Overnight staffing will be beefed up at 26 airports nationwide, federal air-safety officials said, in response to a spate of air-traffic controllers falling asleep on duty. In the latest incident, the pilot of an airborne ambulance landed in Nevada on Wednesday without help from a dozing controller. Get the full story »
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Boeing surprised by rupture in 737 fuselage
The NTSB displays the 5-foot-long fuselage skin section taken from the Southwest Airlines accident aircraft on Tuesday. (Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty)
Boeing Co. said Tuesday that its engineering and safety experts were caught off guard by Friday’s rupture in the fuselage of a midair Southwest Airlines Co. jet, failing to anticipate the risks of such an incident “until much, much later” in the aircraft’s life.
In an attempt to explain what went wrong, including technical missteps by Boeing, a senior company engineer laid out some of the decisions and analyses by the aerospace giant that unwittingly set the stage for the five-foot tear in the aluminum skin of the 15-year-old Boeing 737 aircraft. The tear led to the rapid decompression of the passenger cabin while the plane was cruising at 36,000 feet, but no one was seriously injured. Get the full story »
Planned Internet wireless network threatens GPS
A new, ultra-fast wireless Internet network is threatening to overpower GPS signals across the U.S. and interfere with everything from airplanes to police cars to consumer navigation devices.
The problem stems from a recent government decision to let a Virginia company called LightSquared build a nationwide broadband network using airwaves next to those used for GPS. Manufacturers of GPS equipment warn that strong signals from the planned network could jam existing navigation systems. Get the full story »
FAA issues emergency order to inspect airliners
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Tuesday ordered airlines to inspect their most heavily used older-model Boeing 737 jetliners for fuselage cracks. Get the full story »
Boeing: 737 wasn’t old enough to be worrisome
Boeing was surprised when a section of a Southwest jetliner’s fuselage ripped open in flight because the plane wasn’t old enough to be worrisome, a company official said Tuesday, as the airline cleared most of its older 737 planes to return to the skies. Get the full story »
Southwest grounds 5 planes for repairs
A photographer next to the fuselage skin which was torn from a Southwest Boeing 737-300 aircraft last week. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
Southwest Airlines Co. said it was making repairs on five older Boeing 737-300 planes after inspections found fuselage cracks, and added that flight operations were returning to normal on Tuesday.
The inspections of 79 planes followed an April 1 emergency landing in Arizona of a jet with a hole in its fuselage. Flight 812 was heading from Phoenix to Sacramento, Calif., when a 5-foot tear opened up 20 minutes after takeoff. Get the full story »
FAA studies Boeing jet windshield fires
Serious electrical short-circuits cracked or burned portions of cockpit windshields on a pair of American Airlines jets in the past two weeks, ratcheting up concerns about such hazards potentially affecting thousands of Boeing Co. aircraft. Get the full story »
Chicago plane finds snoozing tower in D.C.
The air traffic tower at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Washington. (Karen Bleier/Getty)
Federal air-safety officials are looking into why the lone air-traffic controller on duty at Washington’s Reagan National Airport early Wednesday repeatedly failed to respond to pilots of two approaching aircraft, forcing both jetliners to land without clearance.
Pilots of an American Airlines jet on final approach tried in vain to contact the tower. A few minutes later, a United Airlines jet, en route from Chicago, experienced the same problem, according to federal air-safety officials. Get the full story »
Feb. 16 at 12:38 p.m.
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Filed under: Airlines, Airplanes, Regulations, Transportation, Travel United returning to normal after grounding 757s
United Airlines operations are returning to normal after the carrier voluntarily grounded its fleet of 96 Boeing 757s Tuesday to ensure the planes’ air-data computer software complied with a Federal Aviation Administration airworthiness directive.
The Chicago-based carrier was able to quickly carry out the software checks needed to meet federal guidelines, and most of the aircraft were back in service by mid-day Wednesday. Get the full story »
United grounds 757s to check air-data software
United Airlines has grounded its fleet of 96 Boeing 757s after determining that the planes’ air data computer software did not comply with a Federal Aviation Administration airworthiness directive.
United began testing its 757s late Tuesday afternoon and may delay or cancel flights until the process is completed in 12 to 24 hours, said United spokeswoman Megan McCarthy. The software checks take approximately 60 to 90 minutes per plane.
“We apologize for any inconvenience and ask customers to check their flights status on United.com before going to the airport,” McCarthy said. As of 6 p.m. Central time, United had canceled only seven flights on its Tuesday schedule, according to FlightStats.com.
United is scrambling to comply with a 2004 FAA airworthiness directive that spelled out software and hardware changes for air-data computer systems in Boeing 757, 767 and 747 aircraft. “This action is necessary to ensure that the flight crew is able to silence an erroneous overspeed or stall aural warning,” the directive stated.
On a routine maintenance check Tuesday, United discovered that it hadn’t followed all of the steps mandated by the FAA to address safety concerns with the 757 flight computers that measure air speed and monitor atmospheric conditions.
United installed the software required by federal regulators in 2004 but hadn’t performed all of the necessary checks. The 757s’ air data computer systems have been “fully functional,” McCarthy said.
Chicago-based United acted voluntarily and not at the behest of federal regulators, said FAA spokeswoman Elizabeth Isham Cory.
The action does not affect Boeing 757 aircraft flown by Continental Airlines, which merged with United in October. The two continue to operate separately and won’t combine fleets, flight crews and maintenance stations until they gain a single operating certificate from the FAA.
United’s action is not related to electrical shorts that have caused some 757 windshields to crack, said FAA spokeswoman Laura Brown, referring to another issue that has made headlines in the last year.
jjohnsson@tribune.com
Reports of mistakes by air controllers nearly double
Inside the air-traffic control tower at LaGuardia Airport. (EPA/Andrew Gombert)
In a time of unparalleled aviation safety in the United States, reports of mistakes by air traffic controllers have nearly doubled — a seeming contradiction that has safety experts puzzled.
The latest incident — the near midair collision of an American Airlines jet with 259 people aboard and two Air Force transport planes southeast of New York City, has raised eyebrows in Congress and led to questions about a nonpunitive culture of error reporting in air-traffic control facilities. Get the full story »
Mother kicked off United flight in infant carrier spat
Federal safety officials urge parents to put their children in child seat on planes, but a California mother says that twice in the last month she has been thwarted by airlines when she tried to do the right thing.
Melissa Bradley, 39, said she was forced off a United Airlines flight at San Francisco International Airport on Wednesday in a dispute over an economy-class row too narrow to accommodate an infant carrier for her 1-year-old daughter. Get the full story »
China to seek FAA certification of passenger jet
China’s top aviation regulator said Friday that it aimed to work jointly with U.S. authorities on certifying the planned new C919 passenger jet.
The aircraft is seen as the first shot in China’s effort to break the duopoly in large civil aircraft held by Airbus and Boeing Co. and securing approval from overseas regulators will be crucial in finding customers outside the country’s fast-growing domestic market. Get the full story »
Boeing resumes 787 certification flights
Boeing Co. has resumed flight tests of its 787 jetliner aimed at achieving Federal Aviation Administration certification. Boeing halted test flights of the long-delayed jet last fall because of an in-flight electrical fire in the plane’s power distribution system that forced an emergency landing Nov. 9. Get the full story »
