Flight Safety Information December 1, 2011 - No. 244 In This Issue Asia pilot gap grows as airlines order new jets China Eastern Airlines to improve pilots' English Report: Pilot in crash last year flew too low Deaths on U.S. Government Aircraft Exceed Commercial Toll FAA: Changes coming to prevent tarmac delays High winds cause chaos at LA airport RTI Group to Host AViCONŽ 2012 Conference American seeks court approval to shed leases on MD-80s Asia pilot gap grows as airlines order new jets HONG KONG (AP) - Fast-growing Asian and Middle Eastern airlines have signed orders recently for hundreds of new airplanes - now they face the problem of finding enough pilots to fly them. For safety-conscious travelers, that means sticking with the big, well known airlines who can afford to lure the best staff as the scramble to fill the cockpit intensifies. While there have been warnings for several years of a pilot shortage in Asia, the latest orders add to the urgency. The region is forecast to account for the lion's share of global aircraft deliveries over the next two decades as demand for air travel surges amid strong economic growth. It's also forecast to need the largest number of new pilots and the widening shortage of experienced staff is raising safety concerns and playing havoc with flight schedules. "Quite a number of carriers are increasing their orders. So where are the pilots coming from? The shortage is going to manifest itself certainly as we go into next year because there'll be a lot of planes coming in then, so these guys are going to have a hard time finding the pilots to fly them," said Shukor Yusof, an aviation analyst with Standard & Poor's. Last month, Indonesia's Lion Air ordered 230 Boeing Co. 737s with options for 150 more. Qatar Airways ordered at least 55 jets from Airbus SAS while Emirates ordered 50 Boeing 777s. From 2011 to 2030, Boeing and Airbus both predict Asia will account for about a third of global aircraft deliveries worth a total of more than $1 trillion. To keep up with growth and replace retiring pilots, the International Civil Aviation Organization forecasts Asia will need 229,676 pilots over the next two decades, up from 50,344 in 2010. In the most likely scenario, Asia will be short about 9,000 pilots a year because it will need about 14,000 but have capacity to train only about 5,000. "Never in human history have we seen a time when 2 billion people will enter the middle class and demand air travel. That time is now," said William Voss, president of the Washington, D.C.-based Flight Safety Foundation. Some airlines are already acting. Emirates has announced plans to set up a dedicated $109 million flight training center in Dubai that will be able to train up to 400 students at a time. Earlier this year, Canadian flight-training company CAE Inc. said it was expanding its training center in Zhuhai, China that it runs jointly with China Southern Airlines. But Roei Ganzarski, Boeing's chief customer officer for flight services, warns that recruiting pilots will be a long-term problem for the aviation industry. "We've already heard of a few airlines that have either reduced their operations or even grounded their airplanes because they don't have enough people to fly them." Training a commercial airline pilot takes time - up to three or four years. Trainees must obtain a Private Pilot's License and then a Commercial Pilot's License. Then they need an Air Transport Pilot's License - the advanced credential required to fly a commercial airliner - which involves logging about 1,500 flying hours. It's an expensive and time-consuming entire process that rookies starting from scratch will need two to three years to complete. Once they're hired by an airline as a first officer, candidates will need more time for additional conversion training for the type of aircraft they'll be flying, which could take another year. Aviation industry executives say small airlines will be hit hardest because they can't compete with big, rich carriers such as Dubai-based Emirates, the Middle East's biggest airline. Capt. Alan Stealey, senior vice president for flight operations, said Emirates isn't facing problems recruiting its target of 600 pilots this year, up from about 400 or 450 in past years. Emirates lures staff with generous salaries and benefits. First officers earn tax-free annual salaries averaging $95,000 while captains get about $135,000 as well as free housing, medical benefits and tuition fees. Emirates also operates some of the world's newest, most advanced jets - another draw for recruits. "We're an airline of choice from a pilot's point of view," said Stealey. "The shortage will not be in carriers like Emirates," but rather will hit smaller, regional carriers hardest, he predicted. The crash of an Air India Express jet in May 2010 highlighted the problems smaller airlines are facing. An investigation blamed the Serbian pilot for the disaster in which a Boeing 737 operated by the national carrier's low-cost arm crashed while landing at Mangalore's airport, killing 158 people. The probe found that the pilot slept through more than half the flight and woke up disoriented when it was time to land the aircraft. India's pilot shortage has been driven by fierce demand as a slew of carriers have started up in the past decade and expanded rapidly. Pilots complain that they don't have enough rest time between flights, a violation of international aviation safety practices. Indian airlines have been forced to look abroad for staff, which comes with its own problems as some Eastern European pilots had difficulties with English - the international language of aviation. By hiring pilots from countries where English isn't spoken widely, "you have to accept that there's potential for confusion, or less comprehension," said Gideon Ewers, a spokesman for the U.K.-based International Federation of Airline Pilots' Associations. Airlines across Asia have been recruiting foreigners. China has at least 1,300 foreign flight captains, according to the state-run China Daily newspaper. Garuda Indonesia and Korean Airlines have also been forced to hire foreign pilots. In China, state media quoted an American pilot for Spring Airways complaining he had to rely on his Chinese first officer to communicate with air traffic controllers who wouldn't or couldn't speak English. Experts say while some smaller airlines are forced to hire pilots on short-term contracts, they don't have as much control over the quality of the pilot's training and experience as big airlines with cadet programs do. The result is that while airlines may have crews that meet the minimum training requirements, some airlines will have crews that are excellent but others are "dangerously marginal," said Voss. At airlines where safety and training standards are closely followed, the pilots in the cockpit "correct the missteps and correct problems on the spot. All of those little corrections eventually define the safety culture of that airline," said Voss. "If the crews are all on six-month contracts, that doesn't happen. Risky behavior goes unchallenged, professionalism decays, and disaster inevitably follows." A potentially even graver shortage looms of maintenance personnel, aviation groups say. Boeing forecasts that Asia will need a quarter-million new technicians over the next two decades, up from about 46,500 now. "It is a more difficult problem to solve," said Voss,"since the job is very unattractive and harder to train." Back to Top China Eastern Airlines to improve pilots' English China Eastern Airlines has promised to co-operate with the investigation Continue reading the main story (BBC) China Eastern Airlines has vowed to improve its pilots' English amid claims a plane took off without clearance from air traffic controllers in Japan. On Monday the Shangai-bound plane took to the skies after apparently being told to stay on the runway and then to abort take-off at Osaka airport. The plane landed safely in Shanghai later. The airline says it is co-operating with Japan's investigation. It says it will also "regulate our flight crews' English communications". Flight MU516, with 245 people on board, was due to fly from Osaka's Kansai International Airport to Shanghai. As air traffic controllers were talking to an approaching helicopter they told the plane to halt on the runway, Kyodo news agency reports. But the Airbus A330 began to take off instead and disobeyed further instructions to abort, Kyodo reported. Japan's Transport Ministry says that although the plane had enough room between itself and other aircraft nearby, the pilot might have broken the country's aviation laws. In response to the incident, an officer at China's Civil Aviation Administration told China Daily: "We've written to our Japanese counterparts asking for materials to help us look into the case." On its accredited Sina Weibo page - China's equivalent of microblogging site Twitter - the airline says it will "operate according to laws and regulations, and further regulate our flight crews' English communications", to ensure flight safety. English has been the default communication language for international air traffic control, where pilots and air traffic controllers have to meet a certain standard set by the International Civil Aviation Organisation. Back to Top Report: Pilot in crash last year flew too low A seasoned pilot killed when his twin-engine airplane crashed near Moreno Valley after taking off from Palm Springs was flying too low, according to federal accident investigators. Christopher Julius Petrikas, 65, of Riverside died last Dec. 20 when the 10-seat Aero Commander he was flying, en route to Chino, went down in the Lake Perris Recreation Area. In a recently released accident report, National Transportation Safety Board investigators detailed the circumstances behind the crash, which pointed to pilot error as the cause. A day before the accident, Petrikas had flown the ill-fated aircraft from Texas, carrying family members with him to Palm Springs International Airport, where the aviator decided to lay over due to foul weather over his destination, according to the report. Petrikas, a flight instructor who had logged 33,000 hours' flight time, much of it in jumbo jets, rented a vehicle at the airport and drove his family to Riverside, returning to Palm Springs the following morning to retrieve the Aero Commander and fly it to Chino Municipal Airport. According to the report, Petrikas did not file a flight plan and never flew above 1,200 feet after departing Palm Springs, navigating by tracking alongside westbound Interstate 10. When Petrikas flew through the San Gorgonio Pass - roughly the halfway point on his 75-mile journey - he radioed March Air Reserve Base, telling air traffic controllers that he was "having difficulty maintaining visual flight rules and (needed to switch) to instrument flight rules," the report states. At the time, around 10 a.m., there were scattered rain showers along the route and cloud cover between 900 and 1,500 feet, investigators said. According to the report, Petrikas steered the plane southwest to avoid a rain shaft, putting him directly in the path of Mount Russell in the Lake Perris State Recreation Area. The peak of the mountain rises 1,000 feet above surrounding terrain. Less than a minute before the crash, a ground positioning system on board the aircraft showed it 50 feet above rising terrain, the NTSB said. The Aero Commander collided with the ground, the left wingtip dragging into the dirt and flipping the plane over. Petrikas died on impact from "multiple blunt force traumatic injuries," according to the Riverside County Coroner's Office. A search was initiated for the downed plane after family members reported Petrikas overdue. Authorities were able to locate the crash site by pinging the pilot's mobile phone, which remained active hours after the fatal accident. http://www.mydesert.com/article/20111201/NEWS0804/112010314/Report-Pilot-crash- last-year-flew-too-low Back to Top Deaths on U.S. Government Aircraft Exceed Commercial Toll Nov. 30 (Bloomberg) -- More people have died in crashes on government aircraft, which are exempt from most U.S. safety regulations, than on commercial airliners over the past five years, the first time that's happened over a similar span. Not including flights in war zones, accidents since 2007 have killed 52 people, including a team battling a forest fire, wildlife and forestry workers and citizens that law- enforcement agencies were trying to rescue, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Fifty people have died on scheduled passenger flights in the same period. U.S., state and local government agencies operate or hire hundreds of helicopters, single-engine planes and jets, according to National Transportation Safety Board records. These flights aren't regulated by the Federal Aviation Administration, which oversees commercial and private flights. "My concern is where do we find the guardians for all these orphans," Earl Werner, a safety-board member, said in Washington today at a public forum on the issue, referencing board Chairman Debbie Hersman's description of government flights as the "orphans of aviation safety." "If not the FAA, who is responsible?" Werner asked. The FAA doesn't want responsibility for overseeing government flights, John Allen, the agency's head of flight standards, said today. Many of those operations, such as dropping water on forest fires, wouldn't be legal under civilian rules, Allen said. The FAA's guidelines describing when a flight is considered a government operation not subject to oversight are misleading and being rewritten, Karen Petronis, an agency lawyer, said today at the forum. 'Lack of Clarity' Government aircraft fly about one-tenth as many hours as each year as commercial airliners, though their relative risk is elevated by the hazardous missions they sometimes undertake. Government aircraft operated an estimated 1.75 million hours in 2009, according to FAA data. Commercial aviation fatalities have fallen more than 80 percent since the 1990s, according to NTSB data. By comparison, fatalities on government flights, which averaged 11 per year since 2000, have stayed roughly the same. While government agencies may impose their own safety rules and conduct inspections, standards vary and rules are sometimes not enforced, safety-board investigations have found. "This has always been the black hole of aviation safety," Jim Hall, a former safety- board chairman, said in an interview. "There is absolutely no reason that the government is not required to adhere to the same standards as everyone else in terms of aviation regulations." Oversight Welcomed The FAA is prohibited from performing inspections and checks to ensure that flights operated by government agencies are safe, Les Dorr, an agency spokesman, said in an interview. Definitions of when the FAA regulates a government flight are confusing and often violated, Bill Payne, senior air operations manager at the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, said at the forum. Public agencies frequently take politicians and non- governmental passengers on flights, which violates U.S. rules, Payne said. Some government agencies would welcome the agency's oversight, Keith Raley, chief of aviation safety for the U.S. Interior Department, said in an interview. The department has a fleet of 105 aircraft and charters others, Raley said. His department requires that its flights follow FAA's regulations though it's not mandated to do so, he said. Overweight Takeoff The lack of clear authority to oversee these flights is the reason safety improvements have lagged behind, Hall said. Little has changed since he joined the NTSB in 1993, he said. Hall's tenure ran until January 2001. "There were numerous accidents and numerous deaths where it was just apparent that the basic regulatory responsibility was not in anyone's hands," Hall said. That was the case in an Aug. 5, 2008, crash of a helicopter hired by the U.S. Forest Service to airlift a firefighting crew from a Northern California mountaintop, the safety board found. The chopper crashed and burned, killing seven firefighters, a pilot and a government inspector. Carson Helicopters Inc. of Perkasie, Pennsylvania, which operated the flight, falsified records, leading pilots to think they had enough power to lift off when the craft was over its weight limit, the safety board said. The Forest Service had required that Carson be certified by the FAA as a charter operator and follow all FAA regulations. The NTSB found that the agency hadn't checked to verify whether the company was following FAA rules. Rescue Triggers Death After a Maryland State Police medevac helicopter crashed in District Heights, Maryland, on Sept. 27, 2008, investigators found that the pilot hadn't adequately checked the weather, as required under FAA rules. Four of the five people aboard died, including a woman being taken to a hospital after a car crash. The FAA hadn't inspected the state police operation in the year prior to the accident, the safety board found. A hiker whom New Mexico State Police were trying to rescue in the mountains near Santa Fe died on June 9, 2009, when a helicopter rolled down a rocky ridge. The pilot of the helicopter also died. The NTSB said the State Police's "organizational culture," which emphasized performing the mission over safety, was partly to blame. The FAA hadn't inspected the operation. Forest Service The Helicopter Association International, the Alexandria, Virginia-based group that represents government and non- government charter operators, is urging more consistent standards be applied to government flights, Matt Zuccaro, the group's president, said in an interview. The Forest Service, which operates more flights than any other agency, has added safety inspectors and improved training and changed procedures in response to the 2008 California crash, Tom Harbour, director of fire and aviation management at the agency, said in an interview. "We've stepped up our program in response to the need to keep our firefighters and our pilots safe," Harbour said. http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-12-01/deaths-on-u-s-government-aircraft- exceed-commercial-toll.html Back to Top FAA: Changes coming to prevent tarmac delays WASHINGTON (WSJ) - Administration officials promised Wednesday to make changes before the Christmas travel season in an effort to prevent airline passengers from suffering the nightmare of being trapped for hours on a tarmac with no way to reach an airport gate. "We can move pretty quickly on this," Federal Aviation Administrator Randy Babbitt told reporters after hosting a forum with airlines, airports and government officials on ways to prevent a repeat of an October incident that left hundreds of passengers stranded in Hartford, Conn. Twenty-eight planes - seven were large international flights - arrived unexpectedly at Bradley International Airport on Oct. 29 during a freak snowstorm. The planes were forced to divert because weather and equipment problems prevented them from landing at New York-area airports. Many of the flights sat on the ground for hours - several for more than seven hours - before they could either refuel and depart or unload their passengers. The captain of JetBlue flight 504 begged for help to get his plane to a gate, saying passengers were becoming unruly and he had paraplegic and diabetic passengers who needed to get off. Within the next week, the FAA will begin including airports in national and regional conference calls they hold with airlines several times a day to discuss problems that are affecting the flow of air traffic. The agency is also launching a hotline and a webpage for airports to alert the FAA and airlines of problems on the ground such as difficulties with as snow removal and de-icing equipment or a shortage of available gates, Babbitt said. Much of the chaos during the Hartford incident could have been mitigated by better communication among airlines, airports and air traffic controllers, Babbitt said. If airlines had known so many flights were diverting to Hartford, some probably would have sent their planes to other airports in Providence, R.I.; Albany, N.Y.; Allentown, Pa.; and Baltimore, transportation officials said. Bradley, a medium-size airport, has only 23 gates and typically handles few international flights, officials said. "This wasn't anybody's fault necessarily," Babbitt said. "People just weren't aware of what other people were doing. That's what we're going to try to alleviate going forward." A Transportation Department rule implemented in April 2010 limits tarmac delays to a maximum of three hours before airlines must allow passengers to get off the plane. Airlines that exceed the time limit can face fines of up to $27,500 per person. Although Babbitt's comments appeared to relieve airlines of responsibility for the Oct. 29 incident, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood emphasized that his department's investigations into each of the flights that exceeded the three-hour limit aren't yet complete. Airlines say there are a lot of reasons for extended tarmac delays, most related to airport congestion created by poor weather. If planes are held at gates because poor weather prevents or slows departures, then incoming flights have trouble finding a free gate. Sometimes planes sitting for hours in line waiting to take off are unable to return to gates where new planes have taken their place. Customs and security officials won't allow passengers off international flights unless they have enough officials to process them or a secure place to hold them until they can be processed. Airlines, which opposed the three-hour rule, say many of the delays are beyond their control. For example, one of the problems at Bradley was that there weren't enough Customs officials on duty to handle the influx of large international flights with hundreds of passengers. Indeed, the room Customs officials use at Bradley was far too small to accommodate all the passengers waiting to be processed that day, officials said. The airport received 20 inches of snow during the storm, which marked the first time that area of Connecticut had received over an inch of snow in October in more than a century of record-keeping, a National Weather Service official told the forum. The storm knocked out power to the airport several times during the day. Luggage belts quit working. Tugs that move planes out of the way couldn't get traction on the ice. Planes had trouble refueling and de-icing because of the power outages, preventing departures. If a plane can't get de-iced, "you might as well just weld the aircraft to the ramp - it's not going anywhere," Babbitt said. And if planes can't depart, there's no room to unload planes that have landed. No one, including controllers, had a complete picture of what was happening, Babbitt told the forum. "There is a lot of knowledge out there," he said. "If everyone had access to the whole picture, they wouldn't have continued to send planes to (Bradley)." But FAA officials acknowledged they shared some responsibility for the episode as well. The agency was in the midst of a scheduled shutdown of navigation equipment for servicing at John F. Kennedy International Airport when visibility rapidly deteriorated and winds kicked up. Several industry officials questioned why FAA continued with the maintenance shutdown in light of the forecast storm, but LaHood said no one had anticipated a snowstorm that severe in October. The problems were exacerbated when other FAA equipment at Kennedy and nearby Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey malfunctioned in freezing temperatures. Reports of wind shear limited the use of some runways, forcing changes in flight paths that decreased the number of planes that could land at Kennedy, Newark, LaGuardia Airport in New York and Teterboro Airport in New Jersey, which was closed for a time. More than a dozen planes were diverted to Logan International Airport in Boston, but Logan had problems as well. One of the diverted planes was an Airbus A380, the world's largest commercial passenger plane. Logan, which doesn't normally serve A380s, had to close a runway for a time because there was nowhere else to put the supersize plane. Tarmac space to accommodate planes at Logan was further limited by a military flight that happened to bring soldiers wounded in Libya to the U.S. for medical care that day. Logan officials said they had to make room on the tarmac for 10 ambulances. An FAA review also found that it wasn't necessarily obvious to controllers that an unusually large number of flights were being diverted to Bradley, agency officials said. Among FAA's proposals to airlines and airports for better information-sharing: -Creating a webpage monitored by FAA where airports can continuously update information. Airline dispatchers could check the site before deciding where they want to send flights unable to land at their intended destination. Airlines, rather than controllers, decide which airports they want to send diverted flights to based on factors such as personnel and equipment at the airport. For example, if a plane spends too much time on the ground, the flight crew may exceed the maximum number of hours they're allowed to work in a single day under FAA safety regulations. In those cases, airlines have to find another flight crew and get them to the plane before the flight can depart. -Expand FAA-hosted teleconferences with airlines to include airports. FAA and airline officials exchange information in teleconferences each day about weather-related and other difficulties affecting the flow of air traffic around the country, but airport officials generally don't join those conversations. -Create a better system for air traffic controllers to identify diverted flights. While special handling would not be provided based sole on diversion status, it would heighten situational awareness about the potential for congestion on the ground at airport and for planes in the air to run low on fuel. Back to Top High winds cause chaos at LA airport LOS ANGELES, Dec. 1 (UPI) -- Winds, including gusts of 97 mph, raced through Southern California, knocking out electric power and disrupting operations at Los Angeles International Airport. Power was off in some terminals and debris was scattered over runways at LAX Wednesday night. The weather delayed many travelers, with at least 20 flights diverted to other airports and others circling the airport waiting for the wind to die down, the Los Angeles Times reported. The 97 mph gust was recorded north of Los Angeles in the Angeles National Forest, the newspaper said. Ian Gregor, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration, said gusts were 40 knots or more, creating dangerous crosswinds as pilots attempted to land. "We are trying to shoehorn a four-runway operation on to two runways, and add into that mix periodic strong crosswinds that prevent aircraft from taking off or landing, and you have a pretty interesting evening," Gregor said. Two runways were closed because of debris. In some of the darkened terminals travelers used cellphones as emergency flashlights. The Times said more than 25,000 customers in the region were without electrical service early Thursday. The wind put an AM news radio station, KNX, off the air for a time. Traffic lights in parts of the city were out. Forecasters said Southern California would experience high winds through Friday. Read more: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2011/12/01/High-winds-cause-chaos- at-LA-airport/UPI-59411322719213/#ixzz1fHchk9kW Back to Top RTI Group to Host AViCONŽ 2012 Conference Program Featuring Aviation Disaster Investigation and Claims Resolution Case Study Analyzed by Leading Aviation Industry Legal and Insurance Authorities To Be Held at The Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum, April 25, 2012 Annapolis, MD, November 30, 2011 - RTI Group, a leading, global, multidisciplinary forensic engineering consultancy serving law firms, insurers, corporations, and governments, is hosting AViCON 2012 at The Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum in New York, NY, on Wednesday, April 25, 2012. The unique AViCON conference format features a fictional aviation disaster case study to be discussed by aviation accident investigation and claims resolution industry authorities, and will include state-of-the-art video and graphics created by RTI's visual media consulting group. "AViCON is the only conference of its kind that explores aviation accident investigation and claims resolution from a 360-degree perspective, using a case study format and enhanced visuals," said RTI Group CEO, Joseph Reynolds. "The engaging, educational analysis provided by our esteemed panel will offer helpful insights for legal and insurance professionals." Taking just one day, the 2012 conference is based on a reconstruction of a fictional air disaster when a passenger aircraft crashes off the runway in bad weather. Causation is far from clear, and a number of parties may have contributed to the accident. The conference will show how such a disaster may be investigated and managed. It then goes on to illustrate the complex legal issues involved and the strategies that may be employed in settling the claims. The following distinguished faculty members are scheduled to instruct at the event: * Frederick (Rick) Alimonti, Alimonti Law Offices, P.C. * Professor Graham Braithwaite, Head, Department of Air Transport, Cranfield University * Christa M. Hinckley, Partner, Husch Blackwell LLP * Nick Hughes, Partner, Holman Fenwick Willan LLP * David T. Hunter, Orion ADR * Jason Kelly, President, Crisis Advisors * Curt Lewis, PE, CSP, Curt Lewis & Associates LLC * Ricardo M. Martinez-Cid, Partner, Podhurst Orseck * Rocie Park, Director Aviation Claims, Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty * Tim Scorer, Ince & Co * Kathryn Ward, Partner, DLA Piper UK LLP Continuing Legal Education (CLE) accreditations for the AViCON 2012 program are being sought from 22 states, Puerto Rico and Canada. Approved states will be announced early in 2012. Early bird registration for AViCON 2012 is open through December 31, 2011. To take advantage of discounted rates, register now at http://avicon2012newyork.eventbrite.com/. About RTI Group Headquartered in Annapolis, Maryland, RTI Group is a leading global, multidisciplinary, forensic engineering consulting firm that provides world class investigative, expert witness, legal visuals media, safety, security, and education services to law firms, insurers, corporations, and governments. Our comprehensive services are both proactive and reactive and include the aviation, marine, rail, power utility, and construction industries, as well as the fire, explosion & blast disciplines. With three decades of experience and offices in the U.S., U.K., Panama, and Bahrain, RTI Group maintains worldwide analytical capabilities and resources to meet our clients' needs. For more information, visit www.rtiforensics.com. ### Press contact: Robin Dvorak Blue Egg Marketing marketing@rtiforensics.com Phone: (410)571-0712 Back to Top American seeks court approval to shed leases on MD-80s American Airlines has asked a US court to allow it to shed leases on 24 aircraft, mostly Boeing MD-80s, in a move to cut costs as it seeks to restructure following yesterday's Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection filing. In a motion filed with the US Bankruptcy Court of the Southern District of New York, the carrier requested to abandon the leases on 20 MD-80s and four Fokker 100s, saying the aircraft are a "cash drain" on the business. Most of the aircraft have already been taken out of service, said American. "After reviewing the terms of the leases, the debtors [American] have determined they are of no utility and value to them," said the airline, adding that the leases were entered into in "a different economic climate than the one facing the airline industry today". "These same aircraft and engines have little if any marketable value and are no longer necessary to the debtors' operations," it added. Storage of the unused aircraft is "nothing more than a cash drain" on the carrier, it said. The MD-80s listed by American were mostly built in the 1980s, Flightglobal's ACAS database shows. In its last quarterly filing, American listed four Fokker 100s, 46 MD- 80s, one Boeing 737-800 and one Airbus A300 as aircraft in storage. A hearing on the motion is scheduled to be held on 22 December, stated American. Responses to the motion are due by 15 December. Source: Air Transport Intelligence news Curt Lewis, P.E., CSP CURT LEWIS & ASSOCIATES, LLC