers of protection in any conceivable scenario that could produce a spark. "To this day, we have not had one manufacturer that has been able to demonstrate compliance with that rule," said Ali Bahrami, head of the FAA's Seattle office dealing with commercial-airplane certification. "We decided it's time to re-evaluate our approach." Airbus applied for certification of its newest plane, the A380, before the regulation, so it did not have to comply. The FAA granted exemptions in 2006 and 2007 to plane makers Dassault Aviation, of France, and Hawker Beechcraft, of Wichita, Kan., allowing them to certify their Falcon 7X and Hawker 4000 business jets with only two independent layers of protection on the wing-skin fasteners. In a detailed briefing on the 787's protection systems, two high-level Boeing lightning experts — who spoke on condition that they not be named — said the Dreamliner cannot meet the requirement. "Boeing spent years trying to develop triple layers of structural lightning protection for every 787 fuel-tank fastener and joint, but we were unable to identify the technical means at many locations in the wings," one said. The FAA will accept formal comments on the policy change through Feb. 13. The critique submitted by the FAA certification engineers' union, the National Air Traffic Controllers Association union (NATCA), acknowledges that the existing regulation is strict. It may have to be revised in some way, said one FAA certification specialist, who, like other agency engineers interviewed for this story, asked not to be named to avoid retribution. "A bunch of us are in agreement as to how we can do that and maintain safety," he said. "But it's not what our management is trying to do in allowing catastrophic single failures." Potential sparks The new FAA policy memo identifies three places where the failure of a single protection measure could produce a gap where sparking might occur, though each is a remote possibility. The concerned FAA engineers detailed where these three vulnerabilities are on the 787: • The aluminum shear ties that attach the wing ribs to the spars could crack. • A wing-skin fastener could break, popping the sealant on the head. • On fasteners inside the fuel tank, a coat of sealant covering a gap between fastener head and sleeve could deteriorate. The two Boeing lightning experts said the company has studied each of these scenarios closely. Indeed, Boeing lightning lab tests in 2007 revealed an unexpected amount of sparking inside the 787's wing tank as then designed, caused by gaps between fastener heads and sleeves. In response, Boeing's engineers turned around thousands of fasteners, putting the heads on the outside instead of inside the fuel tank. Following this redesign, engineers weighed the worst-case lightning threat at every location and demonstrated that there was sufficient margin to rule out sparking. For those fasteners that couldn't be turned around, a brush coat of sealant was added as an extra precaution, the Boeing experts said. "The issue is totally resolved now," one of the experts said. Likewise, the Boeing engineers said, shear-tie cracks and broken fasteners have proven not susceptible to sparking under the worst-case level of lightning current. "The level of detailed design, test, and analysis (in the 787's wing-tank lightning protection) ... is greater than has been conducted previously in aviation," one said. Reducing vapor The FAA claims the less stringent anti-sparking rule is balanced by an important new safety feature of the 787: its fuel-tank inerting system. As the level of fuel inside the wing falls during flight, the system pumps inert (nonflammable) nitrogen gas into the space created. That hugely reduces the danger of flammable vapor. When the original 2001 rule was written, the FAA stated that it would consider relaxing the ignition-source rules in the future if there was improvement in the technology to lower flammability — "such as full-time fuel-tank inerting." By all accounts, the 787's inerting system is very effective. But there's a catch: The FAA is not requiring that it be "full time." If a 787's inerting system breaks down, to save the expense of grounding the plane, an airline will be free to continue to operate it for 10 days while waiting for replacement parts. That's despite an internal recommendation from one of Boeing's own safety-engineering team leaders in November 2005 that the 787's inerting system should be required to be working before takeoff. During those 10 days, the possibility — however remote — of potential failures in the three areas with single anti-spark features looms as unacceptably dangerous to the FAA engineers represented by NATCA. "This inerting system, if it was full time, it would definitely be an acceptable level of safety," said a second FAA engineer who has worked on the 787's certification. But without that assurance, he said, to fly on a Dreamliner out of a lightning-prone airport in the summer is a risk he's not prepared to take. "I wouldn't put my family on a 787 out of Miami," said the engineer, who formerly worked for Boeing. In contrast, Boeing's 787 lightning-team leader sees the inerting system as a bonus safety feature rather than an essential requirement. He is willing to rely on Boeing's exhaustive testing of every potential spark point in the wing. "I wouldn't hesitate to get on the plane," he said. "I know more about the structural protection on this airplane than I do on anything else we've ever built." FAA, Boeing too close? Tomaso DiPaolo, NATCA's aircraft-certification national representative, charges that when FAA engineers raised their safety concerns internally management simply removed them from the team developing the new policy. The FAA ignored its own technical people, he said, while making sure Boeing agreed with the policy change. "It's another example of the FAA getting too close to industry," said DiPaolo. "It appears that whatever Boeing wants, Boeing gets." A Boeing internal document reviewed by The Seattle Times shows the company had a "team to assist FAA in wording of interpretation" of the lightning rule for the 787 as far back as August 2004, just eight months after the new jet program launched. The FAA's Bahrami insisted that the policy change has been crafted to work for all airplane manufacturers with no special treatment of Boeing. "Boeing is only one customer," Bahrami said. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/boeingaerospace/2008719843_lightning08 .html ************** Southwest Airlines flight OK after haz-mat scare Oxygen masks deployed and heartbeats raced as a Southwest Airlines flight declared an emergency while on approach to Las Vegas Thursday night. During the flight, passengers say something inside the cabin started to smell and burn their eyes. News 3's Steve Crupi reports that even some of the passengers who didn't require medical treatment were gagging and spitting in the aisle as they tried to cope with a noxious odor that suddenly permeated the cabin. The pilot radioed-in shortly before the plane's scheduled arrival that there was some type of on-board situation involving a strong odor which required emergency attention. More than 100 people on the plane made it out just fine. When firefighters boarded the plane, they could not detect an unusual odor of any kind. "It affected a handful of people toward the back," confirms Scott Allison, Clark County Fire Department. "Everybody was able to breath in oxygen off the plane." Among the passengers on the flight was a young woman coming to Las Vegas for her wedding. "My eyes were burning, oxygen was out of there," says Jessica Hornbeck. Passengers say it felt like pepper spray, but one of the pilots thought an electrical problem may have been the cause. The haz-mat team has given the all-clear and it is now up to Southwest Airlines to conduct a further investigation. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29056690/ *************** Boeing Names Aldo Basile VP Of Sales For Europe, Russia And Central Asia Has Over 30 Years' Experience At Planemaker Boeing recently named Aldo Basile its new Boeing Commercial Airplanes vice president of Sales for Europe, Russia and Central Asia. Basile succeeds Marlin Dailey, who recently became Boeing Commercial Airplanes vice president Sales. Based at the Commercial Airplanes European headquarters in London, Basile is responsible for the company's commercial airplane sales activity across the region. Much of his sales team is strategically located close to Boeing customers throughout Europe and Russia; several team members are based in Seattle. Basile has been with Commercial Airplanes Sales since 1989. Most recently, Basile served as vice president Sales for several European countries based in Paris. Basile has more than 30 years of experience at Boeing, joining in 1978. He started within the Marketing organization, where he spent one year in Market Analysis. He then moved to the Airline Analysis group in 1979. In 1985, he became director of the Airline Analysis organization, leading a team providing financial and market analysis in support of both Boeing Sales and customer airlines. Basile's career began in 1973 at Aeritalia, the Italian aircraft manufacturer now known as Alenia. He was responsible for Aircraft Performance and later, for Product Development at Aeritalia, working in the 7X7 joint-venture program at Boeing facilities in Seattle. Basile earned a bachelor's degree in aeronautical engineering from the University of Naples in 1971. In 1980, he earned a master's degree in business administration from Seattle University. FMI: www.boeing.com aero-news.net ************** CURT LEWIS & ASSOCIATES, LLC