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TAM 2012

TAM 2012

Let me give you a little history. On July 17 2007, five years ago, a Tam Airbus failed its landing at São Paulo’s Congonhas airport and stole a hundred and ninety-nine lives. There were 199 families crushed by this disaster, families crushed but not broken; who were shattered, but not weakened; who were reduced in number but not heart. They were typical families—just mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, husbands and wives, brothers and sisters. One day they had been just like you and me, going about their daily lives and then on July 17, 2007, their lives were permanently disrupted.  They were ordinary families, and they responded in a way that plane crash victim’s families sometimes do, and that is join a group. Something in the chemistry of the group made them extraordinary.  Where alone, they were shattered, together, they were mended; where they were once weakened, together they were powerful. They bonded with each other. It is not that these bonds in any way replaced those who were lost.  It is simply that their complex shared feelings of loss, grief and anger united them, made them siblings in a kindred battle; recalibrated their lives; recast them in new roles that would allow them to band together to form a fellowship of righteousness. Their kinship was born of innocent blood spilled by carelessness and negligence gave them the right and responsibility and ability to fight carelessness and negligence in aviation. The alliance gave…gives them strength to reform —and keep reforming—aviation in Brazil.

In 2007, I interviewed the families of Tam Flight 3054, came to know all of them. I did more than hear and document their stories and learn their pain. I came to know and respect them as individuals. Their case in court ultimately triumphed; but they did not rest on their laurels.  My experience with Tam Flight 3054 was how I cam to know the group. ABRAPAVAA has continued to fight for the victims of air accidents. I have never lost contact with them.

So, although I am currently abroad working on the case of a crash that occurred off the southern coast of Africa, I was not surprised to find an email from the president of ABRAPAVAA. Sandra, President of the Brazilian Association of Relatives and Friends of Victims of Air Accidents herself lost her husband in a 1994 accident that killed 99.


The Brazilian group continues to be a watchdog over Brazilian aviation.  Sandra wrote me over a matter of concern that Tam is again putting passengers at risk. Tam and Chile’s LAN Airlines merged to form LATAM Airlines Group; TAM Linhas Aéreas completed the merger on June 22. The merger forms the largest airline in Brazil. Though it is under new ownership, it seems to be repeating an old story of poor maintenance. 

ABRAPAVAA is worried about the lack of maintenance, the risk that passengers are exposed to on every flight (lack of maintenance, ongoing unrepaired vibration problems, casual rather than immediate repairs of bird strike damage) and what makes this worse is that many of these problems are not officially reported but merely passed on word of mouth. When the flight crew just mentions problems to the mechanics, where is the paper trail? Where are the checks? Where are the failsafes? 

ABRAPAVAA fears that ignoring LATAM problems will lead to more fatal events. They wish to be proactive and find a way to get ANAC (Brazils oversight agency) to be on the alert, and monitor LATAM’s critical maintenance situations, but ANAC seems to be closing their eyes to the whole issue.  

To take no initiative will result in loss of life. What can be done?  That is a good question.

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    Remembering Air Blue Flight 202: July 28


    In George’s Point of View


    Sometimes all we do is listen. We listen to the families speak of their loved ones, listen to the little ones cry, the child who loves snowflakes because that is what her father called her. The wife and children with no means of support and feeding themselves with empty spoons. Knowing that no matter what we do, we cannot bring them back, nor fill that empty place. Still we do what we can on behalf of the families.

    This will be the first July 28 in history when these 152 people will not be living on this earth. We want to remember these people who lost their lives in such a tragic and unnecessary way. They deserve to be remembered.

    Some remember those who are no longer with us by using symbols. Memorials like the one promised. There are other symbols, like the bird in flight that symbolizes a soul, or a chain with a broken link.

    There is a tradition dating back to ancient times of placing rosemary by the graves of loved ones. “There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance; pray, love, remember;” Hamlet, (V.iv.124)

    I was going to talk about more ways that people remember, but I must pause here. In ancient times they put rosemary by the graves of loved ones. Some people still do. But we cannot lay sprigs of rosemary for remembrance at the feet of our loved ones, because there are families still waiting for a memorial promised before the first anniversary of the crash. Waiting a year to lay their flowers and their grief.

    Instead of a bouquet of flowers, we have a bouquet of broken promises. Shall we count them?

    A broken promise to share the final investigative report.
    A broken promise over the Monument at the crash site (they want it elsewhere); and a broken promise over the 72 unmarked graves.
    A broken promise over Airblue being grounded for negligence, malpractice, manslaughter.
    A broken promise to assist the families.
    Or maybe we can call this a pending promise, as we wait for an independent inquiry board and a pending promise of greater safety in the skies over Pakistan.
    We have our Rosemary for remembrance, but it is bittersweet.

    CDA is constructing a memorial for the Air Blue Flight 202 just a few miles from Damn-e-Koh, Islamabad
    CDA is constructing a memorial for the Air Blue Flight 202 just a few miles from Damn-e-Koh, Islamabad
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    Mechanics Forgot is no excuse


    Remember that British Airways Airbus A319 event we talked about the other day? The one where (oops) the engine cover fell off of the engine on that Oslo flight?

    The one where “the coverings broke off and punctured the right engine’s fuel pipe, damaging the aircraft’s systems?” The Air Accidents Investigation Branch the investigation said evealed that the fan cowl doors on both engines were left unlatched during maintenance.”

    In George’s Point of View

    Oops. FORGET does not work, not even once with an aircraft.

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  • Hudson Crash May Provide AF477 Answers

    The one thing that stands out the most in today’s NTSB statement [about the US Airways Airbus A320 that crash-landed on the Hudson River] is that there is nothing but praise and admiration for the crew, whose quick reflexes, cool heads and complete professionalism saved the lives of everyone aboard.

    The NTSB is NOT so positive regarding Airbus, the manufacturer of the plane involved in that crash. See the NTSB’s Executive Summary

    There was no appropriate checklist for the event in the manual; and some procedures were so precise they could not be carried out.

    Ingesting birds into an engine is rarely so dramatic, mostly because it doesn’t usually happen to both engines. The circumstance allowed experts to examine cause and effect on the plane and a number of surprising things were concluded. Certainly more than I am talking about here.

    Some of the concerns conceivably could have applied to Air France Flight 447…if it had landed intact (although we are assuming it did not.)

    That the cockpit instrumentation did not reflect the status of the engines.
    Did the pilots of AF 447 also not have inaccurate reportage of the status of the engines? We think this is true. How can a pilot in the middle of the Atlantic in the midst of a storm with inoperable speed sensors know what the fly by wire engines are doing of the operating system doesn’t tell him something is wrong? The answer is: he can’t.

    That the rate of descent in the manual is unrealistic (claiming a safe 3.5 feet per second when in reality 13 feet per second caused damage.)
    Although there’s no telling what the rate of descent was for AF447, it appears likely that neither did the pilots. Also, 447 was not guided/glided down by Sully; if AF447 came down intact at all, it probably fell at a high rate of speed with only limited awareness of the pilots when it was too late.

    That in the Hudson event, slides were not flotation devices; wings did not float; and there were no rafts over these wings although the passengers scrambled out there.
    In the Hudson crash, the passengers exited to the wings, expecting flotation resources. Fortunately rescue came quickly before they sank. There were no “wing rafts.” Could AF passengers, had they survived the landing have exited, and been able to access rafts? We think not. Of course this is a moot point as we doubt they survived hitting the water–whether or not the plane was intact.

    Given that the NTSB called the Airbus manual unrealistic and inappropriate, that Airbus’s claim that for the Hudson crash “LaGuardia Runway 13 was technically feasible from an aircraft flight performance point of view” seems equally unrealistic. In fact, Airbus has a lot of nerve to extend a pseudo-panglossian commendation to Captain Sully for appropriately considering the high urbanization of airport surroundings. At this point, any statement from Airbus is highly suspect.
    At this point I consider Airbus itself, “theoretically feasible” but highly unlikely.

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    How to Freeze, Suffocate, or Brain Damage Yourself; Or Terror at 38,000 Feet

    Everyone following Aviation News by now has already heard of the sixteen-year-old boy who rode stowaway in the wheel well of a 767 from California to Kahului Airport in Maui Hawaii, surviving impossible conditions of 38,000 feet. Surviving outside of a plane is nothing short of a miracle. Conditions outside of a plane in flight are sub-human, making suffocation a certainty; and if one somehow were to manage the lack of air, then the trick would be surviving freezing conditions and decompression sickness. Hypoxia is almost a certainty at -80 degrees Fahrenheit, with no air.

    Most people who attempt such a feat end up frozen solid, or fall off. Plus, should I not mention that an emotional sixteen year old who ran away from home should not be able to breach airport security;

    Should not be able to survive the trip;and after he did, the story

    … should not be publicized in such a way that future idiots be inspired to follow in his idiocy. Newscasters may as well have posted an invitation to every idiot, prankster, and t-word in town.

    So all you stupids inspired to save yourself the cost of a plane ticket, if you are inspired to sneak on to a wheel well because you have a winter coat, and think you’re invincible, the truth is that this is how idiots die.

    In George’s Point of View

    Of course, the story is the breach of security not that the kid survived. Obviously in a real-life kind of way, it’s good the boy survived. Obviously in a real-life kind of way it is horrible and stupid that his survival is now going to be an idiot’s guide. But now let’s talk about what happened here.

    Security failed so many times and so many ways that it boggles the mind. The perimeter of the airport should not have been breached; the security of the plane should not have been breached; and on arrival, the boy should immediately have been discovered. At least the ground crew did eventually find the boy “wandering the tarmac, dazed and confused.” But then the news got ahold of the story and made it global. Good job, news people.

    In an interview at San Jose airport the spokesperson there said that no security is 100 percent fool proof.

    I disagree. Airport security, access to planes, especially those planes ready to board passengers and take off must be fool-proof.

    There are just too many fools out there.

    TSA security checks at airport are tedious and essential. Security cannot afford to have one single gun or nut job to get through their security wall, not a single one.

    Someone in California PLUS someone in Hawaii failed to do their job. Multiple someones. Aren’t security checks deliberately redundant? Surely someone at Hawaiian Airlines failed in a last-minute maintenance and/or security walk-around.

    I do find it ludicrous that all of these security experts and specialists interviewed for news programs about this security breach, industry professionals like the grounds operations coordinator at O’Hare, essentially post detailed “how to” instructions to climbing inside a wheel well.

    This is a wake-up call to security teams to plug the holes in their process, just as it is a wake—up call for idiots looking to die at 38,000 feet. Let’s hope the next one who tries this blunders into a security hole that has been filled with a smart security operative with some inescapable handcuffs in his pocket. Then let’s see how the news covers it.

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    LATAM Flight Makes Emergency Landing in Argentina

    LATAM flight LA-7732 had to divert and make an emergency landing at Ministro Pistarini International Airport, Argentina, on March 9th.

    The Airbus A320-200 plane heading from Aeroparque Jorge Newbery to Comandante Armando Tola International Airport, Argentina, was diverted after the crew noticed smoke in the cockpit.

    The plane landed safely. All one hundred sixty-seven passengers and six crew members remained unharmed.

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    Slovakia Plants Explosive on Dublin-bound Flight


    Click to view full size photo at Airliners.net
    Contact photographer Diego Ruiz De Vargas

    What: Danube Wings Boeing 737-400 en route from Poprad/Tatry Slovakia to Dublin
    Where: The entire flight
    When: Jan 2nd 2010
    Who: Number aboard not released
    Why: A Slovakian agency decided to test their security by slipping 9 packages of explosives into innocent passengers’ luggage. Eight of those packages were found.

    George’s Point of View

    ONE of those packages—85 grams of RDX plastic explosive— made it all the way to the innocent Slovakian-Irish passenger’s HOUSE, where suddenly Irish forces evacuate their entire neighborhood (reportedly evacuating several apartment buildings and shutting down a couple of intersections) to retrieve that one package of live explosive from his apartment on Dorset Street. Stefan Gonda, a 49-year-old Slovak electrician working in Ireland, must have been really surprised at that knock on the door. On the other hand, maybe not, since he’s from Slovakia and may be used to such thoughtless, stupid, ridiculous, dangerous, psychotic behavior from his government.

    How do they justify endangering a plane full of innocent passengers on a commercial jet? RDX is considered unstable–it can light without a detonator. What if there had been turbulence? What if the temperature had dropped to make the compound even more unstable?

    One head has already rolled for this. The head of the Slovak border and foreign police Tibor Mako resigned. Was he the one responsible or did he throw himself on his sword? Is there more to this?

    I find it difficult to believe that anyone would use real passengers as guinea pigs, put real explosives on an actual international flight. If Ireland has a legal chip on its shoulder the same way the US does, there’d be an International lawsuit pending.

    The Slovokian ministry claims no one was endangered.

    Excuse me?

    85 grams of RDX plastic explosive aboard a plane. Irish forces evacuated the neighborhood to retrieve it…but hey, on a volatile oxygen pumped package like an airplane, no problem.

    It’s hard to believe they call that branch of government “intelligence.” Talk about an oxymoron.

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