AIR SAFETY WEEK :: JANUARY 28, 2008

NTSB Issues Safety Alert Over CFIT in Darkness  
The National Transportation Safety Board has issued a Safety Alert, suggesting ways for general aviation pilots to avoid controlled flight into terrain (CFIT) accidents during night visual conditions. The Safety Alert cited six accidents the Safety Board investigated in a recent three-year period in which...

FAA: Progress Being Made on Airport Safety
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is moving ahead on short-term actions designed to improve safety at U.S. airports, but recent incidents of runway incursions and wrong way departures shows that further steps are needed. Air traffic controllers at Atlanta Hartsfield's tower reported in mid-January a...

DOT Airport Congestion Pricing Proposed  
Saying it will alleviate aviation congestion, U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary E. Peters recently released a new policy that would make it easier for overcrowded airports to add capacity and reduce delays by encouraging airlines to spread their flights more evenly throughout the day. The move, in effect...

A New Era for East Midlands Airport
The Manchester Airport Group is purchasing MSS from Era Corporation, a wide area multilateration and ADS-B surveillance solution, for East Midlands Airport, UK. MSS will initially provide enhanced surveillance information for the airport's environmental management program, with the option to extend the use...

Fingerprints Grabbed at U.S. International Airports
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is now collecting additional fingerprints from international visitors arriving at three major U.S. airports. The change is part of the DHS's upgrade from two- to 10-fingerprint collection in order to enhance security and fingerprint matching accuracy...

Biometrics: The Eyes Have It
It is not science fiction to think that our eyes could very soon be the key to unlocking our homes, accessing our bank accounts and logging on to our computers, according to Sammy Phang, a researcher at Queensland University of Technology. Research by Ms Phang, is helping to remove one of the final obstacles...

Middle East Air Safety Team is Formed
The Middle East Aviation Safety Summit concluded in Abu Dhabi on Jan. 23 with planned establishment of a safety team to implement the recommendations of the Global Aviation Safety Roadmap (GASR) drawn up by the International Safety Strategy Group (ISSG). The Middle East Safety Team will be comprised of...

Accidents & Incidents
Date Aircraft Type Narrative Death/Injury Remarks 15 Dec Thailand 737-400 of NOK Airlines TCAS intervened to avoid a mid-air between an MD-82 of 1-2-Go (Bangkok to Chang Mai) and the NOK Air 737 (Chiang Rai to Bangkok) nil 1-2-GO jet strayed from allocated Flight Level (FL320) and invaded the 737's level of...

Significant Regulatory Activity
Recently developed from a Sep 06 Boeing Service Bulletin: (perhaps in light of recent events) The FAA is adopting a new airworthiness directive (AD) for certain Boeing Model 777-200 and -300 series airplanes. This AD requires revising the airplane flight manual to provide the flightcrew with new ground...

Safety News in Brief
Attendees at the 13th Conference on Aviation, Range, and Aerospace Meteorology in New Orleans last week heard about a better way to forecast clear-air turbulence, based on "spontaneous imbalance theory." The new technique is more consistently successful than current methods, and improves on an...

Security Roundup
Date Incident 23 Jan The number of Australian armed sky marshals is to be slashed on some international flights as part of an astringency overhaul of the highly secretive anti-terror program. Changes to the Air Security Officer program will result in the number of marshals on some 747 flights being reduced...