February 1, 2010 No.025 In This Issue Air New Zealand B777 RTO at Narita Fault of the Concorde: An Aviation Icon Has Its Day in Court FAA Aims To Fine AMR Unit Tailplane Icing and Aircraft Performance Degradation Flight 3407 co-pilot sent 2 texts prior to takeoff ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Air New Zealand B777 RTO at Narita Date: 31-JAN-2010 Time: 10:00Z Type: Boeing 777-219 ER Operator: Air New Zealand Registration: ZK-OKC C/n / msn: 34377/546 Fatalities: Fatalities: 0 / Occupants: 309 Other fatalities: 0 Airplane damage: Minor Location: Narita International Airport (NRT/RJAA) - Japan Phase: Take off Nature: International Scheduled Passenger Departure airport: Narita International Airport (NRT/RJAA) Destination airport: Auckland International Airport (AKL/NZAA) Narrative: Around 19:00 (Local time), January 31,2010. Air New Zealand flight NZ90 (296 passengers and 13 crew on board) took off from Narita Airport runway A (length 4000m) with destination Auckland, New Zealand. the flght rejected take-off due to a mechanical problem. After stopping on the all 12 main gear tires burst. ARFF services attended. There were no injuries. Narita Airport runway A was closed about 30 minutes due to this accident. (aviation-safety.net) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Fault of the Concorde: An Aviation Icon Has Its Day in Court You might think passengers taking off or landing at Charles de Gaulle Airport would feel unsettled seeing a supersonic Concorde jet mounted on a steel frame alongside the runway, with its needle-like beak pointed upward in take-off position. After all, just such a Concorde plane crashed in a ball of fire nearly 10 years ago, less than two miles (3 km) from where the mounted jet now stands. It was an event that doomed the world's fastest-ever passenger jet - an aircraft designed by French and British engineers - to a future as a museum relic. The French, however, do not quite feel humiliated. Wronged, perhaps, but not humiliated. In a trial that opens outside Paris on Tuesday, French officials will try to pin the blame for the Concorde's demise on Continental Airlines. It was not, they insist, the Concorde's design that led to its demise; indeed the plane still has cherished status among many in France as a feat of engineering and aesthetics, hence the monument at Charles de Gaulle. Continental and two former employees are on trial for involuntary manslaughter, for having allowed a piece of titanium known as a wear strip to drop off one of the airline's DC-10 planes as it taxied down the runway two aircraft ahead of the fateful Air France Concorde, on a hot July afternoon in 2000. Five minutes later, the Concorde, according to the charges, rolled over the debris, which pierced one of its tires, sending pieces of rubber flying. One piece of rubber apparently penetrated the Concorde's full fuel tank, which exploded in fire. As traffic controllers screamed "You have flames! You have flames!" to the pilots, the blazing Concorde plummeted into a hotel, killing all 109 people on board and four on the ground. Nearly a decade on, the crash remains a discomfiting subject in France, where fondness for the Concorde has never flagged. Its flight time from Paris to New York City of just 3½ hours remains about half that of any other aircraft. British Airways and Air France finally scrapped their Concorde flights in 2003, after crash investigators raised questions about potential hazards in the Concorde's design and maintenance, just as the airlines were recovering from a post-9/11 slump in business. Investigators have also raised other concerns: the doomed Concorde appeared to be overloaded with luggage from its planeload of German tourists, who were flying to meet their cruise liner in New York City; one of two routine daily runway sweeps at Charles de Gaulle Airport had reportedly been cancelled that day; and Concorde workers had allegedly neglected to replace a crucial tire spacer on the aircraft in maintenance work four days before the crash. Continental is the only company charged, along with the firm's former welder John Taylor, who fixed the titanium strip to the Continental DC-10, and his supervisor Stanley Ford. The French are also going after their own. In the same trial, Concorde's former head of testing Henri Perrier and former chief engineer Jacques Herubel as well as France's retired civil aviation chief Claude Frantzen are also charged with involuntary manslaughter for having failed to detect and fix faults in the aircraft that investigators believe contributed to the crash. If found guilty, the individuals may face prison terms of up to three years plus fines of about $71,000 each. Continental faces a fine of as much as $520,000. So has France unfairly fingered a U.S. company in order to protect the Concorde's legacy? In late January, a documentary on the French network Canal+ argued that point. In the film, several eyewitnesses say they remembered seeing flames coming from the plane on the runway before it hit Continental's stray metal piece, suggesting that something was wrong with the Concorde itself. That is a key point in the defense strategy pursued by Continental's lawyers, who say they have 28 witnesses who can provide similar testimony. The lawyers told the Parisien newspaper last Friday that they intend to ask the judge to dismiss the charges when the trial opens. Air France lawyer Fernand Garnault told TIME last week he is convinced Continental is solely to blame for the crash. "It is clear that a piece from a Continental plane fell on the runway. It is clear that the origin of the accident was this," says Garnault, one of France's leading aviation lawyers. "This is my personal conviction and of course that of Air France." Leaving aside the airlines' reputations, however, there is another question at stake in the Concorde trial: Should companies even face criminal charges after their planes crash? Several U.S. safety officials say prosecuting and jailing airline employees could make them too afraid to report maintenance or design flaws, for fear that they might be blamed later for accidents. "If airlines were protected from criminal prosecution, those fears would dissipate," says Michael Barr, an aviation-accident specialist and instructor at the University of Southern California. "You have a whole lot of people who believe that accidents are just that - accidents," he says. That is a difficult argument to make when planes crash, however. "This is a really emotional issue," he says. "When loved ones die, they want to know why. It does not matter if it was a human error." http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1957937,00.html?xid=rss-topstories [http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?et=1102983284444&s=6053&e=0013zxSe1iP15WBRIbyKra52LblGaNxmpEPguiYb3HXYX2iC0b--4aBwMPpO8066OOpBbqVFhlcprKVHXtVNXU4PZwgKN-pip86_HKtVIEsb5gGyX4ekKgC9HnkgBHx_1k-SaweXQlbX9qxCaezoxW3btOt-t_t2kpFTW6oyl5iNbW40N-4HBVSwRhJtImtIDr4Req3X3_tUH37gVqI2MuzYg==] ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ FAA Aims To Fine AMR Unit By ANDY PASZTOR Federal aviation regulators as early as Monday are expected to propose a nearly $2.5 million civil penalty against the commuter unit of AMR Corp.'s American Airlines Inc. for allegedly using incorrect takeoff weights on more than 150 flights, according to people familiar with the details. Such missteps can result in safety hazards during takeoffs and landings-particularly in windy or wet conditions-if pilots rely on incorrect weight information to come up with appropriate speeds for certain maneuvers or braking distances. The Federal Aviation Administration's action against American Eagle Airlines Inc. covers differences between manual and automated systems that record the total weight of baggage loaded into the holds of aircraft. As part of the enforcement case, according to these people, American Eagle continued to use improper practices on dozens of flights even after FAA inspectors alerted the company about the problem. On Sunday, an American Eagle spokeswoman said the company believes the proposed penalties "are excessive and inappropriate" because the two systems "have among the most reliable safeguards and protections in the industry." In a detailed written statement, the spokeswoman said "the vast majority of the discrepancies cited by the FAA involved baggage handlers" failing to record certain bags on paper records. American Eagle said it is confident that the electronic weight measurements were accurate, the discrepancies "posed no safety hazard to these flights" and the company has committed to invest in scanners that should eliminate the possibility of such mix-ups in the future. Over the years, federal crash investigators have warned the FAA and the airlines to pay greater attention to weight and balance issues, especially in smaller commuter aircraft where significant underestimates of takeoff weight can cause serious and unexpected flight characteristics. Pilots typically feed weight totals into their flight-management computers before departure in order to establish takeoff speeds and other flight parameters. Concerns about incorrect data are hardly theoretical. Even jumbo jets have scraped their tails during takeoffs, and in one recent incident barely avoided plunging back to the ground after pilots mistakenly fed improper data into their onboard computer systems. In 2006, a chartered Bombardier Challenger business jet failed to take off from New Jersey's Teterboro Airport, plowed through a fence, crossed a highway and slammed into a building, seriously injuring four people. Investigators determined that the primary cause of the accident was the flight crew's failure to assure that the plane's weight and balance were within normal limits. http://online.wsj.com [http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?et=1102983284444&s=6053&e=0013zxSe1iP15VAhEsMSa9u35w_Ngxhx-s48aw_doRNhnSnovkUGP1ctCGIMZjT9pt4u-8dOZtBHCKysTiuY_NgywawJekofdUQ-3ig2Pb0ajrCO0yDdhGU1ntCIHHVdR_lb-o77yNWpgeBekldxjbpga3efIBWmpmAF4mj7FOQ6WPLdJkNMPG-Etz4HsYf8PR6ZsKC41FrJATLeInwUXHtMtU8GSBbwBePioQ7ew75QHn2f2kxaQapsg==] ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Tailplane Icing and Aircraft Performance Degradation Flight Safety Foundation and Accident Prevention; Porter J. Perkins and William J. Rieke (NASA) "Although the sensitivity of airplanes to Inflight icing has been recognized for many years and can be minimized by ice protection system, the advent of the medium-altitude turboprop commuter transport aircraft has resulted in renewed attention to the icing problem." http://flightsafety.org/ap/ap_feb92.pdf [http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?et=1102983284444&s=6053&e=0013zxSe1iP15WQJlXMb3mPZ7c4hXUBPA4G02Y7KFaqLsoNf51ElEOnZw0fjM1zQneoSR5Mim8TS1S3f8zCEpHfjwrZY4_joBJQFLcnolZsBR8JsAChUxCqjj7dy31IyYOmJMWsRiQS--U=] Valuable teaching resources for tailplane icing training: * This video is about 23 minutes on Tailplane Icing: http://www.part135.com/TailplaneIcing.html [http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?et=1102983284444&s=6053&e=0013zxSe1iP15VPybpCgUKfZ3w31ANhXSWEMLrpzbqivSzT96-rOFaq0FGY50_EXjA7TB6dgPRgLnky93YtQzSKO6zhw9JaiW2avPVlyDDgO9DA6zIEg10PKtixndZyBIrTSiXDwt_fKd0=] * This video course is about 4 - 6 hrs: http://aircrafticing.grc.nasa.gov/index.html [http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?et=1102983284444&s=6053&e=0013zxSe1iP15VPybpCgUKfZ3w31ANhXSWEMLrpzbqivSzT96-rOFaq0FGY50_EXjA7TB6dgPRgLnky93YtQzSKO6zhw9JaiW2avPVlyDDgO9DA6zIEg10PKtixndZyBIrTSiXDwt_fKd0=] * A technical briefing by Dr. Judy Foss Van Zante, Dynacs Engineering Co., Inc./NASA/FAA http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/K-12/IRT/TIPDeBrief/sld001.htm [http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?et=1102983284444&s=6053&e=0013zxSe1iP15U_VGPG_ubjKoCQYSTDZtnCIyWKxY6nhczUI-fRIy3gaCjhQhBPWgwEj6ZWqDZRLkmRl3s7yhgdweW7OHBnU5CEHTtCvQgo3oOEe6x-lj-px2kirzIjQJamO6zccG6ugVzYG0rKxUJREe6B3OSuIto1iyZ7yLX9_kg=] Steven Bucknerhttp://www.faasafety.gov/images/hottopics/FAASTeamLogo.gif [http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?et=1102983284444&s=6053&e=0013zxSe1iP15WpXzk0EpEy20JVzJiLXoHswWR0l2XBQKZO3NOclNFit6iLt2Rgiqi7L5oS948fRlXL1p_4N-43LnJNSeeRmefQwsUtqqPgeZPN_lGSn0Y2XQ==] Southwest Region ASW-204 FAASTeam Program Manager 817.222.5240 Office 817.222.5040 Fax 817.721.0137 Cell steven.a.buckner@faa.gov ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Flight 3407 co-pilot sent 2 texts prior to takeoff "Sterile cockpit' issue raised in crash probe The co-pilot of the plane that crashed in Clarence Center last February used her cell phone in the cockpit to send two text messages prior to takeoff, possibly in violation of federal "sterile cockpit" rules that bar pilots from focusing on anything but the flight to which they are assigned. Rebecca L. Shaw, the flight's first officer, sent those text messages after boarding the airplane in Newark, N.J., for the flight to Buffalo. One was made at 7:58 p.m., apparently before the airplane began its ground taxi. The second was at 9:13 p.m., five minutes before the plane took off. A National Transportation Safety Board investigator reported the text messages in a document filed in preparation for the board's Tuesday meeting to consider its final report in the crash of Continental Connection Flight 3407, which claimed 50 lives. While the first officer's use of a cell phone before takeoff appears unrelated to the crash about an hour later, the revelation could serve as more evidence that the crew of Flight 3407 ignored federal rules aimed at preventing pilots from getting distracted during critical periods of the flight. Federal rules regarding a sterile cockpit bar pilots from extraneous conversation and activities when the plane is taxiing and during the critical periods during and after takeoff and before landing. But the federal documents showing that the text messages were sent do not indicate clearly whether they were violations of a sterile cockpit. "It is definitely inappropriate during the taxi period" for a pilot to be texting, said Mike Loftus, a former Continental pilot who lost his daughter, Maddie, in the crash. "Anything that is going to distract you from the job at hand is not a smart thing to do." The sending of a text message while a plane was taxiing "would be in direct violation of applicable Federal Aviation Administration regulations, as well as company policy and training," said Joe F. Williams, spokesman for Pinnacle Airlines, which owns Colgan Air, the Continental subcontractor that operated Flight 3407. "Colgan has zero tolerance for sterile cockpit violations," Williams added. "Our training programs reinforce compliance with standard operating procedures, of which sterile cockpit is a key element." Colgan does not believe that it is common for its crews to use cell phones during the operation of a flight, Williams said. A transcript of the cockpit voice recorder shows that Shaw and the plane's pilot, Capt. Marvin D. Renslow, talked about previous jobs, family issues and company policies while the airplane's brakes were set, when personal conversation is allowed. But they continued talking while the airplane was in motion, inching along the taxiway toward departure. "Does it show a little lapse of standard operating procedure? Yes. But is it egregious? I wouldn't characterize it that way," said John Cox, a former pilot who now heads Safety Operating Systems, a Washington aviation consultancy. Cox said he anticipates that the safety board meeting will include consideration of why the pilots felt free to violate rules restricting extraneous cockpit conversation. "I would expect that the board would look at cultural as well as individual violations of sterile cockpit - that they will look into the culture at Colgan, as well as the actions of the two individuals," he said. Policies on crew use of cell phones vary by airline. Some require that pilots turn off their phones prior to beginning the first flight checklist, while others apply the same rule to both passengers and pilots: When the aircraft door is shut, phones get turned off. In addition to violating sterile cockpit rules before takeoff, the crew chatted about personal matters after the plane descended to less than 10,000 feet as it approached Buffalo Niagara International Airport, breaking the federal rules again. Those sterile cockpit violations are expected to be a matter of concern to safety board members at the meeting Tuesday, where it also will vote on safety recommendations stemming from the crash. Only two weeks ago, the safety board implicated the distracting effect of cell phones when it determined that text-messaging by a commuter train engineer diverted his attention and led to the collision of two trains in Chatsworth, Calif., in September 2008. Twenty-five people were killed in that accident. In one of her first acts as chairman of the safety board, Deborah A.P. Hersman ordered all board employees not to use cell phones for calls or text messages while driving. http://www.buffalonews.com/home/story/941860.html [http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?et=1102983284444&s=6053&e=0013zxSe1iP15XB-wupQ9fw5xzf51ZXQAM7Rtzj-mFD6e5IZwnN4owJ_kUwd3S4owAbZNSwXHmCwt5lyBJjz_nbCU-vTl6uEuGiaqOCSxLphdf1a2CQAk89fCX1RZ7LBgD9XanQKb6qrTc6h63GrsDtBg==] ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Curt Lewis, P.E., CSP CURT LEWIS & ASSOCIATES, LLC