Boeing 737 Max 8s Grounded Around the World

A popular new Boeing airliner has suffered two fatal crashes in six months. Now several nations are grounding the surviving planes while the FAA says the model is still airworthy.

The 737 Max 8 is the newest version of Boeing’s well-selling 737 series airliner with a longer range than the common domestic version. The Max 8 entered service in May 2017 with its first commercial flight operated by Malindo Air of Malaysia. About 18 months later, one of the new planes augured into the Java Sea near Jakarta killing 189 passengers and crew. This week, a second 737 Max 8 crashed in Ethiopia under similar circumstances killing 157.

As a result of the two crashes, the Chinese Civil Aviation Administration grounded Max 8s operated by Chinese airlines. Chinese companies operate 97 of the airliners said CNN citing state media. The Chinese move was followed by Ethiopian Airways and Cayman Airways as they grounded their fleets. Indonesia also ordered its airlines to ground the planes. It is possible that the Chinese decision may have been influenced by the ongoing trade war with the United States and the knowledge that the move would reflect poorly on a major US export.

By Tuesday morning, other countries had decided to ground the plane as well. Australia, Singapore, and several countries in Latin America announced the grounding of their fleets, bring the total share of grounded jets to about 40 percent of the global fleet.

“Here we have a brand-new aircraft that's gone down twice in a year. That rings alarm bells in the aviation industry because that just doesn't happen,” said Mary Schiavo, a CNN aviation analyst.

The first crash, on October 29, 2018, was a Max 8 operated as Lion Air Flight 610 by an Indonesian airline. Shortly after takeoff, the crew reported a flight control problem and announced a return to the airport. Before they could do so, the plane crashed into the sea, killing all aboard, after a 12-minute flight. The preliminary report on the accident blamed a new safety system designed to prevent the aircraft from accidentally stalling.

The second crash, Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, last Sunday was remarkably similar to the Lion Air crash. Although the information is still preliminary, the Ethiopian flight also requested an immediate return after takeoff. Air traffic controllers lost contact with Flight 302 six minutes after takeoff. Both planes crashed in good weather and radar recorded erratic vertical speeds with descents shortly after takeoff when the plane should have been climbing to a safe altitude. The last indication showed Flight 302 descending at 2,000 feet per minute, which is an extremely high descent rate at low altitude.

Despite the similarities and the fact that two US airlines, American and Southwest, operate the Max 8, the FAA has not grounded the US fleet. In a statement, the FAA said, “External reports are drawing similarities between this accident and the Lion Air Flight 610 accident on October 29, 2018. However, this investigation has just begun and to date, we have not been provided data to draw any conclusions or take any actions.”

Other observers are less cautious about a possible connection. Former FAA Inspector David Soucie told CNN, “I've never, ever done this. I've never said that 'Hey, it's unsafe to fly a particular model' but in this case, I'm going to have to go there. I just looked at the flight data of that aircraft. It’s strikingly similar, same issues as with the Max [Lion] Air [crash]. So yeah, I would watch for that airplane.”

The cause of the Lion Air crash appears to be a faulty sensor in a new system that is designed to protect the airplane from a stall. If the wing pitches too high, it loses lift and the airplane ceases flying. The recovery technique for a stall is practiced by all pilots from students to airline captains and consists of lowering the nose of the airplane and increasing power.

A stall typically occurs when the nose of the airplane is raised too high or when the pilot is not using enough power. The safety system in the Max 8 includes a pusher that overrides pilot commands to lower the nose in the event of a stall. In the case of Lion Air, an air data sensor that measures the angle of the wing against the relative wind apparently incorrectly signaled the aircraft’s flight control computers that the aircraft was about to stall. The safety system pushed the nose down, but the plane’s crew pulled up. What followed was 12 excruciating minutes of the airplane trying to push the nose down and the crew frantically trying to pull it back up to keep the airplane in the air.

In the wake of the crash, it was revealed that Boeing initially omitted the new safety system from pilot training manuals for the Max 8. The Lion Air pilots may not have known that the only way to override the new system was to switch it off because older versions of the system in previous 737s could be overridden with pressure on the control yoke. A few days after the Lion Air crash, Boeing released an operations manual bulletin that required airlines to update their pilot manuals, but it is not known whether the Ethiopian crew had received the updated information.

The problem with the 737 Max 8 seems to be partly a mechanical problem with the air data sensors and partly a training problem with pilots who do not apply the correct action when the anti-stall system activates erroneously. Regardless of the exact cause, two crashes and the grounding of the fleet in several countries is a public relations problem for Boeing. The Chinese grounding is a particular problem since China is one of the largest customers of the Max 8. If the airplane gets a bad reputation, passengers may stay away from it, causing airlines to cancel orders.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Few Clues In Houston Crash Of Atlas 767

As yet, there are few clues as to what caused a Boeing 767 jet freighter to crash on arrival into Houston Intercontinental airport on Saturday afternoon. The 767 was operated by Atlas Air, Inc., a cargo airline headquartered in New York. The three crewmembers on board are presumed dead.

The accident aircraft, N1217A, was flying as Amazon Air but was operated by Atlas. Amazon started its cargo airline in 2015 and took delivery of the freighter in April 2017. The airplane was 26 years old and had accumulated more than 90,000 hours over 23,000 flights per the FAA. Amazon Air was originally called Prime Air and some airplanes still carry the old livery. Leasing aircraft and crews is not uncommon in the aviation industry.

Flight tracking on FlightAware.com shows that the Atlas 3591 departed Miami International at 11:33 a.m. on Saturday. Two hours and 19 minutes later, it crashed into the marshes southeast of Houston Intercontinental at about 12:45 Central Time. The flight was only minutes away from landing when air traffic control lost communications with the pilots.

Witnesses reported to Houston’s Channel Two that the 767 crashed nose first into 2-4 feet of water on the east side of Trinity Bay near Anahuac, Texas. Aerial photos showed a trail of debris up to a mile long, which indicates that the airplane was still flying forward when impacted, rather than crashing vertically, which would have left a smaller debris field. This is supported by a video on Instagram that shows the plane losing altitude but still under control as it flew over the bay.

Weather reports at Houston were not available from the time of the accident, but reports from earlier in the morning showed cloud ceilings in multiple layers with bases at approximately 1,000 feet above the ground. Galveston, closer to the accident site, reported a broken 400-foot ceiling with an overcast layer at 2,000 feet at the time of the crash. Neither airport reported significant winds but there were small rain showers and thunderstorms in the area. The video shows higher ceilings than those that were reported at the Houston and Galveston airports. The weather was not abnormally bad and would have been easily handled by the experienced crew.

Information about the flight crew was not available. Their names have not yet been released but the sheriff of Chambers County, Texas told KHOU that human remains had been recovered from the crash site.

Although there have been a number of high-profile airline disasters around the world in recent years, the United States has not suffered an airline crash since UPS Flight 1354 crashed at Birmingham, Alabama on August 14, 2013. That same year, Asiana Airlines Flight 214 crashed short of the runway at San Francisco killing three people and National Airlines Flight 102, another American cargo aircraft, crashed after takeoff from Bagram Airbase in Afghanistan killing seven.

Cargo airlines operate under the same Federal Aviation Regulations that govern passenger carriers. Pilots for cargo airlines meet the same qualifications as passenger airline pilots and, after more than a decade of upheaval in the passenger airline industry, pilot jobs with cargo carriers have been in high demand for their stability and competitive pay.

Companies that fly cargo do face challenges that companies that exclusively carry passengers do not. There are stringent rules for shipping hazardous materials but it is impossible to check every package and improperly shipped cargo can be deadly. In 1996, ValuJet 592 crashed into the Everglades after oxygen generators in the cargo compartment caught fire. The crash of the plane, which also carried passengers, killed 110 people. The National Airlines crash was due to an armored vehicle in the cargo bay that broke loose, damaging the hydraulic systems and shifting the plane’s center of gravity out of limits. A chilling video shows the 747 stall and fall off on to one side before diving into the ground and exploding into a fireball.

Cargo carriers also suffer from the same problems as other airlines. Pilot error and crew fatigue were ruled to be the causes of the crash of UPS Flight 1354. Even when flights occur during the day, crews may be fatigued from traveling across time zones or long duty days that began before the sun came up.

FlightAware shows that the N1217A started the day in Ontario, Ca. with a departure at 2:26 a.m. local time to Miami. It is not known whether the accident crew flew the earlier flight as well.

Although there are many possibilities, the cause of the crash is a mystery at this point. The National Transportation Safety Board is sending investigators to the scene, but the results of the investigation may not be available for months.

Originally published on The Resurgent

C-130 Crash In Savannah

A Puerto Rico Air National Guard C-130 crashed at 11:30 this morning at the Savannah/Hilton Head International Airport in Savannah, Ga. Reports indicate that the military transport plane crashed after takeoff and came to rest on Ga. Hwy. 21, which lies on the east side of the airport.

“As far as we know, no cars were hit which is an absolute miracle,” Gena Bilbo, public information officer for Effingham County Sheriff’s Office, told CNN during a press conference.

A truck driver who witnessed the crash, Roger Best, said, “The guy is a hero he barely made it over the tree line looked as if he tried to turn and nose dive straight into the ground right in front of me.”

A spokesman for the Georgia Air National Guard, Capt. Jeff Bezore, told CBS News that there were at least five fatalities aboard the C-130. There are no reports on how many people were aboard the airplane or whether there may have been some survivors. There are no known fatalities on the ground.

The accident aircraft was a WC-130 variant of the large turboprop transport, used for weather research such as penetrating hurricanes. The first C-130 flew in 1954, but the aircraft is still in production. More than 60 countries around the world operate variants of the C-130, known as the “Hercules.”

The aircraft was enroute to Davis Monthan AFB in Arizona. The cause of the crash is not known, but the airplane has four engines. The loss of one engine takeoff is not normally catastrophic.  

Originally published on The Resurgent

Pilot suicides

Yesterday’s revelation that the recent crash of Germanwings Flight 9525 was caused by an apparent pilot suicide shocked the world. First Officer Andreus Lubitz reportedly locked the captain out of the cockpit and calmly flew the airplane with its 150 passengers into the side of a French mountain, killing everyone on board.

The act of suicide by an airline pilot while flying is not common, but has happened more than most people think. The most well-known suicide pilots, the Japanese kamikazes of World War II, carried no passengers, although the September 11 suicide hijackers did. The Aviation Safety Network lists nine crashes dating back to 1976 that were confirmed to be suicides. Additionally, ABC News notes that a Japan Air Lines pilot crashed his DC-8 in 1982, killing 24 people, but surviving the crash himself. Last year’s disappearance of Malaysia Flight 370 is widely believed to have been due to a pilot suicide as well.

Airline suicide crashes are usually not well known because they have primarily occurred in the third world. The sole suicide crash before Germanwings that affected a Western country was EgyptAir 990, which crashed off the island of Nantucket, Mass. in 1999. The American NTSB determined that a relief first officer crashed the plane into the ocean, killing all 217 people on board, but Egypt disputed the conclusion.

For most people, there are strong psychological barriers against killing oneself or others. A pilot who intentionally crashes his plane has obviously overcome these strong taboos against killing and suicide. While pilots are normal people with normal problems, few people who commit suicide do so while taking hundreds of other lives at the same time. Nevertheless, one study cited by Air & Space Magazine found that suicide was suspected in .33 percent of fatal crashes over 20 years. This is slightly more than one crash per year, mostly involving small airplanes.

Flying is a high stress occupation. Being an airline pilot involves long periods of time away from home and family, which leads to a high divorce rate. The airline industry is often unstable and furloughs (layoffs) or demotions can come suddenly and last years, leading to financial problems. Add to that a grueling schedule with irregular work hours, regular flight tests and medical exams that can quickly end a career, and the knowledge that a momentary lapse can kill or lead to a violation by regulatory authorities and it is easy to understand how a pilot could suffer from depression or substance abuse. In spite of the stress, suicide is not demonstrably higher for pilots according to most studies.

“It's a special job. You are working at irregular times; if you have a family, you are often not there [or] may be at home when everyone is at work,” said Dr. Andre Droog, president of the European Association for Aviation Psychology on Voice of America. “If you are flying intercontinental flights, you may build up jet lag and fatigue and of course you have to manage your life very well.”

In spite of policies at many airlines that encourage pilots to self-report addiction or mental health issues, many pilots are fearful that doing so will cost them their jobs. In 2010, the FAA changed its policy to allow pilots to take antidepressants for mild to moderate depression, but the current policy stipulates that approval is on a case-by-case basis and requires successful treatment for six months, during which time they would not be legal to fly. This effectively means that pilots have to either forgo treatment, fly illegally, or take a six month leave of absence.

In Asia, where several suicide crashes have taken place, many airlines now subject their pilots to psychological testing. “They ask about your mental health, about events that could affect you psychologically,” one captain from an Asian airline told CNBC. “But who willingly admits to anything that could lead to a suspension of their license? I won't. I need my job.”

Since airline crewmembers know each other best, flight crews are encouraged to report any potential problems that they observe. In the United States, many pilot unions have professional standards committees to help resolve interpersonal conflicts. Concerned crewmembers can talk to representatives on these committees without involving company representatives and threatening jobs.

“Never leave a person alone - that's probably the most effective suicide prevention technique there is," said Tony Catanese, a clinical psychologist at Glen Iris Psychology in Melbourne on CNBC.

Federal aviation regulations already require that both pilots remain in the cockpit, but contains an exception for “physiological needs.” For flights lasting from six to eight hours, it is unrealistic to assume that neither pilot would ever have to visit the lavatory. On most flights, there are no relief crews to fill the empty seat for a few minutes. Cockpit doors have been strengthened since the September 11 attacks to resist forcible entry, making it difficult for the second pilot to break back in.

One solution might be for a flight attendant enter the cockpit when one pilot leaves. The Flight Attendant would probably not be able to wrestle the controls from a suicidal pilot, but might be able to at least prevent him from locking the other pilot out.

Ultimately, there is no way to effectively prevent any possibility of future airline pilot suicides. At present, even though the shock of the Germanwings crash is still fresh, the problem of suicides by pilots is a tiny statistical blip. The vast majority of airline pilots around the world are professionals who have learned to cope with life’s problems and keep them out of the cockpit.

 

Read the full article on Aviation Examiner

Windshear!

The copilot accepted the approach clearance and I turned the Lear 45 toward the initial fix for the approach.

We were flying into Victoria, Texas to pick up two members of the family that owned the airplane for a trip to sunny Florida. Sunny was something Victoria was not today. The ATIS, the recorded weather broadcast for the airport, reported low ceilings, heavy rain, gusty winds and limited visibility. Our airborne weather radar indicated a band of rain just south of the airport. We had been enveloped in clouds for the entire short flight from Houston.

We descended to 2,000 feet to start the instrument approach, a GPS-based approach to runway 31 right. We configured the airplane for landing and began the descent along the electronic glide path toward the runway.

We had only descended about 200 feet when the airspeed went crazy. First, the speed increased by 30 knots, almost reaching the maximum speed for the flaps. Then, just as quickly, it reversed and dropped rapidly into the red, low-speed tape on the primary flight display.

“STALL… STALL,” the electronic voice of the Learjet’s warning system called out.

I advanced the throttles to maximum thrust and called out, “windshear, flaps eight,” to begin the missed approach procedure. We “cleaned up” the airplane from landing configuration, retracted the flaps and landing gear, and climbed to the missed approach altitude. Or rather, we climbed through the missed approach altitude. With the airspeed in safe territory but still fluctuating, we ballooned several hundred feet high. Even with reduced power and pointing the nose down, the Learjet did not want to descend.

Shortly after, the controller assigned us a climb and vectored us around for another try. With the weather rapidly moving through the area, we were able to fly behind the squall and land successfully and without experiencing anything abnormal other than rain so heavy that it partially obscured the view through the windshield.

What we had experienced was the worst windshear of my career. Windshear is any sudden change in wind speed or direction over a short distance. It can occur either horizontally or vertically. While windshear can occur at any altitude, it is more dangerous when the aircraft is close to the ground.

In 1985, Delta Air Lines Flight 191 crashed when it encountered windshear on approach at Dallas - Fort Worth International Airport (KDFW). The Lockheed L1011 was flying through the rain shaft of a thunderstorm while on an ILS approach when the headwind suddenly decreased by 25 knots and ultimately increased to a 30 knot tailwind while the downdraft increased from 18 to more than 30 feet per second according to an FAA analysis. In spite of applying full power to all three engines, the aircraft hit an open field just short of the runway then became airborne again to strike a light pole and car on a road near the approach end. The airplane ultimately hit two water towers on the airport property and exploded. The accident killed 136 of the 163 passengers and crew plus the driver of the car.

An analysis of the accident showed that the plane likely flew through a microburst, a very intense downdraft that is localized to an area about two miles in radius. The airplane first encountered increasing performance as it flew through the updraft at the periphery of the microburst, causing it to go high on the glideslope. Then, as the airplane entered the downdraft, the airspeed slowed dramatically and the airplane went below the glideslope, triggering an alert from the plane’s ground proximity warning system (GPWS). In spite of going to full power, it was too late for the airplane to successfully fly out of the windshear.

Although windshear was known in 1985, it wasn’t well understood. According to the FAA, the Delta 191 crash resulted in changes to training to help pilots better recognize the danger of windshear and make a decision to use an escape maneuver early rather than continuing the approach. New technology, such as airport low level windshear alert systems (LLWSAS), better radar, and enhanced GPWS with a windshear protection mode have contributed to safety as well. There are limitations though. In my windshear incident, the GPWS windshear alert was not triggered because the airplane was above 1,500 feet, outside the danger zone for takeoff and landing.

The windshear escape maneuver can vary from airplane to airplane, but is typically similar. The flying pilot should advance the throttles to maximum power and pitch the airplane nose up sharply. It should go without saying that the autopilot should be disconnected for this. No configuration changes, such as retracting or extending flaps and landing gear, should be made while the airplane is in windshear. Once the airplane has gained the safety of altitude and airspeed, flaps and gear should be retracted.

If windshear is likely on takeoff, the pilot can choose to delay rotation. Delayed rotation means extra airspeed in the early stages of the climb that can be very helpful if the airplane encounters windshear shortly after takeoff. Rotation speed (Vr) can generally be increased by 10 percent to a maximum of 20 knots (check your aircraft guidelines and limitations). This speed should be briefed, but should not be set with an airspeed bug. Consider the extra runway that will be needed due to the longer acceleration time as well.

Similarly, the landing reference speed (Vref) can be increased as well. An old rule of thumb is that landing speeds can be increased by half the gust factor. If the wind speed is reported as “10, gusting to 20 knots,” Vref can be increased by five knots. Stable approaches typically require that the airspeed on approach be no more than 20 knots faster than Vref, so this should be considered a limit for increasing the landing speed. Again, consider the runway since a higher landing speed means that more stopping distance is required.

Ultimately, avoidance is the best tool for surviving windshear. The Flight Safety Foundation identifies several warning signs for windshear. These include thunderstorms, gusty frontal passages, blowing dust, rings of dust, whirlwinds, mountain waves, and, of course, warnings from airport windshear alert systems or pilot reports. If conditions are ripe for windshear, be prepared to go around. In some cases, a delay or diversion might be the best course of action. Microbursts often only last for about 15 minutes so a short delay can make a big difference in safety.

Read the rest on Aviation Examiner

Chilling video shows plane crash in Taiwan

The crash of a TransAsia ATR-72 today in Taiwan was captured in a dramatic video from a dashboard camera in a taxi. The 25 second video, along with another longer but more distant video, can be seen on Uproxx.com.

The video shows the turboprop airliner descending rapidly across a bridge in front of the taxi. As it descends, the airplane rolls approximately 90 degrees onto its left wing. As the plane passes in front of the taxi, its left wingtip and tail strike the road in front of the car before it disappears from view.

According to a report from BBC, TransAsia Airways Flight 235, also referred to as GE235, crashed shortly after takeoff from Taipei Shongshan Airport. Pilots radioed that there was an “engine flameout” according a New York Times report. After passing in front of the taxi’s camera, the airplane came to rest in the Keelung River, a short distance from the airport. The flight was enroute to Kinmen and carried 53 passengers and five crew. At least 19 people are reported dead.

The New York Times reported that both pilots were very experienced. The 42-year-old captain had 4,914 hours including 3,400 in the ATR. The first officer was 45-years-old and had 6,922 hours with 6,500 in ATRs. Nevertheless, preliminary information appears to indicate that the airplane suffered an engine failure on takeoff and that the crew was not able to maintain control.

This is the second fatal crash for TransAsia in six months. Last July, another ATR crashed while landing in a monsoon. That crash killed 48 people.

The ATR 72 is built by the French and Italian company, ATR. The type first flew in 1988, but the New Times reports that the accident aircraft, an ATR 72-600, was only a year old. Although the ATR was once flown by American airlines, it is now principally operated in the US as a cargo freighter by FedEx. In 1994, an American Eagle ATR crashed in Roselawn, Ind. That crash was attributed to airframe icing.

Recovery efforts are still underway in the TransAsia crash. Several of the plane’s passengers are still missing.

 

Read the full article on Examiner.com

Air Asia pilots did not scream ‘Allahuakhbar’

A popular story going around the internet today is that the cockpit voice recorder, one of the “black boxes,” from Air Asia Flight 8501 revealed the chilling last words of the pilots. In the story, typically attributed to Yahoo News Singapore, claims that a National Transportation Safety Committee investigator revealed the last words of the pilots to be “Allahuakhbar, Allahuakhbar.” The implication from American news outlets that have picked up the Yahoo story is that the Air Asia crash was the result of Islamic terrorism. Investigation by Examiner reveals that this is not true. At the very least, the claim is premature.

The Yahoo article is an almost word-for-word copy of an earlier article from the New Straits Times, an English language newspaper published in Malaysia. A pundit from The Right Scoop noted that Yahoo had omitted a crucial detail from their version of the story.

In the NST story, the investigator, Nurcahyo Utomo, says, “It is as if we can feel them... Allahuakhbar, Allahuakhbar were the last words said before they died.” Yahoo repeats this quote in its entirety.

The NST description of the quote was “he said referring to his experience analising [sic] black boxes from past crashes.” The Yahoo article omitted this entire phrase, leaving readers with the impression that the quote came from the Air Asia pilots rather than pilots of crashes that Utomo had previously investigated.

When viewed in the context of the entire article, it is clear that Utomo has not yet analyzed the cockpit voice recorder from the Air Asia crash. The lead sentence of the story says that analyzing the data will – note the future tense – be difficult for Utomo because he knew the pilot personally.

The last sentence quotes Utomo as saying, “I could not imagine how I am going to listen to his last words.” Again, the article and Utomo himself use future tense, implying that he has not yet heard the recording of the last words.

In its entirety, the article discusses Utomo’s past experiences with crash investigations and listening to cockpit voice recordings. “Listening to the playback of a black box involved in a crash is not like listening to music or a discussion,” he said. “We are listening to a recording that represents the last moments before the crash and it is disturbing. There are times where the investigators would get unnerved listening to the recording.”

The NST article goes on to say, “analysing [sic] the recording while listening to their final words like ‘Allahuakhbar’ repeatedly, give the investigators goose bumps” according to Utomo.

While it is possible that the Air Asia pilots said “Allahuakhbar” before they died, there is no indication that the cockpit voice recorder and other black boxes have already been examined. The absence of this story from the mainstream American media and its presence only on blog-type sites should be an indication of its lack of credibility.

Read the full article on Aviation Examiner

Malaysia 370 may have been hundreds of miles off course

Speculation about Malaysia 370, the Malaysian Airlines flight that has been missing since March 8, has reached a fever pitch. The disappearance of the jumbo jet has fueled the imagination of the world as people try to understand how a 775,000 pound airliner with 239 people could seemingly vanish into thin air. New information released on March 11 now indicates that the searchers may have been looking 350 miles from the actual crash site. As reported by Reuters, an anonymous Malaysian military official now says that military radars tracked the plane long after civilian air traffic control lost contact. When the plane’s transponder disappeared from civilian air traffic radar, the plane apparently turned west and descended several thousand feet below its cruise altitude.

When contact was lost about an hour into the flight, MH 370 was flying at 35,000 feet (10,668 meters) and nearing the southern coast of Vietnam. According to the Reuters report, the plane then turned west and lost 1,000 meters (3,280 feet in altitude). The flight then traveled west for about an hour, crossing the Malay Peninsula. Head of the Malay air force, Gen. Rodzali Daud, told the Malay newspaper Berita Harian, that the plane was last detected at 2:40 a.m., approximately two hours after takeoff, near the island of Pulau Perak, located at the northern end of the Strait of Malacca.

The new information may explain why four days of searching have not yielded any trace of the missing plane, but it prompts new questions as well. It appears that the airplane did not suffer an abrupt structural failure or catastrophic bomb attack that caused an immediate crash, but no one can be certain what caused the airplane to fly under control for hundreds of miles before it presumably plunged into the sea. A timeline of the flight in International Business Times reported that weather along the route was good so loss of control due to storms or lightning strikes can be ruled out.

There are several possible scenarios. One possibility is a rapid decompression combined with an electrical failure. If the airplane’s pressurization failed at 35,000 feet the time of useful consciousness for the pilots would have been about 30 seconds (possibly less since at least one of the pilots was a known smoker, which inhibits the ability of the blood to carry oxygen). Normally, this is plenty of time for a pilot to don his oxygen mask and initiate an emergency descent to the thicker air at lower altitudes.

This theory also does not explain the fact that the plane’s transponder stopped responding to radar queries. One possibility is that that some sort of catastrophic failure caused the pressurization problem as well as a total electrical failure. If trimmed properly, the plane could have flown for hundreds of miles until its fuel was exhausted or something disturbed its equilibrium. It is possible that a bomb that did not immediately destroy the airplane may have caused it to depressurize and lose electrical power.

There are additional problems with this scenario. The airplane had fuel to fly well beyond the two hours when it was last in radar contact. The plane was fueled for a flight to Beijing that would have landed at 6:30 a.m. (Beijing is in the same time zone as Kuala Lumpur). It is possible that the plane flew even further into the Indian Ocean before running out of fuel and crashing.

Further, airliners have more than one source of electricity. Multiple generators and batteries make an instantaneous electrical failure unlikely. Using battery power, the crew should have been able to at least report their situation to ATC. An electrical failure without some sort of crew incapacitation would require a series of serious pilot errors to wander 300 miles off course without any radio contact.

Another possibility is a hijacking, although this is unlikely due to the scrutiny given to the plane’s passengers since its disappearance. Two passengers from Iran were revealed to be traveling on stolen passports, but authorities report having found no links to terrorist groups with these men or the other passengers. Yahoo News Australia reported that several Chinese journalists had received an untraceable email from an encrypted service that claimed responsibility for the attack and referenced last week’s knife attack by Uyghur separatists in China that killed 29.

The Malaysia Airlines website notes that the 777-200 is equipped with satellite phones. In the event of a hijacking or other nonelectrical emergency, it is likely that passengers would have attempted to use these phones to contact authorities or their loved ones as many passengers did during the September 11 attacks. A hijacker in the cockpit might have been able to disable the phones by pulling the cabin circuit breaker, however. They would also likely have been unavailable in a catastrophic electrical failure.

There are problems with the hijacking scenario as well. The biggest is that the plane likely crashed into the sea. Terrorists would have probably chosen a high value target for maximum destruction or landed and presented demands to authorities. It would probably have taken more than the two identified Iranians to control the 239 passengers and crew on MH 370. Yahoo Australian News did report on March 10 that Malaysia’s transport ministry was looking at four suspect passengers.

Perhaps the most likely theory is that one of the pilots committed suicide, taking the rest of the passengers and crew with him. In this scenario, one of the pilots would have left the cockpit, perhaps for a trip to the lav, and the other pilot would have locked him out of the cockpit and disabled the satellite phones in the cabin. At that point, the flying pilot would have turned off the transponder and flown the airplane until either its fuel ran out or until he decided to deliberately crash.

There have been a number of pilots who committed suicide by crashing their airliners. Suicide is suspected in the November 2013 crash of a Mozambique Airlines Embraer 190 according to the International Business Times. The most famous case of pilot suicide was the 1999 crash of Egypt Air 990 enroute from New York to Cairo. Two more crashes in the 1990s, one in Indonesia and the other in Morocco, were also attributed to suicide. A Japan Air Lines DC-8 crashed in 1982 during the captain’s unsuccessful suicide attempt.

It may be days before the wreckage of Malaysia 370 is located. In 2009, it took five days to locate the remains of Air France 447. Even without full radar coverage, the South China Morning Post reported that Rolls Royce, the manufacturer of the plane’s engines, tracks all its engines from its control center in England. It is believed that Boeing has a similar capability for tracking its airplanes.

With Air France 447, it took years to retrieve the flight data recorder and determine the cause of the accident, the answer was finally found. In the case of MH 370, due to the long elapsed time between the loss of contact and the ultimate crash, many of the answers may never be found. Engine parameters will be recorded by the flight data recorder, but cockpit voice recorders are only required to record 30 minutes. They typically delete earlier recordings as they record in a loop. This may mean that the crew’s reaction to whatever happened near the coast of Vietnam is forever lost.

Read the full article on National Aviation Examiner

Preliminary details of UPS crash in Birmingham

Yesterday United Parcel Service Flight 1354 crashed while on approach to runway 18 in Birmingham, Al. The crash occurred at approximately 4:45 a.m. Central Time (9:45 Zulu). Both crewmembers died in the crash. The flight originated at the UPS hub in Louisville, Ky.

The hourly weather report taken shortly after the crash at 4:53 a.m. (0953Z) indicated few clouds at 1,100 feet with a broken ceiling layer at 3,500 feet. There was an overcast layer at 7,500 feet. Rain was not reported. The wind was reported from 340 degrees at four knots. This would have meant a slight tailwind for a landing on runway 18, but would have likely been within acceptable limits.

GlobalAir.com’s airport directory reports that runway 18 is 7,099 feet long. There are two instrument approaches to runway 18, a GPS approach and a localizer approach. Both approaches would have taken the airplane to a minimum altitude of 600 feet above the ground, which would have been sufficient to clear the lowest cloud layer.

The crash site was reported by Birmingham’s Fox 6 to be approximately one quarter mile north of the airport, indicating that the airplane would have been on short final to the runway. Normally the aircraft would have been about 100 above the ground at this point. Witnesses reported abnormal sounds coming from the plane’s engines, but the crew did not report any problems.

CNBC reported that the crash caused at least two explosions and a fire on the ground. The airplane came to rest in a field outside the airport perimeter. A CNBC video shows what appears to be an explosion amid the post-crash fire. Raw video from Birmingham’s WHAS also shows the post-crash fire. The crash reportedly did not damage any structures on the ground.

The pilots of the airplane were not identified, but the Moore County News reported that Shanda Carney Fanning, 37, of Lynchburg, Tenn. was killed. Fanning’s husband, Brett Fanning, is an employee at the Jack Daniels distillery. The Daily Mail reported that Fanning was the first officer of the flight.

The accident aircraft was reported to be an Airbus A300F4-600R. According to Airliners.net, the A300F4-600R is a modification of the A300 which first flew in 1983. First flight of the A300-600 was in 1987. The updated A300 incorporated a more advanced cockpit and increased range. The “R” denotes a long range version with a fuel trim tank in the tail and a higher maximum takeoff weight. The “F” denotes a freighter version of the aircraft. The UPS website notes that the company operated 53 of the heavy Airbus freighters.

The Aviation Safety Network lists a total of 21 hull-loss accidents for the A300 series. Only one of these accidents, the crash of American Airlines Flight 587 in Belle Harbor, N.Y. on November 12, 2001, was in the United States. This accident was determined to have been caused by the first officer’s excessive rudder inputs in response to a possible encounter with wake turbulence.

The Birmingham crash is the second fatal UPS Airlines crash. On September 3, 2010, UPS Flight 6 caught fire and crashed 45 minutes after takeoff from the Dubai airport in Qatar. Both crewmembers aboard the Boeing 747-400F were killed. Al Qaeda claimed responsibility for the crash according to Reuters, but the official report of the crash by the General Civil Aviation Authority of the United Arab Emirates focuses on the cargo of lithium batteries as a source of ignition for the fire.

In 2006, another UPS freighter was destroyed by fire in Philadelphia. The crew successfully made an emergency landing and escaped safely, but the DC-8-71F was destroyed. The NTSB report traced the fire to lithium batteries contained in electronic devices that were being shipped on board the plane.

The NTSB has dispatched an investigation team to Birmingham, but has not yet commented on the specific details of the accident.

Originally published on National Aviation Examiner

Jenni Rivera killed in Mexican Lear crash

The National Transportation Safety Board has confirmed in a press release today that Mexican-American singer Jenni Rivera has died in a plane crash in Mexico. The NTSB is assisting Mexican civil aviation authorities in the investigation.

According to preliminary details published on Aviation-Safety.net, the crash occurred on December 9 at approximately 4:00 a.m. local time. The crash occurred shortly after takeoff from Monterrey, Mexico (MMMY). The aircraft was enroute to Toluca airport (MMTO) near Mexico City. The crash site is reportedly near the town of Iturbide, Mexico which is located approximately 100 miles south of Monterrey.

Weather reports from the time of the crash available on aviationweather.gov indicated visibility as low as one eighth of a mile in fog and mist. The fact that Monterrey is surrounded by high terrain coupled with the low visibility at the time of the accident point to controlled flight into terrain as a possible cause of the accident.

The accident aircraft was N345MC, a 1969 Lear 25 private jet. The aircraft was registered Starwood Management of Las Vegas according to FlightAware.com. Although the aircraft has a capacity of eight passengers and two crewmembers, only five passengers were aboard the accident flight. All five passengers and both crewmembers were reportedly killed in the accident. The aircraft was totally destroyed.

Aviation-Safety.net’s accident database lists a total of 55 Lear 25 accidents dating back to 1969 when the aircraft was first produced. Forty of the accidents resulted in fatalities. Production of the model ended in 1984 with 373 airplanes.

Originally published on Examiner.com:
http://www.examiner.com/article/ntsb-confirms-jenni-rivera-killed-mexican-plane-crash?cid=db_articles