Flight Safety Information December 7, 2011 - No. 247 In This Issue Babbitt Leaves U.S. Aviation Agency Amid Safety, Funding Debates Emergency landing Royal Air Maroc, Amsterdam Schiphol Airport, 6 June 2010 MU-2 Safety:...Mystery Solved...Training Works! ICAO's first Global Safety Report published Klobuchar calls on FAA to strengthen standards regarding pilot fatigue Russia Now World's Most Dangerous Nation to Fly FAA and industry aim to halve fatality risk by 2025 Florida Facility Demonstrates, Integrates NextGen Technologies Beijing to overtake Atlanta as world's biggest airport...in 2012 IATA says India 'micro-managing' aviation sector Alec Baldwin kicked off American Airlines flight Babbitt Leaves U.S. Aviation Agency Amid Safety, Funding Debates By: Alan Levin Dec. 7 (Bloomberg) -- Randy Babbitt's departure from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration comes as the agency debates pilot-fatigue rules and faces a second partial shutdown should Congress allow its funding to expire. Babbitt resigned as the agency's administrator yesterday after his boss learned about his Dec. 3 arrest for driving while intoxicated through a police press release. The FAA's deputy administrator, Michael Huerta, was named acting FAA leader, the Transportation Department said. Family members of the 50 victims of the Colgan Air crash Feb. 12, 2009, are concerned that President Barack Obama's administration may delay or compromise on a proposed rule that would restrict the number of hours pilots can work, Scott Maurer, whose daughter died in the 2009 crash near Buffalo, said in an interview. Congress directed the FAA to complete the pilot-fatigue rule, which Babbitt had championed, by Aug. 1. "We've got critical stuff that needs to get done," Maurer said. "We need leadership." Huerta, who has overseen the agency's efforts to build a so-called NextGen air traffic system, is qualified to take over, John Hansman, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology aeronautics professor, said in an interview. Hansman is chairman of the FAA's Research, Engineering and Development Advisory Committee. The agency is in the process of setting up the satellite- based navigation system. Not 'Particularly Adverse' The FAA has operated through a series of legislative extensions as Congress failed to set policy goals for the agency for more than four years. About 4,000 FAA employees, excluding air-traffic controllers, were furloughed for two weeks in July and August when lawmakers disagreed on labor issues and funding levels. The most recent extension ends in January. Babbitt's departure won't have "a particularly adverse impact," Hansman said. It's unlikely that Senate Republicans would vote to confirm the Obama administration's nomination of a new administrator to the FAA, Peter Goelz, a former managing director of the National Transportation Safety Board who now consults on aviation issues at O'Neill & Associates in Washington, said in an interview. They hope their party will win the White House and that they could then appoint a replacement for the five-year position, Goelz said. Swift Resignation U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood accepted the resignation yesterday, according to an e-mailed statement from Babbitt. Babbitt, 65, was arrested Dec. 3 after police spotted him driving on the wrong side of the road in Fairfax, Virginia, police said in a press release. LaHood told reporters in Washington yesterday that he had learned of Babbitt's arrest from the police press release on Dec. 5. Babbitt initially went on leave after officials learned of the arrest. LaHood has spoken out on drunk driving to improve safety on U.S. roadways. A year ago, he announced a crackdown on drivers who drink during the holidays. As FAA administrator, Babbitt oversaw drug- and alcohol- testing programs for the agency's air-traffic controllers and for U.S. airline pilots. Commercial pilots must report drunk- driving convictions to the FAA. "Serving as FAA Administrator has been an absolute honor and the highlight of my professional career," Babbitt said in his statement. "But I am unwilling to let anything cast a shadow on the outstanding work done 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, by my colleagues at the FAA." Babbitt was an airline pilot for 25 years and rose to become the president of the Air Line Pilots Association, the largest pilots' labor union in North America. At the FAA, where he was sworn in June 1, 2009, he brought smoother relations with labor groups, particularly the agency's controllers. Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi- bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/12/06/bloomberg_articlesLVTC5G6K50XT.DTL#ixzz1fqzBe51G Back to Top Emergency landing Royal Air Maroc, Amsterdam Schiphol Airport, 6 June 2010 Sector Aviation Emergency landing Royal Air Maroc, Amsterdam Schiphol Airport, 6 June 2010 Start date investigation June 6, 2010 End date investigation November 29, 2011 Type investigation Full Registratie vliegtuig CN-RMF Status investigation Closed Sunday 6 June a Boeing 737-400 of Royal Air Maroc, flight 685F, had to perform an emergency landing at Schiphol Airport because of a bird strike.The plane was scheduled to depart at 21.10 hrs from runway 18 left, Aalsmeerbaan. Because of some delay flight 685F departed at 21.27 hrs. On board were 156 passengers and 6 crew men, all of them remained unharmed. Both recoders were in good conditon and will be subjected to further study. Reports * November 29, 2011 Emergency landing after bird strike, Boeing 737-4B6, Amsterdam Schiphol Airport, 6 June 2010 [pdf] Back to Top MU-2 Safety: Mystery Solved Training Works! By Jay Hopkins THREE AND A HALF YEARS ago I wrote about the Mitsubishi MU-2 controversy ("Dangerous Airplanes or Dangerous Pilots?" - May 2008). For much of its life, the MU-2 had the unenviable status of having one of the worst turboprop accident rates and fatal accident rates. People wrote articles questioning the sanity of anyone who would fly such a dangerous airplane, and a congressman even introduced legislation that would require the airplane to be recalled, an option that was seriously considered by the FAA, however, there was another side to this story. First, there were several other turboprops that had equally bad or even slightly worse accident rates, and yet no one was writing nasty articles about them or saying they should be recalled. Even more curious, the MU-2 was only dangerous in the United States. In Europe it had an excellent safety record, and even here in the United States there were many people who loved the MU-2 and had operated it safely for many years. The only difference between operating an MU-2 in Europe and flying one in the United States was that European countries required a type rating to fly the MU-2. In the United States, even though the MU-2 is a very high performance airplane with complicated systems that has to be flown like a jet, because it weighs less than 12,500 pounds there was no requirement for a pilot to get any training or pass a check ride before flying one. Any multiengine-rated pilot could jump in an MU-2 without even getting a checkout and legally take off. For a pilot used to flying a Cessna 402 or a Navajo, an airplane that climbs at 2,000 fpm, cruises at 300 knots at FL 300 and descends at 4,000 fpm is going to be more of a challenge. The MU-2 also has some operating features and characteristics that require a response opposite of what a piston twin pilot would do. This wouldn't have been so bad if it had been hard to get your hands on an MU-2, but because of its bad reputation, an lvlU-2 was about the least expensive turboprop, with airplanes available for the price of a high performance single-engine plane. When you add it all up - a very high performance airplane with unique operating characteristics available at dirt-cheap prices with no training or checkride required - you have a recipe for disaster. In reality, almost none of the MU-2 accidents were directly related to the airplane's design. It was the same old stuff: not using checklist, taking off downwind, taking off without the proper flap setting, taking off or continuing into weather the pilot was not rated for or prepared to handle, flying with known deficiencies in critical systems, fatigue, etc. It just was happening more frequently in the MU-2. The solution to the problem was obvious to many people. For years Mitsubishi had pleaded with the FAA to increase the training requirements for the MU-2 and require a type rating. Even though the MU-2 was no Ionger in production, in 1994 Mitsubishi initiated free Pilot Review of Proficiency (PROP) seminars every two years at locations around the world in an attempt to increase the knowledge and proficiency of MU-2 owners and operators. The FAA did a study and found that there was a growing awareness of the need for professional training to safely operate the MU-2, with many operators providing their own in-house training. Systems and simulator training was also available from SimCom. This voluntary training initiative was having a positive impact, with the MU-2 accident rate reduced by half over a five-year period and with most of the continuing accidents involving pilots who had not had simulator training. However, the FAA also discovered that there were inconsistencies between various training programs, with many unique and unauthorized procedures being taught. In 2005 it established a flight standards board to evaluate how difficult it was to learn how to fly an MU-2. The FAA took three pilots with no MU-2 experience, including one helicopter pilot who had very little fixed-wing experience, and put them through a training program conducted by pat Cannon, vice president of Turbine Aircraft Services Inc. in Addison, Texas filming every lesson. All three pilots came through the training with exemplary performance. The FAA couldn't even discern any difference between the fixed-wing pilots and the helicopter pilots. Having established that any competent pilot can be trained to fly the MU-2, the FAA developed a standardized checklist and training curriculum based on its study and input from people who had experience operating or training in the MU-2. In 2006 it issued a special federal aviation regulation (SFAR) that, while still not requiring a type rating for the MU-2, actually went beyond a type rating by requiring specific training based on total and recent experience with the MU-2 and requiring recurrent training each year. The key to the SFAR was the requirement that every MU-2 pilot, no matter how much experience he or she had in the MU-2, had to go through one of two training programs. This established a common baseline of MU-2 knowledge and skills, and introduced standardized procedures and a checklist that is required to be used on every flight. Here are the specifics: l. Any pilot with less than 50 hours as PIC in the MU-2 in the last years or less than 500 total hours' PIC in the MU-2 had to go through the full initial training program. 2. A pilot with more than the required PIC time listed above could take a requalification training program that is more intense than the recurrent training but does not cover as much as the initial program. Once a pilot has completed either initial or requalification training, that pilot is required to complete the approved recurrent training course each year. The SFAR also requires differences training for those pilots who operate more than one model of the MU-2, as well as specifying minimum qualifications for a pilot who wishes to fly an MU-2 and for flight and simulator instructors and check pilots wishing to provide MU-2 training or checkrides. Takeoffs and landings in other multiengine airplanes do not meet the currency requirement for the MU-2, and a biennial flight review conducted in another airplane is not valid for operating an MU-2. Finally, the SFAR requires a functioning autopilot for single- pilot operation of the MU-2. The entire 140-page approved training program is included in the SFAR as an appendix and is required to be followed during training and on operational flights. To determine the effect on the accident rate now that the SFAR has been in effect for five years, I went to Bob Breiling (breilinginc.com), who has been analyzing turbine aircraft accident statistics for almost 50 years. He compared the three turboprops that are no longer in production, the For years Mitsubishi pleaded with the FAA to increase the training requirements for the MU-2 and require a type rating. MU-2, the Merlin and the Turbo Commander. Looking at the: all-year accident rate since the airplanes were introduced, the MU-2 had the highest at 3.78 per 100.000 flight hours, followed closely by the Merlin at 3.53 and the Turbo Commander at 3.45. Breiling then analyzed the accident rates for the five-year period the SFAR has been in effect and found that the MU-2 now has by far the lowest accident rate, at 0.75 accidents per 100,000 flight hours. That is half the Merlin rate of 1.48. and the Turbo Commander came in last at 1.89. In fact, the MU-2 came in at half of the average accident rate for all business turboprops, which was 1.49. There have been only four MU-2 accidents during this five-year period, and only one of those was fatal. Three of the five years there were no MU-2 accidents at all. While some owners worried that the SFAR would further reduce the value of the MU-2, it has actually had the opposite effect of reversing its decline in value as people have recognized what a safe and effective airplane it is. The effectiveness of the MU-2 SFAR leads to the obvious question of why we are not requiring more training for other turboprops that also have high accident rates. In fact, why stop there ? If we were worried about the MU-2, with an accident rate of 3.78 per 100,000 flight hours, why aren't we worried about the 2009 commercial fixed- wing accident rate of 3.01, or the noncommercial fixed-wing accident rate of 6.00 ? It is a question that begs further discussion, so I will continue with this subject next month. Flyingmag.com / December 2011 Back to Top ICAO's first Global Safety Report published The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) has released the "State of Global Aviation Safety - 2011", a unique snapshot of worldwide aviation safety performance and collaborative efforts among international air transport stakeholders to further improve safety in light of the sustained growth of the sector. "This is a first in the history of ICAO," said Raymond Benjamin, Secretary General of ICAO. "While safety information is readily available from a number of sources, this innovative report presents a compelling and holistic plan for ICAO and the industry to consistently improve aviation safety, our number one objective." "Air transport remains our safest form of transportation, and through our collective efforts, we have entered the safest period in global aviation history. But any accident is one too many, so as aviation continues to grow worldwide, we will need to do more to maintain this impressive record," he emphasized. Worldwide scheduled traffic volume experienced a year-over-year increase of 4.5 per cent in 2010, setting a new record of more than 30.5 million departures. By 2030, that number is expected to reach more than 52 million annually. The publication, available to the general public online on the Organization's website, combines comprehensive traffic statistics and accident trends as well as the full range of initiatives undertaken by ICAO and its partners to address the most serious safety issues. These include runway-related events, the number one cause of fatal accidents, pilot fatigue and an anticipated shortage of qualified aviation professionals. The well-illustrated document, in simple language, covers initiatives within the four components of the ICAO safety framework including: policy and standardization; safety monitoring; safety analysis; and implementation of safety programmes. The strategy is intended to achieve systemic safety improvements that yield sustainable results. Attached Files * ICAO Global Safety Report http://www.airtrafficmanagement.net/view_news.asp?ID=4571 Back to Top Klobuchar calls on FAA to strengthen standards regarding pilot fatigue Washington, D.C. - U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar today (Tuesday, Dec. 6) called on the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to issue much-needed updates to airline safety standards combating pilot fatigue. The Federal Aviation Administration has failed to meet its deadline to update flight and duty time regulations, which are essential to preventing pilot fatigue. In a letter to Department of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, Klobuchar pressed the department to update the rules immediately. "We can never be complacent about air safety," said Klobuchar. "Pilot fatigue can have tragic consequences, and we must ensure that the rules put in place to prevent this danger are up-to-date and consistent throughout our aviation system. I urge the Federal Aviation Administration to take immediate action to keep passengers safe during the holiday travel season." Klobuchar was a strong supporter of the Airline Safety and Federal Aviation Administration Act of 2010, which passed Congress unanimously and required a consistent, national safety standard for the nation's aviation system. The law specifically required the FAA to update the flight and duty time regulations - rules which have not been revised in decades - by August, 2011, but the FAA has yet to issue a final rule. Pilot fatigue has been on the National Transportation Safety Board's Most Wanted List, a list of recommendations and reforms to help improve passenger and airline safety, since 1990. It was a chief concern following the crash of Colgan Air Flight 3407 that went down outside Buffalo, New York killing all 49 people on board and one man on the ground. According to the National Transportation Safety Board, in the past 20 years, more than two dozen accidents and more than 250 fatalities have been linked to pilot fatigue. http://hometownsource.com/2011/12/06/klobuchar-calls-on-faa-to-strengthen-standards- regarding-pilot-fatigue/ Back to Top Russia Now World's Most Dangerous Nation to Fly Series of deadly crashes blamed on lax regulation (Newser) - Russia is now, mile for mile, the deadliest place in the world to fly, the Wall Street Journal finds. Nine fatal crashes-including one that killed an entire professional hockey team-have claimed a total of 140 lives. While eight of the crashes involved old Soviet-era aircraft, experts say the real problem in the former aerospace superpower is the sloppiness, risk-taking, and ineffective regulation more commonly associated with aviation basket cases like the Congo. Crash investigators have found large numbers of safety violations, including drunk flight crews and forged documents. Safety officials-who blame the surge in crashes on government efforts to boost business by reducing inspections-plan to turn things around by stepping up regulation, raising standards, and closing many smaller airlines. Similar steps made Chinese skies some of the world's safest after a series of deadly crashes a decade ago. "We're taking an absolutely principled approach to ensuring safety now," the Russian Aviation Agency's safety chief insists. "We're not allowing anything by." http://www.newser.com/story/134860/russia-now-worlds-most-dangerous-nation-to- fly.html Back to Top FAA and industry aim to halve fatality risk by 2025 The US FAA and airline industry have refocused and evolved the commercial aviation safety team (CAST) programme with a new fatality reduction goal for 2025. Using the new and improved CAST, which combines the data-driven and analytical forensic approach to identifying and correcting potential safety problems with the FAA's Aviation Safety Information Analysis and Sharing (ASIAS) database project, the FAA is targeting an additional 50% reduction in the commercial aviation fatality risk by 2025 compared to 2010 numbers. Meeting the goal will mean reducing the risk of being killed on a flight with a US airline from one chance in 113 million flights (2010) to one chance in 225 million flights in 2025. FAA announced the new target at 1 December meeting. CAST was formed as a result of the 1997 report from the Gore Commission on Aviation Safety and Security. Its charter called for reducing the commercial aviation fatal accident risk in the US by 80% in 10 years. Although there is no direct relationship between the accident rate and CAST's work, the fatal accident risk by end of the group's charter in 2008 had decreased by 83% compared to 1998. "It's no longer a North American industry tool. It's worldwide for all of our members," said Don Gunther, CAST co-chairman and a pilot for Continental Airlines, adding that Russia, the Gulf states, Africa, and Brazil are all developing or considering developing similar programmes. The CAST steering group, composed of a group of 20 safety experts from government and industry, has continued to analyse and develop preventatives since the 2008 conclusion of the original charter, adding in ASIAS to the tool kit in 2008. Through ASIAS, the FAA is using data mining methods to identify accident precursors using 46 different databases, including flight operational quality assurance (FOQA) and aviation safety action programmes (ASAP). The decrease in fatalities since 1998 may be linked in part to the 75 safety enhancements that CAST has made. Aside from safer operation for US carriers, the CAST concept has also spread to international aviation safety groups and crossed into other industry sectors, including the medical field and financial industry, said Gunther. Gunther, who represents industry for both CAST and ASIAS, is retiring and will be replaced by two representatives; Ken Highlander, a pilot for Delta Airlines in CAST, and Paul Morrell, with US Airways, in ASIAS. "After CAST finished in 2008, we needed to get more proactive, we needed FOQA and ASAP," said Gunther. "ASIAS was able to bring carriers together to supply the data, with an agreement between the FAA, carriers and associations [to protect privacy]." ASIAS has a separate government industry steering group of 20 members who meet quarterly. Members can ask that certain issues, flagged up by the data, be analysed through a "directed study". The group also sets benchmarks for safety metrics for data comparisons after changes to training or procedures are made after a directed study. Peggy Gilligan, FAA associate administrator for aviation safety, said there are "four or five directed study bins" underway. If results indicate a systemic issue, she said the problem areas are added to the list of CAST initiatives to determine the root causes and develop preventatives. Gilligan said ASIAS and CAST are not meant to be tactical problem solvers, but strategic tools. "We have other nets to catch [tactical] problems," she said, including the airworthiness directive (AD) process. The time between the discovery of a problem and a targeted fix with CAST can be on the order of three months, she said. FAA said several safety enhancements have already been achieved over the past several years with the addition of ASIAS, which the FAA plans to expand to include 64 databases. One pilot report in ASIAS on concerns with false alarms from ground proximity warning systems led to a CAST initiative. "Through our complete data analysis, we saw there were cases of false alarms," said Gilligan. "Some reasons were procedures not drawn up effectively; some were pilot training issues." CAST then created an "integrated solutions set" to address the issue. She said the group is also working on loss-of-control issues and problems linked to "unintended consequences" in the adoption of new RNAV and RNP procedures. Gilligan said the key to making the system safer is to determine "other risks that are out there that we have not come to understand yet". Source: Air Transport Intelligence news Back to Top Florida Facility Demonstrates, Integrates NextGen Technologies Florida testbed facility provides uplift for NextGen For a big-budget program that's behind schedule and over budget, two ingredients are helpful for keeping it on track-vision and image. The FAA's Next-Generation Air Transportation System recently got a boost from both, with the opening of a new test- bed managed by Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University at the Daytona Beach (Fla.) International Airport. VIPs at the recent rollout were swooning over everything from the room-sized video monitor showing each phase of a simulated flight departure to a room full of the coolest conference chairs on the planet. Boeing's Paul Comitz demonstrates how unmanned aircraft can share information with air traffic controllers at the NextGen testbed.Credit: TONY GIESE The testbed-one of three for the NextGen program-links the FAA with experts from the top-rated aerospace engineering university and industry partners including Boeing, Lockheed Martin, General Electric, Jeppesen, Saab, Harris and others. So far, the testbed has executed demonstrations to integrate weather effects with flight automation tools as part of two NextGen weather programs. A recent Boeing demo at the testbed looked at a product called NEO Spiral II, in which an unmanned aircraft exchanged information about the UAV's status using NextGen's System-Wide Information Management system. "In the coming years, we expect to see even more exciting developments here in Daytona Beach as we implement planned activities which will provide live [national airspace] data to support demonstrations and will enable information- sharing with other testbed sites and remote NextGen partners," said FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt during a Nov. 7 field hearing at Embry-Riddle. Embry-Riddle has a $55 million contract with the FAA to manage the facility through the end of 2014, and university officials believe that contract will be extended. Now that the facility exists, other government agencies-including NASA or the Defense Department- could also use it. The kind of technical development and demonstrations done at the facility is one plus for the program. The testbed also provides a way to increase its visibility and credibility. Both are critical, according to Gerald Dillingham, director of physical infrastructure issues at the Government Accountability Office. Dillingham says many technology transfer efforts depend on how well the private sector buys into the idea. "FAA has had difficulty advancing technologies that cut across programs and offices at FAA, when there is no clear 'home' or 'champion' within the FAA technology." The testbed, Dillingham says, "is a positive step that should help address some of these issues." Babbit readily acknowledges that one of the chief problems with the program is maintaining the support of the players involved. Asked how confident he was about a NextGen rollout in 2018, Babbitt said the ground infrastructure would be in place years before that, but that the business case would depend on the returns that participants see. Early on, there was a high level of involvement, but some users dropped out. "We want to get to the bottom of it," Babbitt said. "The more people that use it, the more savings will be there." Stakeholder peel-off has spelled doom for other colossal government programs, and the FAA and its partners want to make sure that doesn't happen. That's especially important because NextGen is poised to create enormous savings for the industry in terms of dollars and carbon emissions, Babbitt and others say. Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.), the chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee whose congressional district includes some of Daytona Beach, notes that by 2018 NextGen could reduce delays by about 35% and have a dramatic impact on fuel costs. To gain buy-in from private companies and the government to get NextGen off the drawing board, stakeholders in funding and in modernizing the national airspace need to see that these concepts really work, officials say. It's hard to get someone to spend $1 billion when people say, 'Has anyone ever tested that,' and 'Show me,'" says Christina Frederick-Recascino, vice president for academics and research at Embry-Riddle. "What we do here is a lot of initial testing of concepts and prototyping for the near- and mid-term. Once we do something here, we'll show it to our partners at the test center," she says. "They refine the concept, and then they bring that up to their bosses at the FAA who are on the procedural side who say, 'Yeah, this is something we could really test.'" And so the testbed becomes a system to push new systems forward into what the national airspace actually uses. "We can show the technical center and folks at the FAA what works and what doesn't," she says. http://www.aviationweek.com Back to Top Beijing to overtake Atlanta as world's biggest airport in 2012 Only 400,000 monthly seats now separate Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson and Beijing Airport Beijing Airport is set to overtake Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson as the world's busiest as Asian airports continue their inevitable march towards global leadership, according to new analysis released December 6. According to the Centre for Pacific Aviation (CAPA), Atlanta will hold its position as the world's busiest airport through the end of this year, with 8.38 million seats flying in and out in December 2011, but concluded "it is only a matter of time before Atlanta is dethroned." In the recent monthly aviation trends from airline analyst OAG Aviation, only 400,000 monthly seats now separate Atlanta and Beijing, with the organization suggesting that Beijing is set to become the world's largest airport in 2012. However, CAPA suggests that Atlanta shouldn't be the only airport anxiously looking over its shoulder, noting that this week, Tokyo Haneda has operated more seats than London Heathrow, which has seen a slump in growth over the past few months. This month was the seventh consecutive month of growth for the global aviation industry, with two percent more flights taking off than in December 2010, but it looks as if the map of flight connections will look very different by December 2012. North America and Europe continue to decline in performance, said OAG's recent report, leaving Asia Pacific and Latin America to steadily increase their percentage share of global traffic. Flights within Asia have have risen from accounting for a quarter of all global capacity to almost a third in the ten years from December 2002 to December 2011, OAG remarked. Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/beijing-overtake-atlanta-world- biggest-airport-2012-article-1.987970#ixzz1frlGfdFy Back to Top IATA says India 'micro-managing' aviation sector Global airlines body IATA has called on the Indian government to set the country's aviation industry free. International Air Transport Association(IATA) the global airline body, has called on the Indian government to set the country's aviation industry free. The body has urged the government to expeditiously reducing taxes jet fuel instead of "micro-managing" the cash-strapped sector. "The service tax on tickets, the high jet fuel prices due to taxation which account for 45 per cent of the Indian aviation industry's cost in comparison with 30 per cent for airlines in other parts, should be reduced or eliminated," IATA Director General and CEO Tony Tyler said. The criticism comes in the backdrop of losses reported by airline companies in India like Kingfisher Airlines, Jet Airways and Spicejet during the quarter ended September 2011. Last month, airline chiefs met with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and urged the government to rationalize taxes on jet fuel. Cash strapped Kingfisher Airlines has asked the government to open up the aviation sector further and allow foreign airlines to buy a stake in Indian domestic airlines. Existing Indian rules allow 49 per cent FDI but does not allow airline companies to buy a stake. "Indian government should focus on safety, security and commercial freedom of the industry and not indulge in micro-management of the industry through (checks) on ticket pricing," he told the global briefing of the International Air Transport Association (IATA). "We urge the Indian government to set the aviation industry free (from policy interventions like checking airfares). Concentrate on building infrastructure and the air navigation system. There is a lot the Indian government can do," he said. In India, the aviation industry contributes five per cent of GDP, around Rs 291 crore in tax contributions, provides four million jobs and another seven million jobs through tourism and related activities," he said. "We hope these numbers will have a good impact on government policies," Tyler said in reply to questions. "We have good relations with the Indian authorities and are seeking to persuade them of the benefits that can be derived from the civil aviation industry," he added. Maintaining that the Eurozone crisis was bound to hit the markets in Asia and other parts of the world soon, the IATA chief warned of deep losses for the global airline industry next year if the European economic situation continued to be grim. http://profit.ndtv.com/News/Article/iata-says-india-micro-managing-aviation-sector- 293650 Back to Top Alec Baldwin kicked off American Airlines flight (CBS) Alec Baldwin was booted from an American Airlines flight in Los Angeles on Tuesday, apparently after he used an electronic device to play a Scrabble-like game before the plane departed. "Flight attendant on American reamed me out 4 playing WORDS W FRIENDS while we sat at the gate, not moving. #nowonderamericaairisbankrupt," Baldwin tweeted. Several passengers tweeted about the incident, including this one from Michael J. Wolfe: "On an AA flight at LAX. Alec Baldwin removed from the plane We had to go back to the gate. "Terrible that everyone had to wait." Baldwin's rep told People magazine, "Alec was asked to leave the flight for playing Words with Friends while parked the gate. He loves WWF so much that he was willing to leave a plane for it, but he has already boarded another AA flight." Other reports say he was booted for more than just playing a game. A passenger on the New York-bound flight told the New York Post that the actor was talking on his phone, and a crew member told the paper that Baldwin was "violent, abusive and aggressive." The actor later tweeted that the flight attendants on his next flight looked "smarter." He added, "Last flight w American. Where retired Catholic school gym teachers from the 1950's find jobs as flight attendants." American Airlines chimed in on its own Twitter account, writing, "Our flight attendants were following federal safety procedures on electronic devices when aircraft door is closed." http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31749_162-57337935-10391698/alec-baldwin-kicked-off- plane-for-playing-words-with-friends/ Back to Top Curt Lewis, P.E., CSP CURT LEWIS & ASSOCIATES, LLC