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Aviation News
The latest global aviation news in English.
Safety fears came close to freezing air route
THE United States was so concerned about the state of Australia’s air safety system in 2009 that it considered freezing flights from Australia to the US, a downgrade that normally only affects countries from the developing world.
The revelation, in a US State Department cable released this week by WikiLeaks, discussed a recent safety inspection by the US’s Federal Aviation Authority, which audits countries whose carriers fly to the United States to ensure they meet appropriate safety standards.
In the cable, from December 2009, it is revealed the FAA told Australia’s Civil Aviation Safety Authority that Australia could face a downgrade to ”Category 2” due to a shortage of properly trained safety inspectors and too much delegation of CASA’s regulatory function to carriers.
A Category 2 rating suggests the FAA believed the country’s safety regime does not meet international standards. It is a category mainly used for countries in the developing world.
”A downgrade to Category 2 would be the worst-case scenario, which would entail measures such as freezing Australia-US flight operations to current levels and terminating code-sharing arrangements, such as the one between Qantas and American Airlines,” the cable stated.
”CASA officials are not taking this possibility lightly and seem committed to resolve the shortcomings in order to avoid a downgrade.”
The findings resulted from a five-day safety audit by the FAA in late 2009, which found ”significant shortcomings” in CASA’s maintenance of the Australian aviation regulatory system.
CASA has been criticised for delegating too much of its regulatory obligations to the flight carriers in the past and the FAA audit may have been the last straw.
In the 2010 budget, the government announced a large funding increase for CASA.
The FAA audit may also help explain why CASA was so severe when cracking down on Tiger earlier this year.
SO CLOSE TO DISASTER: A Qantas and a Virgin plane came within metres of a collision. Picture: AFP
TWO commercial passenger jets came within metres of colliding over Coolangatta last month, putting 300 lives at risk.
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau has launched an investigation into the incident on the morning of July 29.
The near-miss involved a Qantas Boeing 737-838 and a Virgin Australia 737-8FE.
Both jets were flying from Melbourne to Brisbane when they were ordered into a holding pattern about 91km from Brisbane Airport just before 8am.
As they circled above the Gold Coast, the Qantas crew noticed the Virgin Australia aircraft inside the 300m vertical separation zone and contacted air traffic control.
“Air traffic control immediately issued instructions to the other aircraft to restore the minimum separation distance,” said Qantas spokesman Thomas Woodward.
“The flight crew complied fully with all air traffic control directions and there was no safety risk at any point.”
He said the 150 passengers on board were not made aware of the incident and would not have been aware of what had occurred at the time.
Melissa Thomson, from Virgin Australia, said their aircraft followed air traffic control instructions throughout the flight.
“We are co-operating fully with the ATSB to determine the full circumstances surrounding this event,” Ms Thomson said.
An ATSB spokesman confirmed the “breach of separation standards” incident was under investigation.
“We understand the distance between the aircraft was less than required both vertically and laterally,” said the spokesman.
He said the ATSB would take about 12 months to complete the investigation and then it would be up to the Civil Aviation Safety Authority to take any further action.
“We are a no-blame investigator,” he said.
Breaches of separation standards in Australian airspace are relatively rare, with the last serious incident occurring seven years ago.
On July 18, 2004, an incoming Qantas jet came close to colliding with a Jetstar plane that had just taken off from Hamilton Island.
Passengers on board the Jetstar flight described the incident as “frightening” after the plane banked sharply to avoid a crash.
Mr Woodward and Ms Thomson said no evasive action was required in the July 29 incident.
A Gulf Air passenger plane lies on the ground after it skidded off the runway at Kochi International Airport in Kochi on Monday
Dubai: Two people were injured after a Gulf Air flight with 137 passengers and six crew members on board, skidded off the runway on Monday at India’s Cochin International Airport.
In a statement, the Bahraini national carrier said rainy weather conditions were suspected to be the cause of the incident.
“The aircraft was approved for landing and the cause will not be able to be confirmed until a full investigation has been completed,” the carrier said, adding that the 18-month-old aircraft — an Airbus A320 — suffered a “nose gear collapse” during the skid while landing in the early hours of Monday.
Gulf Air GF270 was carrying eight Saudis, a Bahraini, a UK citizen and 127 Indians.
“The emergency chute was deployed and all passengers were evacuated and transferred to the airport terminal immediately by shuttle bus,” the carrier said in the statement.
Minor injuries
It added that two passengers were treated for minor injuries in the terminal building with one passenger, an Indian national, taken to Kochi’s Little Flower Hospital Angamaly for further treatment.
“His condition is not critical,” Gulf Air said.
The carrier said it has deployed a team, comprising of officials from care and support, engineering and safety, legal and insurance besides two representatives from Bahrain CAA to coordinate with Indian authorities in the investigation and recovery of the aircraft.
Indian media, quoting Cochin International Airport Managing Director V. J. Kurien, as saying that the pilot had not asked for emergency landing and claimed that he could clearly see the runway when he was six nautical miles away from the airport.
Heavy rains
“Heavy rains and winds lashed the area and the pilot could not see the runway when the flight was just above 532 meters, which is below the decision making height after which the only option was to land,” Kurien was quoted as saying by the Indian new agencies.
A report naming the top 10 safest airlines in the world is dominated by European and US carriers
While European and American airlines rarely feature in the top 10 rankings for best customer service, airlines from these regions have dominated a new list of the world’s safest carriers.
A report by the Air Transport Rating Agency (ATRA), released yesterday, found that the safest carriers in the world were mainly those based in Europe and the US.
Air France-KLM, British Airways and Lufthansa are the safest airlines in Europe.
The safest US-based airlines are AMR Corporation, Continental Airlines, Delta Airlines, Southwest Airlines, United Airlines and US Airways, while the safest from Asia is Japan Airlines, it said, without giving a ranking within the top ten.
To obtain this classification, the first of its kind, ATRA examined publicly available information on 15 criteria, such as the average age of the aircraft used or the homogeneity of the fleet, it said.
The agency explained that to understand airline safety, one needed not only to look at accident figures, but also “technical, human, organisational and external” elements.
“Even though the European Union publishes a ‘blacklist’ of dangerous airlines, there exists a real difference in safety between the other airline companies,” ATRA added.
The agency believed the EU’s list was a good start on rating airline safety, but said the list led to the belief that all airlines not on the ‘blacklist’ offered the same level of safety, which was not the case.
According to its website, the Geneva-based agency says it is independent of all “airlines, manufacturers, regulatory authorities, trade unions and not-for-profit organisations” in performing its aviation risk assessment.
The top 10 list is in contrast to the annual Skytrax survey that ranks airlines based on customer service. None of the airlines in the Skytrax top 10 made the ATRA’s top 10 safety list.
World’s 10 safest airlines (in alphabetical order)
Air France-KLM
AMR Corporation (American Airlines, American Eagles)
British Airways
Continental Airlines
Delta Airlines
Japan Airlines
Lufthansa
Southwest Airlines
United Airlines
US Airways
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