Flight Safety Information October 29, 2010 - No. 221 In This Issue Jet Suffered Two-Foot Hole, Decompression Witness admits lying in charter jet company case More than 600 professionals of air safety will meet in Milan China's aviation fleet set to double in five years Pilot error behind 2008 China Airlines 747 turbulence incident... FSI Advertising SMS Audits/Training Jet Suffered Two-Foot Hole, Decompression By ANDY PASZTOR (WSJ) Boeing Co. and federal air-safety officials are stepping up scrutiny of certain Boeing 757 aircraft after a two-foot hole opened earlier this week in the fuselage of an American Airlines jet cruising at 31,000 feet, resulting in rapid cabin decompression. The emergency, which occurred on an AMR Corp. American Airlines jet en route from Miami to Boston on Tuesday, prompted the crew and 154 passengers to don oxygen masks about half an hour into the flight. The twin-engine 757 descended to a lower altitude, turned around and made a safe landing at Miami International Airport. There were no injuries. But industry officials said the incident-which created a rupture roughly two feet long and a foot wide above the jet's front left cabin door-bears some similarity to cracks found last month in the fuselage of a United Continental Holdings' United Airlines Boeing 757. According to industry officials, manufacturer Boeing working on a safety alert, called a service bulletin, dealing with stepped-up inspections of certain portions of older 757 models. Industry officials said both planes had logged between 20,000 and 25,000 flights, which would make them middle-aged aircraft. Enhanced-inspection programs often apply to older planes that have undergone greater structural stress from many more takeoffs and landings. Rapid cabin decompressions are rare events, and they may stem from undetected metal fatigue that can suddenly peel back a portion of an aircraft's aluminum skin in midair. It's too early to tell what caused the rupture on the American Airlines plane. Both the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board are investigating, but agency officials on Thursday declined to comment on their focus. Investigators, though, are looking for links between Tuesday's event and the damage found earlier on the United jetliner. A Boeing spokeswoman declined to comment, except to say the company is providing technical assistance to the safety board and "will take appropriate action" as warranted by the investigation. The American plane is out of service. Its flight-data and cockpit voice recorders have been shipped to the safety board, which also will examine the ruptured portion of the fuselage. A spokesman for American Airlines confirmed details of the incident Thursday, adding that airline engineers and technicians are cooperating with government safety officials to determine the cause. Based on initial reports, the spokesman said, the pressure loss inside the cabin started "with a small hole in the fuselage just above the first door on the left side" of the plane behind the cockpit, and then ripped open a gash two feet long. American operates a fleet of more than 100 Boeing 757s on domestic and transcontinental routes, as well as to serve some international destinations. Hundreds of others are flown by major U.S. carriers, and 757s are widely used by large international carriers. Whatever stepped-up inspection procedures Boeing ultimately distributes will apply world-wide. But because such maintenance bulletins are only recommendations and aren't binding on carriers, U.S. and foreign air-safety regulators typically follow up with mandatory directives. This week's incident caught the attention of investigators partly because the American jet isn't particularly old, and it doesn't fall into the category of ageing aircraft prone to metal fatigue and therefore already subjected to heightened scrutiny and structural inspections. The cause of the latest in-flight rupture, according to industry officials, appears to have some parallels to a July 2009 incident involving a Southwest Airlines Co. Boeing 737 jet that made an emergency landing in Charleston, W.Va., after developing a one-foot hole on top of its fuselage at 30,000 feet. In that incident, the cabin rapidly lost air pressure, oxygen masks deployed and the plane diverted and made an emergency landing without any injuries. Boeing subsequently urged operators of more than 130 older 737 jets to step up inspections or install certain strengthening metal parts around suspect areas. In January, the FAA ordered enhanced structural checks- repeated roughly every few months-of affected aircraft without the modifications. The agency said undetected cracks "could result in sudden fracture and failure of the fuselage skin panels, and consequent rapid decompression." Back to Top Witness admits lying in charter jet company case NEWARK, N.J. (AP) - A former official of a charter jet company charged with falsifying flight records and violating safety regulations has admitted he lied during grand jury testimony. Joseph Singh testified Thursday in the conspiracy trial of two founders of Florida-based Platinum Jet Management and the company's head of maintenance. They're accused of falsifying records to hide the fact they were running illegal charter flights. One of their jets crashed on takeoff at Teterboro Airport in 2005, injuring 20 people. Singh pleaded guilty last year to fraud and faces up to five years in prison. On cross-examination Thursday, Singh admitted that he made inconsistent statements about whether he assigned the pilot to the flight that crashed. Back to Top More than 600 professionals of air safety will meet in Milan from 2 to 5 November Milan, Italy - It's the 63rd edition of the IASS (WAPA) - From 2 to 5 November, the city of Milan will host about 600 professionals skilled in air traffic safety. They will come from 52 countries, per the annual international convention organized by Flight safety foundation, a worldwide institution focused on flights safety. The event represents the 63rd edition of International air safety seminar (IASS) and will take place at Hotel Marriott. The convention has the high patronage of the president of Italian Republic and of Italian government. The seminar will be attended by the main organizations and institutions in the sector of air transport safety. Italy will be represented by ENAC (Italian civil aviation authority), ENAV (Italian flight assistance authority) and SEA, the operator of Milan airports. Delegates of EASA (European Aviation Safety Agency) and of ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization) will also attended the event. "This edition of IASS will be one of the most important ever" William Voss, president of Flight Safety Foundation said. "We are honoured of the award provided by Italian authorities". http://www.avionews.com/ Back to Top China's aviation fleet set to double in five years China's civil aviation industry plans to increase its fleet strength to about 5,000 aircraft in five years to offer quick and cheaper air travel, a top Chinese official has said. Li Jiaxiang, head of the Civil Aviation Administration of China, said some '450 million to 500 million passenger trips' are expected to be made annually by the end of the 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-2015) period, up from 230 million in 2009. The country's civil aviation fleet will have 4,800 to 5,000 planes to transport passengers and cargo in the next five years, up from the current 2,600 planes, he told the official China Daily. Li said China's aviation industry has witnessed double-digit growth in the past five years, and 'this pace will not slow down in the coming five years'. Since 1978, when China adopted the reform and opening- up policy, the civil aviation sector has developed at an astonishing speed of 17.2 per cent annually. "Our forecast, based on industry trends as well as the surging social and economic demand for air transport, shows the speed of development will remain this way for a long period," Li said. The CAAC aims to sharpen the competitive edge of China's air transport industry in the next two decades, and the following five years are believed to be very important to help fulfil the goal. According to the CAAC, it plans to use the next 20 years to build China into a 'civil aviation power' and develop a 'safe, efficient and green' air transport industry. The administration's targets include 1.5 billion passenger trips a year by 2030, which will make China the largest air transport market in the world, good safety record and service, and punctuality of scheduled flights to reach 85 per cent or even better. However, these ambitious goals will need more supportive measures, Li said. The proposal for the 12th Five-Year Plan released on Wednesday includes measures to 'optimise the layout of airports' and 'reform of the airspace management system' in the next five years. The country's civil aviation sector is facing increasing competition from the fast-sprawling high-speed rail network, which excels when it comes to punctuality and geological proximity to city centres. China has planned to build a 13,000-km high-speed railway network by 2012. Plans are afoot to increase the speed of the trains to 500 kmph radically reducing the travel time between the cities. Zhao Jian, a transport professor at the Beijing [ Images ] Jiaotong University, said the CAAC should also relax control and allow more budget and regional airlines to operate, besides welcoming more private airlines in the competition. The price of air tickets is still too high for a section of the public because the major players in the market are State- owned, he said. http://business.rediff.com/ Back to Top Pilot error behind 2008 China Airlines 747 turbulence incident Pilot error has been pinpointed as the cause behind a 2008 turbulence incident involving a China Airlines Boeing 747- 400. Twenty-four people were injured in the incident, which took place over east Malaysia on 20 September 2008. The aircraft, registration B-18211, was flying from Taipei Taoyuan International Airport to Bali Ngurah Rai International Airport with 358 people on board. Taiwan's Aviation Safety Council (ASC), which conducted investigations into the incident, says the aircraft's pilots had failed to use the aircraft's radar properly, which resulted in the aircraft encountering turbulence. "China Airlines' 747 fleet has two different weather radars. In this case, the aircraft had the newer radar, which the pilots were not familiar with," says a spokesman from the ASC. In its recommendations, the council urged CAL to ensure that its pilots familiarise themselves with the operating procedures of the aircraft's weather radar. It also called on the airline to step up its safety procedures by ensuring that passengers secure their seat belts. Source: Air Transport Intelligence news Curt Lewis, P.E., CSP CURT LEWIS & ASSOCIATES, LLC