FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: November 16, 2009 (Fairbanks) — Recently airport authorities voiced support for improved air traffic control staffing levels at Fairbanks International Airport. The FAA responded by increasing staffing levels at the airport.

“This is welcome news,” noted Christine Klein, Deputy Commissioner, Aviation with theAlaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities. “Hat’s off to the FAA for
their aggressive recruitment and retention efforts to help restore service levels to Alaska’s second largest airport. This reflects a collaborative effort of our local FAA Office, theairport and our local delegation.”

To recruit and train new controllers within Alaska, the University of Alaska Anchorage is now offering both two and four-year training programs for air traffic controller positions.. The Alaska International Airports System is comprised of the Fairbanks International Airport and the Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport.

Washington, DC – The National Transportation Safety Board today determined that the probable cause of the crash of a Maryland State Police (MSP) helicopter emergency medical services flight was the pilot’s attempt to regain visual conditions by performing a rapid descent and his failure to arrest the descent at the minimum descent altitude during a nonprecision approach.

On September 27, 2008, an Aerospatiale (Eurocopter), call sign Trooper 2 (N92MD), registered to and operated by the MSP as a public medical evacuation (medevac) flight, impacted terrain in District Heights, Maryland while on approach to Andrews Air Force Base (ADW). The pilot, one flight paramedic, one field provider, and one of two automobile accident patients being transported were killed. The other patient being transported survived with serious injuries from the helicopter accident and was taken to a local hospital.

The Board found that the pilot failed to adhere to instrument approach procedures when he did not prevent the helicopter’s descent at the MDA. The flight was cleared for an instrument landing system (ILS) approach. After the initial call to the ADW tower, the pilot reported that he could not capture the glideslope and was on a localizer approach. The controller responded that her ILS equipment status display was indicating no anomalies with the equipment. Post accident tests confirmed no anomalies with the instrument approach equipment and testing of the helicopter’s navigation equipment did not find any deficiencies that would have precluded the pilot from capturing the glideslope.

Furthermore, the Board concluded that although the descent rate and altitude information were readily available through cockpit instruments which the pilot had access to, he likely became preoccupied with looking for the ground, which he could not identify before impact because of the lack of external visual cues. Since there were no recorders on board the accident helicopter, the Safety Board could not determine why the pilot did not use other options available to conduct a safe landing in instrument conditions.

Several contributing factors to the cause of the accident, the Board noted, were the pilot’s limited recent instrument flight experience, the lack of adherence to effective risk management procedures by the Maryland State Police, the pilot’s inadequate assessment of the weather, which led to his decision to accept the flight, the failure of the Potomac Consolidated Terminal Radar Approach Control (PCT) controller to provide the current Andrews Air Force Base weather observation to the pilot, and the increased workload on the pilot due to inadequate Federal Aviation Administration air traffic control handling by the Ronald Reagan National Airport Tower and PCT controllers.

As a result of this accident investigation, the Safety Board issued recommendations to the Federal Aviation Administration, the MSP, Prince George’s County, and all public Helicopter Emergency Medical Service operators regarding pilot performance and training, air traffic control deficiencies, patient transport decisions, emergency response and FAA oversight.

A summary of the findings of the Board’s report will be available on the NTSB’s website at: http://www.ntsb.gov/events/Boardmeeting.htm

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Media Contact: Keith Holloway (202) 314-6100
hollowk@ntsb.gov

In its continuing investigation of an Airbus A320 that overflew the Minneapolis-St Paul International/Wold-Chamberlain Airport (MSP), the National Transportation Safety Board has developed the following factual information: On Wednesday, October 21, 2009, at 5:56 pm mountain daylight time, an Airbus A320, operating as Northwest Airlines (NWA) flight 188, became a NORDO (no radio communications) flight at 37,000 feet. The flight was operating as a Part 121 flight from San Diego International Airport, San Diego, California (SAN) to MSP with 144 passengers, 2 pilots and 3 flight attendants.

Both pilots were interviewed separately by NTSB investigators yesterday in Minnesota. The following is an overview of the interviews:

The first officer and the captain were interviewed for over 5 hours combined.
The Captain, 53 years old, was hired in 1985. His total flight time is about 20,000 hours, about 10,000 hours of A-320 time of which about 7,000 was as pilot in command.
The First Officer, 54 years old, was hired in 1997. His total flight time is about 11,000 hours, and has about 5,000 hours on the A-320.
Both pilots said they had never had an accident, incident or violation.
Neither pilot reported any ongoing medical conditions.
Both pilots stated that they were not fatigued. They were both commuters, but they had a 19-hour layover in San Diego just prior to the incident flight. Both said they did not fall asleep or doze during the flight.
Both said there was no heated argument.
Both stated there was a distraction in the cockpit. The pilots said there was a concentrated period of discussion where they did not monitor the airplane or calls from ATC even though both stated they heard conversation on the radio. Also, neither pilot noticed messages that were sent by company dispatchers. They were discussing the new monthly crew flight scheduling system that was now in place as a result of the merger. The discussion began at cruise altitude.
Both said they lost track of time.
Each pilot accessed and used his personal laptop computer while they discussed the airline crew flight scheduling procedure. The first officer, who was more familiar with the procedure was providing instruction to the captain. The use of personal computers on the flight deck is prohibited by company policy.
Neither pilot was aware of the airplane’s position until a flight attendant called about 5 minutes before they were scheduled to land and asked what was their estimated time of arrival (ETA). The captain said, at that point, he looked at his primary flight display for an ETA and realized that they had passed MSP. They made contact with ATC and were given vectors back to MSP.
At cruise altitude – the pilots stated they were using cockpit speakers to listen to radio communications, not their headsets.
When asked by ATC what the problem was, they replied “just cockpit distraction” and “dealing with company issues”.
Both pilots said there are no procedures for the flight attendants to check on the pilots during flight.
The Safety Board is interviewing the flight attendants and other company personnel today. Air traffic control communications have been obtained and are being analyzed. Preliminary data from the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) revealed the following:

The CVR recording was 1/2 hour in length.
The cockpit area microphone channel was not working during this recording. However, the crew’s headset microphones recorded their conversations.
The CVR recording began during final approach, and continued while the aircraft was at the gate.
During the hours immediately following the incident flight, routine aircraft maintenance provided power to the CVR for a few minutes on several occasions, likely recording over several minutes of the flight.
The FDR captured the entire flight which contained several hundred aircraft parameters including the portion of flight where there was no radio communication from the flight crew. Investigators are examining the recorded parameters to see if any information regarding crew activity during the portion of flight where radio contact was lost can be obtained.

The Safety Board’s investigation continues.

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NTSB Media Contact: Keith Holloway
hollowk@ntsb.gov
(202) 314-6100

Geneva – The International Air Transport Association (IATA) reported international scheduled traffic results for September 2009. Passenger demand was essentially unchanged, increasing 0.3% compared to September 2008. Demand for international cargo was 5.4% below September 2008 levels. Load factors for passenger and cargo have returned to pre-crisis levels of 77.1% and 50.8%, respectively.

The apparent year-over-year improvement in demand is misleading. It is largely due to comparisons with an exceptionally weak September 2008 when traffic fell sharply (-2.9% for passenger and -7.7% for cargo). Seasonally adjusted statistics show a 0.3% drop in passenger volumes and a 1.4% fall in cargo volumes for September 2009 compared with August 2009. This reflects the pause seen in the economic recovery in the US and elsewhere in the past few months.

“It is far too early to call this a recovery. The worst may be over in terms of the fall in demand, but yields continue to be a disaster and costs are rising. The airline industry remains firmly in the red with a fragile business environment,” said Giovanni Bisignani, IATA’s Director General and CEO.

Airlines continue to carefully manage capacity. Seasonally adjusted passenger capacity has remained unchanged throughout the year while cargo capacity has edged up only slightly in the last two months. Load factors have risen to pre-crisis levels which should help to correct the precipitous fall in yields (-14% for economy, -18% for premium and –20% in cargo).

Rising costs are a concern. As airlines adjust capacity to match demand, aircraft are flying fewer hours (-3% for some aircraft types). This is raising non-fuel unit costs. At the same time, oil prices have risen to above US$75 per barrel (Brent) considerably higher than the US$43 per barrel level at the start of the year.

International Scheduled Passenger Demand

Passenger demand is now 5% better than the low point reached in March 2009, but 6% below the peak recorded in early 2008.
Asia-Pacific carriers recorded the most significant improvement, from -1.6% in August to +2.1% in September. Bucking the global trend, seasonally adjusted passenger volumes grew almost 1% from August to September. Three factors are influencing this relative strength. Government stimulus packages in the major economies are driving production increases, the region’s banking system is relatively strong and the region’s consumers are not as burdened by debt as those in Europe and the US.
By contrast, European carriers saw a deterioration in demand from -2.8% in August to -4.2% in September. This partly reflects a loss of market share by network carriers on short-haul routes to low-cost carriers. More significantly, there has been a deterioration in demand on long-haul routes. For routes to Asia, this appears to be the influence of “home-carrier-bias” which has seen Asia-Pacific carriers reap the benefit of stronger regional economies. On routes to North America, lower demand in general is related to the dip in consumer and business confidence in economies on both sides of the North Atlantic.
North American carriers saw demand largely unchanged (-2.4% in September compared to -2.5% in August). This flattening-out is related to a dip in consumer and business confidence.
Middle Eastern carriers experienced an 18.2% year-on-year increase in September. This was distorted by the shifting of the Ramadan period, which started in August 2009, compared with September last year. Growth is driven primarily by market share gains on long-haul routes via Middle Eastern hubs. Weaker oil revenues continue to depress economic growth and travel within the region.
Latin American carriers experienced a jump in demand from -2.3% in August to +3.4% in September based on relatively robust regional economies.
African carriers also saw a marginal improvement from -4.9% in August to -4.2% in September. While African economies have been relatively resilient in the recession, the region’s carriers continue to struggle to maintain market share.
International Scheduled Cargo Demand

Cargo traffic is 12% above the December 2008 low point, but remains 17% below the early 2008 peak.
Middle Eastern carriers showed the strongest performance of any region with a 3.6% year-on-year improvement.
Latin American carriers also reported growth of 1.8%, but this was a decline from the previous month’s growth of 3.9%.
Carriers in Asia-Pacific, Europe and North America recorded improvements over August performance, but remained in negative territory at -3.1%, -13% and -5.0% respectively. Improvements were broadly in line with improved economic activity in each region.
African carriers’ cargo operations declined further into negative territory from -5.1% in August to -6.9% in September.
The UK Air Passenger Duty hike is the wrong response to the industry trauma. “The policies of some governments in light of the industry’s trauma are disappointing. The UK is a case in point of a government detached from reality. The global economic crisis makes cost reduction a matter of survival. And the upcoming Copenhagen meeting on climate change demands attention on measures to reduce emissions. What is the UK government doing? From 1 November it is increasing its Air Passenger Duty (APD) to collect GBP 2.5 billion annually from air travelers in the name of the environment. They have it all wrong. Taxes won’t reduce emissions. And making travel more expensive will not stimulate the economy,” said Bisignani.

The GBP 2.5 billion APD is completely disproportionate to the GBP572 million that it would cost to offset the entire carbon footprint of UK aviation. “Charging travelers over four times for their emissions makes absolutely no sense. Instead of raising taxes, the UK government should get behind the aviation industry’s ambitious targets to fight climate change, namely (1) improving fuel efficiency by an average of 1.5% annually to 2020, (2) stabilizing emissions from 2020 with carbon neutral growth and (3) cutting net emissions in half by 2050 compared to 2005 levels,” said Bisignani.

View full September traffic results

For more information, please contact:

Anthony Concil
Director Corporate Communications
Tel: +41 22 770 2967
Email: corpcomms@iata.org

For more information, please contact:
Anthony Concil
Director Corporate Communications
http://www.iata.org/pressroom

Geneva – The International Air Transport Association (IATA) won a major court victory in a dispute with Travelport over PaxIS. On 1 October, the Amsterdam District Court denied an application by Travelport for an injunction to block IATA’s use of airline data stored in Travelport databases for PaxIS.

“IATA has won an important legal battle to preserve competition for airline data transaction products. The Dutch court decision vindicates the rights of airlines to earn profits from commercializing their data,” said Giovanni Bisignani, IATA’s Director General and CEO.

PaxIS is an airline business intelligence product based in part on data that it collects through its billing and settlement plans (BSP), some of which is stored in third party databases.

In late August, Travelport sought a preliminary injunction against IATA’s use of BSP data in PaxIS. Travelport argued that the EC database directive gave it the right to control the use of data that it retrieves from its database and transmits to IATA’s BSP settlement systems on behalf of its airline clients.

The 1 October decision of the Amsterdam District Court (Netherlands), denied Travelport’s application, ruling in favor of IATA on almost every significant issue.

NTSB Advisory
National Transportation Safety Board
Washington, DC 20594
October 22, 2009

The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating an incident where an Airbus A320 overflew the Minneapolis-St Paul International/Wold-Chamberlain Airport (MSP).

On Wednesday, October 21, 2009, at 5:56 pm mountain daylight time, an Airbus A320, N03274, operating as Northwest Airlines (NWA) flight 188, became a NORDO (no radio communications) flight at 37,000 feet. The flight was operating as a Part 121 flight from San Diego International Airport, San Diego, California (SAN) to MSP with 147 passengers and unknown number of crew.

At 7:58 pm central daylight time (CDT), the aircraft flew over the destination airport and continued northeast for approximately 150 miles. The MSP center controller reestablished communications with the crew at 8:14 pm and reportedly stated that the crew had become distracted and had overflown MSP, and requested to return to MSP.

According to the Federal Administration (FAA) the crew was interviewed by the FBI and airport police. The crew stated they were in a heated discussion over airline policy and they lost situational awareness. The Safety Board is scheduling an interview with the crew.

The cockpit voice recorder (CVR) and flight data recorder (FDR) have been secured and are being sent to the NTSB laboratory in Washington, DC.

David Lawrence, the Investigator-in-Charge, is leading the team of 3 in investigating the incident.

Parties to the investigation are the FAA and Northwest Airlines.

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The following revised ETSO is replacing ETSO-C16 in Subpart B Index 1 table of content:

ETSO-C16a Electrically Heated Pitot And Pitot-Static Tubes

————
ED Decision 2009/014/R
14/10/2009
Annex II
ETSO-C16a
Date: 21.10.09
European Aviation Safety Agency
European Technical Standard Order
Subject: ELECTRICALLY HEATED PITOT AND PITOT -STATIC TUBES

TUCSON, AZ, October 05, 2009 /24-7PressRelease/ — Aerospace manufacturers currently in production in Mexico, as well as those considering options for low-cost country investment and sourcing will gather in Guaymas, Sonora, Mexico from October 20 -22, 2009 at The Offshore Group’s Aerospace Manufacturing in Mexico Conference.

Ricardo Dominguez Quijano will be one of the event’s featured speakers. Mr. Dominguez, of the Mexican Professional Aeronautical Engineers Association, will discuss the provisions and ramifications of a 2007 agreement that enables aerospace companies in Mexico to certify aerospace designs and components in accordance with US Standards, and in compliance with FAA Regulatory issues. The Bilateral Aviation Safety Agreement, or BASA, aims to streamline production and to avoid costly recertifications or secondary reviews.

Mexico is home to approximately 120 aerospace companies, and employs a work force that is rapidly approaching 20,000 workers. The Offshore Group’s Guaymas and Empalme, Sonora, Mexico industrial parks are home to one of the nation’s fastest developing aerospace clusters.

Complete information about this unique industry event can be accessed by visiting:
www.offshoregroup.com/guaymasaerospace.asp

About The Offshore Group

The Tucson, Arizona – based Offshore Group is Mexico’s leading provider of a turnkey outsourced manufacturing support or, “shelter,” solution that has enabled manufacturers to initiate and maintain low-cost, low-risk operations in Mexico since 1986. The Offshore Group’s 50+ manufacturing company clients are located in three gated and modern industrial parks with strategic locations in Mexico’s North Central and Western regions.

Only 43 US planes are affected by the FAA’s recall of Thales Avionics pitot tubes on some Airbus A330 and A340 jets. Other Airbuses are already using the Goodrich pitot tubes, which have a completely different design.

Both tubes are heated so that they do not freeze over, but the Thales model DOES freeze; and that flaw is considered by many experts to have been at least partially responsible for the Air France flight 447 crash, that resulted in the death of 228 people flying during a storm over the Atlantic.

US Airways and Northwest are both already in the process of replacing the flawed parts.

The FAA (US) gave carriers 120 days to comply; the EASA (European Air Safety) deadline was September 7.

SERVICE:
WHAT: Choral Allegro and Orchestra – Musical Concert “2º Cultural Moment for the Valuation to the Life;
WHEN: 30 of August of 2009 (Sunday), from the 10 hours of the morning;
WHERE: Memorial of Latin America – Simón Audience Bolivar – Street Auro Soares de Moura Andrade, nº 664 (Entered and Parking for Gate 15)
INGRESSIONS: 1 kilo of not-perishable food

The Musical Concert: “2º Cultural Moment for the Valuation to the Life”, will be in the Memorial of Latin America (Street Auro de Moura Andrade, 664, Quarter Deep Bar, São Paulo) at 11 am. The gates will be opene from 10 so for donations. Choral Allegro and Orchestra, the soprano Giovanna Maira, and the tenors Rinaldo Viana, Jorge Duran and Rubens Medina, under the direction and regency of the teacher Renato Misiuk will be participating.

The event has the support of the Choral Allegro and Orchestra, Government of the State of São Paulo, Municipal City hall of São Paulo and Memorial Fundação.

The Association of the relatives of the victims of Air France Flight 447 are proceeding against European manufacturer Airbus. To spearhead their undertaking, the families have contracted aviation consultant George Hatcher and the law firm of Masry & Vittoe.

Hatcher conferred with the victims’ relatives monday (20), in Rio De Janeiro, to discuss legal strategies that will be adopted in the case. According to the specialist, at this stage, regardless of the cause of the accident, the responsible party is the manufacturer of the airplane, France’s Airbus, subsidiary of EADS, a European aerospace company.

In a disaster of this stature, payments can reach up to $700 million dollars (U.S.).

According to Mr Hatcher who maintains a list of hundreds of pilot experts, “Two of our Airbus pilots agree that in their expert opinion, a significant responsibility for the loss of the aircraft lies within defective computers and/or flawed computer technology. The Airbus, in their evaluation is far from perfect.”

Hatcher will be working the Air France case, in addition to his work on the TAM case in Florida. “In respect for the family’s deep feelings,” he explained, “we are moving forward as quickly and carefully as the wheels of justice allow. Settlements in the US tend to be higher than elsewhere. The Tam hearing is scheduled for March of 2010. We came to a partial agreement with the TAM, but the case is pending on the responsible parties like BFGoodrich, responsible for the brakes, and the Pratt&Whitney, manufacturer of the turbines, one of which was with the broken reverser.”

The Air France is eligible to be tried in Florida where Airbus maintains a training center commercial office of the Airbus.

The professional association The Association of European Airlines has published an official statement protesting how European airports are “jacking up their fees” at a time when consumers are seriously tightening their belts. Cited as an offender is the 8.4% increase charged by Frankfurt Airport, who is “pre-financing expansion through higher ticket prices.”

Norway by contrast has frozen its fees.

The Association of European Airlines (AEA) brings together 33 European established scheduled network carriers. These collectively carry 366 million passengers and 7 million tonnes of cargo each year, operating 2,617 aircraft serving 662 destinations in 162 countries with 11,585 flights a day. They provide around 394,200 jobs directly, and generate a total turnover of €79 billion.

July 07, 2009

BOULDER—The National Center for Atmospheric Research is developing a prototype system to provide aircraft with updates about severe storms and turbulence as they fly across remote ocean regions. The system is designed to help guide pilots away from intense weather, such as the thunderstorms that Air France Flight 447 apparently encountered before crashing into the Atlantic Ocean on June 1.

The NCAR system, being developed with funding from NASA, combines satellite data and computer weather models with cutting-edge artificial intelligence techniques to identify and predict rapidly evolving storms and other potential areas of turbulence. The system is based on products that NCAR has developed to alert pilots and air traffic controllers about storms and turbulence over the continental United States.

“Pilots currently have little weather information as they fly over remote stretches of the ocean, which is where some of the worst turbulence encounters occur,” says NCAR scientist John Williams, one of the project leads. “Providing pilots with at least an approximate picture of developing storms could help guide them safely around areas of potentially severe turbulence.”

The component of the system that identifies major storms over the ocean is already available for aircraft use on an experimental basis.

The entire prototype system, which will identify areas of turbulence in clear air as well as within storms, is on track for testing next year. Pilots on selected transoceanic routes will receive real-time turbulence updates and then provide feedback on the system to NCAR. The researchers will adjust the system as needed.

When the system is finalized in about two years, it will provide pilots and ground-based controllers with text-based maps and graphical displays showing likely regions of turbulence and of storms.

In addition to NCAR, other organizations taking part in the research include the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Lincoln Laboratory, the Naval Research Laboratory, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Flying with little information

Pinpointing turbulence over the oceans is far more challenging than over land because of sparse observations. Weather satellites are often the only source of information over these remote regions. But the satellites provide images less frequently in general than over land, which can make it difficult to capture fast-changing conditions, and they do not directly measure turbulence.

Pilots of transoceanic flights currently get preflight briefings and, in certain cases involving especially intense storms, in-flight weather updates every four hours. They also have onboard radar.

All this information, however, is of limited value. Thunderstorms may develop quickly and move rapidly, rendering the briefings and weather updates obsolete. Onboard radars are designed to detect clouds and precipitation, but turbulence is often located far from the most intense precipitation. As a result, pilots often must choose between detouring hundreds of miles around potentially stormy areas or taking a chance and flying directly through a region that may or may not contain intense weather.

In contrast, NCAR provides real-time maps of turbulence at various altitudes over the continental United States. Such a system, had it encompassed remote ocean regions, could have alerted the pilots of the doomed Air France flight to the stormy conditions along their flight path. The cause of that disaster has not been determined, and it is impossible to know whether the system could have prevented it.

“It seems likely that the information provided by a real-time uplink of weather conditions ahead would have, at a minimum, improved the pilots’ situational awareness,” Williams says.

Pinpointing the turbulence

Williams and his colleagues have recently completed two critical steps in identifying turbulence over the oceans:

The team has created global maps of clear air turbulence based on global computer weather models that include winds and other instabilities in the atmosphere. Clear air turbulence consists of erratic movements of air masses that occur in the absence of clouds and that sometimes buffet aircraft.

Drawing on satellite images of storms, the scientists have created global views of the tops of storm clouds. Higher cloud tops are often correlated with intense storms, although not necessarily with turbulence.

The next step is to identify areas of possible turbulence within and around intense storms. To do so, the team will study correlations between storms and turbulence over the continental United States where weather is more closely observed. The scientists will then infer the likelihood of turbulence associated with storms over the oceans, keying in on satellite indicators such as rapidly expanding clouds or places where the tops of storm clouds are cooling quickly.

They will also develop mathematical equations to account for differences in cloud systems over the United States compared to over the oceans, including the tropics.

Artificial intelligence at work

In addition to providing aircraft and ground controllers with up-to-the-minute maps of turbulence, the NCAR team is turning to an artificial intelligence technique, known as “random forests,” to provide short-term forecasts of turbulence. The random forests, which have proven useful for forecasting thunderstorms over land, consist of many decision trees that each cast a yes-or-no “vote” on crucial elements of a storm at future points in time and space. This enables scientists to forecast the movement and strength of the storm over the next few hours.

“Our goal is to give pilots a regularly updated picture of the likely storms ahead as they fly over the ocean so they can take action to minimize turbulence and keep their aircraft out of danger,” explains NCAR scientist Cathy Kessinger, a project team member. “Even over the middle of the ocean, where we don’t have land-based radars or other tools to observe storms in detail, we can still inform pilots about the potential for violent downdrafts, turbulence, and possibly lightning.”

source:
http://www.ucar.edu/news/releases/2009/ocean-air-turbulence.jsp#
©2009, UCAR