Germanwings Flight 9525. Remember.

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    As famílias da TAM, três anos depois.

    As famílias da TAM, três anos depois.

    Às famílias que agora rememoram a tragédia com o voo JJ 3054 da TAM Linhas Aéreas – o Airbus A320 que se chocou ao pousar em uma noite chuvosa, em uma pista com problemas de pavimentação, em 17 de julho de 2007…

    Às famílias, muitas das quais são amigas minhas…

    Este mês de julho não pode passar sem que relembremos. Assim como cada primavera faz lembrar o inverno, e cada noite faz lembrar o dia, em17 de julho, nós lembramos.

    Espero que, a essa altura, vocês tenham criado algum tipo de tradição que ajude a família a se reunir e lembrar.

    É um privilégio recordar toda a virtude de suas vidas – quer visitando seu túmulo, acendendo uma vela, plantando uma árvore ou realizando atos de bondade em sua memória.

    Vela alguma brilha o suficiente ou por tempo o bastante; arvore alguma se ergue suficientemente alta ou dá sombra o bastante; nenhum ato de caridade é suficientemente generoso. Mas, ainda assim, fazer algo a cada ano que nos ajude a realmente lembrá-los traz em si um ato de vida. Fazê-lo traz a chama da lembrança, entrelaçando o ontem ao presente e ao amanhã.

    Um ritual que, a princípio, pode funcionar como uma muleta emocional, mas tarde dá asas à nossa alma. Um ritual que nos faz lembrar que cada vida é como uma pedra em um monumento, um alicerce que sustenta a todos nós que seguimos em frente.

    Que a perda não seja em vão.

    Lágrimas não nos podem devolver o ser amado, mas espero que o tempo tenha trazido cura e alívio para a dor, deixando apenas a ternura da lembrança.

    Amigos e amigas, celebrem a memória.

    George Hatcher

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  • Businessmen Beware the Air

    George’s Point of View

    Most business jet fatal accidents happen on approach. I suppose this means that it is fine for businessmen to fly but not to land. (Conclusions like this are why they never have me on any study committees.)

    But seriously, the latest Aviation study came out with these figures:

    • The fatal accident rate for air taxis is 3.49 per million flying hours
    • For corporate operations it is 0.24 per million
    • For owner-operated business jets it is 1.28 per million
    • The overall figure for all business jets flying civil operations is 1.45 per million flying hours.

      The fifty-nine fatal accidents under study show twenty-one occurred on ferry flights, seventeen on “private/business”, six carried cargo, five carried passengers, four were air ambulance flights, and three were training.

      Whether the problem is fatigue, pilot (or crew) training, plane maintenance, air traffic control, bureaucratic red tape, or gas-squeezing political policies, when the consensus is that more than half of these accidents are preventable, this is an indication that something is seriously wrong with Business Aviation.

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    Southwest Airlines Safe Landing after Indicator Alert Error

    Southwest Airlines Boeing 737-700 Flight 481 from Las Vegas to Tulsa made an emergency landing at McCarran International Airport.

    The flight diverted back after a cargo hold fire-alert alerted the crew. The flight had left at 1:20, and returned at 2:45. Passengers indicated turbulence as they were returning to Las Vegas. The crew did not explain the situation to the passengers until after landing.

    136 passengers and four crew were aboard. No one was injured. THe problem was an indication alert error. Passengers were rebooked on alternative flights.

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    Cessna on Training Flight Crashes in Alaska

    bethel
    A Cessna Caravan crashed and burned near Bethel, Alaska with two pilots aboard and no passengers. Derrick Cedars and Greggory McGee were confirmed as pilots. The plane operated by Hageland Aviation flew out of Bethel airport, and crashed at about 6:30 p.m. Tuesday. Troopers aboard a National Guard Blackhawk confirmed the crash with an aerial overview of the large debris field and burning wreckage.

    Tuesday evening, rescuers were aboard a helicopter that flew to Three Step Mountain to the wreckage, perhaps recover the remains. The NTSB is investigating.

    Hageland had five crashes since 2003.

    The Cessna had 2 Pratt & Whitney Canada engines.

    Metars at the time of the crash were
    PABE 090153Z 36014KT 10SM R19R/3000VP6000FT CLR M07/M17 A2986 RMK AO2 SLP114 T10721167
    PABE 090053Z 36013KT 10SM CLR M07/M16 A2986 RMK AO2 SLP115 T10721161

    Decoded:
    Location: PABE
    Day of month: 09
    Time: 01:53 UTC
    Wind: True direction = 360 degrees, Speed: 14 knots
    Visibility: 10 Statute Miles
    Temperature: -07 degrees Celsius
    Dewpoint: -17 degrees Celsius
    QNH: 29.86 inHg
    Next token has 0 length
    Wind: True direction = 360 degrees, Speed: 13 knots
    Visibility: 10 Statute Miles
    Temperature: -07 degrees Celsius
    Dewpoint: -16 degrees Celsius
    QNH: 29.86 inHg

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  • Virgin America: Trapped in Plane

    LAX to JFK
    No, LAX to SWF to (bus) to JFK

    Never heard of SWK? It’s Stewart International Airport, 90 miles N of New York. It’s the infamous airport where this Saturday 126 passengers on a Virgin America flight shared a nightmare for four to six hours on the tarmac, completed with rationed potato chips (4) rationed water (every 1/2 hour.)

    On the bright side, the flight did not crash.

    Diverted from NYC by weather, the 5 1/2 hour flight turned into a runway waiting room. Not all of the passengers were allowed off the plane into the airport; the flight attendants and airport personnel were getting testy. Then Jet Blue provided bus transportation to the stranded…er…trapped…er…Virgin America passengers for the 90 mile trip to JFK.

    Passengers amused themselves by elaborating on their ordeal online. Much to the benefit of the travel-weary passengers, Virgin America’s CEO David Cush was one of the people who heard the online tale of woe, and is (we hear) refunding the cost of the trip plus $100 to the 126 passengers.

    Cheaper than a lawsuit, I guess. I wonder if he’ll be getting them to sign anything.

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    A Word about Safety, Brazil and Towers

    In George’s Point of View

    With aviation safety issues buzzing in the US because of the widespread tower closures, I was surprised to find US safety being held as a higher standard in a critique of Brazilian aviation by pilot Antônio Carlos Cruzeta.

    His article at *http://paduim.blogspot.com/2013/02/relato-de-um-piloto-de-linha-aerea.html pillories the conditions of flying in Brazil, even compares the pilot to driving a luxury BMW in the middle of a safari in Africa.

    But I cannot but wonder if even as this pilot pushes for progress in Brazil, we in the US are bound to be falling back. Will it take an aviation disaster here to wake up our government that we need to maintain our current standards of safety?

    A Brazilian pilot can ask that question, and so can we. How can pilots continue to fly millions of passengers millions of flights in state-of-the-art planes when losing so many towers? And now there are lawsuits piling up as localities begin legal battles to keep their towers. Should tower support be withdrawn, leaving pilots to “fly by the seat of their pants?” What do US pilots think of this withdrawal of support? DO pilots consider towers extraneous?

    Three hours or so from home the ride from Rio was unusually turbulent. Though I slept all the way to Houston this time, will I be so confident in the future? I worry for the state aviation safety as thousands of pilots converge flying to and from airports where tower support was once but is no longer.

    Closures

    *English translation here: http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fpaduim.blogspot.com%2F2013%2F02%2Frelato-de-um-piloto-de-linha-aerea.html

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