JetBlog! Interactive

Collision risk high on U.S. airport runways: safety expert

The rate of close calls on airport runways in the United States is up over last year and the risk of a collision is high, a U.S. government investigator said Thursday.

Gerald Dillingham, the General Accountability Office's top expert on aviation safety, told a House of Representatives panel that there were 24 of the most serious kinds of runway incursions — defined as an event in which any aircraft, vehicle or person intrudes in space reserved for takeoff or landing — in fiscal 2008. Download gao_rw_incursions_092508_d081169t1.pdf

That's the same number of serious incursions as last year. But since air travel and airport operations have declined this year, the rate of serious incidents — measured by number of incidents per one million takeoffs and landings — has increased about 10 per cent, Dillingham said.

Both the number and rate of all types of runway incursions, ranging from near collisions to minor incidents in which there was no threat to safety, also are up, he said.

"We all agree … that [the Federal Aviation Administration] has given a higher priority to runway safety," including following several GAO recommendations, Dillingham said. "Despite these actions the risk of runway collisions is still high."

Serious incidents down from high of 53 in 2001
FAA Chief Operating Officer Hank Krakowski said the agency has made "solid progress" this year. He noted that the 24 serious incidents in 2007 were down from a high of 53 incidents in 2001.

FAA: Two controllers not fully certified

Pair was unsupervised in tower when two planes nearly collided, top official testifies.
By Josh Drobnyk | Call Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON - A top official at the Federal Aviation Administration told lawmakers Thursday he's concerned that two relatively inexperienced air traffic controllers were alone on duty in the tower -- while other controllers were on break -- when two planes narrowly missed colliding last week at Lehigh Valley International Airport.

A regional jet carrying 39 passengers had to swerve on takeoff last Friday night to avoid a small plane that was taxiing on the runway. They missed one another by about 10 feet.

Testifying before a U.S. House aviation panel, Hank Krakowski, chief operating officer of the FAA's Air Traffic Organization, said neither of the two controllers in the LVIA tower was fully certified. Of the six other controllers on duty, three were on break and the others were handling radar.

Krakowski said the controller who cleared the Chicago-bound United Express flight for take-off completed his training a month ago, but has been decertified and must undergo more training, as is normal procedure after a near-collision. The controller in charge at the time had been at LVIA for 10 months and had five years of experience.

Though neither was fully certified to handle every controller position, both had the proper training to handle traffic, Krakowski said.

Wing flaps and alarm failed on Madrid crash jet

Wing flaps failed on the Spanair flight that crashed last month and an alarm that is supposed to warn pilots of the problem never sounded, according to a preliminary report yesterday on the accident that killed 154 people.

The investigators did not say whether they believed the flap fault caused the 20 August crash in Madrid that killed all but 18 people on the MD-82.

Investigators said they needed to further study a faulty air temperature gauge outside the cockpit, a problem that forced the pilot to abandon a first attempt to take off.

Spanair has described it as a minor glitch that was resolved by turning off the gauge. The plane crashed an hour later on its second attempt to take off.

However, the report said the faulty gauge might be linked to the failure of the cockpit alarm horn, which is supposed to sound when a departing plane is not properly configured to get off the ground.

The findings were drawn from the flight data and cockpit voice recorders.

FMI: The Scotsman

PAMA/SAE Institute Calls for Subject Matter Experts: Composites, Rotorcraft, Avionics

Everything is looking up in the world of PAMA/SAE Certifications these days. Our first certification, the AMS/AME, has over 125 Honored Colleagues in its ranks and we have been working very hard to establish a significant customer that will tip the scales for a number of organizations evaluating our program. Look for a major announcement within the next month or so. Please visit us online for information on the PAMA/SAE Institute Aviation Maintenance and Production Certification Program.

In the meantime, we have been consumed with filling out our portfolio of certifications in concert with the Professional Certification plan we laid out some two years ago. We have completed the program design for a three-tier Composite/Bonded Structures Technician program in concert with the members of the SAE Commercial Aircraft Composite Repair Committee (CACRC). Sometime this fall we hope to begin formalizing that program with a Job Task Analysis and Test Blueprints. To execute those projects, we need Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) to volunteer their time.

If you are interested in participating as a Composites SME, please send your resume to Laura Blanchard, our Certification Coordinator . We'll be distributing more info on this opportunity shortly.

Also, we just announced last Friday the formation of a joint Military/Industry Master Rotorcraft Technician Stakeholders gathering during the last week of October. At this senior stakeholders meeting we will be determing the depth and breadth of the industry's desire for such credentialing - or if it even exists on a broad scale. Our sense is that it does as the Army wants raise the bar for its civil servants and to provide its rotorcraft technicians with transportable credentials when they separate from the service - something most other separating servicemembers have when they enter the civilian workforce. Industry has indicated a passion for growing their rotorcraft technican workforce and we believe our blueprint for a series of increasingly skilled certifications is the ticket to a long term plan. Even though we are not as far along as we are with Composites, we are starting to solicit Rotorcraft SME's also.

If you are interested in participating as a Rotorcraft SME, please send your resume to Laura Blanchard, our Certification Coordinator. We'll also be distributing more info on this opportunity shortly, too.

FAA Told to Audit Airline Safety Data for Accuracy

By Sholnn Freeman
Washington Post Staff Writer
The Federal Aviation Administration should audit information it receives from airlines on safety and maintenance issues to ensure its accuracy, a panel of aviation safety experts said yesterday.

Transportation Secretary Mary Peters asked an outside panel earlier this year to review FAA safety policies in the wake of blistering criticism from Congress and the Transportation Department's inspector general that the FAA had grown too cozy with air carriers. The FAA relies heavily on self-reported data from airlines to spot trends that could lead to mechanical failures or plane crashes.

The criticism stemmed from safety lapses in the past two years by American Airlines and Southwest Airlines. The government fined Southwest $10.2 million for flying 46 Boeing 747s that had not been checked for fuselage cracks.

Panel members said they supported the FAA's strategy of working closely with airlines on maintenance and safety issues, citing the approach as integral to the nation's aviation safety system.

Panel member William O. McCabe, a former aviation executive at DuPont, said the FAA had to focus on "leading indicators" by sifting through data. He called the system "looking for ugly."

When a Tragedy Becomes a Crime: Prosecutors Probe Air Disasters

By DANIEL MICHAELS
Wall Street Journal
As investigators search for clues to the crash of Spanair SA Flight 5022 in Madrid last month, families of the 153 victims demand to know who is to blame. Another critical question: whether that will be determined in civil or criminal court.

For six decades, aviation regulators have sought the causes behind and responsibility for plane accidents. Victims' families have sued for damages with civil suits.

Lately, however, public prosecutors are seeking criminal accountability for mistakes that lead to air disasters, raising a thorny legal and moral question: When does human error become a crime?

"It's a Nobel Prize question, figuring out how to coordinate civil and criminal law enforcement," says Harvard Law School professor David Rosenberg.

While it isn't yet clear whether the Spanair crash will prompt criminal charges, several air accidents in Europe this decade have. One of the latest cases stems from the Air France Concorde crash in 2000 that killed 113 people. (That was before the carrier became Air France-KLM SA.) French prosecutors have charged five people and Continental Airlines Inc. with voluntary manslaughter. Among the defendants are three engineers who designed and certified the supersonic plane more than 30 years earlier. Continental and two of its employees are included because a piece of metal that crash investigators believe dropped from one of its planes is suspected of initiating the crash. All the defendants deny the charges.

National justice systems draw the line between civil and criminal cases differently. The U.S. has a range of civil penalties -- such as fines and punitive damages against individuals and companies -- that don't exist in many European legal codes, says Anthony Sebok, a professor at New York's Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law.

In general, countries try to set a high bar for pressing criminal charges. The U.S. usually demands evidence of reckless behavior or gross negligence. In the wake of a 2003 Staten Island ferry crash that killed 11 people, for example, federal prosecutors won prison sentences for the captain, who had passed out on painkillers, and his boss, for failing to enforce rules requiring two pilots in the wheelhouse.

FAA mandates engine fastener check MD-90s

The US FAA has issued a final airworthiness directive (AD) calling for checks of the aft left and right engine mount support fittings on MD-90-30 aircraft after receiving reports of "loose, cracked or missing fasteners" on "several" aircraft.

The agency says the faulty conditions, found on MD-90s that had accumulated between 18.767 and 25,400 total flight hours and between 15,841 and 27,000 flight cycles, could ultimately lead to separation of the support fitting from the pylon, which could then result in separation of the engine from the airplane.

According to Flight's ACAS database, there are 15 US-registered MD-90-30s, all belonging to Delta Air Lines.

Inspections, which must be carried out within 703 flight cycles after 24 September effective date of the AD, include visual assessment of the fasteners, a gap check for certain washers and fasteners and a torque test of fastener nuts, solutions called out in a 1 August service bulletin issued by Boeing.

The FAA says the AD is to be a considered an interim "until a final action is identified." Delta was not immediately available for comment.

Source: Air Transport Intelligence news

FAA moves to improve safety oversight

By Mary Mosquera
FCW.COM
The Federal Aviation Administration said it has made progress in systems and processes that would improve safety oversight after gaps in compliance were revealed in April. Robert Sturgell, FAA acting administrator, reported on efforts to fix the problems in a release dated Sept. 5.

The Transportation Department’s inspector general said in April that the FAA had developed too close a relationship with Southwest Airlines, which led to a breakdown in safety oversight.

The FAA has depended on airlines to report problems under a program that encourages voluntary reporting of airworthiness problems. The closeness of the relationship produced weaknesses in FAA’s national program for risk-based oversight, said Calvin Scovel III, Transportation’s inspector general.

Southwest continued to fly aircraft that had not been safety-inspected and which later were found to have fuselage cracks, according to the IG’s findings. When the airline notified FAA’s principal maintenance inspector, he did not ground the affected planes. Later, Southwest formally admitted the safety violation through a voluntary self-disclosure program and was fined, Scovel said.

The IG also said the FAA failed to protect from retaliation the employees who reported safety issues and to ensure that the airlines completed corrective actions.

Wing failure focus of FAA crash probe

BY RAY HAGAR
RGJ.com

An investigation into Saturday's fatal crash of a pilot practicing in a home-built aircraft for the Reno National Championship Air Races will focus on why the wings came off, a federal official said Sunday.

Formula One racer Erica Simpson, 32, of Phillipsburg, N.J., was killed about 9 a.m. while preparing for her second year of competition at Reno Stead Airport.

"She went into a roll. She was demonstrating a roll, and the wings came off," Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Ian Gregor said. "That is what the investigation will center on."

Simpson, a commercial pilot raised in Port Wing, Wis., competed in the biplane class in 2006. She was flying a single-engine Cassult IIIM on Saturday.

Three pilots were killed in competition during last year's air races. There have been 19 fatalities in the 45-year history of the event.

The danger will prompt FAA officials to take extra precautions before the races begin Wednesday.

FAA to Get High Marks in Report - Safety Review Gives A Boost to Agency With Many Critics

By CHRISTOPHER CONKEY and ANDY PASZTOR
Wall Street Journal
WASHINGTON -- An independent review team is expected to laud the Federal Aviation Administration's approach to ensuring airline safety, a big boost for an agency criticized after a string of oversight lapses.

But the FAA still confronts several challenges, including how to get airlines to fully comply with its safety directives. The agency said Friday that it is investigating 17 new cases of noncompliance among 11 U.S. carriers. Overall, the agency is investigating about 24 instances of maintenance slipups stemming from about 5,600 reviews of safety compliance this year.

In the most controversial case, Southwest Airlines Co. is contesting a $10.2 million penalty levied by the FAA after the airline operated flights using jets that were overdue for safety inspections. Multiple instances of noncompliance by AMR Corp.'s American Airlines also are under investigation, including wiring slipups that led to thousands of flight cancellations in April. The agency may propose a significantly larger penalty against American than the one pending against Southwest, according to people familiar with the matter.

An American spokesman said "nobody has told us of the proposed dollar amount" for a possible fine. "It's very speculative at this point," he said.

The report from the independent board of safety experts appointed by Transportation Secretary Mary Peters is due Wednesday. It is expected to give the FAA high marks for its safety-enforcement efforts, and generally support the trend toward more voluntary compliance and working in partnership with airlines, according to people familiar with the details. There will be some recommendations to change existing programs, but the thrust of the findings will largely vindicate the agency's approach, management and independence, according to these people.