At least nine people died on Sunday when a small plane crashed in the tourist city of Gramado, in the southern Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul, authorities said.

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Is the so-called upcoming pilot shortage a scare tactic?
Several factors will be contributing to an upcoming pilot shortage:
- In the summer of 2013, newly hired pilots will be required to have 1,500 hours of prior flight experience—six times the current minimum
- Upcoming (2014) Federal Safety Rule fatigue laws decrease flight time
- Senior pilots hitting mandatory retirement at 65
- Tight airline budgets, costs cut
So the question is is the so-called upcoming pilot shortage a trumped-up scare tactic by the airlines to get themselves wiggle room in the face of regulations they’ve had years to prepare to comply with?
Always the Last to Know
In spite of reports to the contrary, Qatar Airways and Ethiopian Airlines deny emergencies that occurred during Sunday’s power outage at the Lagos airport. The rest of the world knew about the power outage even before power was restored. Apparently however, no one told Qatar Airways or Ethiopian Airlines.
Even the brand-spanking new radar system installed at Murtala Mohammed International Airport will not function without power. And neither can communications.
Of course, how do you communicate while in denial?
Pilots coped by flying in a holding pattern or rerouting to other airports when they stopped receiving input from ATC during the power outage.
Officials of Ethiopian Airlines and Qatar Airways can play all the semantic games of denial that they want. The game is up. Everyone knows. Newspapers got wind of the power outage forcing up to a dozen planes into holding patterns, some of them until they experienced a fuel crisis and had to land without official clearance. There’s nothing like a little journalism to clear the air.
With enforcement bodies like IATA and EASA empowering the airline passenger and providing oversight, and the aviation industry taking advantage of the (practically) instantaneous communication the world enjoys, legitimate airlines have made it universal policy to be as “transparent” and honest as possible regarding the unavoidable multitude of mini-disasters that constantly creep up in the course of making the world safe for aviation. It is that kind of wide-awake, constant open trouble-shooting and problem-solving which makes flying as safe as it is. No one wants to be “caught with their pants down”– but when it happens, you can be sure most airlines do their best to be wearing shiny clean underwear when it happens.
Except in countries where denial reigns over truth. Countries that have certain airlines on a banned list.
Qatar Airways and Ethiopian Airlines say “none of their pilots complained about an enforced landing prompted by depleted fuel.” Maybe their pilots are scared to open their mouths, especially if they’re familiar with that policy of denial.
One wonders if their pilots–or air traffic control, for that matter–had cell phones. Surely SOMEone in ATC called the main office and said, “Excuse me boss, but we have 12 planes circling, and no electricity. What do we do? What is the policy on that?” Surely SOME pilot used a cell phone, and told somebody somewhere, “Dude, we gotta land, we’re running out of fuel.”
What did they say at headquarters? Pretend it’s not happening?
To the folks in charge at Qatar and Ethiopian: Listen, nobody’s perfect. These things happen. Don’t deny it. Take responsibility. You examine what went wrong. You fix it so it doesn’t happen again.
You don’t pretend it didn’t happen. You’re not a seven year old who broke Mama’s favorite cup or tracked mud on the carpet.
You don’t fire the poor shmuck who happened to be on the duty that day.
You admit the problem, own it, examine it in detail, and fix the mechanism, and make helpful policies for what to do if it happens again. And to go the distance, you award that poor shmuck on duty, because while you were sitting there with your head in the sand, denying any problem existed, somebody somewhere on the front lines—pilots and/or ATC—made some right decisions that kept people alive.
Air India Rejected Takeoff, IX-212 Nosedives, ETC…
Pictured: An Air India Airbus A320-231
Click to view full size photo at Airliners.net
Contact photographer Avinash – iPilot777
What: Air India Airbus A320-200 en route from Muscat Oman to Kozhikode
Where: Muscat
When: May 20th 2010
Who: 132 passengers
Why: One of the engine’s Exhaust Gas Temperatures rose too high according to indicators, prompting pilots to reject takeoff. Some of the tires popped, but the flight made a safe stop on the runway. The incident predated the Air India crash at Mangalore.
Another incident
Four days after the Mangalore crash, Air India flight flight IX-212 hit an air pocket (or perhaps this could be termed clear air turbulence) while on “auto pilot” while the pilot was apparently in the VC. The flight dived five thousand feet while over Mumbai (reported to be as much as 15,000 feet). 112 passengers and 6 crew members landed safely.
News: Safety Agreement
Enhancement of safety and efficiency are what is on the table between Boeing and Embraer who have signed an agreement to work toward safety, efficiency of aircraft operations and productivity in manufacturing. The passenger benefits that will trickle down will be in the areas of research and technological development in narrow body jets.
They have already made progress in “drop-in” biofuels along with Airbus and the Sao Paulo State Research Foundation on long-term aviation biofuels research.
TAM to delay expansion plans due to Brazil’s civil aviation chaos
TAM Linhas Aereas has postponed plans to increase its fleet of Airbus jets from 2008 to 2011 allegedly because of a drop in demand for domestic air travel.
It will cut demand for narrow-body Airbus jets by five planes a year. Previous plans included 103 narrow-body jets in 2008, 106 in 2009, 112 in 2010 and 115 in 2011.
Brazil’s Aviation Industry has been in crisis for the past year due to overcrowding, air traffic controller strikes and massive delays, not to mention suffering from the consequences of the Sao Paolo air crash. A TAM Airbus 320 crashed at Sao Paulo’s Congonhas airport in July, killing 199 people. This crash at Brazil’s busiest domestic airport led the government to review use of the airport.
It currently flies to Paris, London and Milan in Europe and New York and Miami. TAM plans to leave international flights unchanged. It plans to start flights to Frankfurt from November 30 and to start daily flights to Madrid by December. TAM said it is sticking to its forecast of a 10 to 15% rise in domestic demand in 2007.
TAM has orders for 51 narrow-bodied Airbus jets, which include the A319, A320 and A321, and orders for 10 A330 planes through 2011. It had ordered four additional Boeing 777-300ER planes worth 1 billion US dollars. Boeing said TAM was the first Latin American airline to add the long-range jetliner to its fleet.
The new planes will help the company save fuel and increase its presence in the international market. It is set to receive its first of the planes in June 2008.
The competition, GOL Linhas Aereas Inteligentes, has a reduced fleet plan this year.

Bedbugs are ‘more common on planes than people like to admit,’ cleaning expert says
Passengers reported finding bed bugs on multiple Turkish Airlines flights last year.