Jeppesen introduced an improved version of its CrewAlert mobile app that helps aircraft crewmembers deal with fatigue risk management. The updated app can instantly calculate a strategy from up to 900,000 sleep patterns and light exposure combinations to increase crew alertness and overall flight safety. It also contains built-in scientific mitigation strategies automatically calculated to fit to the roster and individual settings such as individual sleep requirements and commute times, among others.
Disaster
April 2, 2013 - 5:35am
Preliminary Report: Twin Turboprop Crashes in Peru
Beechcraft King Air 200, near Matibamba, Peru, March 6, 2013–Nine people died in the crash of a Peruvian King Air 200 at 8:30 a.m., on a flight to Pias Airport in west central Peru. The aircraft, operated by Aero Transporte, had been chartered to carry seven employees from Lima to a local mining site. The aircraft struck a wooded hillside in unknown weather conditions.
Preliminary Report: Jet Crashes in the French Alps
April 2, 2013 - 3:35am
Confronted with years of stubborn and static accident statistics for general aviation operations, the NTSB is taking more aggressive actions in an attempt to reduce the number of crashes. Last month, the independent safety agency issued five GA Safety Alerts, to be followed later this spring by a series of videos.
April 2, 2013 - 1:30am
The Air Charter Safety Foundation (ACSF) began its annual safety symposium with an attention-grabbing slide. It shows the accident rates for U.S. Part 121 airlines and all Part 135 operations for the years 2007-2011. The accident rate for all Part 135 operations is 0.60 per 100,000 flight hours, approximately four times worse than the airlines’ 0.159 per 100,000 flight hours.
April 1, 2013 - 4:39pm
Boeing 787 Line Number 86 took off from Paine Field in Everett, Wash., at 11:19 am local time today for a “routine” test flight to address ongoing systems upgrades separate from those related to the airplane’s battery.
April 1, 2013 - 4:35pm
An Air France A340-300 nearly crashed while on approach to Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport (CDG) on March 13 last year because the crew failed to understand the danger cues the aircraft’s flight systems were showing them. The aircraft was already above the recommended altitude for glideslope intercept–with speedbrakes deployed–as it was being vectored for the Runway 8R Cat III ILS at CDG. On low-visibility approaches at CDG, ATC procedures also require aircraft to be slowed to less than 180 knots within 15 miles.
April 1, 2013 - 4:25pm
As thunderstorm season approaches in the Northern Hemisphere, it’s worth remembering how weather-radar technology has improved in the past three decades. Southern Airways Flight 242, a McDonnell Douglas DC-9, crashed in Pauling County outside Atlanta on April 4, 1977, after flying directly into a severe thunderstorm, calling attention to the then little understood issue of radar signal attenuation in areas of heavy precipitation.
April 1, 2013 - 4:15pm
Aircare Solutions Group has developed a critical incident response program it plans to offer to the business aviation community at no charge. The company is offering this because it believes mental health-related trauma surrounding catastrophic events, especially those involving loss of life, can significantly reduce a person’s ability to function at work and play if not dealt with quickly.
April 1, 2013 - 10:15am
I really thought we had heard the end of the FAA’s one-level-of-safety mantra after Colgan Air Flight 3407, masquerading as a Continental Airlines codeshare, crashed in a fiery ball in a residential area just outside Buffalo, N.Y., one snowy February night four years ago.
April 1, 2013 - 5:35am
Controller operational errors are on the rise, according to a February 27 audit report from the DOT’s Office of the Inspector General (IG), prompted by requests from the Senate subcommittee on aviation operations, safety and security and, separately, the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. According to FAA data, controller operational errors at the Southern California (SoCal) Tracon, jumped from 33 in FY09 to 189 in FY10, an increase of 473 percent.
