14 JUL 2009 _______________________________________ *Jet makes landing with football-sized hole *Airlines Study Alternatives to Jets' Black Boxes *Report Faults Air France's Safety Record *EASA mandates Rolls-Royce fix after BA 777 crash *United And Delta Fines Reflect Higher Level Of DOT Enforcement *FAA Makes Progress On Runway Safety Systems *A Really Big Show- EAA/Oshkosh *Instructor pilots sue Boeing over possible layoffs *Republic purchase of Frontier approved *Flight experts angered by icing rules in wake of Flight 3407 crash *Rural air travel subsidies gain big budget boost **************************************** Jet makes landing with football-sized hole Southwest Airlines jet makes emergency landing in Charleston, West Virginia (CNN) -- A Southwest Airlines jet made an emergency landing in Charleston, West Virginia, on Monday after a football-sized hole in its fuselage caused the cabin to depressurize, an airline spokeswoman said. Southwest Flight 2294 made an emergency landing at Yeager Airport in Charleston, West Virginia, on Monday. There were no injuries aboard the Boeing 737, which was traveling at about 30,000 feet when the problem occurred, Southwest spokeswoman Marilee McInnis told CNN. The sudden drop in cabin pressure caused the jet's oxygen masks to deploy. Southwest Flight 2294 was en route from Nashville, Tennessee, to Baltimore, Maryland, with 126 passengers and a crew of five aboard, McInnis said. It landed at 6:07 p.m. after the crew reported a football-sized hole in the middle of the cabin near the top of the aircraft, McInnis said. What caused the damage to the jet had not been determined, she said. Both the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board are investigating the incident, FAA spokeswoman Holly Baker said. Southwest dispatched a replacement aircraft to take passengers on to Baltimore. See map of flight path > Charleston airport spokesman Brian Belcher said a local pizzeria provided food for the passengers as they waited. The damaged jet will remain on the ground there until federal inspectors can examine it, he said. **************** Airlines Study Alternatives to Jets' Black Boxes By CHRISTINE NEGRONI Modern communication technology allows even those with little important to say to transmit real-time information about where they are and what they are doing. But last month, when Airbus jets from Air France and Yemenia Airways crashed into the ocean, taking their black boxes into the deep with them, neither aircraft could send its data and cockpit voice recordings to a secure place on the ground. DRS Technologies makes flight data recorders that fly away from a plane after a crash; if it lands in water, the device floats. A transmitter signals its location. On July 2, the day that the missing recorders from Air France Flight 447 were presumed to have exhausted their 30-day battery and stopped emitting the pinging noise of the locator beacon, Airbus announced that it would look for new ways to reduce the chance of losing critical data. "This is a worldwide industry issue, albeit a rare one," said Mary Anne Greczyn, manager of communications for Airbus Americas. In an e-mail message, Ms. Greczyn said, "Recent accidents certainly made this a front-burner topic of discussion." What is known so far about the crash of Flight 447, in which 228 people died, comes from automatic messages sent from the airplane to Air France. Those messages are not intended to provide information for accident investigators but are routinely used by airlines for maintenance. When an airplane is crossing an ocean and out of radio range, only the most important information is sent, since communication must be by satellite and transmission is expensive. Airlines can select what kind of flight data is worth the price of satellite time. According to a statement from Airbus, even using the normal radio signal to send all the information about a flight would require enormous bandwidth. But Krishna Kavi, a professor of computer science and engineering at the University of North Texas, said that might not be the case. In 2001, Mr. Kavi proposed transmitting in real time just the information from the flight data recorder. "The amount of data is very small compared to video photos that you receive on smartphones," he said. Mr. Kavi said his plan was even more achievable today. Mike Poole, an air crash investigator with CAE Flightscape, an aviation safety company in Canada, said that transmitting all that data in real time "sounds really attractive" but was not that easy. Mr. Poole, who is also the chairman of the flight recorder working group of the International Society of Air Safety Investigators, said complicating factors include the number of planes in flight at any one time, the need for planes to have a clear line of sight to connect with the satellite, and the integrity and confidentiality of the data being sent. The last point is of particular concern to pilots who have long opposed video cameras in the cockpit, citing the potential for public release of the recordings. "What do we do about data protection? That's one that very much concerns the operating crews," said Paul McCarthy, who represents the International Federation of Air Line Pilots' Associations at the International Civil Aviation Organization. "If the data is not adequately protected, transmission could be an invasion of privacy." These problems have been discussed for years in the industry. What is different now is the attention being paid to the still-inexplicable loss of Flight 447, the apparent inability to retrieve the boxes from the Yemenia Airways Airbus that crashed into the deep waters of the Indian Ocean off the Comoros Islands and the expectation of air travelers that multimillion-dollar airplanes should have more, not less, technological capability than the average Twitter user. "We can't afford to lose an aircraft without drawing a proper conclusion," said Dieter Reisinger, a long-haul commercial airline pilot and director of the Institute for Flight Safety in Austria. "We might be at a crossroads. Streaming is the next logical step." It is not necessarily the only step. "It's accidents like this that get people to think out of the box," said Brian T. Gallagher, the director of public affairs for DRS Technologies of Parsippany, N.J. For the past 25 years, his company has been installing data recorders on the outside of military airplanes like the F-18 and on helicopters carrying oil field workers in the North Sea. On impact in a crash, the recorder, which is encased in an airfoil, flies away from the aircraft. If the plane sinks in the water, the recorder will float. A transmitter signals its location using GPS. "Instead of it going down and pinging, it deploys the moment of the crash and hooks up with the satellites," said the company's vice president and general manager, Peter Connolly. "It will move it away from the crash scene." The deployable data recorder has been recovered in all of the approximately 110 accidents involving military airplanes, Mr. Connolly said. DRS is working with the Federal Aviation Administration and the Homeland Security Department to certify the device for use on commercial airliners, but the process has been lengthy. Ten years ago, a DRS engineer, Rob Austin, wrote a report citing six large aviation disasters in which the recovery of the black boxes was difficult because the flights went down in the ocean. In some cases, military ships were called in for the recovery, at great expense. Mr. Austin was prophetic as he described a situation in which the deployable data recorder would be effective. "One can imagine cases such as a midair breakup over deep ocean where the exact location of the aircraft is difficult to track," he wrote. "If the search extended beyond the 30-day lifetime of the ultrasonic locator beacon, the recorders might never be found." With two ocean crashes in one month and no recorders found, Airbus is under considerable pressure. Thomas O. Enders, the company's chief executive, said two department heads would be assigned to investigate live data transmission, external black boxes and one low-tech but highly relevant response to the loss of Flight 447 - extending the life of the black box pinger. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/14/business/14blackbox.html ***************** Report Faults Air France's Safety Record Industry figures show Air France has suffered crashes in its Airbus fleet at four times the average rate, raising questions about its safety culture The crash of Air France flight 447 in the Atlantic Ocean on June 1 claimed 288 lives and caused a public relations disaster for the French airline. Now new information is raising disturbing questions about the airline's safety record. Spiegel has learned of secret aviation industry calculations which conclude that Air France's Airbus fleet has an aircraft loss rate of 1.26 per 1 million flights, That is four times higher than other airlines' average (0.3 losses per million flights). Three Air France Airbus jets have crashed since 1988. A fourth Airbus jet belonging to Air France's later subsidiary Air Inter also crashed. The new figures coincide with a debate in France about whether the crash of the Airbus A330, flying from Rio de Janeiro to Paris in which all 288 people aboard were killed, resulted in part from reckless behavior by the pilots. In an interview with Le Figaro, Air France CEO Pierre-Henri Gourgeon countered speculation that the pilots had headed straight into a thunderstorm because they wanted to save fuel or to avoid a delay. An internal report from 2006, which has been obtained by Spiegel, had complained about a deficient culture of safety at the airline. The report said the company lacked "a clear and objective view of performance in the area of flight safety." According to the report, eight out of 10 accidents or incidents at Air France resulted from human factors-such as a lack of attention, poor decision-making processes and mistakes in co-operation between pilot and co-pilot. It added that an analysis of incidents with A330/340 models indicated that pilots show "a certain degree of overconfidence or even complacency." Air France says it has rectified all shortcomings since the report was presented in June 2006. The airline responded to the safety statistics by quoting figures from the International Air Transport Association (IATA) which include all of Air France's aircraft types. These statistics show an average safety record for the company even after the recent accident, an Air France spokesperson pointed out. Jean-Cyril Spinetta, chairman of the Air France/KLM group, conceded at a shareholder meeting last week that the airline had a poor safety record. "We must find out how that could have happened," he said. http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/jul2009/gb20090713_426387.htm ***************** EASA mandates Rolls-Royce fix after BA 777 crash European regulators have today mandated that airlines operating Rolls-Royce-powered Boeing 777s fit a redesigned component in an attempt to avoid accidents like the loss of a British Airways (BA) aircraft at Heathrow Airport last year. Rolls-Royce has redesigned the fuel-oil heat-exchanger (FOHE) on the Trent 800 engine which powers the 777. The FOHE is intended simultaneously to warm fuel and to cool oil by transferring heat from the latter to the former but it is believed that on the flight in question, and possibly others, it was overwhelmed by ice in the fuel which allowed ice to collect on the front face of the FOHE and restrict the fuel flow. The result was that both engines suffered serious power reductions and the aircraft landed heavily, inside the airport perimeter but short of the runway, and was subsequently written off. The same phenomenon is suspected to have been behind an incident to a Delta Air Lines 777. UK and US investigators called on Rolls-Royce to undertake the redesign of the device. In an airworthiness directive (AD) just published, the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) says operators must fit the redesigned FOHE by the end of next year or within 6,000 flight hours - whichever comes sooner. The AD states: "Post incident analysis and investigation has established that, under certain ambient conditions, ice can accumulate on the walls of the fuel pipes within the aircraft fuel system, which can then be released downstream when fuel flow demand is increased. This released ice can then collect on the FOHE front face and limit fuel flow through the FOHE. "This type of icing event was previously unknown and creates ice concentrations in the fuel system beyond those specified in the certification requirements. "To mitigate the risk of dual engine FOHE blockage within the Trent 800 engine powered Boeing 777 fleet, which constitutes a potential unsafe condition, this Airworthiness Directive instructs replacement of the FOHE with a modified standard incorporating enhanced anti-icing and de-icing performance." Kieran Daly recently spoke to scientists looking at the fuel-icing phenomenon. Read his blog. Source: Air Transport Intelligence news **************** United And Delta Fines Reflect Higher Level Of DOT Enforcement U.S. Transportation Dept. fines of Delta and United on the same day last week were coincidental, but do reflect increased activity by its aviation enforcement office, a DOT spokesman said July 13. Staffing for the Office of Aviation Enforcement and Proceedings has increased from 30 people to 38 over the past 18 months, allowing it to conduct more oversight, the spokesman said. The DOT issued a consent order July 9 in which Delta agreed to a $375,000 fine for the way it handled passengers who were bumped from oversold flights. Delta will be able to offset as much as $200,000 of the fine with money the airline plans to spend to improve its procedures (DAILY, July 10). On the same day, the DOT issued a consent order in which United agreed to an $80,000 fine over allegations that some of its call center employees often failed to disclose the operating carrier on United Express flights. United contracts with regional carriers to operate those flights. Half the United fine will be forgiven if it avoids repeat violations over the next year. In responding to the DOT allegations, United said any failures to provide the correct information were due to a programmatic error in its reservations system that is being corrected. The United allegations were based on an investigation by the enforcement office, which made calls to United in January to find out if call center employees were complying with flight identification rules. In the Delta case, the enforcement office inspected passenger complaint records received by Delta between January and July 2008, in addition to looking at complaints received directly by the DOT. The DOT provided a higher profile to both cases by issuing press releases about them, including quotes from Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. http://www.aviationweek ****************** FAA Makes Progress On Runway Safety Systems FAA is preparing to evaluate low-cost runway safety systems that will eventually be used at smaller U.S. airports, and is also continuing the rollout of a more complex system at major airports. The agency selected Sensis Corp. as the fourth and final company to take part in trials of low-cost ground surveillance (LCGS) systems. Sensis will install its version at the Long Beach, Calif., airport for evaluation. The LCGS program will also involve a Thales trial at Manchester, N.H., a SRA International system at San Jose, and a Northrop Grumman demonstration at Reno. It will take six to nine months to bring these systems to operational status, then they will be evaluated for a year or two, according to an FAA spokesman. After that, one or more of the companies will be selected to proceed with nationwide deployment. FAA has yet to determine exactly how many airports will receive LCGS, but it is intended to be used by those airports not on the list for the more complex airport surface detection equipment - model X (ASDE-X) system. The introduction of ASDE-X to 35 of the largest U.S. airports is already underway. The system at Boston Logan Airport is the latest to be declared fully operational, and it is scheduled to be officially commissioned this month along with the Newark installation. ASDE-X is manufactured by Sensis. FAA Chief Operating Officer Hank Krakowski last week told agency employees that the Boston deployment is particularly vital, because of the airport's history with incursions. Because of the taxiway and runway configuration at Boston, "this is probably one of our better-value locations for that system," Krakowski said. http://www.aviationweek.com ****************** A Really Big Show- EAA/Oshkosh The Experimental Aircraft Assn. annual Airventure fly-in, set for July 27-Aug. 2 in Oshkosh, Wis., is expected to draw more than 500,000 attendees, or about the same as in 2008. Highlights this year will include the Virgin Galactic WhiteKnightTwo spacecraft carrier, an Airbus A380 and Erickson Sky Crane, along with the PiperJet and a variety of military aircraft including the C5M re-engined Galaxy, a C-17 Globemaster III and, for the first time, a UAV-a Predator B operated by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Service. A total of some 10,000 aircraft typically visit the weeklong gathering, making Oshkosh the busiest airport in the world during the event. http://www.aviationweek.com ******************* Instructor pilots sue Boeing over possible layoffs The union representing Boeing's instructor pilots -- that is, the pilots who teach customers how to use the aircraft -- has sued the company in advance of pilot layoffs on July 24. The Airline Manufacturing Pilots Association charges that Boeing's plan to lay off 10 union pilots is a violation of the pilots' union contract. Boeing will continue to employ contract pilots, known as "simulator-only instructors," even while laying off its permanent workers, the union says in a lawsuit filed in federal court. In May, Boeing told 10 union pilots that they may be laid off on July 24. The notification was part of a larger company effort to cut 10,000 positions this year. The pilots' lawsuit seeks to stop Boeing from going ahead with the layoff without first going through arbitration. Boeing counters that the pilots have to wait until after they are laid off to complain. "No AMPA pilots have been laid off," Boeing wrote in a response to the court. "It remains likely that some of the original 10 will be laid off on July 24, but how many and whom cannot be determined at this time." Boeing charges that "the union . . . is not content to follow the contractual grievance and arbitration process. Instead, it has sought to short-circuit that process by means of an anticipatory grievance, which challenges the notices in advance of any actual layoff." The union contract states that laid off employees may challenge the job loss by filing a written grievance "within 10 workdays after the date of such layoff." Boeing employs 242 pilots, including 127 based in the Puget Sound region. The union represents a unit that includes 50 such pilots, who all work at Boeing's Longacres site in Renton. The union pilots work for Boeing subsidiary Alteon, which provides training to Boeing Commercial Airplane's customers. Alteon pilots are deployed worldwide. Boeing says that it's laying off its simulator pilots, too. Since October 2008, Boeing has reduced its simulator instructor workforce, including Boeing employees and contractors, from 64 to 45. Five more simulator instructor positions, including the last remaining contractors, will be eliminated by July 24, Boeing says in its response. "Periodic mass layoffs are an expected fact of life for almost all Boeing employees, particularly early in their Boeing careers, when their seniority is relatively low," the company said, citing the cyclical nature of the commercial aircraft business. Boeing also says that the union pilots pegged for layoff each have less than two year's experience with the company and one of the 10 has already found new work on another Boeing assignment. Two other union pilots have had their layoff notices extended; still two others are starting military leave in July and a third plans to return to the military, Boeing said, indicating that not all 10 of the workers who received layoff notices will in fact be laid off. The union charges that Boeing has not cooperated with its requests for information, and that if Boeing is allowed to lay off the pilots as planned, the union's "grievance will not be resolved by an impartial arbitrator until many months after" the layoff date, and that doing so would "inflict both serious and irreparable injury upon those AMPA-represented employees." http://blog.seattlepi.com/aerospace/archives/173622.asp?from=blog_last3 *************** Republic purchase of Frontier approved A federal judge on Monday approved Frontier Airlines' plan to exit bankruptcy with a sale to Republic Airways Holdings, setting up an auction process that will last through Aug. 11. Under a plan announced June 22, Indianapolis-based Republic Airways (NASDAQ: RJET) would pay $109 million to buy Denver-based Frontier's equity. Frontier would become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Republic. The company said last month that it does not expect any immediate changes in company structure, employment or routes as a result of the plan and that Frontier would continue to fly under its own name. But Frontier has not said whether it would keep its headquarters in Denver, and a June company statement hinted that some staff cuts are possible. Frontier filed its proposed reorganization plan with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court of the Southern District of New York. Judge Robert Drain approved the proposal after a hearing Monday morning. "We are pleased with the ruling today and look forward to continuing the process toward our emergence," said Steve Snyder, corporate communications director for Frontier. The decision sets into place a month-long auction process in which other companies will have the chance to outbid Republic. Interested bidders must submit initial proposals by Aug. 3 and a final proposal by Aug. 10. Frontier will conduct an auction the next day to determine whether it will accept Republic's investment agreement or whether it will terminate it and accept what it considers a higher or otherwise better bid from someone else. Airline consultant Mike Boyd said in June that he did not expect anyone to try to outbid Republic for Frontier. If that were to happen, any higher bid likely would come from Dallas-based Southwest Airlines, which is in direct competition with Frontier for Denver International Airport passengers, he said. Frontier is the second-largest carrier at DIA, while Southwest is third. United Airlines is the largest carrier at the airport. Assuming no higher bids are offered, the bankruptcy court would then sign off on the reorganization plan. Frontier filed for Chapter 11 in April 2008 after First Data Corp. of Greenwood Village, its credit card processor, began holding back 100 percent, rather than 45 percent, of Frontier's credit card transactions. After the filing, the airline began a 14-month process of trimming fat from its budget, selling off unneeded jets and becoming more efficient. Largely because of those efforts, Frontier has posted seven straight months of profit. It recently reported a "load factor" -- the percentage of its seats filled with passengers -- of 89 percent, with 90 percent considered a positive benchmark in the industry. Republic Airlines is one of Frontier's major unsecured creditors, having filed a $260 million damage claim for Frontier's breaking an agreement with Republic to operate regional jet service after Frontier filed for bankruptcy protection. Republic Airlines had signed a 13-year agreement with Frontier in January 2007 to operate 17 planes for Frontier's regional jet service, but that deal was the first contract Frontier sought to break after its bankruptcy filing. Even at the time, Republic Airways Holdings CEO Bryan Bedford complimented Frontier, saying the company had enjoyed its partnership with the airline and had a lot of respect for its people. In August 2008, Republic Airways Holdings, Credit Suisse Securities of New York and AQR Capital of Connecticut offered Frontier an immediate $30 million in working capital with the possibility of another $45 million in the future. In March of this year, Frontier received a commitment for $40 million in post-petition debtor-in-possession (DIP) financing from Republic Airways Holdings to support its working additional capital needs. As part of that agreement, Frontier agreed to allow Republic's damage claim in the amount of $150 million. Monday's approved reorganization plan calls for Frontier's general unsecured creditors to receive $28.75 million in cash, with an additional $40 million of the sale proceeds applied as repayment of the outstanding DIP loan. If approved, the company's current equity would be extinguished and holders of that equity would not receive any recovery. "This agreement represents a major milestone in our ongoing efforts to position Frontier to emerge from bankruptcy as a competitive, sustainable airline," Frontier President and CEO Sean Menke said last month. Republic Airways operates a maintenance facility at Louisville International Airport. http://www.bizjournals.com/louisville/stories/2009/07/13/daily10.html ***************** Flight experts angered by icing rules in wake of Flight 3407 crash FAA faulted for taking too long to act on issue WASHINGTON - A gap in federal regulations allows turboprop planes to be flown without ever being certified as safe in the most dangerous icy conditions - a fact that has enraged flight safety experts for more than a decade and that's drawing new attention in light of the crash of Flight 3407. While federal officials say icing is just one of many factors they are examining in the wake of the crash, which killed 50 people the night of Feb. 12, some pilots and other aviation experts are convinced icing played a role. More than a few are angry about what they see as the Federal Aviation Administration's industry-influenced inattention to a grave danger for turboprop planes like the one that crashed in Clarence: "Supercooled large droplet icing," or freezing rain that sticks to the plane. After a similar accident in Roselawn, Ind., in 1994, "we stood tall and said this should never have happened and should never happen again," said Stephen A. Frederick, a retired pilot who wrote "Unheeded Warning," a book about that crash. "We committed our lives to make changes. Now, 50 more have committed their lives." The National Transportation Safety Board's investigation of the Clarence crash, expected to last at least a year, will determine whether freezing rain had anything to do with the downing of Flight 3407. But the flight crew reported icy conditions - and that has prompted aviation experts to note that the safety board has been pushing for new rules for flying in freezing rain for 12 years. For much of that time, the FAA left the issue in the hands of a 55-member committee culled largely from the aviation industry. That panel began issuing recommendations three years ago, and the FAA has been studying them ever since. The FAA defends its rule-making process as painstakingly slow out of necessity, but Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N. Y., and other critics don't buy it. "It's very troubling that the agency in charge of safety repeatedly makes recommendations and they are not accepted," said Schumer, who added that it is "no secret that the FAA at the top was not well-run." New rules needed It's also no secret that the safety board has listed new rules on flying in freezing rain one of its "most wanted safety improvements" since 1997. "Before another accident or serious incident occurs, the FAA should evaluate all existing turbo propeller-driven airplanes in service using the new information available" about the dangers of freezing rain, the safety board says in the most recent edition of its most-wanted safety recommendations. The FAA should use current research on freezing rain and large water droplets to revise the way aircraft are designed and approved for flight in icing conditions, the safety board says. In addition, those new standards should be applied to aircraft that are already certified for flight, said the safety board, which labels the FAA's response to its recommendations "unacceptable." In wake of those 1997 recommendations, the FAA turned the issue over to an "Aviation Rulemaking Advisory Committee." The 55-member panel includes about 35 entities from the aviation industry - such as Boeing, Airbus and the Regional Airline Alliance - along with a collection of unions and the National Air Disaster Alliance Foundation, which works to raise safety standards and support the families of crash victims. Asked why the panel was weighted toward industry, Laura Brown, an FAA spokeswoman, said: "It's generally because people who have expertise in these areas come from industry." But aviation experts wonder if the rule-making delay is connected to the industry's influence-and its concerns about the expense of retrofitting planes to make sure planes can fly safely in freezing rain. "I suspect that relates to what it really costs to do this," said Joseph L. Schofer, associate dean of the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. Others worry, however, that the cost of not bolstering icing regulations is especially high - in human lives. Families of the 68 victims of the Roselawn crash, which involved a turboprop flying in icy conditions, have compiled a list of a dozen similar accidents worldwide since the mid-1990s. And Jerry Skinner of the Nolan Law Group in Chicago said one Cessna turboprop model has experienced at least 26 accidents in icing conditions. The safety board's concern, and that of experts like Skinner, is that the pneumatic de-icing boots commonly used on turboprop planes just aren't up to the job of removing the huge amounts of ice that can cling to a plane flying through freezing rain. While pneumatic de-icing boots can knock off ice from upward of 40 percent of a wing's surface, supercooled large droplet ice can form on the back of the wing where it can't be removed, said Tom Ratvasky, an icing research engineer at NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland. And severe icing on either the wing or the tail of a plane will radically change its aerodynamics, meaning it will have to fly faster in order to stay aloft - which can be difficult for some lower-powered turboprop planes, aviation experts said. A broader question So did Flight 3407 fall from the sky because fast-forming freezing rain weighed it down and changed the shape of its wings or tail? The NTSB's investigation will attempt to answer that question, but some experts are convinced that it did. "Icing very obviously has something to do with this accident," said Kirk Koenig, president of Expert Aviation Consulting of Indianapolis and a commercial pilot for 25 years. "My opinion is this mostly can be blamed on the FAA, through their lack of guidance." The plane's crew reported ice on the wings and windshield, as did another plane heading to Buffalo Niagara International Airport at about the same time. According to the National Weather Service, the airport temperature was measured at 33 degrees shortly before 10 p. m. Weather conditions were described as "light snow, fog and mist," with southwest winds of 17 mph, gusting up to 25 mph. The plane was flying at about 1,650 feet above the ground when it began to experience problems. Slightly above that altitude, the temperature would probably have been closer to 29 or 30 degrees, according to Peter Goelz, a former managing director for the NTSB. "There is a range of temperatures that can cause icing, and the weather this plane was flying through was in that range," Goelz said. For aviation safety experts, though, there's a broader question than whether ice doomed Flight 3407. "Until they can show that icing was not a factor, I'm not sure this airplane should be flown in icing conditions similar to those encountered during this flight," said M. P. "Pappy" Papadakis, a lawyer and retired pilot in Texas who co-authored a textbook in aviation law. Jim Hall, the former chairman of the safety board, has said the same thing. The crew of Flight 3407 turned on the de-icing equipment 11 minutes into the flight, federal officials have said. And Brown, of the FAA, insisted that the Bombardier Dash 8 Q400 - the model that crashed in Buffalo-is safe to fly in icy conditions. "The plane has a very sophisticated ice detection and protection system on it," including features that the FAA is thinking about requiring in any new rules governing flying during icy conditions, Brown said. Those rules - one for certifying newly designed planes for flying in freezing rain and another for making sure previously certified planes are safe in such conditions - "are both in the category of rules still under development," Brown said. 'Tombstone Principle' The FAA is required by law to do an economic analysis of all proposed new rules, and agency critics said that slow-moving process is connected with its dual mission of serving both as a regulator of the aviation industry and a promoter of its growth. "Whether they like it or not, they have this really strong advocacy role for the industry, too," said Schofer, of Northwestern University. "It's a challenge for the FAA to balance those two tasks." The FAA, however, insists it has not ignored the freezing rain issue. Brown noted that the agency has issued more than 100 airworthiness directives to address icing issues since 1994, ranging from changes in crew operating procedures to airplane design. But the Feb. 12 crash in Clarence still raises questions for officials like Steven B. Chealander, the safety board member who was in Buffalo the past week. Almost a year after he pleaded with Congress for tougher safeguards against icing on turboprop aircraft, Chealander found himself leading the investigation into the crash of Flight 3407 - and acknowledging some frustration with the FAA's slow pace of action on the icing issue. "Suffice it to say," he said during his stay in Buffalo, "the NTSB identified recommendations that it would like to be moving faster than they are. It's taken longer than we would like." Skinner - former safety chairman and Hall's law partner - offered his thoughts as to why. "As is said often, if not acknowledged by the NTSB, about the FAA: 'The FAA acts according to the Tombstone Principle - little is accomplished in terms of safety until enough tombstones are raised,' " Skinner said. http://www.buffalonews.com/home/story/586515.html?imw=Y **************** Rural air travel subsidies gain big budget boost WASHINGTON (AP) - A much-criticized subsidy for rural air travel would get a budget increase of more than 40 percent under a spending bill unveiled in the House on Monday. The legislation approved by a House Appropriations subcommittee would give $173 million in the upcoming budget year to the Essential Air Service, which provides subsidies to small airlines to fly unprofitable routes. That's a $53 million increase. In many cases the flights are nearly empty. In other instances, such as flights between Buffalo Niagara International Airport and Jamestown, N.Y., just 76 miles away, it's quicker to drive than fly. The Bush administration sought unsuccessfully to cut the subsidies, which keeps flights going to 107 communities spread across 31 states in the continental U.S. and 45 tiny towns in Alaska. But the Essential Air Services program enjoys strong support among lawmakers; in April, 22 senators wrote White House budget director Peter Orszag to demand more money for it. "Simply put, the Essential Air Service program was a promise made to rural America, and a promise that must be kept," the senators wrote. Among the reasons for big increase is the upheaval in the airline industry, including higher fuel prices, and the larger subsidies required to attract new carriers into the program after other airlines drop out. Indeed, the subsidies also have a new benefactor in President Barack Obama, who requested the big increase in his February budget submission despite acknowledging that the program is inefficient. Even with the subsidies, the program is hardly a boon for many small carriers such as Great Lakes Airlines, which offers service to 20 states to communities such as Vernal, Utah, and Scottsbluff, Neb. Passenger loads are often small, meaning that the taxpayer subsidy can often far exceed the airfare. The Bush administration proposed to eliminate about half of communities from the program - especially those close to larger airports - and fund it through $50 million in fees on airlines. Congress rejected the cuts. The Obama administration says the program needs a huge budget increase simply to serve existing communities. That's hardly likely to assuage critics who view it as a boondoggle. "There are certainly cases where it's easier to drive, take a train, take a bus than it is to fly back and forth," said Tom Schatz, president of the Citizens Against Government Waste. The administration acknowledges the program's flaws. "The program design must be updated and made more cost effective," Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood told lawmakers earlier this year, adding that there needs to be "a more sustainable program that will provide better value for passengers and the American taxpayer." The legislation approved Monday by the House panel also provides a $4 billion appropriation to support construction of high-speed railroads, quadrupling Obama's request and coming in the wake of $8 billion provided in the economic stimulus bill. The increase came as the panel flat-funded highway construction even as the bill's overall appropriation increased by 14 percent, according to a table distributed by Democrats. Republicans said the increases were more like 25 percent. The Transportation Department has informed Congress that the Highway Trust Fund will become insolvent next month without an infusion of at least $5 billion. The troubled Washington, D.C., Metro system would get a $150 million capital infusion to make repairs and replace rail cars. The system has long-overdue maintenance needs and recently sustained a crash that killed nine people. The Amtrak passenger railroad would get a $1.5 billion subsidy, as requested by Obama. ***************** Curt Lewis, P.E., CSP CURT LEWIS & ASSOCIATES, LLC