Date: 1/19/2009
By KAREN MATTHEWS
Associated Press Writer
NEW YORK (AP) — A jetliner that crash-landed in the Hudson River had lost power simultaneously in both engines after reaching an altitude of only 3,200 feet, the plane’s black box recorders revealed Sunday.
The details that emerged confirmed the harrowing circumstances under which the pilot of the US Airways flight carrying 155 people maneuvered the plane over New York City and safely into the water after striking a flock of birds Thursday afternoon.
“The captain makes radio call to ATC (air traffic control) calling mayday and reports that they hit birds, lost both engines and were returning to LaGuardia” airport, said Kitty Higgins, a National Transportation Safety Board member, releasing cockpit transmissions captured on flight data and voice recorders.
The wreckage of the Airbus A320 was moved by barge Sunday night to a New Jersey marina, where investigators planned to inspect the extent of the damage more closely.
Investigators already have seen significant damage to the tail and to compartments at the bottom of the plane that opened on impact, Higgins said.
Under a heavy snowfall, tugboats pulled the barge from a seawall a few blocks from the World Trade Center site on a 90-minute trip to the Weeks Marina in Jersey City.
The barge carrying the aircraft and another carrying a large crane arrived at a loading dock on the marina’s outskirts, not far from a site where BMW automobiles are unloaded and stored. Several fire trucks and Port Authority of New York and New Jersey police cars were at the site.
The search for the plane’s missing left engine is suspended until Tuesday because ice floes in the river make it too dangerous to put divers or special sonar equipment in the water, Higgins said.
She heaped praise on the flight crew, led by US Airways Capt. Chesley B. “Sully” Sullenberger, who spoke to NTSB investigators Saturday.
“Miracles happen because a lot of everyday things happen for years and years and years,” she said. “These people knew what they were supposed to do and they did it and as a result, nobody lost their life.”
Sullenberger had been scheduled to give his first public interview on Monday morning to NBC “Today” show host Matt Lauer, but the appearance was canceled Sunday at the request of the U.S. Airline Pilots Association.
Stephen Bradford, president of the association, said he asked Sullenberger not to engage in any media activities because the pilots association has “interested party” status with the NTSB, which allows it to participate in the investigation.
Sullenberger released a statement deferring to the advice. “The Sullenbergers continue to thank their many well-wishers for the incredible outpouring of support,” the statement said.
The mayor of his hometown, Danville, Calif., said the pilot and his family were attending President-elect Barack Obama’s inauguration.
Mayor Newell Arnerich said Lorraine Sullenberger told city officials that the family would leave for the East Coast on Sunday. She and the couple’s daughters haven’t seen Sullenberger since he’s been hailed as a hero for saving the lives of all 155 on board.
The area where the barge was moored was closed to the public Sunday, but it attracted hundreds of residents and tourists, who snapped pictures of the plane wreckage.
Kelsey Higginbotham, a 20-year-old student at East Tennessee State University, peered at the crippled aircraft Sunday from behind police barricades.
She and a friend had been to Times Square, Central Park and the site of the World Trade Center, where nearly 2,800 people were killed in the Sept. 11 attacks. She said she was struck by the contrast between one disaster in which so many people died and another in which everyone survived.
“It’s a miracle,” she said. “I guess New Yorkers can’t take any more tragedy.”
___
Associated Press writers Victor Epstein contributed to this report from Jersey City, N.J., and Jason Dearen contributed from San Francisco.
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.
Experts: Crosswinds a factor in Denver air crash
January 7, 2009
By JOAN LOWY
WASHINGTON (AP) — It was very windy when a Continental Airlines jet was destroyed while trying to take off in Denver last month, leading aviation safety experts to cite crosswinds as a likely factor in the accident.
But were those winds strong enough to “weather-vane” the Boeing 737-500? In that phenomenon, the wind pushes an airliner’s tail hard enough to swing its nose into the wind, like a weather vane. In Denver, experts suspect weather-vaning caused the plane to skitter off the runway in a bone-jarring ride across open, snowy fields, eventually coming to a halt and catching fire. But some additional factor — either mechanical failure or human error — probably also played a role, safety experts said.
Crosswinds were “definitely a contributing factor,” said John Cox, a former pilot and president of Safety Operating Systems, an aviation consulting firm in Washington. “Whether it’s causal or not, I don’t think you have enough information to go there yet,”
Gusts of up to 37 mph were reported at Denver International Airport on the day of the accident, according to the National Transportation Safety Board. Cox and other experts said those gusts may have been strong enough to push the aircraft’s tail around, but the plane’s pilots should have been able to compensate.
Continental Airlines flight 1404 was taking off for Houston on Dec. 20 when the accident occurred. The main landing gear was sheared off, its nose gear collapsed, and the plane carrying 110 passengers rumbled about 2,000 feet from the runway. Thirty-seven people were injured.
NTSB officials have said the plane’s brakes and engines appeared to have been operating normally. Investigators dug the destroyed nose gear out of the ground last week, and safety board spokesman Peter Knudson said preliminary results of that examination may be available later this week.
“We’re looking at (crosswinds), but it’s just one thing we’re looking at,” Knudson said. “Nothing is off the table.”
Spokesmen for Boeing and Continental declined to reveal their guidelines on safely operating the 737-500 in crosswinds. However, Knudson said the winds at the time of the accident should have been “within the envelope” of what the plane could withstand.
NTSB has not identified the plane’s pilot, and the Air Line Pilots Association declined to comment.
But John Nance, a former pilot and aviation safety consultant, was doubtful that crosswinds will ultimately be shown to be a cause. He said wind created by the plane’s velocity as it gained speed heading north down the runway would have offset the impact of the crosswinds from the west.
“It would have taken a mighty burst of wind way, way above anything anybody has recorded, in my view,” Nance said.
Also, he said, compensating for the type of crosswinds experienced in Denver that day would have been second nature for an experienced pilot, “just like riding a bicycle.”
Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
By JOAN LOWY
WASHINGTON (AP) — It was very windy when a Continental Airlines jet was destroyed while trying to take off in Denver last month, leading aviation safety experts to cite crosswinds as a likely factor in the accident.
But were those winds strong enough to “weather-vane” the Boeing 737-500? In that phenomenon, the wind pushes an airliner’s tail hard enough to swing its nose into the wind, like a weather vane. In Denver, experts suspect weather-vaning caused the plane to skitter off the runway in a bone-jarring ride across open, snowy fields, eventually coming to a halt and catching fire. But some additional factor — either mechanical failure or human error — probably also played a role, safety experts said.
Crosswinds were “definitely a contributing factor,” said John Cox, a former pilot and president of Safety Operating Systems, an aviation consulting firm in Washington. “Whether it’s causal or not, I don’t think you have enough information to go there yet,”
Gusts of up to 37 mph were reported at Denver International Airport on the day of the accident, according to the National Transportation Safety Board. Cox and other experts said those gusts may have been strong enough to push the aircraft’s tail around, but the plane’s pilots should have been able to compensate.
Continental Airlines flight 1404 was taking off for Houston on Dec. 20 when the accident occurred. The main landing gear was sheared off, its nose gear collapsed, and the plane carrying 110 passengers rumbled about 2,000 feet from the runway. Thirty-seven people were injured.
NTSB officials have said the plane’s brakes and engines appeared to have been operating normally. Investigators dug the destroyed nose gear out of the ground last week, and safety board spokesman Peter Knudson said preliminary results of that examination may be available later this week.
“We’re looking at (crosswinds), but it’s just one thing we’re looking at,” Knudson said. “Nothing is off the table.”
Spokesmen for Boeing and Continental declined to reveal their guidelines on safely operating the 737-500 in crosswinds. However, Knudson said the winds at the time of the accident should have been “within the envelope” of what the plane could withstand.
NTSB has not identified the plane’s pilot, and the Air Line Pilots Association declined to comment.
But John Nance, a former pilot and aviation safety consultant, was doubtful that crosswinds will ultimately be shown to be a cause. He said wind created by the plane’s velocity as it gained speed heading north down the runway would have offset the impact of the crosswinds from the west.
“It would have taken a mighty burst of wind way, way above anything anybody has recorded, in my view,” Nance said.
Also, he said, compensating for the type of crosswinds experienced in Denver that day would have been second nature for an experienced pilot, “just like riding a bicycle.”
Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Black boxes from Mexican plane crash sent to US
Date: 11/7/2008
By ALEXANDRA OLSON
Associated Press Writer
MEXICO CITY (AP) _ Two flight recorders from a plane crash that killed Mexico’s No. 2 government official were sent to the U.S. for examination, officials said Thursday, amid widespread speculation — but no evidence — that drug cartels were to blame.
Both “black boxes” were found where the Learjet 45 slammed into rush-hour traffic in a posh Mexico City neighborhood, Transportation Secretary Luis Tellez said at a news conference. Five people on the ground and nine people on the plane were killed in Tuesday’s crash, including Interior Secretary Juan Camilo Mourino.
Officials say they have few clues as to why the plane suddenly dropped from the evening sky.
But they have been unusually open in publicizing details of the investigation, trying to discourage conspiracy theories that thrive in a country on edge from relentless news of drug-related shootings, kidnappings and beheadings. The violence has surged during a 2-year-old army and police offensive to wrest control from drug cartels.
The 37-year-old Mourino, one of President Felipe Calderon’s closest confidants, was Mexico’s equivalent of vice president and domestic security chief. Also on the plane was former anti-drug prosecutor Jose Luis Santiago Vasconcelos, who had been the target of at least one assassination attempt.
“Nobody is more interested than me in the truth emerging and the cause of this incident being cleared up,” Calderon said at a memorial ceremony for the dead.
Tellez said experts would need at least a week to analyze the plane’s voice and data recorders for clues to what went wrong.
The crash occurred in clear weather, and in their last recorded radio conversation, the plane’s flight crew calmly discussed radio frequencies and speed with controllers. The tape went silent just as radar lost the plane’s altitude reading.
“Everything was normal on the flight, and a few seconds before the accident, something happened that significantly altered” the situation, said Gilberto Lopez, a pilot overseeing the probe. “At this moment, all the possibilities are potentially important.”
He said experts are following the normal lines of investigation for any crash, including possible human error, mechanical failures, maintenance problems or turbulence caused by other aircraft.
Experts from the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration and Britain’s Civil Aviation Authority are in Mexico helping with the investigation.
On Thursday, Calderon’s office said that U.S. President-elect Barack Obama had expressed his condolences for the deaths in a phone call with Calderon, who had called to congratulate Obama on his victory.
In an editorial Thursday, El Universal newspaper urged people to wait for results of the investigation before jumping to conclusions. But it also noted that Mexico’s “history is filled with assassinations that have never been cleared up or whose resolution does not deserve the trust of public opinion.”
In an unrelated incident, a small plane owned by a flight school made an emergency landing in a field just outside Mexico City, injuring both people aboard the craft. There was no immediate information on their condition or the cause of the mishap.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.
By ALEXANDRA OLSON
Associated Press Writer
MEXICO CITY (AP) _ Two flight recorders from a plane crash that killed Mexico’s No. 2 government official were sent to the U.S. for examination, officials said Thursday, amid widespread speculation — but no evidence — that drug cartels were to blame.
Both “black boxes” were found where the Learjet 45 slammed into rush-hour traffic in a posh Mexico City neighborhood, Transportation Secretary Luis Tellez said at a news conference. Five people on the ground and nine people on the plane were killed in Tuesday’s crash, including Interior Secretary Juan Camilo Mourino.
Officials say they have few clues as to why the plane suddenly dropped from the evening sky.
But they have been unusually open in publicizing details of the investigation, trying to discourage conspiracy theories that thrive in a country on edge from relentless news of drug-related shootings, kidnappings and beheadings. The violence has surged during a 2-year-old army and police offensive to wrest control from drug cartels.
The 37-year-old Mourino, one of President Felipe Calderon’s closest confidants, was Mexico’s equivalent of vice president and domestic security chief. Also on the plane was former anti-drug prosecutor Jose Luis Santiago Vasconcelos, who had been the target of at least one assassination attempt.
“Nobody is more interested than me in the truth emerging and the cause of this incident being cleared up,” Calderon said at a memorial ceremony for the dead.
Tellez said experts would need at least a week to analyze the plane’s voice and data recorders for clues to what went wrong.
The crash occurred in clear weather, and in their last recorded radio conversation, the plane’s flight crew calmly discussed radio frequencies and speed with controllers. The tape went silent just as radar lost the plane’s altitude reading.
“Everything was normal on the flight, and a few seconds before the accident, something happened that significantly altered” the situation, said Gilberto Lopez, a pilot overseeing the probe. “At this moment, all the possibilities are potentially important.”
He said experts are following the normal lines of investigation for any crash, including possible human error, mechanical failures, maintenance problems or turbulence caused by other aircraft.
Experts from the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration and Britain’s Civil Aviation Authority are in Mexico helping with the investigation.
On Thursday, Calderon’s office said that U.S. President-elect Barack Obama had expressed his condolences for the deaths in a phone call with Calderon, who had called to congratulate Obama on his victory.
In an editorial Thursday, El Universal newspaper urged people to wait for results of the investigation before jumping to conclusions. But it also noted that Mexico’s “history is filled with assassinations that have never been cleared up or whose resolution does not deserve the trust of public opinion.”
In an unrelated incident, a small plane owned by a flight school made an emergency landing in a field just outside Mexico City, injuring both people aboard the craft. There was no immediate information on their condition or the cause of the mishap.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.
Martinique: Human error likely in ’05 plane crash
Date: 10/9/2008 9:35 PM
By RODOLPHE LAMY
Associated Press Writer
FORT-DE-FRANCE, Martinique (AP) _ An ongoing investigation into a 2005 plane crash that killed 152 people from Martinique suggests that human error and not faulty maintenance was to blame, the island’s prosecutor told the victims’ relatives on Thursday.
One expert found that West Caribbean Airways — despite financial problems — provided regular maintenance to the McDonnell Douglas MD-82 plane that crashed three years ago, Claude Bellanger said during a meeting to update relatives on the investigation.
He said investigators believe the pilots lost speed when they tried to quickly ascend to avoid a cluster of storm clouds.
“They were in a zone … that they never should have entered,” Bellanger said.
An initial analysis of the plane’s black box recorders suggests the pilots did not react appropriately when they tried to stabilize the plane as it went into a three-minute free fall, he said.
Another expert is still analyzing whether human error played a part, Bellanger said.
Authorities have previously said the jet’s engines were running when it crashed and that the pilots had talked about weather conditions and possibly turning on the deicers.
Olivier Berisson, president of the Association of Victim’s Families, rejected Bellanger’s explanations.
“It is nonetheless surprising that there were no maintenance problems with a company that had two crashes in the same year,” he said.
A West Caribbean Airways plane crashed in March 2005 after taking off from Colombia’s Providencia Island, killing eight people. Five months later, on Aug. 16, one of its charter jets en route from Panama crashed in Venezuela, killing 160 people, the majority of whom were tourists from Martinique.
A Fort-de-France court recently ordered the airline to pay US$3.7 million to the families of 28 victims. Compensations would vary: A victim’s nephew could receive US$8,000 while a parent or child could get US$54,000.
The court also ordered an additional US$27,000 to be paid for the suffering passengers endured during the free fall.
Berisson has qualified the compensations as “completely unacceptable” and the victims’ relatives have pledged to fight for a higher amount.
Alain Manville, an attorney representing the airlines’ insurance company, has said he would likely seek an appeal.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.
By RODOLPHE LAMY
Associated Press Writer
FORT-DE-FRANCE, Martinique (AP) _ An ongoing investigation into a 2005 plane crash that killed 152 people from Martinique suggests that human error and not faulty maintenance was to blame, the island’s prosecutor told the victims’ relatives on Thursday.
One expert found that West Caribbean Airways — despite financial problems — provided regular maintenance to the McDonnell Douglas MD-82 plane that crashed three years ago, Claude Bellanger said during a meeting to update relatives on the investigation.
He said investigators believe the pilots lost speed when they tried to quickly ascend to avoid a cluster of storm clouds.
“They were in a zone … that they never should have entered,” Bellanger said.
An initial analysis of the plane’s black box recorders suggests the pilots did not react appropriately when they tried to stabilize the plane as it went into a three-minute free fall, he said.
Another expert is still analyzing whether human error played a part, Bellanger said.
Authorities have previously said the jet’s engines were running when it crashed and that the pilots had talked about weather conditions and possibly turning on the deicers.
Olivier Berisson, president of the Association of Victim’s Families, rejected Bellanger’s explanations.
“It is nonetheless surprising that there were no maintenance problems with a company that had two crashes in the same year,” he said.
A West Caribbean Airways plane crashed in March 2005 after taking off from Colombia’s Providencia Island, killing eight people. Five months later, on Aug. 16, one of its charter jets en route from Panama crashed in Venezuela, killing 160 people, the majority of whom were tourists from Martinique.
A Fort-de-France court recently ordered the airline to pay US$3.7 million to the families of 28 victims. Compensations would vary: A victim’s nephew could receive US$8,000 while a parent or child could get US$54,000.
The court also ordered an additional US$27,000 to be paid for the suffering passengers endured during the free fall.
Berisson has qualified the compensations as “completely unacceptable” and the victims’ relatives have pledged to fight for a higher amount.
Alain Manville, an attorney representing the airlines’ insurance company, has said he would likely seek an appeal.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.
Flight crew to blame in 2006 “clipping” incident
Date: 9/30/2008 3:05 AM
NEWARK, N.J. (AP) — The flight crew of a Lufthansa jet was to blame for clipping another plane while taxiing at Newark Liberty International Airport in October 2006, the National Transportation Safety Board said. Investigators said the crew was distracted by a plane it was taxiing behind. The Lufthansa jet clipped the right wing of a Continental plane that was being towed. No one was injured.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.
NEWARK, N.J. (AP) — The flight crew of a Lufthansa jet was to blame for clipping another plane while taxiing at Newark Liberty International Airport in October 2006, the National Transportation Safety Board said. Investigators said the crew was distracted by a plane it was taxiing behind. The Lufthansa jet clipped the right wing of a Continental plane that was being towed. No one was injured.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.