Flight Safety Information May 31, 2011 - No. 110 In This Issue Fire erupts on Delta jet Air France crash calls for better pilot training, experts say 75 bodies recovered from Air France crash after 2 years Gulfstream's G650 back in the air Pilot error behind CAL 747 tailstrike incident Criticism of State-Owned Air India Grows Fire erupts on Delta jet A Delta Air Lines McDonnell Douglas MD-88 operating as Flight DL 2284 from Pittsburgh International Airport (PIT) to Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL) caught fire in a right rear section of the aircraft after landing on Saturday, May 28, 2011 at 4:14 p.m. EDT, as reported by the Mason County Daily News, LA Late, Fox News, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, KLPW, UPI, CBS News, and other media sources on Sunday, May 29, 2011. A billowing cloud of black smoke could be seen trailing the aircraft as it traveled along the runway, as seen in the attached video clip and slide show which accompany this report. All 43 passengers and 5 crew members were evacuated safely from the plane through a rear emergency exit. It was reported that 4 of the passengers suffered minor injuries while leaving the aircraft, and were treated by first responders at the scene. All were transported by bus to the airport terminal. Some conflicting information remains over the cause of the fire. According to Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) spokesman Kathleen Bergen, the MD-88 jet suffered either a blown tire, a locked-up brake, or perhaps both events, which resulted in a fire erupting after the aircraft landed. Another report indicated that the fire had spread to the landing gear and the right rear engine. Emergency crews quickly extinguished the flames with foam spray. http://www.examiner.com/airlines-airport-in-national/fire-erupts-on-delta-jet Back to Top Air France crash calls for better pilot training, experts say By Alan Levin, USA TODAY As Air France Flight 447 plunged in the darkness two years ago, its pilots had ample opportunities to save the jet. Instead, as has happened repeatedly on airliners around the world, they exacerbated the problem, according to preliminary information released by French investigators. The Air France disaster, which killed 228 people on their way from Brazil to France on June 1, 2009, is the latest example - and one of the most deadly - of the biggest killer in aviation: a plane going out of control. The latest information in the Air France case, released Friday by French investigators, is spurring renewed calls for better pilot training and other measures. "If this was a technical problem (with the jet), we'd be saying we need to fix this," says John Cox, a former airline pilot and safety consultant who has written on loss of control for the British Royal Aeronautical Society. "There have been those of us in the industry that have been arguing for this for decades." What is needed is better training so pilots are not as startled and confused during emergencies, and better tools to warn them when their planes are about to go out of control, the experts say. Plummet from the sky The French government's preliminary report describes what happened: The Air France jet's 7-mile plunge into the Atlantic Ocean began suddenly when the jet's instruments went haywire. Ice had blocked the jet's speed sensors; the pilots could not tell how fast they were going. Warnings and alerts sounded almost simultaneously. In response, the pilots made a series of mistakes, according to the French Bureau d'Enquêtes et d'Analyses, the agency that investigates aviation accidents. Instead of flying level while they diagnosed the problem, one of the pilots climbed steeply, which caused a loss of speed. Then the aggressive nose-up pitch of the plane and the slower speed caused air to stop flowing smoothly over the wings, triggering a loss of lift and a rapid descent. They had entered an aerodynamic stall - which has nothing to do with the engines, which operated normally - meaning the wings could no longer keep the plane aloft. Once a plane is stalled, the correct response is to lower the nose and increase speed. For nearly the entire 3½ minutes before they crashed into the ocean, the pilots did the opposite, holding the Airbus A330's joystick back to lift the nose. Although the response was improper, it would be wrong to simply blame the pilots without looking at how well they were prepared for the emergency and whether the information they received could have confused them, says Michael Barr, an instructor at the University of Southern California's Aviation Safety and Security Program. "They're sitting there happy, the autopilot is on," Barr says. "Next thing you know, lights are flashing, warning horns are on. There were probably 10 warnings or messages coming to the crew at the same time." Similar miscalculations and miscues have been common in fatal accidents: ·In the Colgan Air crash Feb. 12, 2009, near Buffalo that killed 50 people, the captain overreacted to a warning that the Bombardier Q400 turboprop had gotten too slow and yanked the nose of the plane upward, the National Transportation Safety Board found. If he had pushed the nose down, the board said, he might have saved the plane. ·On Aug. 16, 2005, a West Caribbean Airways Boeing MD-82 crashed in Venezuela, killing all 160 people aboard, after the jet stalled at 33,000 feet. The Venezuelan government blamed the pilots for failing to recognize that they were in a stall during a 3½-minute plunge, despite alerts from the automatic stall warning system. ·On Oct. 14, 2004, a Pinnacle Airlines jet crashed near Jefferson City, Mo., after the pilots stalled the Bombardier CRJ-200 at a high altitude, the NTSB found. Both pilots died; no passengers were aboard. Similar accidents killed 1,848 people in the 10 years ending in 2009, according to jet manufacturer Boeing. Limitations of human brain It may not be possible to prevent all such accidents. Corporate pilot Patrick Veillette, who is writing a paper on the subject for the International Society of Air Safety Investigators, says there is evidence to suggest that the human brain cannot grasp what is going on in the most severe emergencies. Still, Cox and others say stall training has been lacking for decades. Newer flight simulators can better teach airline pilots how planes respond in stalls, and their use should be dramatically increased, they say. Responding in part to the Buffalo crash, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration has proposed improving pilot training. "If we're going to make sizable improvements in aviation safety, we need to deal with upset recovery," Cox says. "That's where the risk is." http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2011-05-30-training-air-france-crash_n.htm Back to Top 75 bodies recovered from Air France crash after 2 years Paris (CNN) -- Seventy-five bodies have been recovered from the wreckage of an Air France plane that crashed off the coast of Brazil two years ago, more than doubling the number of remains that have been found, the vice-president of the French victims' association told CNN Tuesday. The remains have not yet been identified, Robert Soulas said. Air France 447 plunged into the Atlantic Ocean on June 1, 2009, killing all 228 people aboard. The bulk of the wreckage was found this year after a search by robot submarines of an underwater mountain range. Many bodies were still in the fuselage, investigators said at the time. Only about 50 bodies were recovered in the days following the crash. Soulas got the news from a French government liaison appointed to deal with families of victims, he said. "Personally, I would have preferred to leave the bodies of our loved ones on the seafloor," he added, repeating his long-held view. Back to Top Gulfstream's G650 back in the air Testing resumes less than two months after crash grounded business jet Gulfstream Aerospace Corp. today resumed flight testing of its new ultra-large cabin, ultra-long range G650 aircraft, which it had temporarily suspended after an accident in April. To date, the G650 flight-test program has accumulated 1,560 flight hours on 470 flights. Gulfstream anticipates receiving FAA certification of the aircraft in 2011 and delivering the first aircraft to customers in 2012, as originally planned at the aircraft's public launch in 2008. Gulfstream Aerospace Corp. has resumed the G650 flight-test program, following a temporary suspension of flying after an April 2 crash. The first flight since the crash took place was Saturday, with Serial No. 6001 flying for one hour and 39 minutes. The crew included senior experimental test pilots Jake Howard and Tom Horne and flight test engineer Bill Osborne. "We have conducted all the necessary reviews to assure ourselves that we can safely resume the flight-test program at this point," said Pres Henne, senior vice president for programs, engineering and test at Gulfstream. The second plane in the G650 test program, Serial No. 6002, crashed during takeoff exercises in Roswell, N.M., on April 2, killing all four people on board. In a preliminary report posted several days later, the National Transportation Safety Board said the aircraft "was performing a takeoff with a simulated engine failure to determine takeoff distance requirements at minimum flap setting" when the crash occurred. Immediately following the crash, Gulfstream elected to temporarily suspend the flight activities of its four remaining G650 flight-test aircraft as the NTSB, the Federal Aviation Administration, the company and suppliers work together to analyze the crash. Introduced in 2008, the G650 is Gulfstream's longest-range, highest-speed, largest- cabin jet to date and is capable of flying just shy of the speed of sound. Even though the luxury jet has not been approved to go to market, in April, Gulfstream had about 200 firm orders for the G650, which carries a price tag of $64.5 million. There is a five-year waiting period for the plane. "We have worked closely with the Federal Aviation Administration in this process and received the agency's concurrence to resume flight testing," Henne said. "It is our responsibility to move forward with the flight-test program, and we will do so in a safe and prudent manner. The G650 will enter service as the flagship of our product line, where it will represent the very best in business aviation technology." To date, the G650 flight-test program has accomplished 470 flights, accumulating 1,560 hours toward the estimated 2,200 hours required for certification. Gulfstream resumed flying with the four remaining flight-test aircraft. The company still anticipates certification in 2011, with service entry in 2012, as was originally planned at the aircraft's public launch in 2008. In November, Gulfstream announced a $500 million, seven-year expansion plan expected to result in 1,000 new jobs at its Savannah headquarters. Plans call for Gulfstream to build new facilities on an 88-acre tract in the northwest quadrant of the Savannah/Hilton Head International Airport and to renovate several existing facilities at its main campus off Gulfstream Road. About 5,500 people work at Gulfstream's Savannah facility. The company reported $5.2 billion in revenue last year. http://savannahnow.com/news/2011-05-28/gulfstreams-g650-back-air Back to Top Pilot error behind CAL 747 tailstrike incident Taiwan's Aviation Safety Council has recommended for China Airlines (CAL) to improve and review its pilot training, following an investigation into a tailstrike incident involving a CAL Boeing 747-400 in 2010. Pilot error was found to be the cause behind the incident, which took place at Anchorage on 4 March 2010. During take-off roll, the pilot received a stick shaker warning, indicating that the aircraft was flying at an airspeed which was too low to sustain lift. The 747 continued on its flight to Taipei Taoyuan airport. After landing, inspections of the aircraft found that the belly suffered "substantial damage", said the council. In a report on the incident, the council said that the pilot had entered the incorrect gross weight value before the flight, resulting in a lower speed than required and the aircraft's belly making contact with the runway during take-off. While investigations found that the flight crew had sufficient rest hours required by the airline and Taiwan's civil aviation authority's regulations, pilot fatigue was identified as a contributing factor to the incident, said the council. In its safety recommendations, the council has advised CAL to enhance its flight operations training and ensure that steps are in place for flight crew to verify input values before take-off. It also recommended for the airline to pay greater awareness to fatigue management and to strengthen communication between pilots. Source: Air Transport Intelligence news Back to Top Criticism of State-Owned Air India Grows By HEATHER TIMMONS NEW DELHI - When Bob Haygooni paid a midflight visit to a cockpit at his new employer, Air India, he was shocked. The pilots, he said, had completely covered the windows with newspaper to keep out the sun. "All you had in the cockpit was this yellowish glow, as the light permeated the newspaper," Mr. Haygooni recalled, saying it was a visibility hazard he had never seen before in 30 years of flying. But "this was a normal thing at Air India," said Mr. Haygooni, a former United Airlines pilot who flew for the Indian airline for 16 months. In April 2010, however, he decided that the paycheck was not worth his concerns over what he considered the government's haphazard approach to running its state-owned airline. Interviews with more than a dozen experienced pilots hired in the last three years by Air India to work new international routes describe an airline with problems. But theirs are not the only complaints. Passengers have abandoned Air India in droves, shunning the airline because of its reputation for poor customer service and late flights. Formerly this nation's monopoly carrier, Air India has been surpassed by three commercial Indian airlines - Jet Airways, Kingfisher and IndiGo - among those that have sprung up since India deregulated the domestic industry nearly two decades ago. Air India now has less than 15 percent of India's domestic air travel market, with many empty seats on the flights that do take off. As a result, Air India lost more than $1 billion in taxpayer money in the last fiscal year. And now there is a growing public clamor for the government to get out of the airline business. "Instead of throwing good money after bad, the time has come to stand up and say: yes, Air India must be shut down," The Indian Express newspaper said in an editorial earlier this month. While few government airlines in the developing world have stellar reputations, the Center for Asia Pacific Aviation, a research group in Sydney, Australia, singled out Air India as an example of government mismanagement. "There are other state-owned airlines in other emerging-market countries that have similar problems, but I can't think of one as bad as Air India," said Peter Harbison, the center's executive chairman. Well-run state airlines tend to be a product of "enlightened and intelligent leadership," Mr. Harbison said. He cited Indonesia's national carrier, Garuda, which once was an airline with heavy debts and a fleet of unsafe old planes that regulators in Europe refused to let land there. But under a businessman, Emirsyah Satar, who was named chief executive in 2005, Garuda Indonesia has been transformed into a profitable company that raised $350 million in a public offering this year. Spokesmen for Air India defend the airline as safe and say it is working to correct its problems. And the nation's new civil aviation minister, Vayalar Ravi, vowed in an interview Wednesday not to close or sell the airline. "There is no question of Air India being shut or privatized," he said. He said vested interests who "want to exploit the people for their own profit" were behind suggestions that India's government give the airline up. Still, Mr. Ravi said the airline had been mismanaged in the past - including the merging in 2007 of India's domestic and international state-run airlines. "Nothing positive came out of the merger," he said, and Air India has bought too many planes. But the airline does "not make any compromises with maintenance and security," Mr. Ravi said. Air India's image was not helped by a recent 10-day pilots' strike over salaries. It ended with a government pledge to raise pay - but not before the work stoppage had caused cancellation of nearly 1,500 flights and added almost $50 million to Air India's mounting losses. Hoping to win back customers, Air India is slashing fares and planning to expand, even though it loses money on 95 percent of its flights. Analysts say the prospect of a fare war threatens to destabilize the entire Indian airline industry, and to erase the previous predictions by private carriers of profits this year. Even some once-loyal customers are giving up on Air India. "I think all Indians should just boycott the airline," said Harjiv Singh, co-founder of Gutenberg Communications, a public relations company with offices in New York and Delhi. Mr. Singh said he used to fly Air India's business class regularly. But now he flies Continental's direct flight to Newark, or one of a host of European carriers that stop in Europe before going on to New York. Even inside the company, some executives are quietly calling for the end of government control. But Air India is popular with India's central government because ministers and politicians can demand routes to connect their home states with the capital, New Delhi, even if they lose money. "I feel like a woman with 1,000 husbands," one male Air India executive complained, referring to the constant demands from government officials. As in many other emerging-market countries, India had a severe pilot shortage about five years ago, as the number of passengers and airlines grew faster than the country could churn out new pilots. Airlines here responded to the pilot shortage by hiring expatriates, including hundreds from the United States, where - until the rules changed in 2007 - commercial pilots were forced to retire at age 60. In India, as most everywhere else, the retirement age has long been 65. For many of those who joined Air India, the culture clash has been severe. Dozens left before their three-year contracts expired. Of the 186 foreign pilots hired since April 2007, Air India has just 36 left, the company said. Pilots interviewed for this article expressed safety concerns about basic operations at Air India - particularly its training procedures, which many said were not adequate for teaching the hundreds of new pilots the airline needs for its expansion. Some, like Mr. Haygooni, spoke freely. Others insisted that their identities not be revealed because they said the industry did not reward whistle-blowers. Air India is "just so far behind the ball I don't know how they will ever catch up," said Alexander Garmendia, 64, who joined Air India in 2009 after retiring from American Airlines. He trained at Air India's headquarters in Mumbai for six weeks, but said he left in part because he was worried about safety. One safety concern noted by the interviewed pilots was that veteran Air India captains often left cockpit doors unlocked - a practice most carriers around the world abandoned after the 9/11 attacks in the United States. They also said captains tended to leave the cabin during flights, leaving co-pilots alone for long periods. They said pilots' smoking in cockpits was also common. Mr. Rattan acknowledged that such things might occur, but "to say it was a trend would be to stretch things too far." Expatriate Air India pilots said they were most worried about an inadequate training system that they said created co-pilots with excellent book knowledge but little real-life flying experience. "The biggest problem is if I have a heart attack, this kid isn't going to be able to get the plane on the ground," said one current Air India pilot, who has more than 25 years of commercial airline experience. At Air India, some pilots say, young co-pilots get few hands-on opportunities in the cockpit. Veteran captains handle the landings and takeoffs, often leaving co-pilots little to do but operate the radio and fill out paperwork. Most of the pilots interviewed for this article recalled incidents when they let young co- pilots take the controls - a common practice in America and Europe to give inexperienced pilots a chance to learn - but then had to seize back command of the aircraft to prevent a disaster. An Air India spokesman in Mumbai, K. Swaminathan, said in an e-mail that India's airline regulator did allow assisted takeoffs and landings by co-pilots, when they were flying with commanders who were authorized to do such training. But "as the airline is in the midst of a fleet expansion, all commanders may not have the necessary experience to allow co-pilots to conduct supervised takeoffs and landings," he said. Air India was free of major accidents for a decade - until a May 2010 crash in Mangalore that killed 158 people. The captain, a Serbian, came into the landing too high, and did not abort it when he should have, the Indian government's investigation report said. The co-pilot, the report found, "failed to challenge any of the captain's errors." Just four days later, Air India had another serious incident, when a co-pilot, while adjusting his seat, accidentally knocked the controls off their settings as the captain was heading for the bathroom. The plane dropped 7,000 feet before the captain could return to the cockpit and right it. A government investigation concluded the co-pilot "probably had no clue how to tackle this kind of emergency." Hari Kumar contributed reporting. http://www.hindustan.org/forum/showthread.php?t=13122 Curt Lewis, P.E., CSP CURT LEWIS & ASSOCIATES, LLC