Airbus could be asked to ground all long-range airliners
Charles Bremner in Paris
Airbus is expected to face calls to ground its worldwide fleet of long-range airliners tomorrow when French accident investigators issue their first account of what caused Air France Flight 447 to crash off Brazil on June 1.
It is believed that the accident bureau will report that stormy weather was a factor but faulty speed data and electronics were the main problem in the disaster that killed 228 people.
The European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) is likely to be asked why it had never taken action to remedy trouble that was well known with the Airbus 330 and 340 series. Nearly 1,000 of the aircraft are flying and until AF447, no passenger had been killed in one.
“EASA has a legal and moral obligation to get to the bottom of this problem now. If there is a defective system and the aircraft is unsafe then it should be grounded,” said James Healy-Pratt of Stewarts Law in London. The firm, which specialises in aviation, is representing the families of 20 of the victims of flight 447.
Only 11 bodies of the 50 recovered from the Atlantic have been identified. They include Captain ----- -----, 58, who is believed to have been resting when his two co-pilots lost control of the aircraft in a storm. The search for bodies has been called off but ships continue to hunt for the black boxes although their locator beacons are assumed to have expired.
Suspicion over the air data systems on the Airbus 330 and 340 series has increased after the disclosure that the aircraft had experienced 36 episodes similar to the one that brought Flight 447 down as it flew from Rio de Janeiro to Paris.
Airbus first reported problems with the speed sensors — known as pitot tubes — in 1994, it emerged this week. The company advised remedies, but no mandatory action was taken.
Last weekend, the US National Transportation Safety Board, began looking into two incidents in which Airbus A330s flying from the US suffered critical episodes apparently similar to that of AF447.
This raises the prospect of a possible US order on modifications to the Airbus.
The first US incident occurred on May 21 when a TAM Airlines flight from Miami to Sao Paulo, Brazil, lost primary speed and altitude information while in cruise flight. The other was on a Northwest Airlines flight, on June 23, from Hong Kong to Tokyo.
Accounts on the internet from the pilots report a desperate struggle to keep the jet in the air.
The fate of Flight 447 would probably have remained an eternal mystery had the aircraft not automatically transmitted data back to the Air France maintenance base.
In the final four minutes, they told a story that was familiar to the airline. Ice particles or water had blocked the three pitot tubes. This upset the air data computers which in turn caused the automatic pilot to disconnect. The pilots would have had to fly manually in near-impossible conditions.
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The DC9 and MD88 are fly by wire too but don't seem to have the same problem as the A330s. I mean one can't catch an altitude or tell you where you are and the other might decide not to catch the altitude or work but luckily their fly by wire system works fine.
Last edited by forgot to bid : 07-02-2009 at 01:05 AM.
Bar;
There are some serious questions of ALPA National that need to be asked. I am starting to wonder if we need to separate out the regionals and the majors. (At a min)
I think that a few by-law changes must be made to make us more effective as a union.
just my .02
So, the C scale was born. Move the B scale flying off the property and try to limit it.
American, US Air, United and Delta then got a new phenomenon, the two decade upgrade.
Comair, ASA, SkyWest, Mesa, Chautauqua, Shuttle, Mesaba, ACA, Freedom, GoJets, Compass, Republic and Mid Atlantic got the "junior manned to Captain out of new hire class" phenomenon as their airline's growth exploded to compensate for mainline flying being outsourced.
The B scale was a bad idea, outsourcing is far worse.
In Atlanta I once saw a bumper sticker which read "Why didn't we just pick our own damn cotton?" Not politically correct, but a reasonable question none the less. I hope we decide to end ALPA's Apartied division and I am willing to pick my own cotton.
Dude,
ALPA has chased the dues dollars of regional carriers to the point of making them irrelevant at best as a national union, and incapable of representing the interests of legacy carriers in reference to Scope without legit DFR issues ref regional carriers they represent. Initiatives such as FFD are perfuming the pig they have created with being dues prostitutes.
Insult to injury is the regional contingent is so large and influential now they are in danger of taking control and any potential candidate for Praters job cannot **** them off (being a Scope Hawk) too much and get elected.
There is not only a conflict of interest in Herndons representational structure, but also possibly of any legacy MEC Ch running for the position.
Meantime we have pups with still wet ERAU degrees flying 76 seaters while the majors have 15 year F/Os.
And we did it to ourselves. Changing or booting ALPA is meaningless without electing MEC reps and officers who will hold the line and not keep justifying every continuing Scope concession we make.
'We're in the Middle of a Crash': Black Swan
Topics:Economy (Global) | Economy (U.S.) | Housing | Debt | Politics & Government | Banking
Sectors:Financial Services
By: CNBC.com | 02 Jul 2009 | 08:55 AM ET
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The financial system is crashing and action must be taken by the US government to convert debt into equity to produce a more stable environment, Nassim Taleb, author of "The Black Swan," told CNBC Thursday.
"You may have green shoots, whatever you want to call them, you may have temporary relief, but you are still in a world that's breaking," Taleb said on "Squawk Box."
Anything that's fragile like the financial system will eventually crash, he said.
"We're in the middle of a crash," Taleb said. "So if I'm going to forecast something, it is that it's going to get worse, not better."
The government needs to deleverage debt and not try stimulus packages that will inflate assets, he said.
"What makes me very pessimistic in not seeing any leadership or awareness on parts of government on what has to be done, which is deleverage $40-to-$70 trillion," Taleb said.
"The monkey on our back is debt," he added.
As an example, Taleb said banks should not be sending demands for larger and larger sums from homeowner in arrears on their mortgage. Instead the bank should offer to lower the monthly payments in return for part-ownership of the property.
"People would be able to start from scratch on a healthy basis. You don't want to wait for foreclosure," he said.
Oil Outlook for the Second Half
Published: Wednesday, 1 Jul 2009 | 5:16 PM ET
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By: CNBC.com
Stocks kicked off the second half of 2009 with a rally. What about oil? Nymex energy trader Ray Carbone offered his second-half outlook to CNBC.
"I think we're balancing in all three markets that really move crude: the equities market, the dollar market and the crude market [itself]."
Citing "sideways movement" in the first two categories, he notes that "we've been chopping around between 67 to 73 [dollars per barrel] and $1.37 to $1.43 dollar-euro."
"I think we're going to see volatility, I could see the pullback going to the $60 level, maybe a little lower."
* Oil, Natural Gas, Gasoline Prices Now
* Thursday's Oil Outlook
Carbone said he's going to take a close look at the Goldman Sachs forecast and "see if the fund flows just come in and overwhelm the fundamentals, which have not been in control."
For the sake of Delta shouldn't I hope for higher fuel prices since we hedged and others did not? If oil falls back don't we lose money and others get a breath of life for a little while longer?
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