Flight Safety Information June 16, 2010 - No. 118 In This Issue Flaming engine forces Alitalia flight to return to Boston Head injury kills Delta mechanic at Minn. airport Pilots of Runaway Jet Won't Get Jobs Back Flight attendant helps land plane when first officer falls ill Major runway closing at JFK airport Mapping the intersection of mind and computer Nasa warns solar flares from 'huge space storm' will cause devastation HAVE YOU TRIED ADVERTISING IN FSI? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Flaming engine forces Alitalia flight to return to Boston (CNN) An Alitalia flight en route from Boston, Massachusetts, to Rome, Italy, made an emergency landing at Logan International Airport shortly after takeoff due to a report that flames were coming from one engine, according to a Massport spokesperson. The pilot of Flight 615, which took off shortly before 6 p.m., shut down the left engine and returned the plane to the Boston airport where it landed safely, spokesman Phil Orlandella told CNN. He says flames and smoke were spewing from the engine, and crews were able to put out the fire once it had landed. All 258 people on board the Airbus 330 were taken off the plane and taken to the terminal by bus, Orlandella said. He had no comment on whether the fire was caused by a bird or a flock of birds, as speculated by some witnesses on the ground. Back to Top ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Head injury kills Delta mechanic at Minn. airport MINNEAPOLIS (AP)- Authorities say a Delta Air Lines mechanic has died after an accident while working on a plane at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. The Hennepin County medical examiner's office has identified the mechanic as 47-year-old Jesse Paul Stygar, and says he died Tuesday morning of a head injury. Metropolitan Airports Commission spokesman Pat Hogan says the mechanic was injured while working on the gear doors of an aircraft. Hogan says there are no indications of foul play. Airport police and the Minnesota Occupational Safety and Health Administration are investigating. Delta spokesman Anthony Black says the accident did not prevent the St. Louis flight from leaving as scheduled at 7 a.m., although a substitute plane was used. Back to Top ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Pilots of Runaway Jet Won't Get Jobs Back By ANDY PASZTOR A pair of Northwest Airlines pilots who said they were distracted by their personal laptops while flying a jetliner at 37,000 feet last year-and were out of touch with air-traffic controllers for more than an hour-won't get their old jobs back. The incident involving the two veteran aviators sparked a media and congressional furor last October. The Northwest jet sped over several states without responding to air traffic controllers and overshot Minneapolis, their destination airport, by roughly 100 miles, before the pilots realized their mistake. The Federal Aviation Administration initially revoked the licenses of both pilots for endangering the lives of passengers and operating the airliner in an "extremely reckless" fashion. But the men contested the license revocations, setting the stage for a series of legal skirmishes. In March, the pilots signed a settlement with the FAA which ended the dispute and left the door open to their being reinstated to flight status after successfully completing certain training and test requirements. Northwest is now part of Delta Air Lines Inc. On Tuesday, however, a Delta spokesman confirmed that Timothy Cheney, the veteran captain on the controversial flight, has retired rather than try to seek reinstatement. Richard Cole, the first officer on Northwest Flight 188 from San Diego to Minneapolis, declined to retire, according to people familiar with the details. The Delta spokesman said Mr. Cole "is no longer employed" by the carrier, but didn't elaborate. A spokeswoman for the Air Line Pilots Association unit representing Northwest and Delta pilots declined to comment or make the pilots available. The latest moves mark the end of a high-profile legal and political tussle that to some extent also affected labor relations at the airline. Pilot union leaders complained that FAA officials acted hastily and bowed to public pressure in summarily yanking the pilot licenses. The pilots themselves never admitted any wrongdoing, even though their actions that night became a symbol of pilot distraction and stoked a debate over the importance of professionalism while sitting behind the controls After the incident, regulators and lawmakers moved to bar U.S. airline pilots from turning on personal laptops, cell phones or any other electronic devices while taxiing aircraft on the ground or flying them in commercial service. The incident also exposed weaknesses in the government's system of promptly alerting the military about suspicious or potentially dangerous aircraft. http://online.wsj.com [http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?et=1103483308807&s=6053&e=001G44N4muwmiZDt00srvz-i56V4spXOueoRtIFHZBCRj5S9WmLKZUJUHsMTuN1_kNJA06y86mmh-4TB20SYgWnzc9rnnImvcdiLkvJ9xHZwdnHKKpQPxHDBQ==] Back to Top ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Flight attendant helps land plane when first officer falls ill (CNN) -- A flight attendant with a pilot's license ditched her normal duties and stepped in for a sick co-pilot of an American Airlines flight before the plane landed in Chicago, Illinois, airline officials said. The first officer had become sick with 'flulike' symptoms yesterday, according to Tim Wagner, a spokesman for American Airlines. "He went back into the passenger cabin," he said. "That's when the captain began to solicit help from any passengers with a pilot's license." One of the five flight attendants on board flight 1612 from San Francisco, California, told the captain that she is a commercial pilot, and she immediately took over the first officer's responsibilities, Wagner said. "She called things out, and read through the pre-landing checklist," he said, adding that it was a very smooth transition. The plane, carrying 225 passengers and seven crew members, landed safely at O'Hare International Airport, at 4:24 p.m. Monday. No one was hurt. The first officer, who is based in Chicago, was immediately taken to the hospital by paramedics waiting on the ground. He was treated and released and was resting Tuesday, Wagner said. "The entire incident was handled very well on all accounts," Wagner said." He was not able to elaborate on the flight attendant's background or provide any details into her piloting experience. The flight attendant is based in San Francisco, the captain in St. Louis, Missouri. Back to Top ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Major runway closing at JFK airport (CNN) -- New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport isn't exactly the poster child for on-time departures and things may get worse before they get better for travelers using the airport this spring. Starting Monday, JFK's busiest runway will close for four months for reconstruction. The $376 million project for Runway 13-31, also known as the Bay Runway, will widen it from 150 to 200 feet and add taxiways, all in an effort to ease traffic congestion at the airport. "The improvements are expected to reduce flight delays overall by an estimated 10,500 hours per year," the office of New York Gov. David Paterson said. It also tried to alleviate passenger worries about potential bottlenecks. "Airlines are adjusting schedules and operations to mitigate delays, and the airport's three remaining runways will be utilized to their full capabilities during the Bay Runway's closure." Officials are reducing the number of arrivals and departures at the airport from about 1,300 a day to 1,050, said John Kelly, a spokesman for The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates JFK. "The aim is to have [the construction] be invisible to the traveler," Kelly said. Airlines react JetBlue, the largest domestic carrier at the airport, is voluntarily reducing its schedule by 10 percent to help reduce bottlenecks, said spokeswoman Alison Croyle. "The FAA predicts that the delays during the closure will be similar to those seen during peak summer months," Croyle said. "So we expect there are going to be delays, but we're partnering with the Port Authority as well as other airlines to ensure that that impact is minimized." There are about 170 JetBlue flights out of JFK a day, but the airline has decided to operate on a winter schedule during the construction, limiting flights to about 150 a day. JFK also serves as a hub for American and Delta Airlines. American Airlines hopes the impact on its customers will be minimal, said spokesman Tim Smith. The carrier is keeping its current schedule at JFK but is delaying its planned flight increases for the summer season until July. "[We] can't say there will never be any delays, but this is a good compromise that allows the work to be completed more quickly," Smith said. American Airlines and American Eagle operate a combined 90 departures per day at JFK. That number is expected to go up to about 100 after the project is completed. Air traffic controller: 'Impact will be felt' At more than 14,500 feet long, or almost 3 miles, the Bay Runway is one of the longest in the country. It handles more than half of all departures at JFK, according to The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. A veteran air traffic controller who works at the airport said the runway closure will definitely affect travelers, despite reassurances from officials to the contrary. "I do not think the impact will be minimal, I think the impact will be felt," said Stephen Abraham, the National Air Traffic Controllers Association president at JFK. "There will be hours of the day when we normally experience heavy departure volume and we're going to run delays that are going to be exacerbated by not having that runway." The bottlenecks could be worst between 5 p.m. and 10 p.m. when there is a steady stream of departures, Abraham said. On a good weather day, delays could run 15-30 minutes, but if the weather conditions deteriorate, they could be an hour or more, he estimated. Still, the project had to be done, Abraham said, and he "wholeheartedly endorsed" the decision to do it all at once instead of piecemeal over a couple of years. In general, Abraham always recommends that people fly first thing in the morning whenever possible to avoid delays. Air travelers know JFK can be challenging when it comes to punctuality even in the best of times. Last year, JFK was ranked 22nd out of 31 major U.S. airports in on-time departures, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation's Bureau of Transportation Statistics. About one-fifth of flights did not take off on time, the report said. With about 48 million travelers a year passing through its terminals, JFK is the 13th busiest airport in the world in terms of passenger traffic, according to Airports Council International. Back to Top ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Mapping the intersection of mind and computer Well my inbox is filling up again with emails, as it did last month when I reported this story for The New York Times on pilot complacency and cockpit automation. Prompting the latest flurry of comments is today's article in the Wall Street Journal by Andy Pasztor and Daniel Michaels about the crash in May of Afriqiyah Airways. Only one of the 104 people on the Airbus A330 from Johannesburg to Tripoli survived the accident. According to Pasztor and Michaels the landing accident is being seen as one in "which confused pilots got out of sync with the plane's computerized controls and ended up flying an apparently functioning commercial jet into the ground." This is no one-off event. A number of studies over the past 15 years indicate pilots fail to adequately monitor what the airplane is doing in one-half to three-quarters of all accidents. So in the wake of the Afriqiyah Airways disaster, what's the big idea being proposed? More automation. That's right, Airbus is said to be working to "devise foolproof automated ground-collision avoidance systems" that in cases of emergency transfer control from the pilots to the airplane. "This is very disturbing", wrote Hugh Schoelzel, a retired captain who worked as director of safety for TWA. "The more automation we add, the more training and pilot qualification issues arise. I believe in automation, but as an adjunct to basic pilot skills, not as an 'end-all'." While automation may be causing a decrease in piloting skills as Mr. Schoelzel suggests, Missy Cummings a professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology says there is another reason to be concerned about cockpit automation; boredom. Dr. Cummings a former Navy pilot, is director of the humans and automation laboratory at MIT's department of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Not surprisingly she is a proponent of automation and envisions a future that will include at least some pilotless commercial flights. But first some extremely troublesome problems have to be wrestled to the ground, problems demonstrated by one of Dr. Cummings students, Master's degree candidate First Lt. Christin S. Hart, who has found that too much automation can prove counter-productive. "Increased automation can lower an operator's workload too much, leading to mental underload, which can cause a decrement in vigilance, or sustained alertness, and lead to boredom. It has been shown that boredom produces negative effects on morale, performance, and quality of work," she wrote in her paper, Assessing the Impact of Low Workload in Supervisory Control of Networked Unmanned Vehicles. These findings do not surprise Dr. Cummings "The human mind craves stimulation", she explained to me last week during a visit to her office in Cambridge. Failing to find that stimulation in the task at hand, the mind will wander. This cuts to the heart of a number of events outlined by industry researchers but takes us at warp speed to the episode last October in which two Northwest Airlines pilots overflew their destination - the Minneapolis airport. The Northwest pilots were doing personal work on their laptops which is not allowed. "It doesn't have anything to do with automation," F.A.A. Administrator Randy Babbitt told me. "Any opportunity for distraction doesn't have any business in the cockpit. Your focus should be on flying the airplane." But if I'm reading Lt. Hart's study properly, the automation itself is an opportunity for distraction, even as it assists pilots by reducing workload and increasing the precision of calculations and navigation. This is a conundrum. In today's cockpit, two highly complex systems - the mind and the computer - come together, even though the contours of that intersection are still being mapped. It is not only unwise to race to a fix that fails appreciate these systems in balance, but it is unlikely to result in success. http://christinenegroni.blogspot.com/ [http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?et=1103483308807&s=6053&e=001G44N4muwmiYGmfaGijkeNxF0x6LlPvdDBqrdropvR0U9JJ3EPCLQ7Nwy4QJA__HPkVqLibjXYKx96NCa8Nwv2r6_N8aKGTYg1U6WGeJE6omaik354m8QzWrteN7LeMpU] Back to Top ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Nasa warns solar flares from 'huge space storm' will cause devastation Britain could face widespread power blackouts and be left without critical communication signals for long periods of time, after the earth is hit by a once-in-a-generation "space storm", Nasa has warned. Link to this video National power grids could overheat and air travel severely disrupted while electronic items, navigation devices and major satellites could stop working after the Sun reaches its maximum power in a few years. Senior space agency scientists believe the Earth will be hit with unprecedented levels of magnetic energy from solar flares after the Sun wakes "from a deep slumber" sometime around 2013, The Daily Telegraph can disclose. Nasa to put your face in space In a new warning, Nasa said the super storm would hit like "a bolt of lightning" and could cause catastrophic consequences for the world's health, emergency services and national security unless precautions are taken. Scientists believe it could damage everything from emergency services' systems, hospital equipment, banking systems and air traffic control devices, through to "everyday" items such as home computers, iPods and Sat Navs. Due to humans' heavy reliance on electronic devices, which are sensitive to magnetic energy, the storm could leave a multi-billion pound damage bill and "potentially devastating" problems for governments. "We know it is coming but we don't know how bad it is going to be," Dr Richard Fisher, the director of Nasa's Heliophysics division, told The Daily Telegraph in an interview. "It will disrupt communication devices such as satellites and car navigations, air travel, the banking system, our computers, everything that is electronic. It will cause major problems for the world. "Large areas will be without electricity power and to repair that damage will be hard as that takes time." Dr Fisher added: "Systems will just not work. The flares change the magnetic field on the earth that is rapid and like a lightning bolt. That is the solar affect." A "space weather" conference in Washington DC last week, attended by Nasa scientists, policy-makers, researchers and government officials, was told of similar warnings. While scientists have previously told of the dangers of the storm, Dr Fisher's comments are the most comprehensive warnings from Nasa to date. Dr Fisher, 69, said the storm, which will cause the Sun to reach temperatures of more than 10,000 F (5500C), occurred only a few times over a person's life. Every 22 years the Sun's magnetic energy cycle peaks while the number of sun spots - or flares - hits a maximum level every 11 years. Dr Fisher, a Nasa scientist for 20 years, said these two events would combine in 2013 to produce huge levels of radiation. He said large swathes of the world could face being without power for several months, although he admitted that was unlikely. A more likely scenario was that large areas, including northern Europe and Britain which have "fragile" power grids, would be without power and access to electronic devices for hours, possibly even days. He said preparations were similar to those in a hurricane season, where authorities knew a problem was imminent but did not know how serious it would be. "I think the issue is now that modern society is so dependant on electronics, mobile phones and satellites, much more so than the last time this occurred," he said. "There is a severe economic impact from this. We take it very seriously. The economic impact could be like a large, major hurricane or storm." The National Academy of Sciences warned two years ago that power grids, GPS navigation, air travel, financial services and emergency radio communications could "all be knocked out by intense solar activity". It warned a powerful solar storm could cause "twenty times more economic damage than Hurricane Katrina". That storm devastated New Orleans in 2005 and left an estimated damage bill of more than $125bn (£85bn). Dr Fisher said precautions could be taken including creating back up systems for hospitals and power grids and allow development on satellite "safe modes". "If you know that a hazard is coming ... and you have time enough to prepare and take precautions, then you can avoid trouble," he added. His division, a department of the Science Mission Directorate at Nasa headquarters in Washington DC, which investigates the Sun's influence on the earth, uses dozens of satellites to study the threat The government has said it was aware of the threat and "contingency plans were in place" to cope with the fall out from such a storm These included allowing for certain transformers at the edge of the National Grid to be temporarily switched off and to improve voltage levels throughout the network. The National Risk Register, established in 2008 to identify different dangers to Britain, also has "comprehensive" plans on how to handle a complete outage of electricity supplies. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/ Back to Top ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Back to Top ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Curt Lewis, P.E., CSP CURT LEWIS & ASSOCIATES, LLC