Flight Safety Information January 11, 2012 - No. 007 In This Issue Jet to Puerto Rico returns to NYC with galley odor Southwest Air cooperating with NTSB after near collision at Midway 4 dead in Canada airplane crash Deputies use Taser on Sacramento airport passenger Nonstop Flights Stop for Fuel Performance aviation leaders to NTSB: We're safe Aircraft Accidents: 507 Deaths Recorded In 2011 Jet to Puerto Rico returns to NYC with galley odor NEW YORK (AP) - An American Airlines flight bound for Puerto Rico has returned to New York's Kennedy Airport shortly after takeoff because of an electrical odor in the food galley. Mechanics inspected Flight 487 on Tuesday morning, and it departed for San Juan a short time later. Airline spokesman Ed Martelle says the Boeing 737 was airborne at 6:40 a.m. and returned to the New York City airport 22 minutes later. He says the odor was detected in the galley located in front of the first-class cabin. An inspection didn't turn anything up, and the flight took off again at 8:26 a.m. It's due in San Juan at 11:40 a.m. The plane is carrying 148 passengers and five crew members. Back to Top Southwest Air cooperating with NTSB after near collision at Midway CHICAGO (WLS) - Southwest Airlines says it's cooperating with the National Transportation Safety Board after a near collision at Midway Airport last month. Safety is the top priority, according to the spokesperson with Southwest Airlines. WLS-AM 890 has learned that a Southwest Boeing 737 had just landed at Midway airport on December 1st and was about to cross a runway when the first officer yelled to the captain "stop". The NTSB reports the plane came to a halt as a Learjet took off 287 feet laterally and 62 feet vertically from the larger plane. The report also indicated that air traffic control did not cancel take-off clearance of the Learjet nor directed the Southwest airlines plane to hold short of the runway. Eighty-five people were on board the Southwest flight. A spokesperson says the airline will continue to cooperate with the NTSB and it's investigation. http://www.wlsam.com/Article.asp?id=2370206&spid= Back to Top 4 dead in Canada airplane crash NORTH SPIRIT LAKE, Ontario, Jan. 10 (UPI) -- Four people died and a fifth was injured Tuesday in the crash of a twin-engine plane during a blinding snowstorm in northern Canada Tuesday, authorities said. Members of the small Ontario tribal reserve of North Spirit Lake said the PA 31-350 Piper Navaho crashed and caught fire at about 10 a.m., about 500 yards from the Ontario community's airport, the Winnipeg Free Press and Postmedia News reported. The Transportation Safety Board confirmed there was one male survivor of the crash. One resident said the plane crashed near the home of airport foreman Joe Keesick, whose family members tried to put out the flames by throwing snow on the wreckage. "They were doing whatever they could to save those people," Cameron Rae said. There was a "blinding snowstorm, ... a whiteout," at the time of the accident, he said. "It's very sad ... very sad. We've known [the victims] for a long, long time." Rae said the victims included local resident Martha Campbell, and Ben Van Hoek and Colette Eisinger, two members of Aboriginal Strategies Inc., a native consulting firm in Winnipeg. The names of the other victims were not reported. An ASI spokesman confirmed it had employees aboard the plane but declined further comment Back to Top Deputies use Taser on Sacramento airport passenger SACRAMENTO (AP) - Sacramento International Airport officials say local law enforcement authorities used Tasers on a man who refused to complete the security screening process Tuesday afternoon. Airport spokeswoman Karen Doron says Sacramento County sheriff's deputies shocked the man several times with stun guns after Transportation Security Administration officials asked them to intervene around 1:30pm. Doron says the man, who has not yet been identified, is no longer at the airport, but could not immediately say where he had been taken. Doron says the incident delayed the security checkpoint for a while, but no passengers missed flights. TSA spokesman Nico Melendez says he cannot comment on the incident. Back to Top Nonstop Flights Stop for Fuel By SUSAN CAREY And ANDY PASZTOR (WSJ) Dozens of Continental Airlines flights to the East Coast from Europe have been forced to make unexpected stops in Canada and elsewhere to take on fuel after running into unusually strong headwinds over the Atlantic Ocean. The stops, which have caused delays and inconvenience for thousands of passengers in recent weeks, are partly the result of a decision by United Continental Holdings Inc., the world's largest airline, to use smaller jets on a growing number of long, trans-Atlantic routes. United's strategy works when the winds are calm, and it allows the airline to operate less expensive aircraft with fewer cabin-crew members to an array of European cities that wouldn't generate enough traffic to justify larger planes. But by pushing its international Boeing Co. 757s to nearly the limit of their roughly 4,000-nautical-mile range, United is leaving little room for error when stiff winds increase the amount of fuel the planes' twin engines burn. Last month, United said, its 169-seat 757s had to stop 43 times to refuel out of nearly 1,100 flights headed to the U.S. A year earlier, there were only 12 unscheduled stops on roughly the same volume of 757 flights. Such stops are safer than eating into the minimum amount of reserve fuel pilots are required to keep on board, which guarantees that a plane can fly 45 minutes past its destination or alternate landing spot. The resulting delays can cause passengers to miss connections; require them to be put up at hotels by the airline; and sometimes prompt them to seek compensation for their troubles. A United spokesman said the company has been offering compensation as a gesture of good will in situations where customers' experiences warrant it. Remote Canadian fields at Gander and Goose Bay are the primary places to top off the tanks, but United confirmed that some of its 757 jets were also diverted to Iceland; Ireland; Nova Scotia; Albany, N.Y.; and Stewart International Airport, 60 miles north of Manhattan. "Headwinds returning from Europe are more extreme than we have seen in 10 years," said a United spokeswoman. For the past decade, December headwinds averaged 30 knots, according to United data. But last month, the winds averaged 47 knots, and, on the worst 15 days of the month, 60 knots. The winds didn't abate this month. In the first eight days of January, United said it made unplanned refueling stops on 14 flights on the six routes most prone to refueling, including four on the Stuttgart- Newark run, four on Paris-Washington Dulles and two each on Stockholm-Newark and Barcelona-Newark. Those routes tend to be nearly as long as the plane's maximum range. A Continental Airlines Boeing 757 touches down at Cleveland Hopkins Airport in 2009. United Continental Holdings has been using the smaller jets on a growing number of long, trans-Atlantic routes. For remote airports such as Goose Bay and Gander, which have been largely bypassed in recent years by jetliners' longer range capabilities, fueling stops can bring in tens of thousands of dollars in landing fees and other revenue a month. The United spokeswoman said it hasn't substituted larger aircraft on the affected routes because those planes are being used on other parts of the route network of the Chicago-based carrier, which was formed by the 2010 merger of United Airlines and Continental Airlines. According to industry estimates, a nearly full 757, operating with fewer flight attendants, can be more profitable than a larger plane such as the Boeing 767 carrying the same number of passengers but more attendants. The refueling-stop issues haven't posed any safety hazards, according to government and industry experts. But a Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman said agency officials are "aware that United aircraft have made more unscheduled fuel stops this year than last year, and we are looking into the issue." Capt. Jay Pierce, chairman of the pilots union representing Continental pilots, said last week that he asked the union's safety officials to look into the matter. The fluky weather pattern, which AccuWeather.com meteorologist Henry Margusity blames on La Niņa, or cooler-than-normal equatorial ocean temperatures in the Pacific, has also created problems for other airlines using single-aisle 757 jets across the Atlantic. USAirways Group Inc., which uses 757s between Philadelphia and some European cities, said that in December it diverted four of 112 trans-Atlantic flights due to strong headwinds. Three Amsterdam- Philadelphia flights and a flight from Brussels to Philadelphia gassed up in Bangor, Maine, the company said. Early in January, two more had to stop in Bangor. But the carrier, which has a much smaller European route map than United, has some flexibility to switch to Boeing 767 jets, and a spokesman said it tries to do so in the winter. AMR Corp.'s American Airlines, which serves six European routes with 757s, said it has had "a few" unplanned fuel stops on westbound flights, but it's "not a daily occurrence." Delta Air Lines Inc., which also flies 757s to Europe, said it didn't experience a single diversion due to fuel constraints in December or so far this month. United's Continental unit-which relies on 757s to link its Newark, N.J., hub to numerous European destinations-has been most adversely affected. And recently, Continental began deploying some of its 757s on two traditional United routes out of Dulles-to Paris and Amsterdam-that used to be served by larger planes, exposing some westbound fliers to the same diversions that have played havoc with its schedule and reputation. Jesse Hoy, a TV producer in Los Angeles, was traveling back from Paris with his pregnant wife on Jan. 3 on a Continental plane. Shortly before takeoff, Mr. Hoy said, the pilot said the jet was going to make an unscheduled fuel stop in Gander due to high winds but would try to get passengers to Dulles in time to make connections. Mr. Hoy said the plane landed at 9:50 p.m., the exact time his United flight to Los Angeles was scheduled to take off. The couple didn't make it home for two more days. The workhorse 757, which entered airline service in 1983 and was produced until 2004, can carry more than 220 passengers in one class. In the U.S., it was initially used for domestic flights, including coast- to-coast trips, and for trips to nearby overseas destinations. But once the FAA in the early 1990s granted airline operators permission to use it on over-water routes, carriers including American, Northwest, US Airways and Continental found the 757 a fuel-effective way to serve cities in Western Europe that had previously been reached with larger, more costly wide-body planes that consume more fuel but have greater range. Continental's enthusiasm for the 757 came under scrutiny four years ago when federal officials determined the carrier was responsible for nearly two-thirds of all the minimum fuel or fuel-emergency incidents reported annually by airliners landing in Newark. There were minimum fuel issues on 23 flights arriving from Barcelona over the course of a single year. When pilots make those calls, air traffic controllers give them landing priority. The Transportation Department's inspector general didn't find any safety violations, however. Back to Top Performance aviation leaders to NTSB: We're safe Christine Negroni, New York Times A crowd gathers around debris after a P-51 Mustang crashed at the Reno Air Show at Reno-Stead Airport Sept. 16. More than three months after the crash in Nevada that killed 10 spectators and a pilot competing at the National Championship Air Races and Air Show in Reno, some of the biggest names in performance aviation gathered in Washington on Tuesday to tell members of the National Transportation Safety Board that the industry was safe and not in need of further regulation. "We preach safety, safety, safety," John Cudahy, president of the International Council of Air Shows, told the board. "That's our main concern." The hearing was billed as an informational session while the board investigates other air-show-related accidents from the last few years. Deborah Hersman, chairwoman of the NTSB, directed some of her first questions at organizers of the Reno event and representatives of the Federal Aviation Administration, which oversees such shows and races, asking if regulations were stringent enough. John McGraw, FAA's deputy director of flight standards service, told the board there are no plans to change the regulations. "If we become aware of a risk that exceeds the boundary of what we think is acceptable, we will make those changes," he said. "But not currently." But under further questioning, McGraw added, "After any incident we go back and look at regulatory structure, what we've approved and try to find if there is something we missed, some risk we didn't account for or didn't expect." The hearing comes less than a week after producers of the Reno air race and show announced that this year's event would go on as scheduled. The race features airplanes, modified to increase performance, that fly at low altitudes at speeds upward of 500 mph while keeping audiences up to 1,500 feet away. Hersman wondered if the distances, established in the 1950s, were sufficient considering that in 2007 an air race competitor crashed on the course. But Mike Houghton, president and chief executive of the Reno Air Racing Association, who defended the 2011 air race on Tuesday, said the group examined how widespread the wreckage was from that earlier crash and found that it was confined to the calculated area. The more recent accident, on Sept. 16 at Reno-Stead Airport, occurred when Jimmy Leeward, 74 years old and an experienced pilot, lost control of his plane, a World War II era P-51 Mustang. Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi- bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/01/10/MNGD1MNI7M.DTL#ixzz1jA8IwUbv Back to Top Aircraft Accidents: 507 Deaths Recorded In 2011 The Aviation Safety Network (ASN) has described 2011 as a very safe year for civil aviation, the second safest year by number of fatalities and the third safest year by number of accidents. This is because the year also marked the longest period without a fatal airliner accident in modern aviation history, according to ASN. In 2011 the Aviation Safety Network recorded a total of 28 fatal airliner accidents, resulting in 507 fatalities and 14 ground fatalities. The number of fatalities is lower than the ten-year average of 764 fatalities. The worst accident happened on January 9, 2011 when an Iran Air Boeing 727 crashed while approaching Orumiyeh, Iran, killing 77 people The number of accidents involving passenger flights was relatively high with 19 accidents as compared to the ten-year average of 16 accidents. Seven out of 28 accident airplanes were operated by airlines on the European Union "black list" as opposed to six out of 29 the year before. The E.U. added a total of nine airlines to the "black list" and removed three airlines based on improved safety records. In 2011, Africa showed a continuing decline in accidents as 14per cent of all fatal airliner accidents happened in Africa. It should be noted however that the continent only accounts for approximately three per cent of all world aircraft departures. Russia suffered a very bad year with six fatal accidents. The Aviation Safety Network is an independent organisation located in the Netherlands. Founded in 1996, it has the aim to provide everyone with a (professional) interest in aviation with up-to-date, complete and reliable authoritative information on airliner accidents and safety issues. ASN is an exclusive service of the Flight Safety Foundation (FSF). The figures were compiled using the airliner accident database of the Aviation Safety Network, the Internet leader in aviation safety information. The Aviation Safety Network uses information from authoritative and official sources. http://leadership.ng/nga/articles/12825/2012/01/10/aircraft_accidents_507_deaths_recorded_2011.html Curt Lewis, P.E., CSP, FRAeS CURT LEWIS & ASSOCIATES, LLC