Flight Safety Information July 16, 2013 - No. 146 In This Issue Korean Pilots Avoided Manual Flying, Former Trainers Say Black box developed by local men aids safety at smaller airports Pilots Hide Prescription Drug Use, Create Deadly Trend 911 Tapes Reveal Dramatic Rescue After Helicopter Crash Court Bars Lawsuit in Oklahoma Airplane Crash 2013 Aviation Human Factors and SMS Seminar - Dallas, July 23-24, 2013 Think ARGUS PROS Night Witches: The Female Fighter Pilots of World War II GRADUATE RESEARCH SURVEY Korean Pilots Avoided Manual Flying, Former Trainers Say As the Asiana Airlines Inc. jet neared Los Angeles International Airport, Captain Vic Hooper told his Korean co- pilot to make a visual approach, meaning he'd manually fly instead of letting automation do the work. The co-pilot froze, leaving them too high and off course, Hooper said about the incident, which occurred several years ago. Hooper said he had to take over the controls to get the Boeing Co. 777 back on track. "I don't need to know this," Hooper said the co-pilot told him later, explaining why a maneuver that's second nature to most U.S. airline pilots rattled him. "We just don't do this." U.S. crash investigators are examining the manual flying skills and cockpit teamwork among the pilots of Asiana Flight 214 as they determine why the 777 crashed in San Francisco on July 6, killing three teenaged girls from China. Two passengers remain in critical condition at San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center, according to a statement yesterday. Pilots were being told by air-traffic controllers to use visual approaches the day of the accident because the airport's glide slope, which helps line up the correct path to the runway, was closed for construction, U.S. National Transportation Safety Board Chairman Deborah Hersman said last week. Too Low The plane was coming in too low and had gotten almost 40 miles an hour slower than the target approach speed when its landing gear and tail struck a seawall short of the runway, Hersman said. Lee Hyo Min, a spokeswoman at Asiana, declined to discuss the manual flying skills of its pilots, citing the NTSB investigation. Asiana shares fell 0.6 percent to 4,810 won, the lowest since April 2010, at the close of Seoul trading. The stock has slumped 22 percent this year, compared with a 6.5 percent decline in South Korea's benchmark Kospi index. Korean Air Lines Co. rose 0.2 percent today. "As planes become more sophisticated, the government has told airlines that they need to narrow the gap between digital and analogue systems," Kwon Yong Bok, director general of aviation safety policy at the South Korean transport ministry, said in an interview today when asked about pilots' dependence on automation. He didn't elaborate. Asiana Pilots Three aviators who flew for Asiana or who helped train crews in Korea said in interviews that the Asiana pilots they flew with, while intelligent and well trained on automated systems, rarely flew manually. Hooper is a graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy and a former Delta Air Lines Inc. (DAL) captain with more than 25,000 hours in the cockpit. Ross Aimer, a retired United Airlines captain who trained crews at Korean Air Lines for Boeing subsidiary Alteon Training in 2008 and 2009, and Kenneth Musser, of Roswell, Georgia, said they also noticed that many Korean pilots struggled with visual approaches. Musser, a former Delta pilot, flew 777s for Asiana for almost four years until 2009. "You will never hear an Asiana pilot request a visual approach," said Hooper, who flew for the Korean carrier from 2006 to 2011 after ending his U.S. airline career. "That happens all the time here" in the U.S. Touch, Gos Visual landing is one of the first skills an aviator in the U.S. learns, as a civilian practicing on single-engine planes with an instructor at a small airport or as a military student pilot. In both cases, pilots make dozens or hundreds of unassisted landings before graduating to more sophisticated aircraft, Aimer said. Civilians in Korea rarely learn to become pilots because the country doesn't have the same network of public airports, Aimer said. Most non-military pilots hired by Asiana are sent to flight school by the carrier, he said. Among Korean pilots, even those who flew in the military, comfort with manual flying was unusual, he said. "They know their procedures almost better than we did as instructors," said Aimer, who now works at Los Angeles-based Aero Consulting Experts. "But we all noticed they all had more trouble with a simple visual approach than with a very sophisticated approach." Improving Record David Greenberg, a retired Delta executive, was hired by Korean Air in 2000 to bolster its safety and pilot training following three fatal crashes from 1997 through 1999. "I observed it," Greenberg, speaking in an interview, said of Korean pilots' deficiencies in hand-flying planes, while adding it wasn't worse than with pilots elsewhere in the world. A Korean Air Boeing 747 struck a hilltop in Guam on Aug. 6, 1997, killing 228 of the 254 people aboard. The NTSB said the co-pilot and flight engineer failed to monitor the captain, who had gotten too low, and found Korean Air's training "inadequate." Korean Air has had a "stellar" safety record since its last fatal accident in 1999, Penny Pfaelzer, the company's Phoenix-based spokeswoman, said in an interview. The company brought in outside pilots and managers and revamped its safety and training, Pfaelzer said. "They've established training that is the gold standard in Asia," she said. Eroding Skills There were no fatal accidents involving Korea's two main carriers after 1999 until a 2011 Asiana cargo plane caught fire while in flight and crashed, according to AviationSafetyNetwork, a Web-based database of crashes. Delta experienced a similar shortfall in pilot skills in the 1980s after introducing more automated Boeing 757s and 767s to its fleet, Greenberg said. Flying skills have eroded globally in an era of heavily automated jets, said Robert Mann, a former airline executive who runs consultant R.W. Mann & Co. in Port Washington, New York. International flight crews, who may make only four trips a month and spend most of that time on autopilot, "probably don't get enough hand-flying," Mann said. While the accident involved different circumstances, the Air France (AF) pilots who crashed in the Atlantic Ocean on June 1, 2009, killing 228 people, had difficulty flying the plane by hand after a malfunction switched off the Airbus SAS A330's automation, according to France's Bureau of Investigations and Analysis. Three Seconds After noticing their plane had slowed to well below the target landing speed, the Asiana Flight 214 pilots didn't attempt to abort their landing in San Francisco until less than 3 seconds before it struck the seawall, Hersman said. While the pilot at the controls had almost 10,000 hours of flight experience, he had flown only 10 legs and 35 hours in the wide-body 777. A management captain making his first flight as an instructor was supervising from the co-pilot's seat. Another pilot aboard to give the primary pilots a rest break was seated in the rear of the cockpit. From the time that the plane descended through 500 feet, the point at which Boeing advises pilots to abort if they aren't sure the landing is set up properly, none of the crew voiced concerns until the final seconds before the crash, according to Hersman. The Korean government has announced it will investigate whether the crew followed procedures and how they were trained, according to a Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport statement. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-16/korean-pilots-avoided-manual-flying-former-trainers-say.html Back to Top Black box developed by local men aids safety at smaller airports AUGUSTA - A little black box developed by two local men could help prevent airplane crashes at small regional airports by recording what has been unknowable until now. John Guimond, manager of the Augusta State Airport, began to develop the idea after a crash in which three young men were killed when the plane they were in collided with a truck crossing a runway Nov. 16, 2012, at the Knox County Regional Airport in Owls Head. Guimond spoke to the airport's manager, Jeffrey Northgraves, about the frustration of not being able to investigate what caused the crash by listening to radio transmissions from either the plane or the truck's driver, who is a pilot and was crossing the runway. Those radio transmission recordings couldn't be heard because they didn't exist. There was no system to record them at the airport, nor is there any such system at most of the thousands of smaller general aviation airports around the world without control towers. "At general aviation airports, it's not recorded, so you never really know who said what on the radio," said Guimond, of Fairfield. "We thought there has got to be a way to capture that." There wasn't, but now there is. G.A.R.D, or General Audio Recording Device, was created and developed by Guimond's business partner, Ron Cote, of West Gardiner, through their new commercial venture, Invisible Intelligence LLC. The system, most of which is contained within a 3-by-3-by-1-inch black box, records all radio transmissions at airports where it is installed. Those radio transmissions often can help investigators understand what caused a crash. And that knowledge, in turn, can help prevent future, similar crashes. "If there has been an incident now, all investigators can do, at a general aviation airport, is look at what's there," Guimond said. "With this, you can go back and listen to the radio of the pilot and of ground vehicles. You can hear the demeanor of the people and their words. With that kind of information, maybe we could prevent another one from happening." Guimond explained the problem one day over lunch to Cote, an amateur radio operator since he was 12. Within about a week of working on it at his rural camp, he had a prototype. They took their device to Northgraves, who loved it, and the airport in Rockland became the first to install the new device. Ted Talbot, spokesman for the state Department of Transportation, said DOT officials believe in the device so much the state agency will pay for 50 percent of the cost of installing G.A.R.D at any of the 42 publicly owned airports in Maine. Talbot said not knowing what was broadcast over the radio in the Owls Head collision bothers DOT officials, and they hope the new device can fill in such gaps and help prevent similar accidents. "Well, we'll never know what happened, and that doesn't sit well with our safety folks," Talbot said. "That's really what spurred this effort. When this came to us, we had this sense of urgency to really address what has been lacking at these airports. And that's accountability of aircraft. We're very excited about it. It's not just the first in Maine; it's the first of its kind in the nation." Cote, who works for the DOT as an electrical supervisor in traffic engineering, and Guimond, manager of the city-operated, state-owned Augusta State Airport, both said they developed their device and business on their own time, at night and during vacations, with the knowledge of their bosses. Talbot said the DOT vetted the issue and is comfortable that Cote developed the device on his own time. They both recently returned from presenting information on the device to airport officials in New Hampshire, have a similar trip planned to Massachusetts, and Federal Aviation Administration officials have also expressed interest in G.A.R.D., which, depending on how much computer hardware comes with it, ranges in cost from $2,000 to $3,200. "At the end of our presentation in New Hampshire, they said it was a really neat product and said they couldn't believe the price. They'd figured it was going to cost maybe $15,000 to $20,000," said Cote, 47. "But we're not out to maximize income on this. John and I's attitude is we want to see one in every airport (to improve safety), so we wanted to keep the price doable." The pair, and Talbot, said beyond crash investigations, the device is also helpful for training. Guimond said it already has been helpful for that at the Augusta State Airport. He said he monitors radio traffic with the device, and when he recently heard a maintenance worker giving unclear radio transmissions about what runway he was on with a pickup truck, he met with the employee to talk about ways he could make his transmissions more precise. That's especially important to pilots who may be landing and would need to know where a maintenance vehicle is if it's out on the airport grounds. The devices are now in five airports in Maine, including the Robert LaFleur Airport in Waterville, where it has been in place for a few months. And if Randy Marshall Jr., manager of the city-operated airport in Waterville, has his way, the device will be a permanent addition. "Having had it, I can't imagine not having it," Marshall said. "It's genius. It has got multiple, positive uses we've found to be beneficial. It's a great training tool. We're trying to make sure we're operating a safe practice here, and this is just another critical tool to make sure we're doing that." The device records just radio transmissions - not the silence in between transmissions. Users can find transmission recordings from specific time frames on a computer without having to listen to an entire day's worth of dead air. A feature added after the initial development is the ability to count airport traffic and distinguish between ground vehicles and planes. Guimond, 52, said that is key information for operations planning at an airport, because it lets officials know when planes come and go from airports, how many planes use airports that are often unstaffed after business hours, and plan staffing using that data. The pair said they've also gotten interest from other, non-airport fields, including a fire chief who wanted to use the device to record radio traffic for training firefighters. The device is being manufactured by AMI in Winthrop. More information about it is available online at www.invisibleintelligencellc.com, or on their Facebook page. Guimond said the easiest part of launching the business so far seems to be the actual creation of the device. They have an attorney working to patent their invention, are looking into working with Maine Technology Institute to seek grant funding, have worked with the Service Corps of Retired Executives on their business plan, and have worked with the University of Maine School of Law on research to ensure no other device already exists that does the same thing. They said the only similar device they came across was a device that counts airport traffic by sensing the noise planes make. However, that device only provides a count of comings and goings and does not record radio transmissions at all. Cote, an Augusta native, said they have yet to have an airport they've showed it to say they didn't want the G.A.R.D. "We're a 7-month old company, and we're now interviewing for a staff person to handle all the calls and hits we're already getting," Guimond said. "For a couple of Maine boys to come up with this idea and build a company from the ground up has been a great experience for us." http://www.onlinesentinel.com/news/Device-aids-safety-at-smaller-airports.html?pagenum=full Back to Top Pilots Hide Prescription Drug Use, Create Deadly Trend TULSA, Oklahoma - A closer look at plane crashes in Oklahoma reveals a disturbing trend. Pilots are taking drugs that go unreported to the FAA until its too late. A small plane crash on April 28, 2008, on Interstate 44 near Miami, kills the pilot. Over the next three years, a series of small plane crashes kills 10 more people in Oklahoma. We discovered there's more to these crashes than meets the eye. Autopsy reports show all of the pilots had prescription drugs in their systems when they crashed; many of them narcotic pain relievers and drugs with warnings when operating heavy machinery. In fact, crash scene investigation reports show drug use by pilots may have been a contributing factor in six out of 15 Oklahoma crashes between 2008 and 2010. That's 40 percent. On October 14, 2009, a private pilot crashed a helicopter near Tahlequah, killing himself and a passenger. An autopsy shows the pilot had nine different drugs in his system, including "impairing doses" of a narcotic pain reliever and methamphetamine. "It was an accident that was ready to happen and it did," said former NTSB Investigator Gene Doub. Doub is a veteran aircraft accident investigator, formerly for the National Transportation Safety Board. He said pilots using drugs is nothing new, but it's a problem that's getting worse as more medications are readily available. Prescription drugs and even over-the-counter medications like Benadryl have contributed to a large number of plane crashes in the U.S. "What we're seeing is just the Oklahoma tip of the iceberg," said Doub. On July 22, 2010, a medical helicopter crashed near Kingfisher, killing the pilot and a flight nurse. The official cause will be released this week, but an autopsy and medical records show the pilot was taking an arsenal of prescription drugs, including drugs to treat hypertension, muscle relaxers and sleeping pills. It was enough to astound even a seasoned investigator. Doub: "And to top that off, he had hydrocodone from lortabs in his system." Jennifer Loren, 6 Investigates: "And this is someone who's flying a medical helicopter?" Doub: "That's right. A professional." That pilot, and all five of the others with prescription drugs in their systems, never reported their medical conditions or medications to the Federal Aviation Administration. They're required to as part of their licensing, but private pilots are not required to take drug or blood tests. Medical flight pilots are supposed to take random drug tests, but still, the medication portion of their paperwork is based on the honor system. "It says, 'Do you take any prescription medications?' And it's usually, 'No,'" Doub said. But some pilots say it's not that simple. Their relationship with the FAA has become almost adversarial because of the process they have to go through to get their pilot's certificate, by listing the medications or any medical conditions they have. The FAA does not provide pilots with a list of acceptable and prohibited medications. They take things on a case-by-case basis. Some pilots hire companies like Pilot Medical Solutions to work through FAA red tape for them. According to that company's executive director, pilots fear the FAA will force them to stop flying if they list the wrong medication. "Because they just have no idea whether it is or isn't, and they don't want to risk whether or not it's going to be approved, and so there is certainly a lot of difficulty with that process with pilots," said David Hale, with Pilot Medical Solutions. Our veteran NTSB investigator believes the fix is simple: require all pilots to take a blood test. "I think you would probably catch more guys than you could imagine," said Doub. We asked the FAA if it feels the current process is adequate in the wake of our findings. In a statement, an FAA spokesperson said, "The FAA believes that educating pilots to make themselves aware of the potential detrimental effects of medications is the most effective way to address this issue." The statement goes on to say, "On every medical examination, pilots are asked to list their current medications, so that these can be reviewed by the Aeromedical Examiner (AME) and/or the Aeromedical Certification Branch in Oklahoma City. The AMEs also review any pertinent medical history the airman provides, to include therapy for those conditions. Penalties and legal action are specified for falsification of the medical history form. The FAA does not have authority to subpoena medical records, so the foundation of the medical certification process is the truth and honesty of the airman." However, the FAA gave 6 Investigates the exclusive rights to publish a letter written to pilots, addressing this specific issue. An FAA spokesman says the letter is to all pilots and will be released Tuesday. If a pilot takes an over-the-counter medication to treat a cold or some other temporary treatment, it's up to the pilot to ground him or herself. http://www.newson6.com/story/22844725/pilots-hide-prescription-drug-use-creating-deadly-trend-in- oklahoma Back to Top 911 Tapes Reveal Dramatic Rescue After Helicopter Crash (KUTV) In 911 tapes released one week after a helicopter crash in American Fork Canyon, 28-year-old Greg Walther, pilot and flight instructor for Upper Limit Aviation, is heard asking for help while injured and stranded with a student in a remote area near American Fork Canyon. "911, what's the address of your emergency?" the dispatcher asks shortly after 8 a.m. "My helicopter crashed," Walther responds. Cell phone service is rarely available in and around American Fork Canyon, but Walter, most likely because of his high elevation, is able to complete the call. The dispatcher asks Walther for details about his surroundings, beginning a conversation that would last just over an hour with multiple disconnections. "Are you by a road or anything?" the dispatcher asks, trying to determine his exact location for first responders by helicopter. "No, we're way in the mountains," Walther says. "We're northwest of Tibble Fork Reservoir." Walther was on an instructional flight from Heber to Salt Lake City with student, Terrance "Bud" Oakley, 24, on July 8, when, according to his explanation to a dispatcher, he experienced blade stall or related mechanical problems after crossing over a mountain ridge. "We got low rotor RPM decay. I tried to recover it. I did. Like a downdraft or something and it just kept decreasing, and there was nothing we could do," Walther says, adding that the helicopter then hit a rock and tumbled downhill. "That was freaking stupid. It was a bad decision," Walther is heard saying. "It's nobody's fault," Oakley later says in the background. Walther's hand is severely injured. Oakley is bleeding from his head. They both complain of other pains. "I have bones coming out of my hand," Walther says "We're losing blood." "Do you have anything that you're trying to stop that bleeding with?" the dispatcher asks, concerned about Oakley's head injury. "Press firmly to get the bleeding to stop." The men follow her instructions, providing more information about their whereabouts. The dispatcher asks what their helicopter looks like. Walther describes it as a gray Robinson R-22, but says it is completely wrecked and camouflaged among rocks. "You won't be able to see it. It's balled up in a teeny ball," Walther says. "We're going be hard to find, dude," Walther is heard saying to Oakley. "We're going to have to hike out of here probably." The dispatcher reassures them Life Flight and AirMed paramedics are on their way, as well as Utah County Sheriff's deputies. She tries to keep Walther calm, telling him to take deep breaths. Suddenly, reality sets in for Walther. "Oh my God," Walther says. "How the hell did we not die?" The dispatcher says their coordinates have been found through GPS, but crews need help finding exactly where the men are. They describe their estimated distance in nautical miles from certain landmarks. "I hear a helicopter. Yeah, they're coming close. Oh, I see him," Walther says as he waves to the chopper above. "Come on, Life Flight, just keep going straight. Please!" First responders make several runs, passing over the injured men, unable to spot them, until, finally, one helicopter lands and then the next. Their arrival is just in time, as the men's injuries worsen. "We're not doing good. Yeah, we're getting worse," Walther says. "We're both starting to get pretty dizzy." Oakley thanks the dispatcher for her help, then hangs up, awaiting paramedics' arrival on foot. "We're just lucky to be alive," Oakley says. Both men are taken to Salt Lake City-area hospitals, where they are treated and soon released. Officials expect them to make full recoveries. Walther has declined to comment on the crash pending the results of ongoing investigations by the NTSB and the FAA, as well as Upper Limit Aviation. http://www.kutv.com/news/top-stories/stories/vid_5853.shtml Back to Top Court Bars Lawsuit in Oklahoma Airplane Crash Alabama's highest court has ruled that a lawsuit involving a deadly 2005 Oklahoma airplane crash is time- barred and must be dismissed. The decision by the Alabama Supreme Court involves the second of two lawsuits filed in that state over the July 24, 2005, crash of a twin-engine airplane in Ada, Okla., that killed three members of a prominent Oklahoma family. Those who died were Harland Brent Stonecipher, a pilot for a company then known as Pre-Paid Legal Services, Inc.; his wife, Tina Lynn Stonecipher; and their 11-year-old daughter, Nicole Ann Stonecipher. Pre-Paid Legal Services is now known as LegalShield. Representatives of the victims filed a wrongful death and defective product lawsuit in Circuit Court in Mobile, Ala., in 2007 alleging that the cause of the crash was a defective crankshaft in the aircraft's right engine. The engine was manufactured by Teledyne Continental Motors of Mobile, according to court documents. A report by the National Transportation Safety Board, which investigated the crash, says both of the aircraft's engines were examined at Continental's manufacturing facility in Mobile on Aug. 17, 2005, less than a month after the crash. Investigators found that several teeth on the engine's camshaft "were broken, ground down and/or missing," seven teeth were completely sheared off the crankshaft and 14 others were partially sheared off, the report says. "Examination of the components revealed the crankshaft gear failed due to a fatigue fracture in one of the teeth," the report says. The examination indicated the microstructure of the gear was inadequate and more tests were conducted, but investigators were unable to produce a similar crankshaft failure. Continental spent almost $5 million to defend and ultimately settle the 2007 lawsuit, according to the Alabama Supreme Court's decision. It then filed a second lawsuit in 2011 against the gear manufacturers to recover its legal and settlement costs. Continental alleged that the defective crankshaft did not meet the specifications it provided for fabrication and heat treatment of the gear. The crankshaft manufacturer filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, arguing that it was barred by Alabama's two-year statute of limitations. A judge disagreed, however, ruling that a different six-year state of limitations that covers contract claims should apply. The Supreme Court ruled that the two-year limit applied and remanded the case to the Circuit Court judge with orders to dismiss the lawsuit. Mike Gifford, director of factory services for Continental, declined comment on the ruling. http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/southcentral/2013/07/15/298453.htm Back to Top 2013 Aviation Human Factors and SMS Seminar - Dallas, July 23-24, 2013 Just under a week until the 2013 Aviation Human Factors and SMS Seminar in Dallas, July 23-24 at the Frontiers of Flight Museum, from 8-5 each day. The seminar fee is $100. Please RSVP if you plan to attend. We have a great speaker lineup, entertaining venue and a chance to share best practices with your fellow professionals. FMI: http://www.signalcharlie.net/Seminar+2013 Registration: http://www.signalcharlie.net/Seminar+Registration+2013 Kent B. Lewis (850) 449-4841 www.signalcharlie.net Back to Top Back to Top Night Witches: The Female Fighter Pilots of World War II It was the spring of 1943, at the height of World War II. Two pilots, members of the Soviet Air Force, were flying their planes -- Polikarpov Po-2 biplanes, built mainly of plywood and canvas -- over a Soviet railway junction. Their passage was on its way to being a routine patrol ... until the pilots found themselves confronted by a collection of German bombers. Forty-two of them. The pilots did what anyone piloting a plane made of plywood would do when confronted with enemy craft and enemy fire: they ducked. They sent their planes into dives, returning fire directly into the center of the German formation. The tiny planes' flimsiness was in some ways an asset: their maximum speed was lower than the stall speed of the Nazi planes, meaning that the pilots could maneuver their craft with much more agility than their attackers. The outnumbered Soviets downed two Nazi planes before one of their own lost its wing to enemy fire. The pilot bailed out, landing, finally, in a field. The people on the ground, who had witnessed the skirmish, rushed over to help the stranded pilot. They offered alcohol. But the offer was refused. As the pilot would later recall, "Nobody could understand why the brave lad who had taken on a Nazi squadron wouldn't drink vodka." The brave lad had refused the vodka, it turned out, because the brave lad was not a lad at all. It was Tamara Pamyatnykh, one of the members of the 588th Night Bomber Regiment of the Soviet Air Forces. The 588th was the most highly decorated female unit in that force, flying 30,000 missions over the course of four years - - and dropping, in total, 23,000 tons of bombs on invading German armies. Its members, who ranged in age from 17 to 26, flew primarily at night, making do with planes that were -- per their plywood-and-canvas construction -- generally reserved for training and crop-dusting. They often operated in stealth mode, idling their engines as they neared their targets and then gliding their way to their bomb release points. As a result, their planes made little more than soft "whooshing" noises as they flew by. Those noises reminded the Germans, apparently, of the sound of a witch's broomstick. So the Nazis began calling the female fighter pilots Nachthexen: "night witches." They were loathed. And they were feared. Any German pilot who downed a "witch" was automatically awarded an Iron Cross. The Night Witches were largely unique among the female combatants -- and even the female flyers -- of World War II. Other countries, the U.S. among them, may have allowed women to fly as members of their early air forces; those women, however, served largely in support and transport roles. The Soviet Union was the first nation to allow women to fly combat missions -- to be able, essentially, to return fire when it was delivered. These ladies flew planes; they also dropped bombs. Last week, one of the most famous of the Night Witches -- Nadezhda Popova, a commander of the squad who flew, in total, 852 of its missions -- passed away. She was 91. And the obituaries that resulted, celebrations of a life and a legacy largely unknown to many of us here in the U.S., serve as a reminder of the great things the female flyers accomplished. Things made even more remarkable considering the limited technology the woman had at their disposal. The Witches (they took the German epithet as a badge of honor) flew only in the dark. Because of the weight of the bombs they carried and the low altitudes at which they flew, they carried no parachutes. They had no radar to navigate their paths through the night skies -- only maps and compasses. If hit by tracer bullets, their craft would ignite like the paper planes they resembled. Which was not a small concern: "Almost every time," Popova once recalled, "we had to sail through a wall of enemy fire." Their missions were dangerous; they were also, as a secondary challenge, unpleasant. Each night, in general, 40 planes -- each crewed by two women, a pilot and a navigator -- would fly eight or more missions. Popova herself once flew 18 in a single night. (The multiple nightly sorties were necessary because the modified crop- dusters were capable of carrying only two bombs at a time.) The women's uniforms were hand-me-downs from male pilots. And their planes had open cockpits, leaving the women's faces to freeze in the chilly night air. "When the wind was strong it would toss the plane," Popova noted. "In winter, when you'd look out to see your target better, you got frostbite, our feet froze in our boots, but we carried on flying." Once, after a successful flight -- which is to say, a flight she survived -- Popova counted 42 bullet holes studding her little plane. There were also holes in her map. And in her helmet. "Katya, my dear," the pilot told her navigator, "we will live long." Despite all this bravado, however, the female fighter pilots initially struggled to earn the respect of their brothers in arms. The Night Bomber Regiment was one of three female fighter pilot units created by Stalin at the urging of Marina Raskova -- an aviation celebrity who was, essentially, "the Soviet Amelia Earhart." Raskova trained her recruits as pilots and navigators, and also as members of maintenance and ground crews. She also prepared them for an environment that preferred to treat women as bombshells rather than bombers. One general, male, initially complained about being sent a "a bunch of girlies" instead of soldiers. But the women and their flimsy little crop-dusters and their ill-fitting uniforms and their 23,000 tons of ammunition soon proved him wrong. And they did all that while decorating their planes with flowers and using their navigation pencils as lipcolor. http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/07/night-witches-the-female-fighter-pilots-of-world- war-ii/277779/ Back to Top GRADUATE RESEARCH SURVEY My name is Joseph Arnold. I am graduate student with Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. I am in the process of working on my Capstone project. My project is to assess the accident rates of Regional Carriers and determine the underlying cause(s). I intend on comparing Regional carriers to Major Airlines as a comparative study. I have developed a survey for this purpose. I seek to survey active FAR Part 121 pilots of Regional Carriers and Major Airlines. You were refered to me as a person whom I could contact to distribute my survey to participants. The link is below: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/FSKVR8R I would appreciate your assistance greatly. Respectfully, Joseph Arnold Curt Lewis