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.
Brazil police: 10 at fault for air crash
Date: 11/20/2008
By BRADLEY BROOKS
Associated Press Writer
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (AP) _ A police investigation found that 10 government and airline officials were to blame for Brazil’s worst air disaster, saying they failed to properly train pilots, implement rainy day procedures or fully repair the airport’s drainage system, authorities said Wednesday.
It will be up to Brazilian prosecutors, however, to file formal charges — which could result in up to six years of prison.
An investigation by Sao Paulo state civil police blamed officials from Brazilian regulators and TAM airlines for the crash, a police investigator on the case said on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to discuss the matter.
TAM Flight 3054, an Airbus A320, landed in driving rain at Sao Paulo’s Congonhas airport in July 2007, speeding down the runway and crashing into a gas station and air cargo building at 109 mph (175 kph).
All 187 people aboard and 12 people on the ground died.
The police report blames government officials for the failure to set stricter rainy-day landing rules for the short runway or to fully repair its drainage system. Airline officials were blamed for poor pilot training.
Among those named in the report are: Denise Abreu, former director of Brazil’s National Civil Aviation Agency — known as ANAC; Jose Carlos Pereira, former president of Infraero, which oversees airport infrastructure; and Marco Santos, TAM’s safety director, among others.
The police official also said the report confirmed that one of the thrust reversers on the plane — which help to slow aircraft upon landing — was not functional.
TAM has said it had allowed planes to fly without a thrust reverser based on government-approved safety measures. It also said it followed Airbus maintenance rules that said the plane was safe to fly.
ANAC, Infraero and TAM Linhas Aereas SA declined comment, saying they had not yet received a copy of the investigative report.
A separate investigation into the crash is being conducted by Brazil’s Air Force.
___
Associated Press writer Marco Sibaja contributed to this report from Brasilia.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.
By BRADLEY BROOKS
Associated Press Writer
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (AP) _ A police investigation found that 10 government and airline officials were to blame for Brazil’s worst air disaster, saying they failed to properly train pilots, implement rainy day procedures or fully repair the airport’s drainage system, authorities said Wednesday.
It will be up to Brazilian prosecutors, however, to file formal charges — which could result in up to six years of prison.
An investigation by Sao Paulo state civil police blamed officials from Brazilian regulators and TAM airlines for the crash, a police investigator on the case said on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to discuss the matter.
TAM Flight 3054, an Airbus A320, landed in driving rain at Sao Paulo’s Congonhas airport in July 2007, speeding down the runway and crashing into a gas station and air cargo building at 109 mph (175 kph).
All 187 people aboard and 12 people on the ground died.
The police report blames government officials for the failure to set stricter rainy-day landing rules for the short runway or to fully repair its drainage system. Airline officials were blamed for poor pilot training.
Among those named in the report are: Denise Abreu, former director of Brazil’s National Civil Aviation Agency — known as ANAC; Jose Carlos Pereira, former president of Infraero, which oversees airport infrastructure; and Marco Santos, TAM’s safety director, among others.
The police official also said the report confirmed that one of the thrust reversers on the plane — which help to slow aircraft upon landing — was not functional.
TAM has said it had allowed planes to fly without a thrust reverser based on government-approved safety measures. It also said it followed Airbus maintenance rules that said the plane was safe to fly.
ANAC, Infraero and TAM Linhas Aereas SA declined comment, saying they had not yet received a copy of the investigative report.
A separate investigation into the crash is being conducted by Brazil’s Air Force.
___
Associated Press writer Marco Sibaja contributed to this report from Brasilia.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.
FAA renews, toughens warning to Boeing 737 pilots
Date: 11/10/2008
By TIM KLASS
Associated Press Writer
SEATTLE (AP) _ The Federal Aviation Administration has toughened a requirement that Boeing 737 pilots be reminded not to ignore a cabin pressure warning horn, ordering preflight briefings as well as changes in manuals.
The airworthiness directive, issued Monday and effective Nov. 25, stems from a crash in which 121 people died on Aug. 14, 2005, when a Helios Airways 737-300 slammed into a hillside north of Athens, Greece.
Greek investigators determined that the pilots had lost consciousness because of a cabin pressure failure shortly after takeoff on a flight from Nicosia, Cyprus, and that the plane kept going on autopilot for two hours until it ran out of fuel.
Authorities say the cabin pressure control settings had been operated improperly and that an alarm went unheeded. Last Tuesday the attorney general of Cyprus said five people would face criminal charges for the crash.
The FAA’s order applies to all Boeing 737s, the world’s best-selling commercial jet with more than 6,000 orders since the model was launched in 1965 and 5,397 in use worldwide, and takes effect in 120 days. Public notice and comment requirements were waived “because an unsafe condition exists that requires the immediate adoption” of the directive, according to the notice.
Changes in the manuals must be made by each airline. The process is complex, varying by aircraft as well as the nature of the change, and new wording must be validated before it can take effect, FAA spokesman Les Dorr said.
FAA directives typically are reissued by civil aviation authorities in other countries.
Chicago-based Boeing Co. and FAA representatives said the cockpit warning horn serves a dual purpose. On the ground it indicates something is wrong with the plane’s pre-takeoff configuration, such as the setting of the wing flaps. In the air it means a loss of cabin pressure, which can cause pilots to lose consciousness if they don’t immediately put on oxygen masks.
The FAA directed on July 7, 2006, that flight manuals be changed to remind pilots to pay heed to the warning horn after takeoff, but “we have received continuing reports of in-service events involving failure of the flight crew to recognize and react property to valid cabin altitude (air pressure) warning horns,” according to the latest directive.
It was not immediately clear which airlines were involved in the reports of pilots ignoring the horn, when the problems occurred or whether any U.S. carriers were involved.
Such problems in other countries typically are reported to civil aviation authorities who then notify the manufacturer, in this case Boeing, which in turn alerts the FAA, Dorr said.
Before the Helios crash, Boeing was alerted to “some cases where flight crews were getting confused” about the alarm horn and advised airlines “to do a little crew training on that,” Boeing spokeswoman Liz Verdier said.
After the FAA’s initial directive, which largely incorporated Boeing’s advisory note, the manufacturer began working on a change in the cockpit and flight deck design to incorporate a warning light that will provide a second indication of cabin pressure loss when the horn sounds, Verdier said.
“Within the next month or so,” she said, Boeing expects to have the change ready to incorporate into production of current models, the 737-700, -800 and 900, followed by production of retrofitting kits for earlier models a few months after that.
The FAA may propose further action to “address the unsafe condition” once the warning light kits are available, according to the airworthiness directive.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.
By TIM KLASS
Associated Press Writer
SEATTLE (AP) _ The Federal Aviation Administration has toughened a requirement that Boeing 737 pilots be reminded not to ignore a cabin pressure warning horn, ordering preflight briefings as well as changes in manuals.
The airworthiness directive, issued Monday and effective Nov. 25, stems from a crash in which 121 people died on Aug. 14, 2005, when a Helios Airways 737-300 slammed into a hillside north of Athens, Greece.
Greek investigators determined that the pilots had lost consciousness because of a cabin pressure failure shortly after takeoff on a flight from Nicosia, Cyprus, and that the plane kept going on autopilot for two hours until it ran out of fuel.
Authorities say the cabin pressure control settings had been operated improperly and that an alarm went unheeded. Last Tuesday the attorney general of Cyprus said five people would face criminal charges for the crash.
The FAA’s order applies to all Boeing 737s, the world’s best-selling commercial jet with more than 6,000 orders since the model was launched in 1965 and 5,397 in use worldwide, and takes effect in 120 days. Public notice and comment requirements were waived “because an unsafe condition exists that requires the immediate adoption” of the directive, according to the notice.
Changes in the manuals must be made by each airline. The process is complex, varying by aircraft as well as the nature of the change, and new wording must be validated before it can take effect, FAA spokesman Les Dorr said.
FAA directives typically are reissued by civil aviation authorities in other countries.
Chicago-based Boeing Co. and FAA representatives said the cockpit warning horn serves a dual purpose. On the ground it indicates something is wrong with the plane’s pre-takeoff configuration, such as the setting of the wing flaps. In the air it means a loss of cabin pressure, which can cause pilots to lose consciousness if they don’t immediately put on oxygen masks.
The FAA directed on July 7, 2006, that flight manuals be changed to remind pilots to pay heed to the warning horn after takeoff, but “we have received continuing reports of in-service events involving failure of the flight crew to recognize and react property to valid cabin altitude (air pressure) warning horns,” according to the latest directive.
It was not immediately clear which airlines were involved in the reports of pilots ignoring the horn, when the problems occurred or whether any U.S. carriers were involved.
Such problems in other countries typically are reported to civil aviation authorities who then notify the manufacturer, in this case Boeing, which in turn alerts the FAA, Dorr said.
Before the Helios crash, Boeing was alerted to “some cases where flight crews were getting confused” about the alarm horn and advised airlines “to do a little crew training on that,” Boeing spokeswoman Liz Verdier said.
After the FAA’s initial directive, which largely incorporated Boeing’s advisory note, the manufacturer began working on a change in the cockpit and flight deck design to incorporate a warning light that will provide a second indication of cabin pressure loss when the horn sounds, Verdier said.
“Within the next month or so,” she said, Boeing expects to have the change ready to incorporate into production of current models, the 737-700, -800 and 900, followed by production of retrofitting kits for earlier models a few months after that.
The FAA may propose further action to “address the unsafe condition” once the warning light kits are available, according to the airworthiness directive.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.
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.
Bombardier is caught up in Iraq-Kuwait dispute
Date: 10/10/2008 7:05 PM
By CHARMAINE NORONHA
Associated Press Writer
TORONTO (AP) _ Bombardier Inc. is trapped in the middle of a protracted legal battle between former enemies Iraq and Kuwait, as Kuwait Airways seeks to get its hands on 10 aircraft that Iraq commissioned from the Canadian plane maker.
The Montreal-based company is denying that it defied a court order barring deliveries of planes to Iraq, arguing that it sent one plane to Iraq after the court order was lifted last week but before it was effectively reinstated after Kuwait Airways appealed.
The Bombardier case is part of a larger effort by Kuwait to force Iraq to pay reparations after Iraq invaded the tiny kingdom in 1990. As part of that case, Kuwait Airways claims it is owed $1.2 billion in judgments dealing with Iraqi Airways to compensate it for aircraft and equipment stolen during the Iraqi invasion and is seeking to take over the planes as partial payment.
The Kuwaiti airline also says it is owed an additional $83.5 million in legal costs after a British court — where the original reparations case has largely been playing out — ruled that the Iraqi airline had perjured itself and ordered it to pay the money to its Kuwaiti counterpart.
The findings of perjury led to 12 years of previous decisions being overthrown and the case continues, lawyers for Kuwait Airways said, making it the longest running commercial case in the history of the British courts. Kuwait Airways has argued that the Iraqi government is liable for the airline because it owns it.
Hoping to recoup some of the money, Kuwait Airways secured a Quebec Superior Court order in August allowing it to seize the aircraft that Iraqi Airways had recently commissioned from Bombardier, said Christopher Gooding, a lawyer with the London law firm Howard Kennedy. His firm has represented Kuwait Airways since the day after the invasion of Kuwait.
However, Quebec Superior Court Justice Paul Chaput lifted the order on Oct. 1 after the Iraqi government argued that no Canadian court has jurisdiction in the case because it involves a foreign government. Gooding said that the order was lifted as far as the state of Iraq was concerned, but remained in effect for the Iraqi airline.
The ruling was suspended on appeal on Wednesday.
Lawyers for Kuwait Airways now are accusing Bombardier of transferring the plane despite the suspension of judgment pending the resolution of the appeal.
Under the original agreement, the remaining nine planes are to be delivered to Iraq through the rest of the year and into 2009.
Bombardier spokesman John Arnone said that the plane maker was not in violation because the company had been dealing directly with the Iraqi government and not the airline and the aircraft was delivered before the appeal was filed.
Gooding, however, said Kuwait Airways is owed the planes and was prepared to seize them if they fly to “a suitable jurisdiction.” Arnone said the plane in question was in Iraq.
Neither Gooding or Arnone would comment further.
The Quebec Court of Appeal is scheduled to hear a motion from Kuwait Airways on Oct. 20.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.
By CHARMAINE NORONHA
Associated Press Writer
TORONTO (AP) _ Bombardier Inc. is trapped in the middle of a protracted legal battle between former enemies Iraq and Kuwait, as Kuwait Airways seeks to get its hands on 10 aircraft that Iraq commissioned from the Canadian plane maker.
The Montreal-based company is denying that it defied a court order barring deliveries of planes to Iraq, arguing that it sent one plane to Iraq after the court order was lifted last week but before it was effectively reinstated after Kuwait Airways appealed.
The Bombardier case is part of a larger effort by Kuwait to force Iraq to pay reparations after Iraq invaded the tiny kingdom in 1990. As part of that case, Kuwait Airways claims it is owed $1.2 billion in judgments dealing with Iraqi Airways to compensate it for aircraft and equipment stolen during the Iraqi invasion and is seeking to take over the planes as partial payment.
The Kuwaiti airline also says it is owed an additional $83.5 million in legal costs after a British court — where the original reparations case has largely been playing out — ruled that the Iraqi airline had perjured itself and ordered it to pay the money to its Kuwaiti counterpart.
The findings of perjury led to 12 years of previous decisions being overthrown and the case continues, lawyers for Kuwait Airways said, making it the longest running commercial case in the history of the British courts. Kuwait Airways has argued that the Iraqi government is liable for the airline because it owns it.
Hoping to recoup some of the money, Kuwait Airways secured a Quebec Superior Court order in August allowing it to seize the aircraft that Iraqi Airways had recently commissioned from Bombardier, said Christopher Gooding, a lawyer with the London law firm Howard Kennedy. His firm has represented Kuwait Airways since the day after the invasion of Kuwait.
However, Quebec Superior Court Justice Paul Chaput lifted the order on Oct. 1 after the Iraqi government argued that no Canadian court has jurisdiction in the case because it involves a foreign government. Gooding said that the order was lifted as far as the state of Iraq was concerned, but remained in effect for the Iraqi airline.
The ruling was suspended on appeal on Wednesday.
Lawyers for Kuwait Airways now are accusing Bombardier of transferring the plane despite the suspension of judgment pending the resolution of the appeal.
Under the original agreement, the remaining nine planes are to be delivered to Iraq through the rest of the year and into 2009.
Bombardier spokesman John Arnone said that the plane maker was not in violation because the company had been dealing directly with the Iraqi government and not the airline and the aircraft was delivered before the appeal was filed.
Gooding, however, said Kuwait Airways is owed the planes and was prepared to seize them if they fly to “a suitable jurisdiction.” Arnone said the plane in question was in Iraq.
Neither Gooding or Arnone would comment further.
The Quebec Court of Appeal is scheduled to hear a motion from Kuwait Airways on Oct. 20.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.
NextGen could eliminate outdated airways
Date: 10/9/2008 2:30 PM
By MICHAEL TARM
Associated Press Writer
CHICAGO (AP) _ A World War II-era air traffic network that often forces planes to take longer, zigzagging routes is costing U.S. airlines billions of dollars in wasted fuel while an upgrade to a satellite-based system has languished in the planning stages for more than a decade.
The $35 billion plan would replace the current radar system with the kind of GPS technology that has become commonplace in cars and cell phones. Supporters say it would triple air traffic capacity, reduce delays by at least half, improve safety and curb greenhouse gas emissions.
An Associated Press analysis of federal and industry data found that if the new system were already in place, airlines could have saved more than $5 billion in fuel this year alone.
But funding delays and the complexities of the switchover have kept the project grounded. The government does not expect to have it up and running until the early 2020s, and without a major commitment, supporters warn that even that goal might be not be attainable.
“The United States has been to the moon and back. I think the public deserves that same level of effort for our national airspace system,” Robert Sturgell, the acting administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration, said in a recent interview.
The planned satellite-driven network, dubbed NextGen, would save fuel by ditching radar technology that is more than 50 years old and enabling GPS-equipped planes to fly the shortest route between two points: a straight line.
NextGen could save airlines at least 3.3 billion gallons of fuel a year — or more than $10 billion annually by 2025, based on today’s fuel prices, according to FAA projections obtained by The Associated Press.
Currently, jetliners move in single-file lines along narrow highways in the sky marked by radio beacons. Many of the routes gently zigzag from one beacon to the next, sometimes forcing cross-country flights to follow sweeping arcs and waste hundreds of gallons of fuel.
It’s “the equivalent of using an electric typewriter when others are using computers,” said David Castelveter, a spokesman for the Air Transportation Association. “It’s a huge, huge drag on productivity.”
Some private and commercial aircraft already are equipped with GPS devices that pilots use to determine their position, but the NextGen system would dramatically expand use of the technology by creating a nationwide GPS network for air traffic.
Building the network involves gradually putting together the new system while still relying on radar for day-to-day operations.
Gerald Dillingham, director of civil aviation issues at the U.S. Government Accountability Office, likened the process “to changing a tire on a car that’s going 60 miles an hour.”
Hank Krakowski, the FAA’s head of the air traffic system, called it “one of the largest project management challenges the federal government has had since we put somebody on the moon.”
Airports also have to make improvements to accommodate the expected increase in air traffic.
U.S. airlines have struggled in recent years, in part because of rising fuel prices. Ten airlines have shut down and others are facing bankruptcy. Their financial troubles mean less-frequent flights and fewer amenities for air travelers, who must pay more for tickets, luggage, drinks — even pillows.
A report on NextGen released last month by the Government Accountability Office said major problems remained, including a lack of detail about just how the system would work and a shortage of the kind of highly skilled managers needed to see the project through.
Critics have said the Bush administration, while expressing support for a satellite-based system, never pushed hard enough for it.
“The next president needs to make the NextGen initiative a national priority and ensure that it is given the resources, management attention and sense of urgency that it warrants,” said Rep. Bart Gordon, a Democrat from Tennessee and chairman of the House Science and Technology Committee.
Airlines are expected to contribute $15 billion toward the $35 billion project, and they must equip their fleets with GPS at a cost of more than $200,000 per plane.
But most carriers — which are otherwise enthusiastic about NextGen — are reluctant to retrofit planes years, maybe decades, before the satellite network is fully operational.
“It’s like you buying a new car and the dealer saying, ‘How would you like to buy this nifty GPS technology — but it won’t be available in your area for years,’” Castelveter said.
The NextGen system could offer airlines a 10 percent savings in fuel costs per year. If the network were in place today, it would essentially pay for itself in just seven years.
GPS is already used in many parts of the aviation world. Many European countries, China and even Mongolia have established some GPS networks or plan to do so soon.
At least one major U.S. carrier, Southwest Airlines, says it’s investing $175 million to equip 500 planes with GPS within a few years. That will allow pilots to fly more efficiently even before the full NextGen system is in place, including quicker landings that burn less fuel.
Getting each of its planes on the ground just one minute faster, Southwest says, would save $25 million in fuel a year.
The airline could wait until the new system is up and running, “but we’re pouring gas down the drain,” said Dan Gerrity, CEO of Naverus Inc., which is helping Southwest implement its GPS plans.
Cargo carrier UPS has also installed GPS gear on hundreds of aircraft for use at its Louisville, Ky., hub, saying the technology will save nearly a million gallons of fuel a year, as well as reduce noise and emissions by around 30 percent.
NextGen would also help airliners fly, land and takeoff closer together, minimizing delays. Even though the technology would allow more planes into the sky, the FAA and pilots agree that the technology would actually reduce the risk of accidents such as midair collisions and runway incursions.
NextGen would for the first time let flight crews view precisely where other aircraft are using a cockpit monitor. The current radar system takes more than 10 seconds to scan an area, so controllers keep aircraft separated by several miles as a precaution.
Most pilots see NextGen as the best hope for keeping flights on time. Rory Kay of the Air Line Pilots Association said the improved technology could also help relieve pilot fatigue by cutting the time planes wait on the ground.
Passenger groups generally support the project, even though they expect airlines to pass some costs onto customers.
“But we think it’ll all be worth it in the long run,” said David Stempler, president of the Air Travelers Association. “The alternatives look pretty bleak to us.”
To the FAA’s consternation, Congress has failed to pass a bill giving the agency permission to dip into the nation’s aviation trust fund to spend nearly $6 billion on NextGen over the next five years.
Robert Poole, an aviation expert with the free market-oriented Reason Foundation, said some legislators are reluctant to vote for a satellite system that would make eliminate hundreds of jobs at radar stations in their districts.
Meanwhile, the air traffic controllers union, which is often at odds with FAA brass over labor issues, accuses the agency of seeing the whiz-bang satellite technology as a cure-all for aviation problems.
It says some of the millions of dollars earmarked for NextGen would be better spent maintaining the current system, citing an FAA computer glitch in August that delayed 650 flights at airports from Orlando to Chicago.
It’s become fashionable, he added, to blame the radar system for aviation ills while ignoring other factors — such as overbooked flights and a lack of suitable airports and runways.
“GPS might be great to put in your car, too, but it’s not going to get you to work any faster unless they open up another lane on the highway. And it’s the same in the air,” said Doug Church of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association.
Poole said the FAA has a track record of proposing dazzling-sounding projects, then failing to deliver.
He cites an FAA initiative called STARS, which was launched a decade ago to give controllers advanced, multicolored radar screens. The project missed deadlines, went hundreds of millions of dollars over budget and had to be scaled down.
Poole doesn’t doubt NextGen’s potential, but he’s pessimistic about the prospects for rapid progress.
“I just think it’s very unlikely to be done in anything like the time frame and the budget now projected,” he said. “And that will be a tragedy for aviation.”
___
On the Net:
Federal Aviation Administration: http://www.faa.gov/
Air Transportation Association: http://www.airlines.org/
National Air Traffic Controllers Association: http://www.natca.org/
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.
By MICHAEL TARM
Associated Press Writer
CHICAGO (AP) _ A World War II-era air traffic network that often forces planes to take longer, zigzagging routes is costing U.S. airlines billions of dollars in wasted fuel while an upgrade to a satellite-based system has languished in the planning stages for more than a decade.
The $35 billion plan would replace the current radar system with the kind of GPS technology that has become commonplace in cars and cell phones. Supporters say it would triple air traffic capacity, reduce delays by at least half, improve safety and curb greenhouse gas emissions.
An Associated Press analysis of federal and industry data found that if the new system were already in place, airlines could have saved more than $5 billion in fuel this year alone.
But funding delays and the complexities of the switchover have kept the project grounded. The government does not expect to have it up and running until the early 2020s, and without a major commitment, supporters warn that even that goal might be not be attainable.
“The United States has been to the moon and back. I think the public deserves that same level of effort for our national airspace system,” Robert Sturgell, the acting administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration, said in a recent interview.
The planned satellite-driven network, dubbed NextGen, would save fuel by ditching radar technology that is more than 50 years old and enabling GPS-equipped planes to fly the shortest route between two points: a straight line.
NextGen could save airlines at least 3.3 billion gallons of fuel a year — or more than $10 billion annually by 2025, based on today’s fuel prices, according to FAA projections obtained by The Associated Press.
Currently, jetliners move in single-file lines along narrow highways in the sky marked by radio beacons. Many of the routes gently zigzag from one beacon to the next, sometimes forcing cross-country flights to follow sweeping arcs and waste hundreds of gallons of fuel.
It’s “the equivalent of using an electric typewriter when others are using computers,” said David Castelveter, a spokesman for the Air Transportation Association. “It’s a huge, huge drag on productivity.”
Some private and commercial aircraft already are equipped with GPS devices that pilots use to determine their position, but the NextGen system would dramatically expand use of the technology by creating a nationwide GPS network for air traffic.
Building the network involves gradually putting together the new system while still relying on radar for day-to-day operations.
Gerald Dillingham, director of civil aviation issues at the U.S. Government Accountability Office, likened the process “to changing a tire on a car that’s going 60 miles an hour.”
Hank Krakowski, the FAA’s head of the air traffic system, called it “one of the largest project management challenges the federal government has had since we put somebody on the moon.”
Airports also have to make improvements to accommodate the expected increase in air traffic.
U.S. airlines have struggled in recent years, in part because of rising fuel prices. Ten airlines have shut down and others are facing bankruptcy. Their financial troubles mean less-frequent flights and fewer amenities for air travelers, who must pay more for tickets, luggage, drinks — even pillows.
A report on NextGen released last month by the Government Accountability Office said major problems remained, including a lack of detail about just how the system would work and a shortage of the kind of highly skilled managers needed to see the project through.
Critics have said the Bush administration, while expressing support for a satellite-based system, never pushed hard enough for it.
“The next president needs to make the NextGen initiative a national priority and ensure that it is given the resources, management attention and sense of urgency that it warrants,” said Rep. Bart Gordon, a Democrat from Tennessee and chairman of the House Science and Technology Committee.
Airlines are expected to contribute $15 billion toward the $35 billion project, and they must equip their fleets with GPS at a cost of more than $200,000 per plane.
But most carriers — which are otherwise enthusiastic about NextGen — are reluctant to retrofit planes years, maybe decades, before the satellite network is fully operational.
“It’s like you buying a new car and the dealer saying, ‘How would you like to buy this nifty GPS technology — but it won’t be available in your area for years,’” Castelveter said.
The NextGen system could offer airlines a 10 percent savings in fuel costs per year. If the network were in place today, it would essentially pay for itself in just seven years.
GPS is already used in many parts of the aviation world. Many European countries, China and even Mongolia have established some GPS networks or plan to do so soon.
At least one major U.S. carrier, Southwest Airlines, says it’s investing $175 million to equip 500 planes with GPS within a few years. That will allow pilots to fly more efficiently even before the full NextGen system is in place, including quicker landings that burn less fuel.
Getting each of its planes on the ground just one minute faster, Southwest says, would save $25 million in fuel a year.
The airline could wait until the new system is up and running, “but we’re pouring gas down the drain,” said Dan Gerrity, CEO of Naverus Inc., which is helping Southwest implement its GPS plans.
Cargo carrier UPS has also installed GPS gear on hundreds of aircraft for use at its Louisville, Ky., hub, saying the technology will save nearly a million gallons of fuel a year, as well as reduce noise and emissions by around 30 percent.
NextGen would also help airliners fly, land and takeoff closer together, minimizing delays. Even though the technology would allow more planes into the sky, the FAA and pilots agree that the technology would actually reduce the risk of accidents such as midair collisions and runway incursions.
NextGen would for the first time let flight crews view precisely where other aircraft are using a cockpit monitor. The current radar system takes more than 10 seconds to scan an area, so controllers keep aircraft separated by several miles as a precaution.
Most pilots see NextGen as the best hope for keeping flights on time. Rory Kay of the Air Line Pilots Association said the improved technology could also help relieve pilot fatigue by cutting the time planes wait on the ground.
Passenger groups generally support the project, even though they expect airlines to pass some costs onto customers.
“But we think it’ll all be worth it in the long run,” said David Stempler, president of the Air Travelers Association. “The alternatives look pretty bleak to us.”
To the FAA’s consternation, Congress has failed to pass a bill giving the agency permission to dip into the nation’s aviation trust fund to spend nearly $6 billion on NextGen over the next five years.
Robert Poole, an aviation expert with the free market-oriented Reason Foundation, said some legislators are reluctant to vote for a satellite system that would make eliminate hundreds of jobs at radar stations in their districts.
Meanwhile, the air traffic controllers union, which is often at odds with FAA brass over labor issues, accuses the agency of seeing the whiz-bang satellite technology as a cure-all for aviation problems.
It says some of the millions of dollars earmarked for NextGen would be better spent maintaining the current system, citing an FAA computer glitch in August that delayed 650 flights at airports from Orlando to Chicago.
It’s become fashionable, he added, to blame the radar system for aviation ills while ignoring other factors — such as overbooked flights and a lack of suitable airports and runways.
“GPS might be great to put in your car, too, but it’s not going to get you to work any faster unless they open up another lane on the highway. And it’s the same in the air,” said Doug Church of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association.
Poole said the FAA has a track record of proposing dazzling-sounding projects, then failing to deliver.
He cites an FAA initiative called STARS, which was launched a decade ago to give controllers advanced, multicolored radar screens. The project missed deadlines, went hundreds of millions of dollars over budget and had to be scaled down.
Poole doesn’t doubt NextGen’s potential, but he’s pessimistic about the prospects for rapid progress.
“I just think it’s very unlikely to be done in anything like the time frame and the budget now projected,” he said. “And that will be a tragedy for aviation.”
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On the Net:
Federal Aviation Administration: http://www.faa.gov/
Air Transportation Association: http://www.airlines.org/
National Air Traffic Controllers Association: http://www.natca.org/
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.