Flight Safety Information June 26, 2013 - No. 128 In This Issue International System Safety Conference Report: US Airways flight attendant detained in Rome over gun Haze Blocks Airplane Landings in Sumatra Airplane crashes in Wheeling near apartment complex Copter Crash Kills 19 as Flood Rescue Efforts Strain Indian Air Force Bullet found on jet at Newark airport Annual SMS Audit Results Released Air Force offers fighter pilots $225,000 to stay in British Airways launches $927 mln aircraft-backed bond United Airlines Employees Debut Brand New Uniforms Which Airlines Have The Most WiFi-Enabled Flights? Back to Top Report: US Airways flight attendant detained in Rome over gun An Italian newspaper is reporting that a flight attendant on a Charlotte-bound US Airways flight was detained Sunday at Rome's Fiumicino Airport after trying to board the plane with a disassembled revolver and ammunition in her carry-on luggage. The flight attendant was identified as 60 years old by the Gazetta del Sud, but her name was not released. US Airways spokesman Davien Anderson said the airline is aware of the incident, but couldn't comment further. "Airline officials are in contact, and cooperating with, local authorities," Anderson said. The Gazetta reported that the flight attendant had a .40-caliber Sig Sauer revolver, disassembled, in her carry-on. She was also reportedly carrying 40 rounds of ammunition, five of which had been fired. According to the Gazetta, the flight attendant told authorities she brought the gun from the U.S. She is being held and investigated by the local prosecutor's office. http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2013/06/24/4126451/report-us-airways-flight- attendant.html#storylink=cpy Back to Top Haze Blocks Airplane Landings in Sumatra PEKANBARU, Indonesia-On Monday morning, not even jet planes could penetrate the haze emanating from hundreds of fires raging across Sumatra Island. Passengers aboard a morning Lion Air flight were given a jolt when the pilot maneuvered to land at Pekanbaru, the capital of Riau province, as the city was shrouded in murky soot from blazes that have sent smoke as far as Singapore and Malaysia. As the plane came in to land, the layer of smog gave way to provide a glimpse of land and houses below before the engines thrust again and the pilot lifted the jet's nose and retracted the landing gear. Passengers reacted more with surprise than fear as the land disappeared under the haze. Minutes later, the captain informed passengers that the aborted landing was a normal maneuver given the low visibility. The pilot then took the plane into a holding pattern for 20 minutes, checked to see whether the poor visibility was persisting, and diverted to Medan, almost three hundred miles to the north. "We only had 400 feet of visibility and we needed 420," said pilot Waryanto, who, like many Indonesians uses one name, after the flight landed safely in Medan. "It's not the first time it's happened." The airport at Pekanbaru closed for about two hours, after which the passengers reboarded in Medan before landing successfully at their destination amid clearer skies. Across the province, hotspots - zones of intense heat identified by satellite monitoring - increased to 265 Monday from 154 Sunday, Indonesia's disaster agency said, citing data from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. According to NASA, there have been almost 7,000 hotspots this month. Indonesian officials and activists say many of the fires appear to have been set to clear land for palm plantations. The country's leader, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, Monday apologized for the polluting haze caused by the blazes, and pledged more action to extinguish the fires before more billowing plumes of haze fan out across the region. Morning commuters on Tuesday in Pekanbaru.On the ground in Pekanbaru, residents struggled to continue their day-to-day lives in this sprawling city of about a million people, even as the smell of burning land permeates the air - indoors and out - in various places of town. The past five days, residents say, have been the worst. Since the middle of last week, haze has crept into town especially at night, when car headlights struggled to pierce the gloom and an electric billboard declared the air quality as "unhealthy." "It goes everywhere, right into your sleeping room," said an environmental researcher. Political parties have been passing out face masks at busy intersections downtown amid worsening haze. Taxi driver Syaharizal said he went through all five masks that he received in four days. "They're cheap and thin," he said. "They're not made for something like this." He said he couldn't work or go outdoors Sunday night, which he said was the worst he'd ever seen the air in his life. At an air force base on the outskirts of the city, cloud-seeding and water-bombing operations got under way Saturday in a joint operation of the national technology agency, the disaster agency, the military, police and air force. In a room at the base, more than a dozen scientists and military personnel pored over computers and maps of the region's hotspots Monday afternoon, charting where to send three tons of salt a day and more than 5,000 liters of water that afternoon. "It's getting worse," said air force Col. Andiawan, as he surveyed the results of sorties to the day's most troublesome hotspots of Dumai and Siak. "But Indonesia as a country will take care of this." It's a difficult mission, however. One of the problems is that Riau experiences an equatorial monsoon, giving it two peak rainy seasons in April and November. Right now, it's hard to make rain, said Erwin Mulyana, a researcher with the technology agency, especially relative to the last time scientists tried earlier this year. In February, the agency attempted to induce clouds to rain before they could reach Jakarta, the national capital that's regularly hard hit by flooding in the rainy season. The program was seen as experimental and largely inconclusive. "For the cloud-seeding program in February, we could go all over, there were so many clouds," Mr. Mulyana said. "But here there's not that much to work with. Hopefully that'll change." http://blogs.wsj.com/searealtime/2013/06/25/haze-blocks-airplane-landings-in-sumatra/ Back to Top Airplane crashes in Wheeling near apartment complex A twin-engine plane crashed near an apartment complex as it was attempting to land at the Chicago Executive Airport in Wheeling Tuesday evening but there were no injuries to anyone on the ground, officials said. The crash happened at about 8:28 p.m. near the intersection of Hintz Road and Wolf Road, police said. The plane landed nearly about four tenths of a mile from the Foxboro North Apartments, police said. According to Federal Aviation Administration officials, the twin-engine Beechcraft 200 plane crashed just north of the airport, said Tony Molinaro, an FAA spokesman. The pilot was the only person on the plane and sustained minor injuries, Molinaro said. The aircraft sustained some damage, Molinaro said. Police had earlier said there were no injuries. According to FAA officials, the plane was manufactured in 1981 and is registered to Tennair LLC out of Clarksville, Tenn. Police were closing down Wolf Road from Hanson and Dundee except for local residents as crews investigated. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-airplane-crashes-in-wheeling-no-injuries-reported- 20130625,0,7202357.story Back to Top Copter Crash Kills 19 as Flood Rescue Efforts Strain Indian Air Force DEHRADUN, India - Ever since flash floods struck a mountainous area of northern India last week, 60 Indian military and civilian helicopters have been navigating fog, rain and treacherous Himalayan valleys looking for survivors and recovering bodies as part of the biggest airborne rescue and recovery operation in the history of the Indian military. Flood damage in Srinagar in Indian-controlled Kashmir. Mountains, wind and long hours have tested the air force. As of Tuesday, the operation had rescued more than 12,000 people, many of them Hindu pilgrims visiting holy shrines in the state of Uttarakhand, one of the worst-hit areas. The flooding, which began June 16, triggered by monsoons, has killed at least 1,000 and possibly many hundreds more. The rescue operation is not without hazards of its own. On Tuesday afternoon, a Russian-made Mi-17 air force helicopter crashed into a mountain, killing 19 aboard - 5 airmen and 14 paramilitary members - while returning from a mission in the Kedarnath Valley, a major pilgrimage center more than 11,000 feet above sea level, a spokesman for one of India's paramilitary groups said. Last week, another helicopter crashed in the same area, although no one died. Pilots say the difficult terrain, adverse winds and absence of landing pads are testing their will and courage. "It is a warlike situation for us," said one pilot, Capt. Sandeep Soti. "We have been pushing our men and our machines beyond our capacities." The paramilitary men on the Mi-17 had been building helipads, helping stranded people and digging bodies from the debris in the submerged town of Kedarnath for the past week. "These boys were among the first to land at Kedarnath to help pilgrims," said Deepak Pandey, a spokesman for one of the groups, the Indo- Tibetan Border Police. "They were coming home now." Indian Air Force pilots had flown 1,400 times and evacuated more than 12,000 people since the flooding began, an air force spokeswoman, Squadron Leader Priya Joshi, said. Many of the rescued are brought to Jolly Grant Airport in Dehradun, where the thumping of helicopter rotors has become the sound of hope for hundreds of relatives of the missing. On Monday afternoon, several men and women rushed toward the passengers alighting from a rescue helicopter. A few minutes later, they walked back, their faces a mix of resignation and disappointment, to wait for the next arrival. Outside the airport, several relatives of the missing have been camping in tents. Vinayak Sonkar, a government employee from the western Indian state of Maharashtra, said he had been camping there for two days, hoping for news of his brother-in-law and his wife, who were stranded near the Kedarnath shrine after the flooding began. "What can we do?" he said. "So many have died. They may be buried under the rubble. I am still hopeful, and that is why I am here." Relatives have pasted the photos, names and addresses of the missing on the walls of the airport compound. They surround reporters and cameramen with photographs. "The government should put up the photographs of the dead on its Web site," said Krishna Shah, a businessman from the western state of Gujarat who was looking for a cousin. "At least we would know who is dead and who might be alive." The authorities prepared on Tuesday to cremate the bodies of hundreds of victims of the floods, The Associated Press reported. Wooden logs were loaded onto air force transport planes and flown to Kedarnath to be used in a mass funeral and cremation. According to Indian officials, around 90,000 people had been rescued, but 5,000 were still waiting to get home. "We hope to rescue all stranded pilgrims by Friday," said V. K. Duggal, a member of the National Disaster Management Authority who is coordinating the rescue operation. In an interview, Lt. Gen. N. S. Baba, who has been supervising 8,500 Indian Army soldiers in the operation, described one of the more difficult rescues, carried out in a very narrow valley on the trekking route to the Kedarnath shrine. A pilot noticed around 100 people on the steep, forested upper slope of a hill, he said. Below, a river was overflowing. "There was no landing place," General Baba said. "The pilot negotiated the narrow valley and dropped four soldiers of Special Forces on the upper slope." The soldiers prepared a landing space for a small chopper. As the stranded people noticed a hovering chopper, around 1,000 gathered. "We got them out," General Baba said. On Monday morning, after dense fog reduced visibility and heavy rains continued, Air Chief Marshal N. A. K. Browne, the head of the Indian Air Force, addressed the stranded through reporters in the area: "Our helicopter rotors will not stop churning till such time we get each one of you out. Do not lose hope, and hang in there." An investigation into the crash has been announced. "The pilots have been pushing themselves hourly beyond the normal flying limits," said Josy Joseph, a defense analyst and an editor with The Times of India. "If that turns out to be the reason for the crash today, it is a question that would hang for a long time on future operations." http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/26/world/asia/crash-of-helicopter-kills-19-as-flood-evacuation-efforts- strain-the-indian-air-force.html?_r=0 Back to Top Bullet found on jet at Newark airport NEWARK, N.J. (AP) - A Scandinavian Airlines jet was delayed leaving Newark Liberty International Airport for Norway after a passenger found a bullet on the floor. Flight 908 was scheduled to depart with 264 people at 7 p.m. Tuesday. SAS spokesman Knut Morten Johansen tells The Star-Ledger of Newark (http://bit.ly/16yXWB1 ) passengers disembarked and were rescreened while police did a security sweep of the Airbus. Johansen says nothing was found. The flight departed for Oslo at 10:33 p.m. Back to Top Back to Top Air Force offers fighter pilots $225,000 to stay in The pilots must extend their contracts for nine years F-16 ops in Afghanistan To stem a projected fighter pilot shortage in the coming years, the Air Force is nearly doubling the amount of retention bonuses for pilots who sign nine-year contracts. (Master Sgt. Scott T. Sturkol / Air Force) The Air Force is opening its wallet to keep more fighter pilots for a longer period of time, even as the service faces serious budget cuts that may continue for years. About 250 fighter pilots are eligible to receive a $225,000 bonus in exchange for a nine-year commitment under the latest change to the Aviator Retention Pay program, said Lt. Col. Kurt Konopatzke, chief of rated force policy. Pilots can take half the money up front in a lump sum payout of $112,500, minus taxes. The rest is paid out over the nine years of the contract. Previously, fighter pilots could only sign up to five-year contracts for bonuses of $25,000 per year, so now they can receive nearly twice the amount of money to stay in the Air Force, Konopatzke said. Other aviators also are eligible for the retention bonus, but for contracts of no more than five years, at up to $25,000 per year for a maximum of $125,000. Fighter pilots who have completed 10 years of service after pilot training have until Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year, to decide whether to sign a nine-year contract, Konopatzke said. The Air Force hopes about 162 fighter pilots - 65 percent of those eligible - will take the new option. That would cost the Air Force about $36.675 million, with a payout this fiscal year of $18.337 million. The reason the Air Force is being so generous is that it has a current and projected shortage of fighter pilots, Konopatzke said. Last year, the Air Force allowed fighter pilots to take half of their retention bonus up front if they extended their contracts for five years. "As we started looking at the data through FY 13 and in the out years, we realized that the shortage hasn't gone away, and as a matter of fact, as we look at our projections, we think that shortage is going to continue for the next several years," he said. That led the Air Force to up its offer. In April 2012, Gen. Hawk Carlisle - then a three-star general - told Air Force Times the pilot shortfall was because instructor pilots had been needed for combat missions, limiting the number of pilots coming through the training pipeline. "In years past, we couldn't execute all of our peacetime training flying hours that was a requirement because we were deployed too much," Carlisle said at the time. "We're trying to get that balance right. As things draw down, and hopefully to some extent the downrange flying decreases, we'll increase home-station flying hours and concentrate on that." The Air Force also has a retention issue with fighter pilots, Konopatzke said. "The fighter pilots in FY 12 took slightly less than their other rated counterparts who were eligible for the bonus: 60 percent vs. 65 percent," he said. "Why they're doing that, honestly is anecdotal evidence, I don't want to speculate on why they're electing to not take the bonus and separate." The option for fighter pilots to sign nine-year contracts comes with slightly more than three months left in the fiscal year. The delay is due to the automatic spending cuts that took effect in March, known as "sequestration," Konopatzke said. Forced to cut money from its budget, the Air Force had to figure out what special pays it could offer this fiscal year, he said. "The Air Force leadership had to take a look at where those cuts would come from and which programs we would have to either cut or not," he said. http://www.airforcetimes.com/article/20130625/CAREERS03/306250024/Air-Force-offers-fighter-pilots-225- 000-stay-in Back to Top British Airways launches $927 mln aircraft-backed bond (Reuters) - British Airways (BA) launched a $927 million asset-backed bond on Wednesday, the first from a UK airline using new planes as collateral, a year after it was forced to cancel a debt issue backed by landing slots and U.S. routes due to lack of demand. BA, owned by International Airlines Group, said the bonds, or enhanced equipment trust certificates (EETCs), were backed by 14 Boeing and Airbus planes due for delivery over the next year. EETCs are a common form of financing for North American airlines, with US Airways raising hundreds of millions of dollars through them in recent years. Enrique Dupuy, IAG's chief financial officer the issue marked a "strategic milestone" for the group, which has long been looking to diversify its souces of funding. Last year's cancelled bond - backed by take-off and landing slots at London's Heathrow airport, routes between London City Airport and JFK in New York and two leased Airbus planes - was to have raised 250 million pounds ($385 million). This year, however, IAG successfully raised 390 million euros ($510 million) through a convertible bond to help to fund the purchase of Spanish low-cost carrier Vueling. With many European banks pulling back from aviation finance, acquisitive airlines, such as BA, have been forced to be inventive. Putting planes, carriers' main long-term asset, into a special-purpose trust to protect investors in case of an airline default or insolvency makes EETCs more secure. Earlier this year IAG ordered 18 Airbus A350 long-haul jets and firmed up orders for 18 of Boeing's 787 Dreamliners, on top of previous orders for 24 of the lightweight jets. "BA is in the midst of its fleet renewal and while this bond issue will help finance that, what IAG really wants is to diversify its forms of financing," said BPI analyst Guilherme Macedo Sampaio. The EETC will cost BA some $45 million, he said. BA said the EETC's class A bonds have an annual coupon, payable quarterly, of 4.625 percent, while the class B bonds have an annual coupon, payable quarterly, of 5.625 percent. Shares in IAG, which have risen 38 percent this year, were up 1.6 percent at 260.15 pence by 0807 GMT, valuing the company at around 4.7 billion pounds. Back to Top United Airlines Employees Debut Brand New Uniforms The next time you fly United Airlines, you might notice that the flight attendants, customer service agents, and technical service workers look a little bit different. On Tuesday, more than 64,000 United employees will debut entirely redesigned garments. And for the first time, the uniforms -- characterized by "accents of blue, gold, silver and gray" -- are similarly styled throughout the entire company. "The new uniforms project a contemporary, sophisticated look that reflects the modern airline we're building," said Jeff Foland, United's executive vice president - marketing, technology and strategy in a press release. "With significant feedback from our uniformed co-workers, we've designed pieces that are professional, stylish and functional." United pilots will be given a makeover as well -- but that won't come until later in the year. The uniform will maintain the "traditional midnight blue color" but be tied into the line with "gold stripes and accents," according to the airline. The release goes into detailed description of the new designs: Flight Attendants: The uniform includes a core wardrobe of black trousers, skirts, sweaters, vests and blazers with two rows of silver braid on the sleeves. Female flight attendants will also wear sweaters, vests, short sleeve jackets and two styles of dresses, including a signature blue dress with a black stripe detail. Outerwear for male and female flight attendants includes a black all-season coat and an optional gray double-breasted wool coat. Customer Service Agents: The uniform includes a wardrobe of black blazers, trousers, sweaters, vests and skirts. Agents will also wear colored shirts and distinctive neckwear that vary depending on their job responsibilities. Ramp, Cargo and Technical Operations: The uniform offers flexibility, comfort and durability for year round comfort. Employees will wear work shirts, polo shirts and T-shirts made with breathable and flexible fabric. The pants, shorts and coveralls for both men and women feature a soft, brushed fabric. Outerwear for ramp, cargo and technical operations workers includes a three-piece system consisting of a zip-up fleece-lined vest, jacket and waterproof outer shell. The uniform also includes waterproof wind pants, hooded sweatshirts, baseball caps and knit caps. United is the latest airline to get a uniform overall. In January, American Airlines announced that designers KAUFMANFRANCO would create their new uniforms (to go along with their new logo and all). Virgin America teamed up with Banana Republic last year to get a new look. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/25/united-airlines-new-uniforms_n_3496997.html Back to Top Which Airlines Have The Most WiFi-Enabled Flights? By now, most of us are used to having Internet access wherever we go, but a majority of flights by the major U.S. airlines still don't offer in-flight WiFi access to passengers. And your likelihood of finding WiFi on a plane all depends on which airline you're flying on that day. The folks at RouteHappy.com have put together a survey [PDF] of how widely each of the major domestic carriers have rolled out WiFi access. Virgin America is the only airline in the survey offering WiFi on 100% of its flights. Of course, Virgin also has the fewest number of flights (173) in the survey, so it didn't have to invest anywhere near as much time and money to reach full saturation. AirTran also offers WiFi on all of its planes, but that brand is set to be absorbed into the brand of parent company Southwest, which offers WiFi on about 74% of flights. Of the largest carriers, Southwest has the highest percentage of flights with WiFi, with plans to roll out access to its entire fleet. Delta has the most total flights with WiFi (3,443), but it is also the nation's second-largest carrier, so that only represents about 65% of all its flights. Meanwhile, the country's biggest airline, United, is lagging far behind its competitors, with only 24 domestic flights offering WiFi access. It has plans to roll out WiFi for another 494 flights, but that still leaves 4,336 flights with no connectivity for passengers. When American merges with U.S. Airways, it will add 1,293 WiFi-enabled flights, which is more than double what AA currently offers. But the combined airlines will still only have WiFi on around 1/3 of its flights. Even when you have WiFi access, your laptop or tablet might not have enough battery power to last the entire flight without being plugged in. But only four carriers - Virgin, Delta, American, United - have flights that offer both WiFi and in-seat outlets. And not all flights on these carriers have outlets. For example, only 560 of Delta's WiFi-enable flights allow the passenger to charge up in his seat, while 515 of American's 541 WiFi-enabled flights offer outlets. Availability of WiFi is also related to which cities you're flying between. There are 31 non-stop flights between Los Angeles and San Francisco with WiFi access, the most of any two-city pairing in the survey, but that is still only around 66% of the daily flights on that route. Because of Delta's large number of WiFi-enabled planes and its use of Atlanta as a hub, many flights in and out of Hartsfield International offer web connectivity to customers. What the survey doesn't say is that you can't yet bank on actually having WiFi access even if you know for sure that your flight is WiFi-enabled. Sometimes the service fails, it's often glitchy, and a handful of streaming video hogs could bog down the network for everyone else on the plane. It almost always costs extra for in-flight WiFi access, so you may want to weigh the additional charge against what you'll save by just reading a book. And services like iTunes and Amazon often allow users to download rented movies for offline viewing so that you can pass the time without having to worry about whether or not you'll be able to pay for hiccup-y, expensive WiFi access. http://consumerist.com/2013/06/25/which-airlines-have-the-most-wifi-enabled-flights/ Curt Lewis