Flight Safety Information May 11, 2012 - No. 095 In This Issue Rescuers comb wreckage of Russian jet that crashed on Indonesian mountain Preliminary Accident Description... Indonesia's Woeful Air Safety Record Jet makes emergency landing at Logan after passenger allegedly attempts to open cabin door Helicopter Pilots Praised For 'Skilful' Ditch PRISM CERTIFICATION CONSULTANTS Two wing-drop incidents preceded G650 crash - NTSB Crash deals blow to Russian aerospace revival Drunken driving charge dismissed against former FAA chief Randy Babbitt Rescuers comb wreckage of Russian jet that crashed on Indonesian mountain Jakarta, Indonesia (CNN) -- Bad weather hampered recovery efforts Friday as rescue teams combed a forbidding slope of an Indonesian mountain where a Russian jetliner crashed on a demonstration flight this week. Rescuers found 12 bodies early in the day, according to Vice Marshal Daryatmo, head of the National Search and Rescue Agency, who like many Indonesians uses only one name. It will take at least two weeks to identify the victims through DNA tests, Indonesian authorities said. All 45 on board the Sukhoi Superjet 100 are feared dead. The Superjet 100, Russia's newest passenger plane, slammed into Mount Salak, a volcano south of Jakarta, after disappearing from radar screens Wednesday. Most of the wreckage is on a steep slope about 6,000 feet high, making it difficult to reach. The cause of the crash remained unclear. The Russian Investigative Committee said it has launched a criminal probe into possible safety violations. "We can understand how the families are feeling right now, and we want to do this evacuation as fast as we can, but the problem is the crash site terrain is unreachable by parachute," Daryatmo said at a news conference Friday. Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono announced a joint investigation Friday after a phone call with his Russia counterpart, Vladimir Putin. "I welcome the offer from Russian President Putin because the goal is to investigate what could have caused the plane crash," Yudhoyono said. The Russian Investigative Committee had said 48 people were on board the plane, including eight Russian crew members. But the Russian state-run news agency RIA Novosti said the number was 45, citing Sukhoi Civil Aviation President Vladimir Prisyazhnyuk as saying three of the people on the passenger list did not board the flight. The plane was on a demonstration flight for Indonesian Ministry of Transportation officials and representatives of Indonesian airlines, the Russian Embassy in Jakarta said before the crash. Indonesia's Sky Aviation signed a $380 million deal in 2011 to buy 12 Sukhoi Superjet 100s, and press reports said a number of Sky employees were on the plane that went down. Sukhoi employees are also among the missing. It was the first crash of a Sukhoi Superjet 100, RIA Novosti said. The plane was on its second demonstration flight Wednesday when it lost contact with air controllers at Jakarta's Halim Perdanakusuma Airport. The Sukhoi jet arrived in Jakarta as part of a demonstration tour of six Asian countries. It had been to Myanmar, Pakistan and Kazakhstan, and was scheduled to visit Laos and Vietnam after Indonesia, RIA Novosti said. Sukhoi manufactures military aircraft and is known especially for its fighter jets. Its civilian aircraft is narrow-bodied with a dual-class cabin that can transport 100 passengers over regional routes. It flew its maiden flight in 2008 and has had encountered problems in the past. In March, a Superjet 100 operated by Russia's Aeroflot Airlines was forced to abandon its flight to Astrakhan, Russia, and return to Moscow because of problems with the undercarriage, according to RIA Novosti. A similar defect in another Aeroflot-operated Superjet 100 plane had to be fixed in Minsk in December. However, Russia's state-run United Aircraft Corp. said the defect did not affect passenger safety. Back to Top Preliminary Accident description Last updated: 11 May 2012 Status: Preliminary Date: 09 MAY 2012 Time: ca 14:30 Type: Sukhoi Superjet 100-95 Operator: Sukhoi Registration: 97004 C/n / msn: 95004 First flight: 2009-07-25 (2 years 10 months) Engines: 2 PowerJet SaM146 Crew: Fatalities: / Occupants: Passengers: Fatalities: / Occupants: Total: Fatalities: 45 / Occupants: 45 Airplane damage: Destroyed Airplane fate: Written off (damaged beyond repair) Location: 75 km (46.9 mls) S of Jakarta (Indonesia) Phase: En route (ENR) Nature: Demonstration Departure airport: Jakarta-Halim Perdana Kusuma Airport (HLP) (HLP/WIHH), Indonesia Destination airport: Jakarta-Halim Perdana Kusuma Airport (HLP) (HLP/WIHH), Indonesia Narrative: A Sukhoi Superjet 100 passenger plane was destroyed when it struck the side of a mountain during a demonstration flight over Indonesia. All 45 on board were killed. The flight departed Jakarta-Halim Perdana Kusuma Airport (HLP/WIHH) at 14:00. It flew south and circled Mount Salak (elevation 7254 feet). After circling the mountain, the airplane began to descend from from 10,000 feet to 6,000 feet. Last contact with the flight was at 14:30. The wreckage was found the following morning on a near-vertical mountainside on the eastern side of Mount Salak at an elevation of 5,100 feet. There was no sign of survivors. Fatality index is presumed, not confirmed. The Superjet was conducting a demonstration flight to prospective customers in several countries. Demonstrations were flown in Myanmar, Pakistan and Kazakhstan before arriving in Indonesia on May 9. Two demonstration flights were planned. The first flight was uneventful. Passengers on the second flight were reporters and representatives of several Indonesian airlines. www.aviation-safety.net Back to Top Indonesia's Woeful Air Safety Record Russian Superjet's crash once again raises questions The Russian Sukhoi Superjet-100 that smashed into a jagged cliff near Indonesia's Mount Salak Wednesday, killing all 45 people aboard, is the latest in a long line of air crashes in what has been called one of the world's worst air safety systems. The first commercial crash occurred in 1950 when a Garuda Indonesia Airlines C47 crashed on landing at Surabaya-Jaunda Airport, killing two people. A steady drumbeat of crashes has occurred since - a total of 113 fatal crashes that, with the loss of the Sukhoi, so far have totaled 2,284 dead. In the last year alone, a Nusantara Buana Air flight flew into a mountain near Bohorok in Sumatra on Sept. 29, 2011, killing all 18 aboard, and a Chinese-made Xian MA-60 operated by Merpati Nusantara crashed into the sea on May 7, 2011, in poor visibility near Kaimana-Utarom Airport, killing 25. There were plenty of non-fatal accidents as well. A Sriwijaya Air Boeing 737 attempting to land in heavy rain at Yogyakarta Airport ran off the end of the runway on Dec. 20, 2011, with the right hand main and nose gear collapsing. Many of the 131 passengers were injured although nobody was killed. In November 2010, a Lion Air Boeing 737 ran out of runway when the thrust reverser failed to operate and the plane sustained major damage to its engines, nose landing gear and belly area. With 17,500 islands, 922 of them permanently inhabited according to the CIA Factbook, air travel is crucial to the country it is impossible to move around it with any speed without flying. The sea transport system is equally shambolic, with regular ferry capsizings as well. Accordingly, as the country has grown more prosperous, more people are taking to the air. The Transport Ministry in 2011 reported that passenger traffic was increasing at a 15 percent annual pace. There are at least 57 airlines including charter services, with about 7,000 pilots. Albert Tjoeng, a Singapore-based spokesman for the International Air Travel Association, said it is too early to speculate what went wrong aboard the Sukhoi - whether it was pilot error, problems with guidance from air traffic controllers, or other issues. Authorities in Indonesia are searching for the craft's black boxes, the indestructible records of the last few minutes of air flight. The Transportation Ministry on Thursday said there was no breach of regulation in the Sukhoi's demonstration flight. There was no indication of trouble from the plane. The pilots - both experienced test pilots -- asked permission 21 minutes into the flight to descend from 3,000 meters to 1,800 feet in a tour to demonstrate the attributes of the Russian-made passenger plane for dignitaries, journalists and Russian officials. Then it suddenly disappeared. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has ordered an investigation into the cause of the crash. Whether that is an indication of concern that problems with Indonesian guidance systems might have been involved is unknown. In 2007, following a Garuda Boeing 737 crash at Yogyakarta Airport that killed 31 people, the then-director general of Indonesian civil aviation, Budhi M Suyitno, told reporters that his country had what he called a woeful safety record. For every million flights across Indonesia, Suyitno said, there were 3.77 fatal flights against a global average of 0.25. Suyitno called it a "never-ending struggle" to identify safety hazards and improve the aviation culture e of Indonesia. "As an island nation aviation is critical to connect and unite our people," Suyitno said In the same year, an Adam Air 737 somehow strayed hundreds of kilometers off course, crashing into the sea and killing 102 people as the crew apparently focused their attention on an inertial navigation system problem and, according to the International Air Safety Network, "neither pilot was flying the aircraft." That rash of accidents spurred a devastating 2007 report by the International Civil Aviation Organization that listed a litany of shortcomings in the government's administration of air safety, finding that there was a shortage of technical staff within the Indonesia Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), and that "the funding provided by the state is insufficient to allow the DGCA to fulfill its safety oversight responsibility." Among many other problems, the report said there was an insufficient number of licensing officers to direct air traffic controller licensing, that the secretariat had not addressed the issue of dangerous goods carriage, that there was a shortage of staff to oversee air traffic management, that charts were missing pages or omitted outright. All Indonesian carriers were banned from flying into the European Union for six years as a result of the shortcomings as Indonesian officials struggled to clean up the mess. In 2009, the ICAO issued a checklist indicating Indonesia had addressed many of the problems although several remained "in progress." Repeated trips by EU officials to Jakarta to test out the industry's safety problems met with failure. In 2011, Garuda Indonesia was given permission to fly back into Europe and the IATA issued a statement in support of the country's efforts to address the safety issues. Six other airlines have since been given permission as well. Since that time, the country has made continuing progress in attempting to repair its reputation despite the crashes. Last year, at least four pilots from Lion Air were arrested on suspicion of possessing crystal methamphetamine, however, raising additional concerns about air safety. http://www.asiasentinel.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4491&Itemid=226 Back to Top Jet makes emergency landing at Logan after passenger allegedly attempts to open cabin door A North Carolina man is facing charges after he allegedly tried to open the cabin door of a US Airways Express jet flying from Portland, Maine, to Philadelphia Thursday afternoon, forcing the airliner to make an emergency landing at Logan International Airport, State Police said. State troopers met the plane on Logan's tarmac and arrested Michael J. Ensalaco, 40, of Mooresville, N.C., David Procopio, State Police spokesman, said in a statement. Ensalaco was subdued on the plane as it was in the air, said Phil Orlandella, a spokesman for Logan. A lone flight attendant on the plane stopped the man, a US Airways spokeswoman said. "The flight attendant took care of the passenger and took him to another seat basically towards the back of the plane," where another passenger helped watch Ensalaco, the spokeswoman, Michelle Mohr, said. The captain then declared an emergency and diverted the flight to Boston, according to Procopio. "The suspect is currently being interviewed by State Police and TSA [Transportation Security Administration] officials," Procopio said Thursday evening. "He is currently charged with interfering with a flight crew." The episode does not appear to be connected to terrorism. Ensalaco may be arraigned Friday in East Boston District Court, Procopio said. Flight 3801, which was operated for US Airways by Air Wisconsin, landed safely at Logan at 4:36 p.m. The Canadair CRJ-200 carried 50 passengers and three crew members, none of whom were injured, Air Wisconsin said. The passenger "appears to have been disoriented," said Andrew Christie, a spokesman for US Airways. Aimee Downing, Ensalaco's North Carolina neighbor who said she was acting as the family's representative, said relatives believe he had a seizure on the flight. Downing said Ensalaco is prone to seizures, and his family is confident the charge will be dropped. "We're glad he's doing well," she said. "He just had a seizure, and we're happy to hear he's fine." Procopio said State Police would have no comment on whether Ensalaco had any medical conditions. Christie said Thursday night that US Airways was canceling the flight and putting passengers on other planes to Philadelphia. No further information was available Thursday. http://www.boston.com/metrodesk/2012/05/10/passengers-restrain-man-who-was-behaving- erratically-plane-boston-logan-airport/WQnfUPuKgWbhYjI7Q12c9H/story.html Back to Top Helicopter Pilots Praised For 'Skilful' Ditch The pilots of a helicopter that successfully ditched into the North Sea off Aberdeen on Thursday with all 14 on board being rescued safely have been praised for their skill. "The North Sea is a particularly challenging place to fly any type of aircraft and flying helicopters is a particularly skillful task," Dave Reynolds, flight safety office of Balpa, the pilots' union, told BBC Radio Scotland. "The gentlemen involved have done a splendid job here. They brought the aircraft down in very challenging conditions. The helicopter was on its way to the Jasmine Conoco oil field "The operation which they actually flew is not something that is regularly practised by pilots and to actually carry this off and to get the aircraft successfully on the water with no-one being injured and the aircraft being intact is a great credit to these people." The company that operates the helicopters - Bond Aviation Group - has suspended all flights involving the EC225 Super Puma for safety reasons until further notice. Mr Reynolds said Balpa would support initiatives to improve flight safety. "In any air accident or air incident for those involved it is a very traumatic event. Air transport as we know is inherently safe so when we do have these isolated incidents of course it causes concern. "We would support any initiative that would enhance flight safety and of course if we can reassure people and take steps to ensure that this sort of thing doesn't occur in the future then of course we fully support that." The helicopter came down 25 miles off the coast of Aberdeen shortly after midday on Thursday. All those on board were rescued and taken safely back to land. http://news.sky.com/home/uk-news/article/16226097 Back to Top Back to Top Two wing-drop incidents preceded G650 crash - NTSB Factual documents recently made public by the US National Transportation Safety Board reveal that Gulfstream Aerospace did not fully investigate two wing-drop incidents that preceded the 2 April 2011 fatal crash of a G650 in Roswell, New Mexico. Aircraft 6002, the second of five flight test aircraft in the programme, scraped its right wing seconds after becoming airborne. It then ploughed along the ground, caught fire and eventually became engulfed in flames as it exited the runway on the right side. The two pilots and two flight test engineers - who were all killed inside the aircraft by smoke and soot inhalation and burns - were performing the ninth and final test of the day as part of Flight 153, a heavy take- off weight field test performance flight with 10? of flaps and the right engine at idle to determine lift-off and climb-out speeds that would later be used for US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) certification runs. The tests are needed to develop procedures that pilots will follow after engine failure late in a take-off run. Though the NTSB has not yet published a probable cause and contributing factors in the accident, the NTSB's operational group's factual report, completed in February, hints that aircraft performance guarantees and certification schedule pressures may have trumped time- consuming safety analyses that would have shown a negative margin for stick shaker activation, meaning the stall would occur before the pilots received any warning. During the testing phase for Aircraft 6002, the stick shaker was the pilots' only tactile indicator of an impending stall. The aircraft was later to have a software-based angle-of-attack limiter that was not available at the time of the accident. Post-crash analyses of Flight 153 by the NTSB and Gulfstream reveal that the aircraft's right wing had stalled, rolling the aircraft, just after lift-off, in large part due to incorrect pitch attitude and stick shaker targets that had been set for in-ground effect operations. The right wing stalled first due to the presence of a left crosswind and a sideslip caused by having the right engine at idle. The NTSB says a stall can be triggered during in-ground effect operations with an angle of attack as much as 3.25? lower than would be needed during out-of- ground effect flight. The investigation revealed that there had been two earlier wing drop-off events for Aircraft 6002 at Roswell, one in November 2010 (Flight 88) with the same pilot-in-command on board, and one in March 2011 (Flight 132) with the Flight 153's second-in-command on board. Gulfstream later attributed Flight 88's wing drop-off to over-rotation by the pilot, and did not analyse whether a stall had occurred at an angle of attack lower than the company predicted. For Flight 132, Gulfstream attributed the drop-off to an inoperative yaw damper and loss of directional control. The G650 programme aerodynamicist told investigators that "had flights 088 and 132 been recognized as stall events, then those events would have provided data points for [in- ground effect] stall [angle of attack] values". An analysis by Gulfstream after the ill-fated Flight 153 revealed an in-ground effect stall could be brought about by an angle of attack as low as 11.2? for the accident aircraft conditions, 3.25? below the out-of-ground effect stall angle of approximately 14.45?. At the time of the accident however, the team was assuming a decrement of 1.5? for in-ground effect stall, leading to an angle of attack of 12.95?. The stick shaker was also set to activate at 12.35?, well above the actual 11.2? stall angle. The negative margin between stick shaker and stall meant the pilots received little or no warning of an impending or actual stall. The post-crash performance analysis by the NTSB and Gulfstream confirmed that Flight 153's right wing had stalled as the aircraft rotated through 11.2? of pitch, rolling off and contacting the runway as pitch continued to increase and the stick shaker finally activated, too late. Aileron control immediately after the stall would have been ineffective due to the separated airflow near the ends of the wings, leaving the pilot with no direct roll control to counteract the drop-off. The pilots had been targeting a 9? initial pitch attitude for lift-off, but had decided before the test run to continue increasing pitch attitude immediately after reaching 9? to "capture" the desired climb-out speed (V2), which they had been overshooting in previous attempts, leading to longer than optimum take-off distances. The 1.5? in-ground effect decrement had also been programmed into the G650 engineering simulator in the integrated test facility, which a Flight 153 pilot and flight test engineer used to train for the Roswell flight tests. The simulator did not include representative aerodynamics for how the aircraft wing would roll-off during an in-ground effect stall. "Following the accident, improvements were made to the ITF aerodynamic model to the take-off phase," says the NTSB, based on an interview with the head of the flight sciences group at Gulfstream. Before March 2011, Gulfstream had used more conservative buffers, including a 2? in-ground effect decrement, a heritage number based, in part, on testing from the Gulfstream IV and low-speed wind tunnel tests on the G650, says the NTSB. The stick shaker in a previous test campaign was set to activate 1.2? below the in-ground effect stall angle of attack. Based on the post-accident analysis, the settings would have provided pilots with stick shaker activation at approximately the same angle of attack as the in-ground effect stall for the conditions present during the accident. Gulfstream said it was unable to comment, but the company will have the opportunity to comment on the NTSB's findings before the investigation is closed. GULFSTRAM DRAWS NTSB IRE OVER G650 INVESTIGATION As the US National Transportation Safety Board's investigation of the G650 accident winds down, documents revealed by the NTSB show a war of words between the Board and Gulfstream that threatened to sour relations between the two and potentially derail the safety probe. In a 4 April 2012 letter to Gulfstream president Larry Flynn, NTSB chairman Deborah Hersman reiterated a shopping list of complaints that had been registered over Gulfstream's behaviour during the investigation since its launch last April. Included was non-compliance with instructions from the NTSB investigator-in-charge relating to quarantine of accident-related telemetry data. A failure to follow the NTSB's prohibition on company lawyers getting involved in the accident investigation was raised, along with unexplained missing evidence, including a computer hard drive containing accident-related telemetry data and flight-test notebooks, "both of which Gulfstream had been asked to safeguard because they were of significant interest and value to the investigation". Gulfstream was also accused of withholding relevant information relating to the existence and results of an internal safety audit following the crash, and "combative and argumentative behaviour on the part of Gulfstream's legal counsel during witness interviews". In an earlier letter Flynn denied any wrongdoing, including Gulfstream's use of a copy of telemetry data sent to Savannah after the crash. "As soon as it became clear that Gulfstream would not be able to convince the NTSB to allow us to keep or continue using the copy of the telemetry data in our possession, Gulfstream, at the direction of the NTSB, ordered all employees who had been given access to the data to immediately cease using it; and either sequestered or destroyed all paper and electronic copies of the data or any analysis derived from the data," he wrote. Flynn points out that the NTSB later provided Gulfstream with another copy of the telemetry data for its use without an audio track. Regarding a missing hard drive containing telemetry data, Flynn says the US Federal Bureau of Investigation determined the drive had not been stolen but "rather had likely been inadvertently discarded in the trash by the employee charged with its safekeeping". He adds that Gulfstream "terminated that employee's employment". On the internal safety audit, Flynn says the "group of experts" who looked at the "safety practices and culture in all of Gulfstream's flight-test and flight-operations activities" did not perform a review of the accident "in order to avoid any conflict with the NTSB investigation". "At no time did Gulfstream seek to delay NTSB activities as a result of the third-party safety review," says Flynn. "Based on the results of the review, Gulfstream created and implemented a safety action plan," says Flynn. "We provided to the NTSB the presentation describing the safety action plan that was presented to our flight-test and flight-operations organisations," he adds. GENESIS OF REDUCTION IN G650 SAFETY MARGIN UNCLEAR The genesis of the reduction in safety margin is not completely clear from the NTSB documentation. One of the accident flight test engineers had proposed cutting the in-ground effect angle of attack decrement from 2° to 1.5° in March 2011, but the action, which would have helped take- off performance, may have indirectly resulted from a 11 February 2011 meeting at which Gulfstream officials discussed initial field performance test issues, including "that the speeds were high and take-off field lengths were longer than the G650's 6,000ft [1,830m] take-off field length (+/-8%) guarantee". Though the guarantee applied to a take-off with flaps at 20°, Gulfstream planned to use the performance of the aircraft with one engine inoperative and flaps at 10° the configuration on the accident aircraft to replicate "competitive-based performance take-offs at high airport elevations". The associated reduction in the stick shaker buffer may have been the result of a March 2011 take-off test flight in which the shaker had activated. Gulfstream's director of flight test told the NTSB: "during take-off field performance testing, the test flight crew(s) encountered [stick] shaker activation, and, because FAA certification requirements for a successful test do not allow for stick shaker activation, a review of stick shaker activation settings was conducted." The stick shaker change followed, supported in part by the supposed extra margin gained by the reduction of in-ground effect stall angle of attack by 1.5°. Despite the open NTSB investigation, Gulfstream expects to receive final US Federal Aviation Administration certification in the second half of the year for the G650, its largest, fastest and longest-range business jet to date. The company plans to deliver 24 green and 17 completed G650s this year under a provisional type certification it received in late November 2011. It has orders for more than 200 of the $65 million Rolls-Royce BR725-powered, fly-by-wire twinjets. http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/in-focus-two-wing-drop-incidents-preceded-g650- crash-ntsb-371677/ Back to Top Crash deals blow to Russian aerospace revival PARIS/MOSCOW (Reuters) - The hilltop crash of a Sukhoi passenger jet ferrying journalists and dignitaries on a mission to drum up foreign sales in Indonesia potentially casts a shadow over Kremlin efforts to restore Russia's once mighty aerospace industry. Analysts can't yet say how far the loss of the first new passenger jet since the fall of the Soviet Union will damage the rebirth of Russian aviation, but agree it deals a psychological blow at a time when domestic air safety is also under scrutiny. The aircraft was on a promotional tour to showcase Russia's arrival as a peer to regional jetmakers like Brazil's Embraer or Canada's Bombardier, with Russia especially anxious to shake off the poor safety reputation of its earlier Soviet domestic fleet. With so much national pride invested in Russia's relatively young aircraft project, the crash is likely to shake the confidence of the industry in a way that would be less common among Western firms whose accident rate is statistically lower. That could change if investigators find no technical fault. "If it was pilot error then it is not a huge blow to the Russian aerospace industry. However if it was a technical problem with the aircraft, then it could really affect customer perception of the aircraft and order capability," said Tom Chruszcz, a director at the ratings agency Fitch. President Vladimir Putin, who completed a job swap with former president Dmitry Medvedev to start a new six-year term on Monday, championed the development of Sukhoi's Superjet regional airplane during a previous stint as Russian leader. Analysts say Putin wants to revive the aerospace sector, shattered by the collapse of the Soviet Union, to demonstrate Moscow's industrial clout abroad and help project the Kremlin's authority to voters inside Russia. Built by the former Soviet Union's largest warplane maker, Sukhoi's Superjet is a 78- to 98-seat regional airliner designed for sale on a global market which has historically shied away from Russian-built jets for safety reasons. Russia has declared ambitions to sell $250 billion worth of aircraft by 2025 and overtake even Soviet-era output records to compete with the U.S. and European giants. Sukhoi's sister company Irkut -- both are part of a giant state aircraft holding company forged by Putin and known as United Aviation Corporation -- has matched China in developing a 150- seat airliner called MS-21 to rival Airbus and Boeing jets. Wednesday's disappearance of a Superjet from Indonesian radars during a demonstration flight near a volcano coincided with a Victory Day military parade on Moscow's Red Square, where Putin promised to promote Russia on the world stage. "If this is a catastrophe, then, of course, it's bad for Russia's image in the world, given also that last year was unlucky in terms of air safety," Boris Rybak, director of Moscow thinktank Infomost, said, speaking before rescuers located the wreckage and reported no sign of survivors. FIGHTER FACTORY RESTORED No industrial effort better symbolizes Moscow's push to restore national pride than Sukhoi's Superjet and its factory, which Reuters visited when the aircraft was inaugurated in 2007. The eastern city of Komsomolsk-on-Amur in Russia's Far East was once sealed off from the outside world as a nerve centre of Soviet submarine and fighter production. But its economy collapsed when orders and government cash dried up at the end of the Cold War and Sukhoi fighter engineers resorted to making children's bicycles, say local guides. The Superjet restored jobs and commercial prospects to an abandoned corner of the plant as a jet designed for Westerners slowly took shape beneath peeling Soviet frescoes -- yards from the continued trickle of Sukhoi Su-27 combat jet production. Its long-deserted civil airport terminal, a museum of mosaics and vintage weighing machines, was re-opened to allow investors and foreign media to witness the Superjet's rollout. "The Superjet is more than a plane; it is a priority project," First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov told Russian assembly workers at the Superjet's rollout ceremony in 2007. Its future now lies in the hands of crash investigators. Moscow will hope the crash does not harm its aerospace sector. A senior Russian official suggested the crash was caused by pilot error rather than a technical failure, but most safety analysts cautioned it was too early to say what caused the disaster. The circumstances and potential loss of prestige echo the notorious crash of the Soviet Union's monster eight-engined Tupolev "Maxim Gorky" during a demonstration flight in 1935. The crash almost 77 years ago to the day was blamed on the pilot, but the exact circumstances have never been fully established. The reputations of several Western companies are also tied up in the Superjet's future. Boeing (BA.N) acted as a consultant on the project including for flight and maintenance crew training. But its role is mainly seen as a symbolic one, with the U.S. group keen to tap into Russian titanium supplies for its next generation of jetliners. French and Italian firms, however, invested heavily and this has been a key selling point in Sukhoi's marketing efforts. Alenia Aeronautica, a unit of Italy's Finmeccanica(SIFI.MI), bought 25 percent of Sukhoi's civil division to back the project. It is responsible for the global marketing and after-sales support that are both crucial for winning contracts. "The Russian aerospace industry collapsed after the Cold War and the Russians aim to work their way back to commercial market acceptance by working with Western suppliers to improve standards, manufacturing procedures and product support," said analyst Richard Aboulafia of Virginia-based Teal Group. "This crash doesn't mean they can't do it but it is certainly a setback, and it will depend what is found in the investigation. There is a lot we don't know yet," he added. Sukhoi has expressed hopes that the development dollars and technology of Western suppliers would attract Western airlines who may otherwise be reticent about buying Russian. It is also under-cutting rivals with a price of some $30 million per plane. So far it has found buyers for 170 aircraft out of 1,000 it would like to sell but no mainstream Western airlines. Irish budget carrier Ryanair (RYA.I) has expressed tentative interest. Back to Top Drunken driving charge dismissed against former FAA chief Randy Babbitt A drunken driving charge was dismissed Thursday against former federal aviation chief J. Randolph Babbitt after a judge ruled that a Fairfax City police officer pulled him over without good reason in December. It was a dramatic end to a case that had led to Babbitt's resignation as head of the Federal Aviation Administration after a distinguished career in Washington and 25 years as a pilot with Eastern Airlines. Fairfax City General District Court Judge Ian O'Flaherty ended the trial soon after it began. After video of the traffic stop was played in court, the judge said the officer had pulled Babbitt over on a "mere hunch." The video showed Babbitt making a routine left-hand turn into a Fairfax City business complex from the southbound lane of Old Lee Highway. In the process, Babbitt crossed double yellow lines and a northbound lane, but he did not drive on the wrong side of the road as Fairfax City Officer Mike Morris alleged in the criminal complaint. Defense attorney Peter Greenspun also said the first breath test given to Babbitt showed that he had a blood-alcohol level of 0.07, below Virginia's legal limit of 0.08. A prosecutor said in court that later tests showed Babbitt exceeding the legal limit, but the case was dismissed before that evidence was presented. "I'm happy to have it behind me," Babbitt said afterward. "Candidly, it's been a tough time." In his opening statement, Greenspun said Babbitt attended a dinner party in Fairfax City the night of Dec. 3. Babbitt had 21 / 2 or three glasses of wine between 6:30 p.m. and 10 p.m., Greenspun said. In all, seven people drank less than three bottles of wine, and there was no sign that Babbitt was impaired, Greenspun said. Babbitt, 65, a Reston resident, left the party and turned on his Global Positioning System device to navigate home, but he was headed in the wrong direction when he made the left turn on Old Lee Highway. Morris pulled him over after he turned into the driveway of the business complex about 10:30 p.m., the officer testified. After the arrest, Babbitt, who was appointed by President Obama in 2009, was placed on administrative leave. Days later, he resigned. Babbitt said Thursday that he was not sorry that he had resigned and that he had no ill will toward the officer who arrested him. Babbitt said he planned to work in aviation consulting. "There was no criminal activity from start to finish," Greenspun said after the trial. "Tragically for Mr. Babbitt, [the case] became very public." http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/drunk-driving-charges-dismissed-against-former- faa-chief-randy-babbitt/2012/05/10/gIQA0SbuFU_story.html?tid=pm_local_pop Curt Lewis, P.E., CSP, FRAeS, FISASI CURT LEWIS & ASSOCIATES, LLC