Flight Safety Information - April 29, 2021 No. 087 In This Issue : Incident: Khabarovsk AN24 enroute on Apr 27th 2021, cracked windshield : Incident: UTAir AT72 at Surgut on Apr 25th 2021, retracted instead of extending flaps : Hawker Sea Fury T Mk 20 - Engine Failure/Forced Landing (U.K.) : UN's ICAO to conduct another audit of India's air safety readiness : AMERICAN AIRLINES TO HAVE ALL AIRCRAFT BACK BY MAY : PIA Airline With 14,000 Staff for 30 Planes to Cut Half Its Workforce : Delta to resume hiring pilots in June as travel demand recovers : Airbus sticks with plan to raise jet output, shares rise : Astronaut Michael Collins, Apollo 11 pilot, dead of cancer Incident: Khabarovsk AN24 enroute on Apr 27th 2021, cracked windshield A Khabarovsk Avia Antonov AN-24, registration RA-47367 performing flight RNI-9264 from Okhotsk to Khabarovsk (Russia) with 33 passengers and 5 crew, was enroute when one of the windshields cracked prompting the crew to descend to FL120. The aircraft diverted to Nikolayevsk na Amure Airport for a safe landing. https://avherald.com/h?article=4e695ed4&opt=0 Incident: United B789 over Pacific on Apr 16th 2021, mechanical problem A United Boeing 787-9, registration N24974 performing freight only flight UA-2781 from Guam (Guam) to Los Angeles,CA (USA) with 3 crew, was enroute at FL390 about 210nm westsouthwest of Midway Islands,UM (USA) when the crew decided to divert to Midway Atoll. The aircraft drifted down to about 17,000 feet and landed safely on Midway's Sand Island runway 06 about 35 minutes after leaving FL390. Locals report the aircraft arrived in night time during off duty hours, the airport was not staffed at all. The crew used the pilot controlled runway lighting to turn the runway lights up and landed, however, there was no response on the Island. Almost three hours later somebody showed up at the airport. The airline reported the aircraft carrying freight only diverted to Midway Atoll due to a mechanical problem. Locals further reported a faulty flight deck shoulder heater as well as the lower recirculation fan were deactivated under minimum equipment list requirements by a maintenance team flown to Midway Island, the aircraft subsequently flew to Honolulu and further to Los Angeles. The aircraft, that had originated in Singapore and had made an intermediate stop in Guam on its way to Los Angeles, remained on the ground at Sand Island for about 43 hours, then departed the island for Honolulu,HI (USA) and continued to Los Angeles after two hours on the ground in Honululu. https://avherald.com/h?article=4e68c4b0&opt=0 Hawker Sea Fury T Mk 20 - Engine Failure/Forced Landing (U.K.) Date: 28-APR-2021 Time: 14:14 LT Type: Hawker Sea Fury T Mk 20 Owner/operator: Navy Wings Registration: G-RNHF MSN: ES3615 Fatalities: Fatalities: 0 / Occupants: 2 Other fatalities: 0 Aircraft damage: Written off (damaged beyond repair) Category: Accident Location: Limington, near Yeovilton, Somerset - United Kingdom Phase: Nature: Training Departure airport: Yeovilton Royal Naval Air Station (YEO/EGDY) Destination airport: Yeovilton Royal Naval Air Station (YEO/EGDY) Investigating agency: AAIB Narrative: The aircraft was destroyed during a forced landing following a loss of engine power. The 1950 Hawker Sea Fury T Mk 20 took off from RNAS Yeovilton at 14:09 on a local training flight. Following a loss of engine power the pilot attempted to turn back to the airport. The aircraft failed to reach the runway and came down in a field, about 1 km from the threshold of runway 01. Both occupants suffered minor injuries. Press reports indicate that the aircraft split into two parts, with the engine being separated from the rest of the aircraft, the fuselage of which was inverted. https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/254039 UN's ICAO to conduct another audit of India's air safety readiness Global aviation watchdog's audit comes in the aftermath of Air India Express crash in Calicut which claimed 20 lives The UN's aviation watchdog International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) has decided to conduct another safety audit of India’s air safety readiness. The audit, which was pre-planned, assumes significance as it comes in the aftermath of the Air India Express crash in which 20 people were killed, including the pilot and the co-pilot, and several others were injured when the flight from Dubai with 190 people onboard overshot the runway at Calicut airport and fell into a valley. “An ICAO team was supposed to come for an audit in November, but due to the Covid-19 pandemic and border closures, the audit has been postponed to January. ICAO team will check safety aspects of airlines, airports, ground handling firms, regulatory bodies to ascertain that they are upto the international standards,” said an official aware of the development. ICAO had carried out the Universal Safety Oversight Audit Programme for India in November 2017, followed by a second audit in February 2018. The audit result showed that the country's score declined to 57.44 per cent from 65.82 per cent earlier, placing India below Pakistan, Nepal and many other nations. However, subsequently, the civil aviation ministry and aviation regulator DGCA took steps, following which the score improved to 74. During its audit, ICAO looks at eight areas. These include primary aviation legislation and civil aviation regulations, civil aviation organisation, personnel licensing and training, aircraft operations and airworthiness of aircraft. The outcome of the audit score is crucial for Indian airlines as it could impact their international expansion plans. During its audit in 2012, ICAO had placed India in its list of 13 worst-performing nations. This triggered an audit by US aviation regulator, Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in 2014, which downgraded the country’s ranking, citing a lack of adequate regulatory oversight. Indian airlines were not allowed to add new routes to the US or sign commercial agreements with US airlines during this period. The rating were restored one year later. “Naturally when there has been an accident where lives were lost, an ICAO audit is significant, but we are well prepared. The accident investigation is also taking its own course and by the time ICAO is here, it will be completed. We are also keeping ICAO updated about the progress in investigation,” the official said. The primary issue pointed out during the 2017 and 2018 audit by ICAO was to make DGCA licensing authority for ATC officers. Earlier, Airports Authority of India (AAI), which is also ATC service provider, had been licensing ATCOs. ICAO considered it a conflict of interest for the service provider to be its regulator as well. In fact, India was the only big aviation market where the safety regulator did not have authority to license ATC officers “We changed the system and now DGCA has almost completed licensing all 2,500 ATCO officials,” the official said. https://www.business-standard.com/article/companies/icao-to-conduct-another-safety-audit-of-india-s-air-safety-readiness-120082501484_1.html AMERICAN AIRLINES TO HAVE ALL AIRCRAFT BACK BY MAY In a very encouraging sign that the worst of the pandemic may be easing, American Airlines, the world’s largest airlines, says it will have all its aircraft back in the air by May according to an internal email shared on Twitter from Maya Leibman, American Airlines’ Chief Information Officer. In the memo, Ms Leibman says that “bookings are up between 150 to 400 per cent (depending upon route) compared to last year and within a few points of 2019. In fact, bookings last weekend were higher than they were in 2019! The last 7 days have been our biggest revenue days since the pandemic started.” She adds that the load factor is up to 80 per cent on domestic routes and the airline plans to be flying all its aircraft as of May. “These are stats we haven’t seen in a year. And all I’m hearing from my friends and family are their travel plans for this summer — you probably are too. It feels like there’s this incredible pent-up demand to GO SOMEWHERE!,” Ms. Leibman said. “Sure, yields are not where we want them to be and we still have a long way to go but there’s no doubt that the train is leaving the station (plane is leaving the hangar — literally!).” However, while that is great news, American had decided to retire 24 Airbus A330s, 34 757s, 16 767s, and 20 E190s. Nonetheless, it has a total of 885 aircraft made up of 429 Airbus A320 family models, 344 737s, 67 Boeing 777s, and 45 787s. https://www.airlineratings.com/news/american-airlines-aircraft-back-may/ Delta to resume hiring pilots in June as travel demand recovers Delta joins United, American and Spirit by announcing plans to resume pilot hiring this year. Airlines are preparing for an increase in travel demand and dozens of pilot retirements in the coming years. Carriers are shifting their attention to a travel recovery after scrambling to reduce head count at the height of the Covid pandemic last year. Delta Air Lines said Wednesday it will resume hiring new pilots, following other carriers in preparing for future staffing as travel demand rebounds. The Atlanta-based carrier will start by adding 75 pilots who have conditional job offers in June through August “and will likely increase the number of new pilots by September,” John Laughter, Delta’s senior vice president and chief of operations, wrote in a staff memo, which was seen by CNBC. United Airlines, American Airlines, Spirit Airlines and JetBlue Airways have resumed hiring pilots or plan to this year. Airlines extended job offers to hundreds of pilots last year but the the Covid-19 pandemic halted their training. Carriers then offered early retirement and temporary partially paid leave to pilots and other employees to reduce head count as travel demand plunged. Now carriers are aiming to add new pilots as hundreds of their current aviators approach the federally mandated retirement age of 65. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/28/delta-to-resume-pilot-hiring-in-june-as-travel-demand-returns.html Airbus sticks with plan to raise jet output, shares rise Airbus (AIR.PA) on Thursday confirmed plans to raise production of its most-sold jets as airlines begin an uneven recovery from the pandemic, despite setbacks in Europe and a rapidly worsening wave of infections in India. Unveiling a stronger than expected turnaround in first-quarter profit, CEO Guillaume Faury said domestic air travel is rebounding in China and the United States while cross-border travel is likely to remain weak for some time. Conflicting policies on quarantines, lockdowns and testing have disrupted Europe's single aviation market: one reason why Faury said he remained cautious even while planning to raise output in the second half to serve travel demand elsewhere. "The lack of coordination of the measures taken primarily in Europe....is leading to a travel situation that is far worse in Europe than in other comparable markets," Faury said. "That is a concern and headwind for the recovery in aviation." India, one of Airbus' biggest markets, is an "area of great concern" as the country faces a deadly second wave of COVID-19, with record daily infection rates and deaths. read more "We have not yet seen a direct impact on us but that is probably one of the regions where we should not expect (things to be) as good as was expected before," Faury said. Airbus plans to increase production of single-aisle medium-haul jets to 43 a month in the third quarter and to 45 in the fourth, from a current rate of 40 a month - down from 60 before the crisis. Airbus is also exploring a "steep" further ramp-up in 2022 and 2023, but that depends in part on the ability of suppliers to keep up, he said. SUPPLIER RISKS Shares in Airbus rose 2.8% as it maintained its production and financial goals for this year. Some industry executives have expressed concerns about raising output too quickly. Faury said the balance of risks was shifting from demand to the supply chain. Airbus is not directly affected by a global shortage of semiconductors but is monitoring the situation, he added. The head of U.S. rival Boeing (BA.N), which is wrestling with new technical problems with its competing 737 MAX, pledged on Wednesday to raise output in the "most stable fashion". Airbus first-quarter operating profit rose 147% to 694 million euros ($841.6 million), led by commercial jets and helicopters, as revenue slipped 2% to 10.46 billion euros. It generated a positive free cashflow of 1.2 billion euros in the first quarter, compared with an 8-billion-euro outflow in the same period last year when Airbus had to pay a record corruption fine to Britain, France and the United States. Part of the cash boom stems from a discrepancy between the timing of goods received and payments to suppliers, Airbus said. For the full-year, Airbus expects deliveries equal to last year's 566 jetliners, adjusted operating profit of 2 billion euros and breakeven free cashflow. ($1 = 0.8246 euros) https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/planemaker-airbus-maintains-forecasts-core-profit-rises-2021-04-29/ Astronaut Michael Collins, Apollo 11 pilot, dead of cancer Apollo 11 astronaut Michael Collins, who orbited the moon alone while Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin made their historic first steps on the lunar surface, died Wednesday. He was 90. Collins died of cancer in Naples, Florida. “Mike always faced the challenges of life with grace and humility, and faced this, his final challenge, in the same way," his family said in a statement. Collins was part of the three-man Apollo 11 crew that in 1969 effectively ended the space race between the United States and Russia and fulfilled President John F. Kennedy’s challenge to reach the moon by the end of the 1960s. Though he traveled some 238,000 miles to the moon and came within 69 miles, Collins never set foot on the lunar surface like his crewmates Aldrin and Armstrong, who died in 2012. None of the men flew in space after the Apollo 11 mission. “It’s human nature to stretch, to go, to see, to understand,” Collins said on the 10th anniversary of the moon landing in 1979. “Exploration is not a choice really — it’s an imperative, and it’s simply a matter of timing as to when the option is exercised.” Collins was later the director of the National Air and Space Museum in Washington. “Michael Collins wrote and helped tell the story of our nation’s remarkable accomplishments in space," said President Joe Biden in a statement, noting that Collins “demanded that everyone call him, simply, Mike.” Collins spent the eight-day Apollo 11 mission piloting the command module. While Armstrong and Aldrin descended to the moon’s surface in the lunar lander, Eagle, Collins remained alone in the command module, Columbia. “I guess you’re about the only person around that doesn’t have TV coverage of the scene,” Mission Control radioed Collins after the landing. “That’s all right. I don’t mind a bit,” he responded. Collins was alone for nearly 28 hours before Armstrong and Aldrin finished their tasks on the moon’s surface and lifted off in the lunar lander. Collins was responsible for re-docking the two spacecraft before the men could begin heading back to Earth. Had something gone wrong and Aldrin and Armstrong been stuck on the moon’s surface — a real fear — Collins would have returned to Earth alone. Though he was frequently asked if he regretted not landing on the moon, that was never an option for Collins, at least not on Apollo 11. Collins’ specialty was as a command module pilot, a job he compared to being the base-camp operator on a mountain climbing expedition. As a result, it meant he wasn’t considered to take part in the July 20, 1969, landing. “I know that I would be a liar or a fool if I said that I have the best of the three Apollo 11 seats, but I can say with truth and equanimity that I am perfectly satisfied with the one I have,” he wrote in his 1974 autobiography, “Carrying the Fire.” “This venture has been structured for three men, and I consider my third to be as necessary as either of the other two.” Aldrin, the remaining Apollo 11 astronaut, tweeted a picture Wednesday of the three crewmates laughing, saying: “Dear Mike, Wherever you have been or will be, you will always have the Fire to Carry us deftly to new heights and to the future." Collins was born in Rome on Halloween 1930. His parents were Virginia Collins and U.S. Army Maj. Gen. James L. Collins. After graduating from the U.S. Military Academy in 1952, a year behind Aldrin, Collins joined the Air Force, where he became a fighter pilot and test pilot. John Glenn’s 1962 flight making him the first American to orbit the Earth persuaded Collins to apply to NASA. He was accepted on his second try, in 1963, as part of the third group of astronauts selected. Collins’ first mission was 1966′s Gemini 10, one of the two-man missions made in preparation for flights to the moon. Along with John Young, Collins practiced maneuvers necessary for a moon landing and performed a spacewalk during the three-day mission. During the spacewalk, he famously lost a camera, which is frequently cited as one of the items of “space junk” orbiting Earth. On Jan. 9, 1969, NASA announced that Collins, Armstrong and Aldrin would be on the crew of Apollo 11, the United States’ first moon landing attempt. Of his fellow Apollo 11 astronauts, Collins said they were: “Smart as hell, both of them, competent and experienced, each in his own way.” Still, Collins called the group “amiable strangers” because the trio never developed as intense a bond as other crews. “We were all business. We were all hard work. And we felt the weight of the world upon us,” Collins said in 2019. Of the three, Collins was the acknowledged jokester. Aldrin called him the “easygoing guy who brought levity into things.” In summarizing Kennedy’s famous challenge to go to the moon, for example, Collins later said: “It was beautiful in its simplicity. Do what? Moon. When? End of decade.” The Apollo 11 crew trained for just six months before launching on July 16, 1969, from Florida's Kennedy Space Center. The mission insignia — an eagle landing on the moon with an olive branch in its talons — was largely Collins’ creation. Collins said one of the things that struck him most was the way the Earth looked from space — peaceful and serene but also delicate. “As I look back on Apollo 11, I more and more am attracted to my recollection, not of the moon, but of the Earth. Tiny, little Earth in its little black velvet background,” Collins said while marking the mission's 50th anniversary in 2019. In contrast, he said the moon seemed almost hostile. In fact, it was considered so hostile that on their return, Collins, Armstrong and Aldrin all spent several days in a quarantine trailer. They received visitors, including President Richard Nixon, staring through a window. When the group was finally deemed safe, they went on a world tour, visiting 25 countries in just over five weeks. Collins often remarked that he was surprised that everywhere they went people didn’t say “Well, you Americans finally did it.” Instead, they said, “Well, we finally did it,” meaning “we” humans. Early on, Collins said Apollo 11 would be his last mission, though officials at NASA wanted him to continue flying. Collins soon left NASA and joined the State Department as assistant secretary for public affairs. Though he enjoyed the people he later wrote that “long hours in Washington flying a great mahogany desk” didn’t suit him. After about a year, he left and joined the Smithsonian Institution. There, he led a team responsible for planning and opening the National Air and Space Museum. The Apollo 11 capsule is in the museum's collection along with many of Collins’ personal items from that mission, including his toothbrush, razor and a tube of Old Spice shaving cream. “Whether his work was behind the scenes or on full view, his legacy will always be as one of the leaders who took America’s first steps into the cosmos,” acting NASA administrator Steve Jurczyk said in a statement. Collins is survived by two daughters and grandchildren. He died on the 64th anniversary of his wedding to Patricia Finnegan Collins, who died in 2014. Along with his autobiography, Collins wrote a book on his experience for younger readers, “Flying to the Moon: An Astronaut’s Story.” In a 1994 preface to the book, Collins urged more spending on space exploration and on an astronaut mission to Mars. “I am too old to fly to Mars, and I regret that. But I still think I have been very, very lucky,” he wrote. “I was born in the days of biplanes and Buck Rogers, learned to fly in the early jets, and hit my peak when moon rockets came along. That’s hard to beat.” https://www.yahoo.com/news/astronaut-michael-collins-apollo-11-172423783.html Curt Lewis