Flight Safety Information September 27, 2011 - No. 199 In This Issue Aeropostal DC-9 rips engine in hard landing FBI Says Lasers Pointed at Aircraft Nearly Doubled in 2010 Smoke aboard Continental jet forces return to Hartford Former flight attendant pleads guilty to starting fire on airplane United pilots union says cockpit training insufficient Bag of fish empties baggage claim area at Atlanta airport Aeropostal DC-9 rips engine in hard landing A McDonnell Douglas DC-9 operated by Venezuela's Aeropostal made a hard landing at an airport in eastern Venezuela today, ripping off both of its Pratt & Whitney JT8D engines in the process. The aircraft, registration YV-136T, was carrying 125 passengers and five crew members on a flight from Caracas to Manuel Carlos Piar Guayana airport in Puerto Ordaz, said the emergency service centre of eastern Bolivar state on its Twitter feed. Seventeen passengers were injured, it added. Photos posted by the agency show the severely damaged right-hand engine of the aircraft, which had separated from the fuselage. The centre said the engine had suffered a "mechanical failure" but did not elaborate. A statement from Venezuela's transport of ministry said both engines came apart from the aircraft body. The aircraft involved in the incident was built in 1976, Flightglobal's ACAS database showed. It has logged 66,012h and 65,814 cycles. Source: Air Transport Intelligence news ********** MD-80 Hard Landing Status: Preliminary Date: 26 SEP 2011 Time: 08:55 Type: McDonnell Douglas DC-9-51 Operator: Aeropostal Alas de Venezuela Registration: YV136T C/n / msn: 47738/830 First flight: 1976-07-09 (35 years 3 months) Engines: 2 Pratt & Whitney JT-8D-17A (HK3) Crew: Fatalities: 0 / Occupants: 5 Passengers: Fatalities: 0 / Occupants: 125 Total: Fatalities: 0 / Occupants: 130 Airplane damage: Substantial Location: Puerto Ordaz Airport (PZO) (Venezuela) Phase: Landing (LDG) Nature: Domestic Scheduled Passenger Departure airport: Caracas-Simón Bolívar International Airport (CCS) (CCS/SVMI), Venezuela Destination airport: Puerto Ordaz Airport (PZO) (PZO/SVPR), Venezuela Narrative: A McDonnell Douglas DC-9-51 passenger plane sustained substantial damage in a hard landing accident at Puerto Ordaz Airport (PZO), Venezuela. No serious injuries were reported among the five crew members and 125 passengers. The airplane operated on a domestic service, flight VH 342, from Caracas-Simón Bolívar International Airport (CCS). Upon landing at Puerto Ordaz the airplane touched down very hard, causing both engine mounts to break from the fuselage. www.aviation-safety.net Back to Top FBI Says Lasers Pointed at Aircraft Nearly Doubled in 2010 What appears as a dot of light on the ground can illuminate an entire cockpit, disorienting a pilot or causing temporary blindness/fbi photo People pointing hand-held lasers at aircraft - an act that can temporarily blind or disorient a pilot - nearly doubled in 2010 compared to the year before, the FBI says. The FBI reported that in 2009 there were 1,489 laser incidents recorded by the Federal Aviation Administration compared to 2,836 in 2010, or an average of more than seven incidents daily. In releasing the stats, the FBI cited Justin Stouder as an example. The 24-year-old pointed a laser from his Suburban St. Louis yard at a helicopter last year and was arrested. "It's equivalent to a flash of a camera if you were in a pitch black car at night," said St. Louis Metropolitan Police Officer Doug Reinholz, the pilot on patrol that night when Stouder's green hand-held laser "painted" his cockpit, according to an FBI press release. "It's a temporary blinding to the pilot," he said during a recent news conference highlighting the danger of lasers directed at airplanes and helicopters. The penalties are stiff. Interfering with the operation of an aircraft carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Since the FBI and Federal Aviation Administration began keeping records of laser events in 2004, "there has been an exponential increase every year," said Tim Childs from the Federal Air Marshal Service, who serves as a liaison officer with the Bureau on laser issues. The overwhelming number of the incidents involve green lasers-especially dangerous because the human eye is most susceptible to damage from the yellow-green light spectrum, the FBI said. In the St. Louis case, Justin Stouder said at a news conference, according to the FBI: "I had no idea it illuminated the whole cockpit and blinded everybody inside...It was really a selfish mistake." http://www.ticklethewire.com/2011/09/27/fbi-says-lasers-pointed-at-aircraft-nearly- doubled-in-2010/ Back to Top Smoke aboard Continental jet forces return to Hartford CONWAY, Mass (Reuters) - Smoke in the bathroom of a commercial jet bound for Cleveland prompted its speedy return to a Connecticut airport minutes after take-off on Monday, aviation and airport officials said. Shortly after the plane serving Continental Express departed Bradley International Airport in Hartford at 9:41 a.m. local time, smoke was detected in the jet's lavatory, Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Jim Peters said. The crew of Chautauqua Airlines Flight 4736 turned the jet around and landed the Embraer ERJ 145 safely at 9:50 a.m. at Bradley, he said. No injuries were reported among the 49 passengers and 3 crew members on board, according to Bradley spokesman John Wallace. After landing, they were bussed from the runway to the airport terminal building, said Wallace. Continental was working to rebook all passengers on other flights, spokeswoman Christen David said. The cause of the incident was under investigation, she said. The problem was initially detected when a smoke alert light illuminated in the cabin. Chautauqua Airlines is a regional carrier and unit of Republic Airways Holdings, which is based in Indianapolis. Back to Top Former flight attendant pleads guilty to starting fire on airplane that landed in North Dakota FARGO, N.D. (AP) - A former flight attendant pleaded guilty in federal court Monday to starting a fire aboard an airplane more than three years ago and forcing an emergency landing in North Dakota. Eder Rojas, 22, formerly of Woodbury, Minn., told authorities he used a lighter stashed in one of the overhead bins to ignite paper towels in the rear bathroom of the Compass Airlines flight from Minneapolis to Regina, Saskatchewan. "He was mad at the airline for making him work the route he was on," Assistant U.S. Attorney Brett Shasky said during Monday's hearing. The flight took off from Minneapolis about 10:30 p.m. on May 7, 2008, with 72 passengers and four crew members. Before takeoff, Rojas had requested additional paper towels and tissue, Shasky said. About 35 minutes into the flight, an indicator light alerted the captain there was smoke in the bathroom. Shasky said there were "flames shooting out" of a paper towel holder. Rojas helped put out the fire while the plane made a rapid descent into Fargo, the prosecutor said. Prosecutors agreed to drop a charge of failure to appear in exchange for the guilty plea to the charge of setting fire aboard an aircraft. The failure to appear charge was filed after Rojas didn't show up for trial in September 2008 and was on the run for nearly three years. He was arrested in his native Mexico in March and returned to North Dakota in August. Rojas faces up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Sentencing is set for Dec. 16. Prosecutors have said that about five weeks before the Compass flight, Rojas was aboard another flight that was forced to make an emergency landing in Wisconsin because of a bathroom fire. Rojas helped put out the fire, as he did on Compass flight. No charges have been filed in the flight that landed in Wisconsin. U.S. Attorney Timothy Purdon declined to comment after Monday's hearing. Neil Fulton, federal public defender for the Dakotas, did not return a phone message. Back to Top United pilots union says cockpit training insufficient Airline calls lawsuit 'shameful' ploy amid contract negotiations United Airlines pilots are being rushed too quickly through inadequate flight retraining as they try to learn Continental Airlines' way of doing things in the cockpit, the pilots union alleges, claiming it has become a safety issue because pilots don't feel comfortable with the new flying rules. The union for United pilots filed a federal lawsuit Monday asking a judge to delay implementation of changes to how pilots fly planes under a merged airline. The deadline for integrating a significant portion of the procedures is Friday. Continental Airlines However, a spokeswoman for United Airlines called the lawsuit a "shameful" attempt to gain advantage in ongoing union contract negotiations. As United and Continental continue to merge operations, pilots will be adopting mostly Continental's cockpit procedures and checklists. United pilots need more time and training to learn the changes, said Capt. Wendy Morse, chairwoman of the United Master Executive Council of the Air Line Pilots Association. "The company is implementing unrealistic deadlines and requiring only distance, computer-based training that we believe is inadequate to maintain the level of safety our passengers expect from United and its pilots," she said. United said safety is its highest priority, and it alleged the lawsuit is a tactic in union contract talks between pilots and the airline. "Our training procedures, which are fully approved and closely monitored by the FAA, meet or exceed safety standards, and we are a safe airline," United Airlines spokeswoman Julie King said. "This lawsuit ... is a shameful effort to influence negotiations for a joint collective bargaining agreement, under a false guise of safety." Morse said the lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, is unrelated to union contract talks with United Continental Holdings. "It is an entirely separate issue," she said, adding that the union has a "solid wall between those two discussions." The suit seeks to prevent United from implementing the new procedures on schedule. Though the airlines officially merged about a year ago, they are still mostly operating as separate airlines until the company receives a single operating certificate from the Federal Aviation Administration. United officials have said they expect to receive that certificate this year. To operate in the same cockpit, premerger United and Continental pilots must have a single set of operating procedures, the lawsuit says. "Our members are pretty exercised that they don't feel comfortable in their airplanes," Morse said, adding that the computer-based training being offered is inadequate for creating muscle memory for new procedures. "It requires a classroom course, at the minimum." Classroom training can include cockpit mock-ups and flight simulators, the suit says. Morse said retraining is like learning a new language. "It's like we're being asked to speak Russian by using a few mouse clicks, and that's not suitable," she said. Examples of differences in procedures involve handling emergencies, such as recovering from wind shear, or keeping the plane flying level when fuel tanks become unbalanced and have different weights, Morse said. "It's very different in terms of how we accomplish the same goal," she said. Some pilots have reported the computer training was taking six to eight hours instead of the one hour scheduled by the airline, the suit says. Morse said the pilots association has been unsuccessful in talking about training concerns with United, "up and down the management chain and all the way to the CEO," as well as the FAA. King said the suit is "without merit." "We fully expect the court will find these claims to be groundless," she said. Morse said it was a coincidence that the union filed the suit a day before Tuesday's scheduled rally in New York, where more than 700 uniformed pilots of United and Continental are scheduled to picket. Pilots will be protesting the slow pace of negotiations with the airline on a joint union contract. United pilots are eager to get out of a bankruptcy-era contract that slashed average pay by about 40 percent. http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-biz-0927-united-20110927,0,1823341.story Back to Top Bag of fish empties baggage claim area at Atlanta airport Something fishy about a satchel left unattended Monday at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport turned out to be just that, Channel 2 Action News reports. Half of the North Terminal baggage claim area was evacuated for about an hour, with travelers kept 200 feet away, as police and firefighters investigated the mysterious striped bag. The incident began about noon when baggage handlers spotted the unattended satchel and started going through it to see if they could identify the owner. They backed off when they found strange leaves and sheets of aluminum foil inside. The Atlanta Police Department bomb squad was called. The contents of the bag turned out to be dead fish wrapped in leaves. Police told Channel 2 that it's not unusual for international travelers to bring in beef or fish and spice it up with herbs in their luggage. Police threw the fish out. The bag's owner remained unknown Monday afternoon. Even after the delay, some passengers were glad for the security precautions. While Mike Kleirock, who had flown in from Philadelphia, said he wondered why officials couldn't just re-route passengers' baggage to a different carousel, "at the same time I love being safe and not being involved in anything suspicious." http://www.ajc.com/news/atlanta/bag-of-fish-empties-1189130.html Curt Lewis, P.E., CSP CURT LEWIS & ASSOCIATES, LLC