04 JUN 2009 _______________________________________ *NTSB Will Assist In Air France Crash Investigation *US Navy Joins Search For Missing Airbus *Honeywell Recorders Probably Pinging as French Search for Jet *Air France Crash May Show Pilots Can Be Overwhelmed by Weather *France orders deep-sea vessel to A330 search area *A summary of the final messages from Flight 447 *Pilot error blamed for fatal One-Two-Go crash in Phuket *Southwest flight returns to Oakland after lightning strike *TSA Blocks Delta Flights To 2 African Cities On Security *Mexico grounds airline, deeming planes unsafe **************************************** NTSB Will Assist In Air France Crash Investigation Assistance Requested By The French Government The National Transportation Safety Board has accepted an invitation from the French aviation accident investigation authority, the Bureau d'Enqu^tes et d'Analyses (BEA), to assist in the investigation of Air France flight 447, the A-330 that crashed in the Atlantic Ocean off the Brazilian coast on Monday morning. NTSB Acting Chairman Mark V. Rosenker has designated senior air safety investigator Bill English as the U.S. Accredited Representative. The U.S. team will also include technical advisors from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), General Electric and Honeywell. The missing aircraft, an Airbus A330-200, registered as F-GZCP, was MSN (Manufacturer Serial Number) 660, delivered to Air France from the production line in April 2005. The aircraft had accumulated approximately 18,800 flight hours in some 2,500 flights. It was powered by CF6-80E1 engines. FMI: www.ntsb.gov, www.bea.aero/index.php aero-news.net ************** US Navy Joins Search For Missing Airbus P-3C Orion Crew Will Assist In The Effort A U.S. Navy aircrew joined the international search for survivors and debris on Tuesday from an Air France aircraft that went missing yesterday off the Brazilian coast, U.S. Southern Command officials announced. The P-3C Orion and its 21 crewmembers reported to Augusto Severo Airfield in Natal, Brazil, Monday, and joined search operations for Air France Flight 447 today, officials said. The crew deployed from its forward operating location in Comalapa Air Base, El Salvador, where it was supporting regional illicit trafficking detection and reporting operations, officials said. U.S. Southern Command dispatched the aircraft and crew after Brazilian officials accepted the command's offer to assist with the search. Southcom also directed a combat rescue officer from Joint Task Force-Bravo, located at Soto Cano Air Base in Honduras, to Recife, Brazil. There, he will help the Brazilian Rescue Coordination Center coordinate rescue assets, officials said. Air traffic controllers lost contact with the Air France Airbus A330-200 aircraft during a severe lightning storm after takeoff from Rio de Janiero. The aircraft, bound for Paris, disappeared with 228 passengers aboard. A Brazilian air force crew reported Tuesday that they had spotted debris floating in the South Atlantic that could have come from the aircraft. FMI: http://www.navy.mil/navydata/fact_display.asp?cid=1100&tid=1400&ct=1 aero-news.net *************** Honeywell Recorders Probably Pinging as French Search for Jet June 4 (Bloomberg) -- Honeywell International Inc.'s so- called black box recorders on Air France Flight 447 are probably signaling investigators from the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. The trick is figuring out where to listen. The data and voice recorders on the jet that crashed off eastern Brazil on June 1 with 228 people aboard have a water- activated "pinger" that runs for 30 days. Honeywell certifies that the boxes will remain intact as deep as 3.8 miles (6.1 kilometers), about twice the depth of where French officials estimate the wreckage to be located. "We expect the box to be pinging," said Bill Reavis, a spokesman for Honeywell Aerospace Inc. in Phoenix. "The box is configured to withstand a high impact." Investigators are concerned they may not find the signal because the ocean is "not only deep but mountainous" in that area, Paul Louis Arslanian, head of the French Aviation Accidents Investigation Bureau, told reporters yesterday in Paris. The inquiry "is difficult, but not the most difficult we've ever had," he said. Searchers will probably use underwater microphones to help track the signal, among the processes that often prove successful in locating debris, said John Nance, who runs a Seattle aviation consulting firm under his name. The recorders are likely to be found as well, he said. "Those things are almost indestructible and they almost always find them," said Nance, a retired Air Force and commercial airline pilot with 40 years of flying. "If they can narrow down the search field and bring in the right equipment to hear it, I think they've got a good chance of finding them." Underwater Mountains The strength of the audible pinging signal may be affected by colder water near the ocean floor. If ocean temperatures are constant, a pinger 2.8 miles below can be heard from the surface, said Reavis, who wouldn't speculate on whether the boxes will be found. In this case, with varying water temperatures, searches with underwater microphones may be necessary, he said. Investigators will have to contend with "constant" severe thunderstorms at this time of year, with wind gusts to 50 miles per hour that whip up high waves, as well as underwater mountain ranges, said Henry Margusity, a meterologist at State College, Pennsylvania-based AccuWeather.com. "It's a hilly area on the ocean floor, with some trenches that go deeper and some shallow areas" that are only a mile deep, Margusity said. The Atlantic is about 2 miles deep in the search area, according to AccuWeather.com, which gathers data on weather and topography. Searchers are focusing on an area about 400 miles north of the Brazilian island of Fernando de Noronha, off the coast of the country's northeastern tip. Mini-Submarine France is sending a mini-submarine to the site that can dive 3.7 miles to recover data recorders once the wreckage is found, Energy Minister Jean-Louis Borloo said yesterday. Searchers will combine calculations of currents with scanning the ocean floor, said Richard Healing, former National Transportation Safety Board member and now a senior partner with R Cubed Consulting LLC in Alexandria, Virginia. "They are going to be able to use drift patterns and currents and winds on the surface" to find the wreckage, Healing said. "They should be able to go back and create what they believe would be a good starting point to look for debris. They can do bottom mapping, using sophisticated sonar." Earlier Crashes The NTSB has located "all the recorders from airliners that crashed into the sea in the last decade or so," said Ted Lopatkiewicz, a spokesman. At least one recorder was retrieved from about 16,000 feet below the Indian Ocean after a South African Airways Boeing Co. 747 crash in 1987, he said. The recorders are designed to withstand 3,400 times the force of gravity on impact, Reavis said. Honeywell, based in Morris Township, New Jersey, is not actively involved in the search at this point, he said. The black boxes are actually painted vivid orange to stand out from other equipment housed in black or gray casing. They are bolted to the frame of the aircraft near the tail and data have been recovered even when the inside is wet. The recorders for the deadly February crash near Buffalo, New York, of a flight operated by Pinnacle Airlines Corp.'s Colgan unit were retrieved. Seeking 'Pinger' A U.S. Navy ship found the flight data recorder of an Indonesian jet that crashed off the coast of South Sulawesi in January 2007, 24 days after the accident. The wreckage was on the ocean floor in 6,000 feet of water and the boxes were recovered "because the pinger was doing its job," Reavis said. The data boxes were retrieved in the ocean-floor wreckage of TWA Flight 800 that crashed in 1996 off the coast of East Moriches, New York, after a fuel-tank explosion, and the quality of the recording was "good" even though the magnetic tape used at the time was wet, according to the NTSB report on the incident. The recorders from Swissair Flight 111 that crashed in 1998 near Peggy's Cove, Nova Scotia, after an in-flight fire were also found, though a power failure stopped the recordings about 5 minutes before the plane went down, according to the Canadian Transportation Safety Board report. The black boxes of the jets that crashed into the World Trade Center towers in New York during the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, were never found. The recorders' capabilities are "vastly better" than 20 years ago when they included magnetic tape-recording devices with moving parts, said Bill Waldock, a crash investigation professor at Embry Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, Arizona. "If they're able to get a lock on the pinger in the next couple weeks, chances are pretty good they'll find them," he said. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aef3R2mi29Tk ************** Air France Crash May Show Pilots Can Be Overwhelmed by Weather June 4 (Bloomberg) -- The crash of an Air France jet this week over a remote stretch of the Atlantic Ocean may show the limits of pilots' ability to cope with severe weather even after decades of advances in technology, analysts said. The plane was traveling in an area that lacked coverage from ground-based radar, which controllers otherwise can use to help spot storms, said William Voss, head of the Flight Safety Foundation. With less than one flight an hour in the region, there also would have been few advance reports on conditions from other pilots, he said. The possibility that storms may have contributed to the crash is an early focus of inquiry as authorities search for the "black box" voice and data recorders that would provide more detailed information of what happened on board. While weather causes fewer crashes than in the past because of advances in radar, pilots still depend on outside guidance to steer clear of dangerous squalls. "No captain in his right mind would drill a modern airliner through a thunderstorm," said Jack Casey, a former airline pilot and consultant at Safety Operating Systems LLC in Washington. "It's just not done." The Airbus SAS A330-200, with 228 on board, appears to have flown into or near a large cluster of thunderstorms northeast of Fernando de Noronha, located off Brazil's coast, according to AccuWeather.com. Updrafts may have reached 100 mph, and the storms, stretching for over 400 miles (644 kilometers), towered as high as 50,000 feet, according to the weather service. Quick-Forming Storms It's possible that a pilot could misinterpret information on cockpit radar or that a storm could form so quickly as to catch the crew by surprise, Casey said. "The area of weather along that route of flight wasn't even there when the aircraft was leaving the coast," Voss said. Also possible is that the pilot could have taken manual control of the airliner during turbulence and in the "heat of battle" might have manipulated controls, overloading the airframe and leading to the accident, Casey said. "We're all just kind of groping in the dark on this thing," Casey said. "I don't know what happened out there over the Atlantic. I'm scratching my head. There were big thunderstorms in the area. What's new about that? Most accidents like this are an accumulation of little things." It's too early to pin the cause of the crash solely on weather, said Larry Burch, deputy director of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Aviation Weather Center in Kansas City, Missouri. "Weather may be have been a contributing factor," Burch said. "Whether it was the sole factor, no one knows." Around, Not Through Passenger planes typically fly around, rather than through, storms, Burch said. Commercial planes are equipped to avoid storms with radar and other computer equipment, Burch said. "That's why part of me thinks there's got to be some other reason that this happened," he said. "There are thunderstorms really big that may be difficult to go around. If this particular plane was on a given course that he couldn't go all the way around, that might have been something." Jim Hall, former chairman of the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board and now a partner with Nolan Law Group of Chicago, said "one of the things they are going to have to look at was what was the flight plan, and did they choose to continue through this area of activity because of reasons of fuel supply, or what the decision was." A Pulkovo Airlines flight crashed in the Ukraine in August 2006 after the pilot decided to try to climb over a storm, according to data posted on Flight Safety Foundation's Aviation Safety Network Web site. Human Error The Ukraine thunderstorm network was unusually high, extending up to 49,000 feet, according to the Web site. The plane entered severe turbulence, the nose of the plane rose to 46 degrees and the aircraft entered a deep stall from which it didn't recover, according to the Web site. Russia's Interstate Aviation Committee blamed the crash, which killed all 170 aboard the Russian Tupolev TU-154, on human error. Because of technology advances, weather-related accidents are far less common than those caused by human error and mechanical failures, said Casey. "Airborne radars today are phenomenal," he said. "Technology has had a tremendous success." Even with weather radar, the updrafts that analysts say may have rocked the aircraft would have been difficult to pick up, said Voss, chief executive officer of the nonprofit Flight Safety Foundation, in Alexandria, Virginia. "If you take a look at the satellite information online it was like an explosion of weather at the time the Air France flight would have been trying to pick its way through the Intertropical Convergence Zone," he said. Radar Coverage U.S. radar coverage extends about 150 to 200 miles over the ocean, said Paul Takemoto, a spokesman for the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration. Beyond those zones, airline pilots stay in contact with air-traffic controllers, who lack the radar weather information the pilot can see in the cockpit, Takemoto said. The FAA is working to expand satellite-based technology that would provide coverage over oceans, starting with the Gulf of Mexico, he said. "We have a whole lot of instrumentation that provides additional information to the flight crews, in addition to what they have in the cockpit that has helped," said Hall, the former NTSB chairman. Still, "weather has been and continues to be a factor" in aviation accidents." http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601085&sid=aFSnuIjppjK4&refer=europ e ************** France orders deep-sea vessel to A330 search area France's ministry of transport has dispatched a research ship to the South Atlantic with equipment capable of searching ocean depths up to 6,000m (19,700ft) in a bid to recover any wreckage from the missing Air France Airbus A330-200. Brazil's air force has located debris, including an aircraft seat and oil traces, around 700km north of the Fernando de Noronha islands, which increasingly points to the destruction of flight AF447 from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. A statement from France's transport ministry says a research and exploration ship has been ordered to the area with immediate effect in order to set up a local command centre in the framework of the continuing search. "This ship carries...heavy equipment capable of going to 6,000m depth and able to explore more than 97% of the ocean bed area, specifically in the search area," says the ministry. Source: Air Transport Intelligence news ************** A summary of the final messages from Flight 447 (AP) French and Brazilian officials have described a "burst" of messages from Flight 447 just before it disappeared. A more complete chronology was published Wednesday by Brazil's O Estado de S. Paulo newspaper, citing an unidentified Air France source, and confirmed to The Associated Press by an aviation industry source with knowledge of the investigation: _ 11 p.m. local time - The pilot sends a manual signal saying the jet was flying through CBs - towering cumulo-nimulus thunderheads. _ 11:10 p.m. - A cascade of automatic messages indicate trouble: The autopilot had disengaged, stabilizing controls were damaged, flight systems deteriorated. _ 11:13 p.m. - Messages report more problems: The system that monitors speed, altitude and direction failed. The main flight computer and wing spoilers failed. _ 11:14 p.m. - The final message indicates a loss of cabin pressure and complete system failure - catastrophic events in a plane that was likely already plunging toward the ocean. ************** Pilot error blamed for fatal One-Two-Go crash in Phuket Pilot error was the main cause of the fatal crash of a One-Two-Go passenger aircraft in Phuket in 2007, Thailand's Department of Civil Aviation (DCA) has found in its final investigation report. The Boeing MD-82, which was operated by the privately owned Thai carrier, crashed at Phuket airport on 16 September 2007 a while trying to land during bad weather, killing 90 of the 123 people on board. The department, which delayed releasing the report for several months, says in a Thai statement on its website that the investigations revealed several probable reasons. One possible mistake by the pilot and co-pilot, who both died in the crash, was a failure to follow the standard procedure to initiate a go-around after an aborted landing. A lack of coordination between them and inadequate reaction to the sudden change in weather could also have contributed, added the report. Fatigue was brought up as another possible issue, with the report saying that airline failed to properly manage its crew's workload. As a result, the stress and tiredness that had accumulated due to insufficient rest could have affected the pilots' judgement, it says. The investigators recommended that One-Two-Go, a subsidiary of Orient Thai Airlines, intensify flight and emergency training for its pilots and adjust schedules so that pilots and cabin crew get adequate rest. It also urged the airline upgrade safety management and encourage personnel to report irregularities. Thailand's Department of Civil Aviation (DCA) grounded the carrier on in July 2008 over safety concerns, but since then the carrier has retrained its pilots and taken other measures to appease the agency. It resumed operations in December. In April, the European Commission added it to a blacklist of airlines banned from flying to the European Union for safety reasons. Source: Air Transport Intelligence news ************* Southwest flight returns to Oakland after lightning strike OAKLAND (AP) - A Southwest Airlines plane returned safely to Oakland International Airport after it was struck by lighting shortly after takeoff. Airline spokeswoman Marilee McInnis said the 53 passengers aboard Flight 2197 to Burbank were booked on the next flight. McInnis said the pilot turned the plane around after the 6:30 a.m. incident Wednesday because the airline has a maintenance hub in Oakland. The plane passed its safety inspection and was expected to return to service later Wednesday. McInnis said lightning strikes aren't unusual and planes are built to withstand such a jolt. An Air France jet on its way to Paris disappeared after flying into an extremely dangerous band of storms Sunday. What exactly caused its electrical systems and cabin pressure to fail remains a mystery. http://www.usatoday.com/travel/flights/2009-06-03-southwest-lightning-strike _N.htm ************** TSA Blocks Delta Flights To 2 African Cities On Security Delta Air Lines Inc. (DAL) has been denied permission for direct flights to Nairobi, Kenya and Monrovia, Liberia until the airports meet security standards or until U.S. regulators change their assessment of security threats in the region. The Transportation Security Administration called the current threat to civil aviation in east Africa too significant to allow the flights, but said it will continue to monitor the situation. The routes were slated to begin within days. Delta was notified by TSA and the Department of Homeland Security that the agencies will need more time before clearing the requests, without giving a specific timetable. In the meantime, Delta said it is working to accommodate customers on its connecting flights or through its joint venture partners. "Africa continues to be an important region for Delta," the airline said. "Delta is the only airline offering scheduled service between the United States and Africa, currently serving six destinations in five countries." The TSA said it denied Delta's 2008 proposal to begin air service to the two cities, after security assessments at the airports. TSA approved an accompanying request to fly into Abuja, Nigeria. However it noted security vulnerabilities in and around Nairobi, as well as the failure to meet safety recommendations set by the International Civil Aviation Organization at Roberts International Airport in Monrovia. Kenya Foreign Affairs Minister Moses Wetangula told Reuters on Wednesday that the government has summoned the U.S. ambassador to Kenya to explain the last-minute cancellation. While Delta and other major airlines have been cutting capacity amid a slump in consumer and business travel, Delta has been trying to expand its international reach, forging an alliance with Franco-Dutch carrier Air France-KLM (AFLYY) in April. http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20090603-708056.html ************** Mexico grounds airline, deeming planes unsafe MEXICO CITY (AP) - Mexico has temporarily grounded Aviacsa airline after officials reported irregularities in the maintenance of 25 planes. The Transportation and Communications Department said the low-cost airline has 60 days to fix the problems. The action Tuesday effectively shut operations at the airline, which says it has a fleet of 26 planes serving 17 Mexican cities and Las Vegas. The department said the problems put passengers at risk, but Aviacsa issued a statement denying any safety problems. Haydee Cordova, Aviacsa's assistant director for legal affairs, said Wednesday the problems were cosmetic - opaque logos, dull lights and scratches on the wings - and that they had already been corrected on five of the planes. Cordova said Aviacsa officials have asked the Mexican government for another inspection. In the meantime, the airline will validate passengers' tickets for future flights, she said. ************** Curt Lewis, P.E., CSP CURT LEWIS & ASSOCIATES, LLC