Flight Safety Information January 3, 2011 - No. 003 In This Issue Russia Orders Tu-154B Flights Halted While Siberian Jet Fire Investigated Qantas may build a jet biofuel plant in Sydney Pilot error prompts U.S. Capitol evacuation Medical chopper crashes worry feds AI to take four Boeing planes on wet lease (INDIA) Runway Probe Excludes Airline UAE signs civil aviation MoU with Yemen FAA Fines American Eagle Airlines $330,000 for Broken Seats, Armrests Tu-154 fire sparked by electrical short-circuit: ministry Teens playing with laser injure helicopter pilots... THE INFLUENCE GAME: Safety, trade interests clash U.S. helps grease sales of Boeing jets abroad Russia Orders Tu-154B Flights Halted While Siberian Jet Fire Investigated Russia's transportation watchdog ordered all Tupolev-154B aircraft grounded until the cause of a fatal passenger jet explosion and fire in Siberia is determined. There are 14 Tu-154Bs in operation in Russia, state- controlled RIA Novosti reported today, citing an unidentified official from the transportation watchdog. It was a Kogalymavia Airlines Tu-154B that exploded in Surgut, Siberia yesterday, killing three people and injuring at least 30. A team of specialists are reviewing the flight data from the plane's black boxes, the Interstate Aviation Committee said in a statement on its website. The aircraft, carrying 116 passengers and eight crew members, exploded on the runway after one of its engines caught fire while the plane was taxiing for a departure to Moscow. Russia's Investigative Committee has opened a criminal probe, it said in a statement on its website. The Tu-154 is one of the most popular aircraft models in Russia. There are two generations of the jet operating, the 154B and the 154M. More than 900 Tu-154s have been produced over 40 years. http://www.bloomberg.com/ Back to Top Qantas may build a jet biofuel plant in Sydney (WSJ) - QANTAS will team with Solena Fuels to investigate the feasibility of constructing the world's second commercial jet biofuel plant in Sydney. The joint-venture will aim to convert commercial waste to biofuel using a $300 million plant based on the Fischer-Tropsch process already approved to produce jet fuel from coal in South Africa and gas in Qatar. A similar plant is being built by British Airways in London. Due to come on line in 2014, the British Airways plant will convert up to 500,000 tonnes of waste a year into 73 million litres of "green" jet fuel, which is enough to power 2 per cent of BA's Heathrow base. It will use food scraps and other household material, such as grass and tree cuttings, as well as agricultural and industrial waste, as a feedstock for the fuel. Qantas has had a long-standing interest in biofuels and is a member of the global Sustainable Aviation Fuel Users Group. Qantas spokeswoman Olivia Wirth said the airline was closely involved with other industry stakeholders in a "road map" study into the outlook for sustainable aviation fuel development in Australia. "We are also in discussions with a number of companies about specific fuel-producing technologies," she said. "Under an agreement with Solena Fuels, we have committed to investigate the feasibility of a waste-based aviation fuel production plant in Australia. "We expect to produce a business case for such a plant within 12 months. While we are still in the early stages of this project, the possibilities are exciting." Solena Fuels is a US-based fuel supplier. Back to Top Pilot error prompts U.S. Capitol evacuation WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An airline pilot tuned into the wrong radio frequency and lost contact as the plane approached Washington on Saturday, authorities said, prompting an evacuation of the U.S. Capitol building and scrambling of military fighter jets. A Federal Aviation Administration official said a Piedmont Airlines plane in the Washington, D.C. area briefly lost radio contact and military planes took off to find it. "It appears that the pilot read back the wrong (radio) frequency and then proceeded to get on the wrong frequency," FAA spokeswoman Diane Spitaliere said. "It then took about 15 minutes for us to figure out where he was and reestablish communications," she added. Spitaliere said the aircraft landed shortly afterward at Reagan National Airport, where Department of Homeland Security official interviewed the pilots. NBC news reported that the Capitol building was evacuated for a short time. Most members of Congress and their staffs do not return to Washington until next week. Since the September 11, 2001 suicide attack on the Pentagon in Washington, U.S. authorities consider any unidentified airplane approaching the Washington area as a threat and scramble fighters. Back to Top Medical chopper crashes worry feds Although it's not yet clear where the fault rests in Friday's plane-helicopter collision at Shenandoah Valley Regional Airport, the crash comes at a time when air ambulance operations already are under extra scrutiny. Recent spikes in fatal air ambulance crashes have triggered a federal safety crackdown. New rules proposed by the Federal Aviation Administration in October call for more pilot training, tighter rules for flying in hazardous weather and use of advanced safety systems, such as radio altimeters to track and warn of obstacles. The FAA said 126 people were killed in 135 incidents between 1992 and 2009. The worst year was 2008, when 24 people were killed in six crashes. Studies show 70 percent to 80 percent of medical helicopter crashes are the result of human error. The FAA's proposed rules also would require air ambulance firms to do preflight risk analysis, conduct safety briefings for medical personnel, and follow procedures for flying in bad weather and landing in remote areas. Pilots would need to hold instrument ratings, and the FAA also proposed new limits on how long flight crews can work and how long they must rest "We can prevent accidents by preparing pilots and equipping helicopters for all of the unique flying conditions they encounter," FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt said when he announced the proposed rules. The FAA estimates the changes would cost the nation's air ambulance operators $225 million over the next 10 years. The proposals, which incorporate many recommendations made by the National Transportation Safety Board last year are open for public comment until Jan, 10. http://www.newsleader.com/article/20110102/NEWS01/101020343 Back to Top AI to take four Boeing planes on wet lease (INDIA) MUMBAI: State-run Air India plans to lease four Boeing aircraft along with its pilots and cabin crew for its no-frill carrier AI Express and take 10 Airbus planes on dry-lease to expand its own network, sources said. Though the airline had floated tenders in November to dry-lease four Boeing 737-800 for its wholly-owned subsidiary Air India Express for up to five years, an office order was issued last month saying "it has been decided to wet lease four aircraft for Air India Express." Wet lease is an arrangement in which the lessor provides an aircraft along with the cockpit and cabin crew and pays for its maintenance and insurance. The company which wet leases the plane pays by the hours it is operated. In dry lease, only the aircraft is leased out. The B-737s were being wet leased "in order to augment capacity to meet the surging demand and also the demands from MPs of Punjab and Kerala to restore the original (flight) schedule," the order signed by AI CMD Arvind Jadhav said. Air India Express operates mainly across the Gulf and South-east Asia, and currently has a 21-aircraft fleet in which 17 are owned and four are on lease. The wet-lease move has baffled some officials who said that wet leasing was always costlier than dry lease and there was no shortage of pilots in Air India Express. Requesting anonymity, they said Air India had to cough up 130 crore in the 1990s to terminate a short-term lease agreement for two Airbus A310-300s with Antigua-based aircraft leasing company Caribjet after an arbitration. It also had to spend 10 crore on the litigation. In a related development, the national carrier floated tenders to dry lease 10 A-330s for five years with the option of extending the lease period by another two years. The deliveries of these aircraft would be preferred from the second quarter of this year, the tender document said. The Airbus planes should be manufactured in 2009 or later but the airline would consider four year old planes if it did not get proper response for the newer ones, it said. The document also announced Air India's intention to sub-lease two A330-200 aircraft, currently in its fleet, till 2014. Air India's aircraft acquisition and leasing policies have come under severe criticism from the Standing Committee on Transport, Tourism and Culture and the Committee on Public Undertakings , which have recommended that these policies be relooked in the interest of the national airline. http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/7208111.cms Back to Top Runway Probe Excludes Airline By ANDY PASZTOR (WSJ) - Federal safety officials, saying American Airlines violated long-established "standards of conduct" for aviation-incident investigations, have barred the carrier from participating in a probe of one its jets that ran off the end of a runway in Wyoming last week. As part of its unusual public criticism of the AMR Corp. unit, the National Transportation Safety Board on Friday said the airline improperly downloaded information for its own use from the flight-data recorder of a Boeing 757 that rolled past the end of a runway at Jackson Hole on Dec. 29. None of the 181 people aboard suffered injuries, but the safety board immediately launched a formal investigation. Although no data "was missing or altered in any way," the board said American's decision to prematurely access the data before turning over the plane's recorders, usually called the "black boxes," to federal investigators amounted to a "breach of protocol." American's misconduct violated long-established "standards of conduct" that are "vital to the integrity of our investigative process," according to Deborah Hersman, the board's chairman. As a result, the board barred American Airlines officials from continued participation in the probe.It is the first time in decades that a major U.S. carrier has been kicked off an investigation into an accident or incident involving one of its own aircraft. None of the 181 people aboard suffered injuries after the 757 airplane slid more than 650 feet off the end of the runway. The carrier didn't download any information from the separate cockpit-voice recorder on Flight 2253, which departed Chicago, landed at Jackson Hole in snowy conditions and ended up about 600 feet past the end of the runway. Bulldozers and other pieces of equipment were used to pull the twin-engine jet out of hard-packed snow. On Sunday, an American spokeswoman said that before delivering the recorders to the government, airline technicians downloaded the data as part of the carrier's "normal safety investigation" of such incidents. "There was no attempt to circumvent any collaborative process with the NTSB" or officials of the Federal Aviation Administration, according to the spokeswoman. She also said the airline "has begun an internal review of its procedures" and remains committed to cooperating with government investigators. So far, neither the airline nor the safety board has indicated specific causes of the incident. Investigators, among other things, will look at the aircraft's brakes, how far down the runway the plane touched down and whether the strip's surface was contaminated by snow or ice. The Jackson Hole Airport has a relatively short runway for handling big commercial jets, and many pilots have long talked about frequent incidents with business jets or smaller planes running off the end of the strip. Eyewitness reports and an amateur video suggest that the plane touched farther down the runway than would be considered optimal, and its thrust reversers may have deployed later than desired. Such devices, located at the rear of each engine, re- direct thrust and serve an important function in slowing down an aircraft after touchdown. The investigation also is bound to examine whether winds or visibility issues were factors. In an update issued late last week, the safety board said the pilots told investigators that they saw the runway clearly before touchdown and described the descent as well as the approach to landing as "uneventful." Almost precisely a year earlier, an American Airlines Boeing 737 ran off the end of a wet runway at Kingston, Jamaica, after touching far down the strip. Unable to stop with almost half the 8,900-foot runway behind it, the plane barrelled off the strip at roughly 60 miles an hour and broke apart. There were no fatalities. In a press release last month, Jamaica's Civil Aviation Authority said all of the plane's systems operated normally and "deceleration was normal for a wet runway." In the wake of the Kingston accident, FAA officials stepped up scrutiny of the airline's safety practices related to landings in bad weather or on contaminated runways. Back to Top UAE signs civil aviation MoU with Yemen WAM SANA'A, YEMEN: The United Arab Emirates (UAE) signed an air services Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Yemen to increase flights between the two countries. The MoU adds four weekly flights by Dubai's carriers to the Yemeni capital city and an unspecified number of flights to other Yemeni airports which follow the open-skies policy. The agreement aims to further promote trade exchange, passenger traffic and economic relations between the UAE and Yemen. The MoU was signed at a ceremony here by Director General of the UAE's General Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) Saif Mohammad Al Suwaidi and Director General of he Yemen's Civil Aviation and Meteorology Authority Hamid Fajaj and Director General of Yemen's Civil Aviation and Meteorological Authority (CAMA). The new agreement aims to enhance areas of cooperation between the two countries in the field of civil aviation, and to keep pace with developments in the air transport area and to serve the passengers movement and international shipping as well as strengthening economic, trade and investment exchange between the two countries. Earlier, Yemeni Transport Minster Khalid Al-Wazir and Al-Suwaidi discussed ways to promote civil aviation cooperation. Al-Suwaidi, in statements carried by Saba, Yemen's state news agency, hailed the strong bilateral relations between the two countries, the new security procedures followed at Yemeni airports which are on par with those in place at European airports. "I believe it is difficult for anybody to break into the security checks imposed on cargo and passengers (at Yemeni airports)," Al Suwaidi said. http://www.wam.org.ae Back to Top FAA Fines American Eagle Airlines $330,000 for Broken Seats, Armrests FAA alleges American Eagle mechanics failed to note broken passenger seats and armrests on two aircraft during a Dec. 18, 2008, inspection and did not follow the approved maintenance manual instructions during those inspections. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is proposing a $330,000 civil penalty against American Eagle Airlines Inc. of Fort Worth, Texas, for operating an Embraer 135 regional jet on 12 revenue passenger flights when it was not in compliance with Federal Aviation Regulations. FAA alleges American Eagle mechanics failed to note broken passenger seats and armrests on two aircraft during a Dec. 18, 2008, inspection and did not follow the approved maintenance manual instructions during those inspections. FAA inspectors discovered seats on two aircraft that would not raise and stow into the upright and locked position for takeoffs and landings. FAA inspectors also found damaged center arm rests that would not stow in the upright and locked position. The FAA further alleges that American Eagle used one of the aircraft on 12 revenue passenger flights between the inspection and eventual repair of the seats and armrests. The other aircraft did not fly again until the airline completed the required work. American Eagle has 30 days from receipt of the FAA's enforcement letter to respond to the agency. http://ohsonline.com/ Back to Top Tu-154 fire sparked by electrical short-circuit: ministry Initial information from the scene of the fatal Kolavia Tupolev Tu-154 fire in Surgut points to an electrical problem as the source of the blaze. Russia's emergency situations ministry states that three people on board the aircraft were killed in the 1 January fire. It adds that, as the engines on the Tu-154 were started, the fire developed "as a result of a short-circuit in on-board electrical equipment". Video images of the accident indicate a strong fire in the central fuselage section, with flames erupting from the exits over the wings, as well as from the right-hand side, just ahead of the starboard engine, where a rear exit is located. The airline and the emergencies ministry are putting the total number of occupants at around 135, including 116 passengers, eight crew and up to 11 employees of the carrier. Investigators have retrieved both the cockpit-voice and flight-data recorders from the wreckage, says the Russian Interstate Aviation Committee (MAK) which will head the inquiry. MAK says that it has started work on inspecting the structural components of the aircraft and its engines. It has neither confirmed the nature of the fire nor the circumstances which led to the blaze, which completely destroyed the tri-jet. Kolavia flight 7K348 had been scheduled to operate from Surgut to Moscow Domodedovo when the fire broke out at around 15:00. Source: Air Transport Intelligence news Back to Top Teens playing with laser injure helicopter pilots NAPLES, Fla. (AP) -- Two teenagers face felony charges after pointing a laser light at a police helicopter. Authorities say the teens were shining the laser pen into the air about 2 a.m. on New Year's Day. Two pilots in a tactical helicopter from the Collier County Sheriff's Office spotted the green laser beam while patrolling about 500 feet in the air. The pilots were forced back to the hangar. They each suffered ruptured blood vessels in their left eyes and were treated at a local hospital. Deputies tracked the light to a home where 19-year-old Hidlago Moreno and his 17- year-old friend said they were playing with the laser. The teens were charged with pointing a laser at an aircraft operator, causing injury. Back to Top THE INFLUENCE GAME: Safety, trade interests clash WASHINGTON (AP) -- Some of the United States' top trading partners are aggressively fighting to stop the Obama administration from treating lithium batteries as hazardous cargo because they say that would disrupt international shipping and cost businesses hundreds of millions of dollars. The European Union, China, Japan, South Korea and Israel have lobbied against requiring air shipments of lithium batteries and products containing them to meet hazardous cargo regulations, diplomatic and industry officials told The Associated Press. The proposal would raise shipping costs and disrupt the flow of products such as cellphones, laptops, medical devices, water meters and electric car batteries, these governments contend. But the Transportation Department estimates its proposal would cost only $9 million a year and airline pilot unions want additional safety precautions, saying it's only a matter of time before the batteries cause a plane crash. The fight over the regulations is an example of how lobbying often works - out of sight and taking advantage of relationships, institutional knowledge and politics to promote well-heeled financial interests. And it's become a test of the administration's resolve to place safety first. Lithium batteries can short-circuit and catch fire during flight. Government testing has shown lithium battery fires burn extremely hot and are exceptionally difficult to put out. A United Parcel Service plane loaded with electronics crashed in Dubai in September. The two pilots, who were killed, reported a cargo compartment fire and smoke so thick they couldn't see their cockpit instruments. Investigators suspect lithium batteries either started the fire or worsened it. "We take a back seat to no one when it comes to safety" has been Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood's mantra. But Michael O. Moore, a professor of economics and international affairs at The George Washington University, said it's not always easy to balance safety needs and trade interests. "Certainly any sensible administration would be careful when you are irritating that list of trading partners," Moore said. The final say on the regulations rests with the White House Office of Management and Budget. Last month, its officials held separate meetings with Japanese and South Korean government officials and industry leaders, and their lobbyists, even though the official comment period had been closed for months. The meetings were arranged by the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, a Korean official told the AP, adding that the budget office's final review now will likely be delayed by weeks and perhaps months. The official asked that his name not be used because he wasn't authorized to speak OMB spokeswoman Meg Reilly said the office doesn't comment on the progress of regulations. U.S. trade spokeswoman Nkenge Harmon said trade officials advised the two governments how to arrange the meetings, but didn't set them up. The meeting with the Japanese occurred Nov. 16, according to a budget office record. Officials met with the Koreans a week later. Those talks came after the 27-nation EU, China, Japan, and South Korea opposed the proposal at World Trade Organization committee meetings in March and June in Geneva, calling it a potential barrier to trade, diplomatic and industry officials said. Those governments, and Israel, also raised the issue in talks with the U.S. trade office in Washington, officials said. The regulation would raise the price of medical device and water meter exports to the U.S. by about 5 percent and create untold logistical headaches, Israeli diplomat Ohad Cohen said. If changes need to be made to protect safety, Cohen said, it's better to work through international organizations rather than for one country to "impose a big impediment for trade." Japanese officials estimate the proposal would cost their battery industry $100 million a year. There have been several other meetings and filings on the issue. Transportation Department officials working on the safety proposal attended trade talks in Washington with South Korea on May 4 and Japan on May 11, the department said. Both countries are major producers of lithium batteries for hybrid and electric cars, a global market some analysts predict will reach $17 billion a year in the next decade. The EU and Israel have filed comments with the Transportation Department. Pilot unions have tried unsuccessfully to toughen regulation of battery shipments at meetings of the International Civil Aviation Organization, a United Nations agency that sets aviation safety standards. And OMB officials have met with U.S. and foreign corporations and their lobbyists. One meeting a year ago was with French battery maker SAFT. The company has factories in Europe, Asia and the United States. In an example of Washington's "revolving door" between policymaking and lobbying, one of SAFT's lobbyists was David Kunz, according to disclosure records filed with the Senate by The Carmen Group, a Washington lobbying firm. Kunz was chief counsel at the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, the Transportation Department agency that wrote the safety rule, until January 2009 when President Barack Obama took office. Kunz, who left the Carmen Group in September, acknowledged in an interview that he worked on the proposal while at Transportation. He declined further comment, and the Carmen Group also did not want to elaborate. The safety proposal would effectively require SAFT factories to have one shipping standard for the U.S. and another for the rest of the world, said Glen Bowling, a SAFT vice president in the specialty batteries division. If that were to happen, the company would probably fly batteries to Mexico and Canada to avoid U.S. regulations and then truck them into the United States, he said. That would mean delays and added costs to consumers, Bowling said. Batteries exported from the U.S. to other countries would also encounter added hurdles, he said. If the regulation is approved, industry will likely challenge it in court and mount a lobbying effort to get Congress to block it, he said. Opponents of the rule stand to benefit from the results of this year's congressional elections. Rep. James Oberstar, D-Minn., the chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and a key advocate for tougher regulation, was defeated. When Republicans take control of the House this week, the chairman will be Rep. John Mica, R-Fla. SAFT is building a new factory near Jacksonville, Fla., on the edge of Mica's congressional district. "Mica wants to ensure that we are not over-regulating this industry, and damaging our economy or our economic relationships with other countries, all for little to no change in safety," spokesman Justin Harclerode said. http://www.washingtonpost.com Back to Top U.S. helps grease sales of Boeing jets abroad WASHINGTON (NYT) - The king of Saudi Arabia wanted the United States to outfit his personal jet with the same high-tech devices as Air Force One has. Turkey's president wanted the Obama administration to let a Turkish astronaut sit in on a NASA spaceflight. The Bangladesh prime minister pressed the State Department to re-establish landing rights at Kennedy International Airport in New York. Each of these leaders was trying to decide whether to buy billions of dollars' worth of commercial jets from Boeing or its European rival, Airbus. And U.S. diplomats were acting like marketing agents, offering deals to heads of state and airline executives whose decisions could be influenced by price, performance and, as with all finicky customers with plenty to spend, perks. This is the high-stakes, international bazaar for large commercial jets, where tens of billions of dollars are on the line, along with hundreds of thousands of high-paying jobs. At its heart, it is a wrestling match fought daily by executives at two giant companies, Boeing and Airbus, in which each controls about half of the global market for such planes. To a greater degree than previously known, diplomats are a big part of the sales force, according to cables released by WikiLeaks. In interviews, State Department and Boeing officials acknowledged the important role the government plays in helping them sell commercial airplanes, despite a trade agreement signed by U.S. and European leaders three decades ago intended to remove international politics from the process. The U.S. economy, said Robert Hormats, State Department undersecretary for economic affairs, increasingly relies upon exports to the developing world - nations such as China and India, as well as those in Latin America and the Middle East. So pushing big-ticket items (or objecting if a U.S. company does not get a fair chance to bid) is central to the Obama administration's strategy to help the nation recover from the recession. Boeing earns about 70 percent of its commercial-plane sales from foreign buyers and is the single biggest U.S. exporter of manufactured goods. Every $1 billion in sales translates into an estimated 11,000 jobs, the State Department says. "That is the reality of the 21st century; governments are playing a greater role in supporting their companies, and we need to do the same thing," said Hormats, a former top executive at Goldman Sachs. Said Tim Neale, a Boeing spokesman: "The way I look at it, it levels the playing field." But Charles Hamilton, a former Defense Department official and now consultant to Airbus, said the government's advocacy undermined arguments by Boeing and the U.S. that Airbus had an unfair advantage because of subsidies from European governments. One example of the horse-trading involved Saudi Arabia, which in November announced it would buy 12 Boeing 777-300ER jets, with options for 10 more, a transaction worth more than $3.3 billion at list prices. That announcement was preceded by years of intense lobbying by U.S. officials. One pitch came in late 2006, when Israel Hernandez, a senior Commerce Department official, hand-delivered a personal letter from President George W. Bush to the Jeddah office of King Abdullah. The letter urged the king to buy as many as 43 Boeing jets to modernize Saudi Arabian Airlines and 13 jets for the Saudi royal fleet, which serves the extended royal family. The king read the letter, a State Department cable says, and announced Boeing jets were his favorites. He said he had just turned down two new Airbus jets, opting instead for a slightly used Boeing 747. But before he would commit to a mostly Boeing fleet, the king had a request. "I am instructing you," he told Hernandez politely, according to the State Department cable, "to speak to the president and all concerned authorities," as the king "wanted to have all the technology that his friend, President Bush, had on Air Force One." Once he had his own high-tech plane, the king told Hernandez, " 'God willing,' he would make a decision that will 'please you very much.' " A State Department spokesman confirmed last week that the United States had authorized an "upgrade" to King Abdullah's plane. Bangladesh's prime minister, Sheikh Hasina Wazed, was equally direct in making landing rights at Kennedy Airport a condition of the airplane deal, then at risk of collapsing. "If there is no New York route, what is the point of buying Boeing?" a November 2009 cable quotes Hasina as saying. The deal with Boeing went through. Flights by Biman Bangladesh Airlines to New York have not been restored. The request from Turkey for a slot on a future NASA flight came early last year, as Turkish Airlines was considering buying as many as 20 Boeing jets. The government owns slightly less than half the airline, but Turkey's minister of transportation, Binali Yildirim, in a January 2010 meeting with the U.S. ambassador to Turkey, made clear the country's president wanted help with its fledgling space program and perhaps assistance from the Federal Aviation Administration to improve its aviation safety. "We probably cannot put a Turkish astronaut in orbit, but there are programs we could undertake to strengthen Turkey's capacity in this area that would meet our own goals for improved aviation safety," wrote James Jeffrey, then the U.S. ambassador. "In any case, we must show some response to the minister's vague request if we want to maximize chances for the sale." Turkish Airlines ordered 20 Boeing planes a month later. Some sales come to Boeing in part because foreign leaders want to show friendship to the U.S. Jordan's King Abdullah II, a longtime ally and recipient of billions in U.S. aid, told the ambassador in 2004 that "even though the latest Airbus offer was better than Boeing's he intended to make a 'political' decision to have Royal Jordanian buy Boeing aircraft," a State Department cable said, although the U.S. still had to help Boeing snag the deal. Curt Lewis, P.E., CSP CURT LEWIS & ASSOCIATES, LLC