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Among the most important pieces of evidence missing is the body of the aircraft’s captain — his is one of three bodies missing. Meanwhile, a Macedonian news service is reporting that at least two flight attendants remained conscious and one, who had some private pilot training, tried to land the plane. Greek air force pilots […]

Speculation Of Depressurization On the day of its final flight last week, the pilots of a Helios Boeing 737-300 that crashed near Athens, killing all 121 aboard, reportedly contacted air traffic control to say that a problem with the aircraft’s air conditioning system would keep them at 16,000 feet. The aircraft later climbed to 32,000 […]

The GAO report also found that despite implementation of user fees, air traffic systems still face budget problems if the industry suffers an economic downturn. The commercialized systems need to have fallback strategies such as a reserve fund, a cost-cutting plan, or some alternative to user fees, the GAO said. Also, some systems have increased […]

GAO Report Scrutinized A recent report (PDF file) by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) previously reported by AVweb said safety remains intact when governments shift their air traffic control duties to the private sector. But that may not be telling the whole story, AOPA said last week. The report evaluated the “commercialized” ATC systems in […]

Meanwhile, the stress between controllers and the FAA is evident at the New York Terminal Radar Approach Control (TRACON) on Long Island, where the FAA recently counted errors occurring at six times the average rate, The New York Times reported on Saturday. NATCA says that’s because the FAA has cut back on staffing, but the […]

The NTSB has also raised questions about whether the AMASS system is an effective tool for preventing runway incursions. Alerts may occur as little as 8 to 11 seconds before a potential collision, the NTSB said. In at least one incident, at Los Angeles International in August 2004, there are “strong indications” that AMASS didn’t […]

The Long, Hot ATC Summer Two recent near-collisions on runways, one at Boston’s Logan Airport and one at New York’s John F. Kennedy, show that the FAA’s automated warning system is flawed, the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) said last week. The system, known as Airport Movement Area Safety System (AMASS), is unreliable during […]

FAA spokesman Greg Martin defended the action. “The primary intent of this notice is to be a wake-up call to the facilities, to take a close look at taxi into position and hold, and see if they need it,” he told AVweb on Tuesday. “And if they don’t need it, don’t use it. …This is […]

The new directive is “bizarre,” the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) said on Tuesday, and “will greatly exacerbate flight delays.” It’s “inefficient and wasteful,” forcing tower personnel to “scramble” to come up with a justification to continue doing things they are already doing, NATCA said. “The likely outcome is that busy airports will eventually […]

Errors Cause Concern The FAA on Aug. 1 issued a General Notice to all control towers, noting that recently there has been “increased concern” about operational errors involving taxi-into-position-and-hold (tiph) procedures. “It is essential that [air traffic] managers give priority to the management of tiph,” says the notice. It mandates that by Sept. 30, each […]