Flight Safety Information June 6, 2012 - No. 116 In This Issue NTSB ASSISTS GOVERNMENT OF NIGERIA IN AVIATION ACCIDENT Nigeria plane reported engine failure Nigeria: Dana Pilots and Flights Statistics Carrier defends itself over Nigeria plane crash... NTSB: Tanker 'heavily fragmented' after Utah crash Unemployed American Airline Workers Should Learn Chinese PRISM Certification Consultants Federal raid targets drug trafficking at Puerto Rico's main airport DEA: American Airlines Workers Smuggled Cocaine Into Miami, New York... Bahrain Aviation Academy Named Top Facility NTSB ASSISTS GOVERNMENT OF NIGERIA IN AVIATION ACCIDENT Washington - The NTSB is dispatching an investigator to assist the government of Nigeria in its investigation of the crash of a Dana Air Boeing MD-83 airplane, Flight # 0992. On June 3, 2012 at about 11:51 a.m. local time, the airplane, en route from Abuja to Lagos Nigeria, crashed outside the airport into a two story building. All 153 passengers and crew onboard were fatally injured, and an undetermined number of ground fatalities and injuries also occurred. As the state of design and manufacture of the Boeing MD-83, the NTSB has designated Senior Aviation Accident Investigator, Mr. Dennis Jones, as the traveling U.S. Accredited Representative. Mr. Jones will be assisted from NTSB headquarters by investigative staff specializing in operational factors, powerplants, and airworthiness as well as advisors from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), Boeing, and Pratt & Whitney. The investigation is being conducted by the Nigerian Accident Investigation Bureau, which will release all information. The AIB phone number is: Tel.: (234) 807 709-0902 / 0900 / 0908 / 0909 (24 hours), and its email address is: info@aib.gov.ng www.ntsb.gov Back to Top Nigeria plane reported engine failure ABUJA/LAGOS, June 6 (Reuters) - A plane that crashed in Lagos on Sunday, killing all 153 people on board in Nigeria's worst airline disaster for two decades, reported dual engine failure just before going down, the aviation minister said on Wednesday. The McDonnell Douglas MD-83, operated by privately owned domestic airline Dana Air, smashed into an apartment block in a densely populated suburb on Sunday afternoon, killing everyone on board and probably six people on the ground. "From the record of communication that we have, the captain of the aircraft called the traffic control in Lagos declaring a mayday and reported dual engine failure," Aviation Minister Stella Oduah told journalists at the presidential villa. "It was shortly after the captain's distress call that the aircraft could no longer be seen in the radar and communication was lost." The government has set up panels to review the safety of all airlines in the country and suspended Dana Air's air licence. Dana Air has said there was nothing wrong with the aircraft. "Dana Air takes safety very seriously and our aircraft are sound," Dana Director Francis Ogboro told a news conference, repeating the company's position that there was no mechanical fault with the plane before it went down. Search teams found the "black box" voice and data recorder on Monday and it has been sent abroad for decoding, the Accident Investigations Bureau said. Nigeria's poor air safety record had been improving and Sunday's was the first big crash for six years. DEATHS ON THE GROUND Lagos state government estimated that 159 people were killed in the collision, including six on the ground whose bodies have yet to be found. Workers have finished recovering bodies from the rubble, Lagos state attorney general Ade Ipaye said. In total, 149 bodies were found and a number of body parts. Around two thirds of remains could not be identified and were to undergo post-mortem identification at a forensics laboratory. "In circumstances like this its difficult to be exact on numbers ... we have body parts that were not attached to anything," Ipaye said. Distinguishing the passengers from other victims has proven difficult and only two bodies - those of a woman and the child she was holding - have been confirmed as casualties on the ground. A survey of the building and the surrounding houses found six people missing, said Oke Osanyintolu of the Lagos State Emergency Management Agency. Most of the dead on board were Nigerians, although a family of six Americans of Nigerian descent was killed, as were four Chinese citizens, two Lebanese and a French woman. Britain's Daily Telegraph reported on Wednesday that a British economist was also killed. Back to Top Nigeria: Dana Pilots and Flights Statistics Lagos - The flight captain of the ill-fated Dana plane had a record of 18,500 flight hours and had already flown 7,100 hours on Boeing MD83 aircraft, according to the airlines statistics. The first officer, according to the statistics, had flown 1,100 flight hours, 800 of which were on the MD83 aircraft, indicating also that both pilots' licenses were current and verifiable with the NCAA. It further said the aircraft had a total of over 60,000 flight hours, and with total cycles of over 35,000, saying its last 400-hourly check (A-Check) was on May 30, while the statutory annual maintenance (C-Check) was not due till this September. The Certificate of Airworthiness issued by the NCAA after the last C-Check was still very valid as at the time of the incident, it also said. Dana Air began scheduled flights on November 10, 2008 and operated over 18, 933 flights, carrying over 1, 600, 366 passengers in the process. The airline currently has 5 Boeing MD83 aircrafts in its fleet, all fully insured for the passengers and aircrafts by a company based in the UK, whose officials are currently on their way to Lagos. Dana management also said the company was professionally managed and adhered strictly to the maintenance schedule for all its aircrafts as prescribed by the manufacturers as well as the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA). http://allafrica.com/stories/201206061001.html Back to Top Carrier defends itself over Nigeria plane crash LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) - A Nigerian airline whose airplane crashed in the country's largest city, killing 153 on board and more on the ground, defended itself Wednesday against growing public criticism, saying its own chief engineer died on the doomed flight. Francis Ogboro, an executive who oversees Dana Air, also told journalists the MD-83 that crashed Sunday underwent strenuous checks like the others the carrier owns and that he routinely flies. The chief engineer "certainly would not have allowed that aircraft to take off" if there was a problem, Ogboro said. "No airline crew would go on a suicide mission." Emergency officials on Wednesday stopped searching for those killed at the crash site in Iju-Ishaga, the Lagos neighborhood about nine kilometers (five miles) from Lagos' Murtala Muhammed International Airport. Searchers there recovered 153 complete corpses as well as fragmented remains before halting their efforts, said Yushau Shuaib, a spokesman for Nigeria's National Emergency Management Agency. It is unclear from the fragments collected how many victims there are, officials said, acknowledging that a complete death toll could likely take weeks. "I think we can only be sure of the number at the end of the scientific investigation that is going on," Lagos state attorney general Ade Ipaye said. Officials now plan to survey the neighborhood to find who remains missing after the plane smashed into two apartment buildings, a printing business and a woodshop, Shuaib said. Those still missing would be presumed dead until DNA testing or other forensic tests links them to the dead, officials said. During a news conference Wednesday, authorities said relatives of the dead should come to Lagos to provide tissue samples and be photographed. However, such DNA testing likely would need to be done outside of Nigeria, a nation with erratic electricity from a state-run power company and a largely mismanaged government. The cause of the crash on a sunny, clear Sunday afternoon remains unknown. The flight's captain radioed Lagos as the aircraft approached and declared an emergency, saying both of the MD-83's engines had failed, Aviation Minister Stella Oduah said Wednesday. The plane crashed minutes later. Ogboro and others declined to speculate what could have made both of the aircraft's Pratt and Whitney engines go out in the last minutes of the flight. The aircraft, manufactured by McDonnell-Douglas which was later bought by Boeing, requires a flight engineer to manage the fuel supply while in operation rather than having a computer monitoring it like on newer aircraft. Authorities already have collected the flight voice and data recorders from the airplane and plan to send them to the U.S. for analysis on Thursday, Oduah said. The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board also has sent an investigator to assist Nigeria's Accident Investigation Board, which probes airplane crashes. Families and diplomats continued to attempt to identify the dead, hampered by conflicting flight manifests. On Wednesday, U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner said the number of dead American citizens in the crash had risen to nine from seven. Britain's foreign ministry said that Antonia Attuh, a woman with dual Nigerian and British citizenship, died in the crash. Indian diplomats also believe Indian national Rijo K. Eldhose and flight co-pilot Mahendra Singh Rathore, an American of Indian origin, also were killed, said Rani Malik, an officer at India's High Commission in Lagos. Others killed in the crash included at least seven Americans, at least four Chinese citizens, two Lebanese nationals, a French citizen and a Canadian, officials have said. Popular anger has risen in Nigeria against the airline since the crash. On Tuesday, the Nigerian government said it indefinitely suspended Dana Air's license to fly as a safety precaution. However, while offering sympathy for those who died in the crash, Ogboro predicted the airline would resume operations within a few weeks after proving to the government its fleet of MD-83s are safe. "We ensure that we go by the rules," he said. "I am almost certain they will find that we have not done anything contravening the aviation rules, because all of those aircraft are well maintained. There's absolutely no doubt about that." Yet identifying the dead likely will take longer, officials say, while the remaining building and rubble at the crash site have been leveled. At the site Wednesday, a worker in a yellow safety vest flipped through a photo album pulled from the debris, a series of photographs of weddings and christenings smeared with mud. Nearby, a crane lifted up the tail of the crashed plane as workers began to remove pieces of the aircraft from the site. Fresh black paint covered over the faded Dana Air logo on the fuselage. Back to Top NTSB: Tanker 'heavily fragmented' after Utah crash SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - An air tanker that crashed and killed two pilots fighting a wildfire in southern Utah was reduced to fragments that shed few clues about the accident's cause, federal investigators said Wednesday. The wreckage will be recovered within days for a closer look, said Debra Eckrote, deputy regional chief at the National Transportation Safety Board's Seattle office. "It's heavily fragmented obviously," Eckrote said Wednesday. "There was a lot of burn damage to the wreckage." NTSB investigator Van McKenny found a 600-yard debris path littered with pieces of the 50-year-old air tanker, said Eckrote, the investigator's supervisor. McKenny was out of cellphone range Wednesday, his second day at the crash site. Eckrote said the pilots were dropping flame retardant or had just done so when the Lockheed P2V went down Sunday - the same day another tanker of the same vintage was forced to make a crash landing at Nevada's Minden-Tahoe Airport when its left-side landing gear failed to deploy. No one was injured. The U.S. Forest Service now has nine large air tankers under contract and announced Wednesday it has made arrangements to make four more available immediately to fight fires. California is staffing two tankers a month earlier than normal with funding from the Forest Service. The other two tankers are being made available through agreements with Alaska and the Canadian Interagency Fire Centre, the Forest Service said. Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., said Wednesday he recently sponsored legislation that would allow the Forest Service to expand and upgrade its contractor fleet of firefighting planes. "The West is experiencing severe drought conditions, which has led to an outbreak in wildfires across the region," Udall said. "I urge my colleagues to get this legislation to the president's desk to ensure our nation's air-tanker fleet can safely and effectively respond to wildfires." The wildfire burning on the Nevada-Utah border has scorched about 6,900 acres and is 40 percent contained, fire officials said Wednesday. Crews don't expect to fully contain the blaze until Sunday evening. Nearly 350 people, including support staff, are working on the fire. In New Mexico, crews had contained more than 20 percent of a massive wildfire in the Gila National Forest by Wednesday morning. The blaze has charred about 412 square miles, but it's not growing as fast as it was last week. The tanker that crashed in Utah was owned by Neptune Aviation Services of Missoula, Mont. It was built in 1962, according to federal aviation records, but had been modified to fight fires and was among only a handful of air tankers available nationwide. The other P2V was owned by Minden Air Corp. in Minden, Nev. The P2V was once a Cold War-era submarine attack plane but for years has been a mainstay of the nation's aerial firefighting arsenal. At a news conference Tuesday in Albuquerque, N.M., Forest Service chief Tom Tidwell acknowledged the need to modernize the country's firefighting fleet and said the Forest Service was asking contractors to upgrade to a more modern plane. Neptune Aviation maintains the P2V is a safe plane, despite its age. The company has gathered the plane's maintenance records for an NTSB investigation; however, it has refused to make those records public. The Utah crash killed two pilots: Todd Neal Tompkins and Ronnie Edwin Chambless, both of Boise, Idaho. The NTSB investigation could take months, Eckrote said. Back to Top Unemployed American Airline Workers Should Learn Chinese (Forbes) To the hundreds of young and unattached American Airlines workers threatened with lay offs: consider taking some classes in basic Mandarin Chinese. Chinese airlines are on a recruitment drive for foreign flight attendants as the country's aviation and travel industry continue to expand in the world's No. 2 economy. All the major airlines contacted by China Daily reporters recently said they were hiring foreign crew members for international flights. While many of these new cabin crew members will be from neighboring Asian countries, Westerners are following the trend East bound. The daily reported that a growing number of foreign passengers booking flights on Chinese carriers has lent itself to higher demand for foreign language speakers. Air China has the highest number of foreign attendants, currently around 40, with an expected 50 more South Korean staff waiting for work permits. China Southern said that flight attendants from India and Central Asia have been employed, with more to come, as well as others from Australia, France and the Netherlands. China Eastern Airlines said it wants to hire around 100 foreign cabin crew members after hiring 20 flight attendants from Germany and France already this year. Shen Xiaosheng, China Eastern's deputy director of publicity, told China Daily on Wednesday that "many more foreign staff will be joining" it in future, insisting that the addition of more foreign faces has actually contributed to the carrier's growing international and domestic traffic. Earlier this year, American Airlines said it plans to lay off 13,000 workers in a restructuring effort to keep the company alive. The company reported a $15 million operating loss and a $142 million net loss in April. The company now trades in the pink sheets, over the counter for less than $0.50 a share. United Airlines CEO Jeff Smisek told employees in March that the carrier will eliminate 1,300 jobs in Houston alone by this fall. Back to Top Back to Top Federal raid targets drug trafficking at Puerto Rico's main airport (CNN) Hundreds of federal and state agents were conducting sweeps of Puerto Rico's main airport Wednesday in an anti-drug trafficking operation, officials said. In addition, there were raids in the commonwealth's capital, San Juan, said Laila Rico, a spokeswoman for the Drug Enforcement Administration. Puerto Rico Gov. Luis Fortuno told CNN en Espaņol that 42 arrest warrants have been issued, not all of them in Puerto Rico. He said some arrests would be made in the mainland United States. The raid was taking place at Luis Munoz Marin International Airport, just outside San Juan. Related indictments, expected to be unsealed Wednesday, deal with the use of the main airport and other airports to traffic drugs, Fortuno said. Back to Top DEA: American Airlines Workers Smuggled Cocaine Into Miami, New York U.S. federal agents say they raided Puerto Rico's international airport and other areas early on June 6, 2012, arresting at least 33 people suspected of smuggling millions of dollars' worth of drugs aboard commercial flights. (ABC News) In the latest arrests of U.S. airport workers on drug smuggling charges, authorities charged that two rings of nearly 50 corrupt employees at Puerto Rico's main airport smuggled thousands of kilograms of cocaine onto commercial flights bound for mainland U.S. cities, including Miami, Orlando and New York. One ring, allegedly led by Maribel Rodriguez Fragoso, AKA La Flaca or "the Skinny Woman," was made up of workers for a baggage handling and maintenance company at San Juan's Luis Munoz Marin International Airport, and allegedly brought cocaine-stuffed backpacks and suitcases into cities up and down the East Coast between 2010 and 2012. The other, allegedly led by American Airlines employee Wilfredo Rodriguez Rosado , included American Airlines workers and is charged with smuggling more than 9,000 kilos of the white powder between 2000 and 2009. The DEA arrested 36 people Wednesday morning, and unsealed indictments charging a total of 45 individuals with conspiracy to distribute cocaine and violations of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO). In addition to arrests in Puerto Rico, a DEA official says three American Airlines employees were arrested in the mainland U.S. -- two in Miami and one in Dallas. The DEA alleges members of the La Flaca ring used their company's baggage vehicles to take suitcases stuffed with cocaine and place them directly on commercial flights. The ring would also allegedly bring cocaine into airport employee-only restrooms, where ring members would hand backpacks full of cocaine to drug couriers who would then board planes. The ring allegedly shipped cocaine to Boston, Philadelphia, New York and Orlando, among other cities. The American Airlines ring was disrupted by the DEA in 2009 in an operation called Heavy Cargo. Twenty-three people, including nine American Airlines employees, were indicted, and Rodriguez and 21 others pled guilty. According to authorities, members of the ring transported suitcases full of cocaine from the American Airlines cargo area and onto American Airlines flights bound for such cities as Newark, New York, Miami and Orlando. The DEA today announced indictments of 20 more individuals who were allegedly involved in the smuggling ring. The arrests come 13 years after the DEA's Operation Ramp Rats, in which the agency busted 59 individuals, most of them American Airlines employees, for alleged involvement in drug smuggling at Miami International and JFK. While some workers were acquitted, dozens were convicted or pled guilty. More recently, the DEA brought drug smuggling charges against airline or airport workers in 2007 and 2010. "DEA will continue to dismantle these organizations that think they can blatantly use legitimate entities to carry out their smuggling operations," said DEA Acting Special Agent in Charge of the Caribbean Division, Pedro Janer. DEA Deputy Administrator Thomas M. Harrigan today said, "Americans have a right to expect the highest integrity from those they entrust with their safety, and DEA is committed to protecting that trust. Today's arrests at one of the nation's busiest airports reflect our relentless commitment to working with our partners to aggressively fight drug trafficking, not only at our nation's points of entry, but at source, transit, and arrival zones throughout the world." In a statement to the Associated Press, American Airlines said it always assists law enforcement, and helps to "prosecute individuals responsible to the fullest extent of the law. We have a zero tolerance policy for any employee when it comes to this type of activity." The defendants in both cases are facing a minimum term of 10 years to life if convicted on all charges. Back to Top Bahrain Aviation Academy Named Top Facility MANAMA, Bahrain, June 6, 2012 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- The Middle East International Air Transport Association recognized Bahrain's Gulf Aviation Academy (GAA) as a top ten training center in the Middle East for 2012. The award honors training centers dedicated to developing leaders for the future of the air transportation industry. Award organizers noted that the GAA's superior student exam rates made the academy stand out from its competitors. "With the forecasted very high growth in the aviation sector in the MENA region over the coming years and the increased demand for aviation training, this award is key for our rapidly growing customer base," Mahmood AlBalooshi, CEO of GAA, said. "GAA is very focused on continuing to boost Bahrain's status as a premier aviation hub through adding and developing a further range of specialist aviation training services to our portfolio throughout 2012." The Gulf Aviation Academy is Bahrain's first aviation training academy and is internationally certified. The facility trains staff 24 hours a day, seven days a week. SOURCE Kingdom of Bahrain Back to Top International Air & Transportation Safety Bar Association (IATSBA) Announces December Conference IATSBA President Gary Halbert has announced the association's 2012 National Aviation and Transportation Law Conference to be held December 5-7 in Washington, D.C. IATSBA recently changed its organizational name. IATSBA was formerly called the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) Bar Association. The Conference activities planned for the afternoon of December 5 are tailored for attorneys new to the aviation and transportation law fields. The conference welcome reception will be held the evening of December 5. The regular conference continuing legal education sessions will kick off the morning of December 6. The conference banquet and Joseph T. Nall Safety Award presentation will be the evening of December 6 at the "Top of the Hay" in the historic Hay Adams hotel. The conference will continue through December 7. This annual conference was last held in Washington in 2010. The bar association met during 2011 in Pensacola, Florida. The formal conference announcement and opportunity to register will be issued to members in the coming weeks, and available on the IATSBA website approximately two weeks after that for anyone to register. As in years past, the cost of attendance will be discounted for current members. People wishing to join IATSBA or renew their membership may do so on the IATSBA website. The website is at http://www.iatsba.org/ www.iatsba.org Back to Top Florida Tech Adds Master's Degree in Aviation Safety through Online Learning 05/31/2012 MELBOURNE, FLA.-A major government and private sector need for professionals trained in aviation safety has prompted a new degree at Florida Institute of Technology: the Master of Science in Aviation Safety, which is taught 100 percent through online learning. The degree, offered by the Florida Tech College of Aeronautics, is a companion degree to its Master of Science in Human Factors in Aeronautics which is also available on line. Participants will become expert in safety management systems (SMS); aviation safety analysis, complex aviation systems, accident prevention, human factors and decision- making. Program benefits include: Online convenience Experienced, professional faculty Research opportunities Theory combined with application A 30-credit, non-thesis program The goal of the program is to prepare individuals for advanced leadership positions in the public, private, and military aviation sectors through specific skill and competency training in aviation safety. Class sizes are limited to 15 students. Admission requirements and curriculum information available at: http://www.fit.edu/programs/grad/ms_aviationaviation_safety_online/ For more information, contact Steve Cusick, associate professor, at (321) 674-7470 or at scusick@fit.edu Curt Lewis, P.E., CSP, FRAeS, FISASI CURT LEWIS & ASSOCIATES, LLC