Indonesia Finds SuperJet Black Box

An official stated that Indonesia’s national search and rescue agency has found the black box flight recorder from the Sukhoi Superjet 100 that crashed during a demonstration flight killing all 45 people on board.

The aircraft crashed on May 9 on the slopes of a dormant volcano about 40 miles (64 km) south of Jakarta.

Those on the flight included Indonesian businessmen, Russian embassy officials and journalists.

Wreckage was found a day later on a steep ridge of Mount Salak.

“The item found is the CVR, cockpit voice recorder. I have asked officers on the ground and rescuers to continue the search of FDR (flight data recorder) as well as the evacuation operation,” agency head Daryatmo told reporters near the crash site.

The Sukhoi Superjet 100 was developed with Western design advice and technology from companies including Italy’s Finmeccanica, as well as avionics and engine equipment from French aerospace firms Thales and Safran.

The Superjet, with a capacity of up to 103 passengers, is already in service with Russia’s Aeroflot and Armenian carrier Armavia and is half way through a 15,500-km (9,630-mile), six-nation Asian tour to try to drum up more international customers.

The Superjet 100 aircraft is being marketed internationally in partnership with Finmeccanica subsidiary Alenia Aeronautica.

The Sukhoi Superjet 100 is a modern fly-by-wire regional jet. Avail scale down model at Showcase models.

News Source: Aviationweek.com

No new insight from preliminary plane crash report

PROVINCETOWN — The National Transportation Safety Board has published its preliminary report on the PA-28 Piper plane crash here that killed a pilot and seriously injured a female passenger on Aug. 31, and it provides few if any new details.

The report can be found at the board’s website, http://www.ntsb.com. The accident remains under investigation.

According to NTSB investigator Dennis Diaz, the cause is not likely to be known for nine to 12 months. They will be looking at archival maintenance records for the plane and the pilot’s training and history. Within 60 days of the end of the investigation the cause will be published online.

The single engine Piper PA-28 private aircraft crashed in the woods about 200 yards west of the Provincetown Municipal Airport at 11:30 that Wednesday night. Stanley J. Wisniewski, 48, of Falmouth, the pilot of the Piper plane, was pronounced dead at the scene. The only passenger, Tamar Levy, 47, also of Falmouth, was MedFlighted to Beth Israel Hospital in Boston with serious injuries.

A pilot of a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter that was in the area witnessed the crash.

A Piper PA-28 aircraft

-wickedlocal.com

-wikipedia.org

Tahoe plane crash leaves pilot seriously injured

A pilot from Bakersfield was seriously injured after a Piper Aztec twin-engine plane crashed shortly after takeoff near Lake Tahoe.

Kevin Bumen, director of aviation at Truckee Tahoe Airport, said the pilot was the only person on board when the Piper Aztec crashed on airport grounds and caught fire about 9:20 a.m. Wednesday.

Nevada County Sheriff’s Department dispatcher Gerri Barriger says the Piper Aztec pilot was taken to a hospital in Reno.

Federal aviation records show the plane is registered to Brian Mettler of Bakersfield. A woman who identified herself as his wife declined to comment when reached by telephone shortly after the Piper Aztec crash.

“He looked in surprisingly good shape for a guy who had just run his plane into the ground,” said Chaco Mohler, a publisher at the Tahoe Quarterly in Truckee, who witnessed the crash from his office window a block from the airport.

Bumen says federal officials will be investigating the cause of the  Piper Aztec crash.

 

-bakersfieldnow.com

Small plane crashed at birthday party

GUSTAVUS – A fatal airplane crashed Sunday during a child’s birthday party and claimed the life of a Brazilian immigrant who had come to the area to work on a northern Trumbull County farm, sources said.

The accident claimed the life of Douglas F. Bacconi, 30, of Sharpsville, Pa., and injured Brian N. Betts, 38, of Williamsfield.

Bacconi is survived by his wife, Abbey Miller Bacconi, and three children, including infant twins. He was a native of Brazil who came to Ohio to study agriculture, and later worked at a farm in northern Trumbull County.

A close friend described Bacconi as an ”asset to society,” and said Bacconi was one of the hardest-working individuals he had ever met.

Dave Harden, of Brookfield, was invited to the family gathering at the airfield along Gardner Barclay Road near state Route 11 in Gustavus. Harden intended to fly model airplanes as entertainment for the children in attendance, but he never got the opportunity.

The Trumbull County 911 Center reported that Harden was the first caller to report the plane crash. He placed the call at 2:51 p.m., according to the 911 center supervisor.

Harden did not see the plane, which was piloted by Betts, the aircraft’s owner, but he saw the wreckage in the field shortly after it went down.

“Our group was there having a picnic, just having a family-type gathering,” Harden said.

Betts was transported to St. Elizabeth Health Center in Youngstown with non-life threatening injuries. He was listed in stable condition Monday night, according to the hospital.

The Ohio State Highway Patrol said the engine stalled shortly after takeoff, causing it to lose altitude. The left wing of the plane then hit the ground and forced the nose into the ground. The accident is being investigated by the patrol’s Southington Post.

The patrol is working with the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board to determine if the accident was caused by a mechanical malfunction or pilot error. The initial incident report should be complete within two weeks, said Ohio Highway Patrol Sgt. Mike Harmon, but determining a cause could take longer, he said.

According to the FAA, the airplane was a 1946 Luscombe fixed wing, single engine plane. Tony Molinaro, FAA spokesman, said it is not at all unusual for World War II-era planes to still be in service. He said maintenance on those crafts is vigorous and thorough, and he did not think the age of the Luscombe craft was likely a contributing factor.

 

-tribtoday.com

10 killed in plane crash in India

NEW DELHI (AP) — A small chartered plane being used as an air ambulance to ferry a patient to a New Delhi hospital crashed Wednesday into a residential neighborhood on the outskirts of the Indian capital, killing 10 people, government officials said.

According to the Press Trust of India, the airplane lost control during a dust storm and plunged from about 8,000 feet (2,440 meters).

The aircraft had seven passengers on board and was just minutes from landing when it slammed into a residential building in the city of Faridabad, south of New Delhi, Pradeep, a local magistrate who uses only one name, told the New Delhi TV channel.

The plane broke into two and caught fire, charring part of the house. Hours after the crash, the plane’s tail was still perched on the house’s roof and its engine lay in a nearby alley.

All those on board were killed and three others living in the house died as well, Pradeep said. Two other people were injured.

The bodies were charred beyond recognition, according to Faridabad Police Commissioner P.K. Agarwal.

The aircraft was bringing a critically ill businessman from the eastern city of Patna to a hospital in New Delhi, said Dr. Alok Kumar, owner of the Jagdish Hospital, where the patient had been staying. The passengers included two pilots, two doctors and a medical attendant, he said.

-asiancorrespondent.com

Air France crashed plane’s black box found

On May 1, search teams retrieved one of two black box flight recorders of an Air France A330 plane that crashed into the Atlantic between Rio to Paris in 2009, killing 228 people, French investigators said.

The device was the crucial memory unit from a flight data recorder and was recovered at 1000 GMT Sunday, France’s Bureau of Investigation and Analysis (BEA) said in a statement.

It was “in good physical condition” after having been moved by a Remora 6000 ROV (robot submarine) on board the Ile de Sein ship.

The find could be a breakthrough in the investigation into the disaster, as the box could hold crucial data that would enable BEA investigators to determine the cause of the crash.

“Our experts will tell us if there’s hope of reading the data,” BEA director Jean-Paul Troadec said.

“If the data can be used it will allow the enquiry to make headway because the FDR (flight data recorder) records the altitude, speed, and the various positions of the rudder,” Troadec added.

The device was expected to arrive at BEA offices within eight to 10 days, to allow for the search of the Cockpit Voice Recorder (CFR), so both can be taken back to France.

“If we can read the first data, that would be a great step forward, but without the second black box essential data will be missing: the way the pilots reacted, the reasons they took one decision or another during the emergency,” said Troadec.

A spokesman for relatives of the crash victims said they were heartened by the news.

“It’s very, very encouraging for all the families of the victims, even if we have to remain prudent while we wait to see to what extent the recorder can be used,” Jean-Baptiste Audousset, head of the AF447 Assocation, said.

Transport Minister Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet said the find was a “key step” in the investigation as it could allow the families of the victims to understand what happened on the doomed flight.

“It will also allow the aviation industry to draw lessons from the disaster to permanently improve airline security,” she added.

Investigators announced Wednesday that search teams had retrieved part of a black box flight recorder from the Airbus A330 — but not the part containing the key data.

BEA said the chassis that held one of the recorders had been found a day after a salvage ship began working to retrieve bodies and recently discovered wreckage using the Remora submarines.

The module had broken off from the chassis, presumably at the moment the plane crashed into the water.

The Airbus A330 plunged into the Atlantic en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris on June 1, 2009.

Investigators announced they had found the main wreckage in early April on the fourth and final attempt.

The official cause of the disaster remains uncertain, but the crash has been partly blamed on malfunctioning speed sensors used by Airbus.

Air France has been accused of not having responded quickly enough to reports that they might be faulty.

Investigators and Airbus remained cautious, stressing that without the black boxes the riddle of the plane’s last moments might never be solved.

While, an Airbus spokesman said they had no comment to make at this stage, Airbus-KLM chief executive Pierre-Henri Gourgeon welcomed the development.

“This new stage in the inquiry constitutes a great advance because it could provide supplementary information on the causes of this accident, which to this day is unexplained,” he said.

The Ile de Sein, had sailed from Dakar, Senegal, after taking on extra crew members for the operation.

It was equipped with the underwater robot and a massive crane to bring up parts of the plane weighing several tonnes, such as the engines,

Alan Bouillard, the BEA official in charge of the probe, had stressed the extent of the challenge facing the team.

“We will be working at a depth of 4000 metres which complicates the recovery task enormously,” he said.

Transport minister Kosciusko-Morizet said earlier some bodies had been seen in the remains of the cabin, photographed by the robot submarines.

Previous searches had recovered a limited amount of wreckage and about 50 bodies.

Air France and Airbus — which are being probed for alleged manslaughter in connection with the crash, the deadliest in the carrier’s history — are paying the estimated $US12.7 million ($A11.5 million) cost of the search.

-brisbanetimes.com.au

-AFP

Iran Air crash kills 70 onboard

An Iran Air Boeing 727-200 crashed at 7:45 p.m. Sunday (Jan. 9) evening – local time – while attempting an emergency landing and at least 70 people are believed to have been killed.

Local media reports vary, but there appears to have been around 105 passengers and crew onboard the flight. More than 30 survived with injuries, reports say.

The 727 was en route from Tehran to the city of Orumiyeh in northwest Iran during severe winter weather conditions. The pilot reportedly told controllers there was a technical problem of some kind. The aircraft crashed outside Orumiyeh, breaking up on impact. There was heavy snow at the crash site.

The aircraft, registered ERP-IP, was delivered in 1974.

This incident will likely focus attention again on the aging Iran Air fleet. Modernization has been difficult due to sanctions against Iran. Iran Air is also one of the carriers on the European Union’s blacklist.

A stretched version of the 727-100, the 727-200 is 20 feet (6.1 m) longer (153 feet, 2 inches, 46.7 m) than the -100 (133 feet, 2 inches, 40.6 m). A ten-foot (3-meter) fuselage section (“plug”) was added in front of the wings and another ten-foot fuselage section was added behind them. The wing span and height remain the same on both the -100 and -200 (108 feet (33 m) and 34 feet (10 m), respectively). The original 727-200 was the same weight as the 727-100; however, as the aircraft evolved, a series of higher weights and more powerful engines were introduced along with other improvements, and, from line number 881, 727-200s are dubbed -200 Advanced.

 

-aviationweek.com

-wikipedia.org

 

Yamal Helicopter Crash Causes One Fatality, 17 Injured

A Mil Mi-8 helicopter

According to an Investigation Committee source, the crash of a Mil Mi-8 helicopter in Yamal left one dead and 17 hurt.

The Mi-8 crashed 300 meters away from the helicopter pad, close to the Obskaya-Bovanenkovo railroad line, at about 9:00 a.m. Moscow time on Sunday, Dec. 19. “The helicopter had 18 people onboard, including 15 passengers and three crewmembers. The crew commander died, and 17 people were injured,” he said.

“The Urals transport police branch of the Investigation Committee opened a criminal case over the breach of air traffic rules,” he noted. “A helicopter was sent to the crash scene for transporting the injured to hospital.”

The Federal Air Transport Agency said that the helicopter crashed while landing for refueling. It was carrying 15 geologists from Labytnangi to the Bovanenkovo deposit.

The helicopter of the Yamal airline was performing the flight amid polar night, the source said.

This is the second accident of the sort in the past month. A Mil Mi-8 of the Novosibirsk aircraft repairing plant crashed while flying from Kyshtovka in the Novosibirsk region to the southwestern segment of the Krapivinskoye oil field in the Omsk region. The helicopter caught fire. Eight passengers died, and three crewmembers were injured.

The Mil Mi-8 is a medium twin-turbine transport helicopter that can also act as a gunship. The Mi-8 is the world’s most-produced helicopter, and is used by over 50 countries. Russia is currently the largest active operator of the Mi-8/Mi-17 helicopter.

 

-itar-tass.com

-wikipedia.org

French Court Declares Continental Airlines Guilty of Concorde Crash

On Monday, Dec. 6, a French court found Continental Airlines and a mechanic at the airline guilty of involuntary manslaughter for their part in the 2000 Concorde crash that spelled the end of the supersonic airliner.

In a ruling that could affect the way planes are maintained and inspected, the court said the US airline and a welder were to blame for a small metal strip that dropped off a Continental aircraft onto the runway and ruptured a tire on the Concorde, triggering the crash that killed all 109 on board and four people on the ground.

The French court said that the airline, now United Continental Holdings following a merger, and aerospace group EADS must split 70-30 any damages payable to families of victims of the Concorde crash.

The verdict exposes Continental and EADS to damages claims that could run to tens of millions of Euros if insurance companies seek reimbursement for sums already paid to relatives.

Continental was fined EUR€200,000 by the court and welder John Taylor was given a 15-month suspended prison sentence for having gone against industry norms and used titanium to forge the piece that dropped off the plane.

Continental Airlines said it would appeal what it called an “absurd” verdict. Taylor’s lawyer said he would also appeal.

The court said EADS, which now owns the French factories which partly built the Concorde airliners, had some civil liability in the crash, which hastened the end of an era of glamorous supersonic travel between London, Paris and New York.

EADS lawyer Simon Ndiaye said the company was still deciding whether to appeal.

The trial has led to warnings in the aviation industry that taking crash investigations out of the hands of regulators and placing them in the courts could discourage workers from coming forward with information needed to prevent future accidents.

An Air France Concorde aircraft

 

-news.airwise.com

-wikipedia.org

Plane Crash in Palm Beach Kills Three

Last Thursday, Nov. 11, officials stated that a Piper PA-44 Seminole twin-engine aircraft that may have had a student pilot at its controls crashed while on takeoff at Florida’s Palm Beach International Airport, killing three people and injuring one.

The casualties were confirmed by airport spokeswoman Casandra Davis. Davis said the injured person was airlifted to a hospital.

Davis did not know whether the Piper PA-44 Seminole, which is registered to a college, was in the air or rolling on the runway at the time of the 6:10 p.m. ET incident. After the crash, the plane caught fire.

Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen said the twin-engine aircraft was destined for Melbourne, Florida. It was registered to FIT Aviation LLC of Melbourne, an arm of the Florida Institute of Technology.

Winston E. Scott, dean of the institute’s College of Aeronautics, told reporters late Thursday that two students, a flight instructor and another individual were on board. Next of kin were being notified.

Scott said the plane had flown to the Bahamas and was making a stop at Palm Beach before returning to Melbourne. He also said that the Seminole had been recently inspected and was found to be in excellent mechanical condition.

According to the Scott, school officials believe a student with advanced skills was flying, with the instructor seated nearby.

The National Transportation Safety Board will investigate the cause of the crash.

Davis said the Palm Beach International Airport maintained normal operations Thursday night.

Manufactured by Piper Aircraft, the Piper PA-44 Seminole is a twin-engine light aircraft primarily used for multi-engine flight training. It was built in 1979-82, in 1989-90, and again since 1995.

 

-cnn.com

-wikipedia.org