[Peetwo]

American Airlines aborted T/O & engine fire, Chicago O'Hare Airport


Via AP.. :

Official: Plane in Chicago had rare, serious engine failure
By HERBERT G. McCANN and JOAN LOWY
Oct. 29, 2016 12:09 AM EDT 

CHICAGO (AP) — Pilots were forced to abort a takeoff and evacuate passengers from a burning American Airlines flight on a runway at Chicago O'Hare International Airport after the airliner experienced what a federal official said was a rare and serious type of engine failure.

American Airlines Flight 383 to Miami experienced an "uncontained engine failure," in which engine parts break off and are spewed outside the engine, the official said. The official wasn't authorized to speak publicly about the incident and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. The danger of such a failure is that engine pieces effectively become shrapnel and can cause extensive damage to the aircraft.

Flames and heavy black smoke poured from the side of the Boeing 767 jet as it sat on the runway Friday after the aborted takeoff. Officials said the incident left 21 people injured.

Footage from the scene showed passengers coming down emergency slides and hurrying across grass next to the runway as emergency vehicles surrounded the plane. The right wing was drooping toward the ground and appeared to have partially melted.

Passenger Sarah Ahmed told WLS-TV the plane was speeding down the runway when she heard an explosion and saw flames and black smoke. She said everyone on the right side of the aircraft jumped from their seats and moved to the left side.

"People are yelling, 'Open the door! Open the door!' Everyone's screaming and jumping on top of each other to open the door," Ahmed said. "Within that time, I think it was seven seconds, there was now smoke in the plane and the fire is right up against the windows, and it's melting the windows."

The pilots reported an engine-related mechanical issue and aborted the takeoff, according to American Airlines spokeswoman Leslie Scott.

The Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement that the plane made an emergency stop around 2:35 p.m. after experiencing a problem during takeoff. An earlier FAA statement said the plane had blown a tire, but officials later deleted that information from the statement.

Chicago Deputy Fire Commissioner Timothy Sampey said 20 passengers suffered minor injuries as they used the emergency chutes to evacuate. American, which had earlier said eight people were injured, later confirmed the 20 figure and added that one flight attendant was also injured.

Buses were sent to pick up the passengers and bring them back to the terminal, Scott said. The passengers were to be placed on another flight to Miami Friday evening.

The National Transportation Safety Board will conduct an investigation into the incident, with investigators expected to arrive on the scene Friday evening, spokesman Keith Holloway said.

Uncontained engine failures are unusual thanks to improvements in designs and the metallurgy. There are many possible causes, including overheating, runway debris or large birds that get sucked into the engine or parts that break when they wear out but aren't replaced during maintenance checks.

Tom Walsh, an airline pilot who also works as a security consultant, said that engines that break apart can be especially serious if the parts end up cutting fuel lines or damaging other vital components of the aircraft.

But he said even such catastrophic failures don't necessarily doom a plane — even if a pilot runs out of runway and must take off.

"Planes are meant to fly with one engine," said Walsh, who has also flown Boeing 767s. "We are trained so that we can lose the engine at the worst possible time ... and then still successfully take off and land."

One of the best-known incidents of uncontained engine failure occurred in 1989, when 111 people were killed when a United Air Lines DC-10 crashed while making an emergency landing at Sioux City, Iowa. There were 185 survivors.

Such engine failures are taken "very seriously" in the aviation industry, said John Cox, a former airline pilot and aviation safety consultant. It's mandatory that airlines report the failures to the NTSB, he said.

"It's something everyone in aviation safety tracks very carefully," said Cox, president of Safety Operating Systems.

Engines are especially vulnerable to overheating that can cause parts to fail during takeoffs when they are already operating at very high temperatures, said John Goglia, a former National Transportation Safety Board member and expert on aircraft maintenance.

The giant blades inside the engines are revolving at about 13,000 rpm, he said. When one comes loose, it's like firing a bullet, he said.

The aircraft involved in Friday's incident was built in 2003 and is among American's youngest planes of that model. According to data from FlightGlobal, an aviation news and industry data company, at the start of this year the plane had flown more than 47,000 hours and made more than 7,500 cycles — each takeoff and landing is one cycle. American is flying 767 aircraft that have more than 100,000 hours and 18,000 cycles.
___
Lowy reported from Washington, D.C. Associated Press writers Michael Tarm and Caryn Rousseau in Chicago also contributed to this report

MTF...P2

[P7_TOM]

And; two more for the Indonesian safety pot.

One.

Two.

Tough place to operate - even in good weather.

The 'Boo.

[Gobbledock]

Two more for the road please waiter

The crew and passengers onboard the United aircraft were very very fortunate the engine popped on the ground. Had it occurred airborne things may have turned out worse.

Not a good few days for our USA brotherhood;

Trumps lackey, Herr Pence, plane slides off runway;

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/10/...rport.html

FedEx tripler catches fire on landing;

http://edition.cnn.com/2016/10/28/us/fed...lane-fire/

Good thing all that action wasn't occurring in Australia - CAsA would collapse in a heap, the ATsB wouldn't have the money to investigate, and Minister Chester would run out of makeup and hair product from all his TV appearances and Twitter tweeps.

[Peetwo]

American Airlines aborted T/O & engine fire, Chicago O'Hare Airport


Via AP.. :

Official: Plane in Chicago had rare, serious engine failure
By HERBERT G. McCANN and JOAN LOWY
Oct. 29, 2016 12:09 AM EDT 

Two more for the road please waiter

The crew and passengers onboard the United aircraft were very very fortunate the engine popped on the ground. Had it occurred airborne things may have turned out worse.

Not a good few days for our USA brotherhood;

Trumps lackey, Herr Pence, plane slides off runway;

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/10/...rport.html

FedEx tripler catches fire on landing;

http://edition.cnn.com/2016/10/28/us/fed...lane-fire/

Good thing all that action wasn't occurring in Australia - CAsA would collapse in a heap, the ATsB wouldn't have the money to investigate, and Minister Chester would run out of makeup and hair product from all his TV appearances and Twitter tweeps.

Update to the American Airlines engine explosion.

 Via Joan Lowy c/o AP: 

                     
NTSB: Failed airline engine disk had fatigue cracking

By JOAN LOWY
Nov. 4, 2016 8:45 PM EDT


FILE - In this photo provided by passenger Jose Castillo, taken Oct. 28, 2016, fellow passengers... Read more

WASHINGTON (AP) — An engine disk that broke apart and forced an American Airlines jet to abort a takeoff in Chicago last week shows signs of fatigue cracking, according to a preliminary report released Friday by accident investigators.

A high-pressure turbine disk in the Boeing 767's right engine broke into four pieces, which shot out of the engine's housing. Investigators have recovered about 90 percent of the disk, and an examination shows evidence of an anomaly where the fatigue cracking begins, the National Transportation Safety Board report said.

Metallurgical examinations of the disk are underway to determine what caused the cracking, the report said. The anomaly was inside the disk, rather than on its surface, where it would be visible. Such anomalies are usually the result of a manufacturing defect.

The engine involved in the Oct. 28 incident is a General Electric CF6-80. In a letter Friday to owners of the same engine type, manufacturer General Electric Co. said one engine containing a "closely related" part was still being used. GE said it was working with the operator of that engine, whom it did not identify, to remove the part.

A GE spokesman said he did not know which airline had an identical engine disk to the one that failed on the American jet.

Disk pieces were spewed up to a half mile away and a fierce fire enveloped the right side of the plane after the failure. The plane was traveling at 154 mph and was seconds from lifting off from O'Hare International Airport for Miami when pilots slammed the brakes.

The fire was fed by a pool of jet fuel that formed under the wing when the plane came to a stop.

All 161 passengers and nine crew on American Airlines Flight 383 were evacuated.

Twenty-one people suffered injuries, mainly from the evacuation down inflated ramps.

Such "uncontained" engine failures are rare and serious events that can cause extensive damage to the aircraft. The broken pieces are fired out of the engine at high speeds, effectively becoming shrapnel.

The NTSB has identified at least three previous uncontained engine failures in commercial airliners in which a disk from the same family of GE engines broke apart — two on the ground in the United States in 2000 and 2006, and one while an Air New Zealand plane was climbing after takeoff on a flight from Australia to New Zealand in 2002. But those cases involved a different type of disk, and it's not clear there is any relationship to the disk failure in Chicago.

The NTSB publishing a preliminary report inside of a week - WOW! Yet our mob are yet to finalise the VH-NGA (PelAir) final..final report are after almost seven years?

Hmm...I guess expediency on investigations and the length of time required to publishing final reports is not a consideration when assessing a State's ability to effectively implement AAI processes. Because according to what the Rev Forsyth Panel was given our ATSB is the best in the world for aviation accident investigation...

 Q/ Has the Forsyth ASRR panel been deceived?


From the above graphic I calculate that the ATSB is a least 15 percentile points above the NTSB - yeah right!


MTF...P2

[Peetwo]

My dear Gobbles:

The problem, simply put, is one of discombobulation.



In a crisis, the respones of modern systems, the changing displays, the cavalcade of warnings, and the lack of "familiar cues", completely discombobulate the crews.

The fact is, regardless of the howls of protest from the techno-nerds that design them, and those who love them "on paper" when in their arm chairs, in the "real world" the systems are actually discombobulating, ( ie, they throw the crew into a state of mental uncertainty ) and as a result, in a crisis situation, the crews quickly become completely discombobulated.



The result, is needles disaster, after needless disaster.

The "industry" will however, never admit to this truth.  

The industry has "acquired institutionalised ostrichitis syndrome" (AIOS).





So, stand by for regular repeats of AF-447 and QZ8501.


Clues:
confusion, befuddlement, bewilderment, puzzlement, perplexity, disconcertment, discomposure, daze, fog, muddle, etc ........

Apologies in advance - Thread Drift

Dear Ventus -  Brought to my attention by the cool aviation safety blog site - "The Inner Art of Airmanship" - was the following excellent article courtesy of outsideonline.com. From this article I get the distinct impression that discombobulation induced by travelling, transport navigation/operations and simply getting from A to B, is a growing phenomena and transport safety issue, all to common in a world that is becoming way too reliant on computer automation & satellite navigation...

Is Your GPS Scrambling Your Brain?

By: David Kushner
 
Nov 15, 2016  

American tourist Noel Santillan became an unlikely folk hero in Iceland after he entered a typo into his GPS and drove hundreds of miles out of his way. How can anyone wander so far off the mark? A growing body of research suggests that our reliance on navigational technology might be altering our brains in ways we’re only beginning to understand.

Before Noel Santillan became famous for getting lost, he was just another guy from New Jersey looking for adventure. It was last February, and the then 28-year-old Sam’s Club marketing manager was heading from Iceland’s Keflavík International Airport to the capital city of Reykjavík with the modern traveler’s two essentials: a dream and, most important, a GPS unit. What could go wrong? The dream had been with him since April 14, 2010, when he watched TV news coverage of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano eruption. Dark haired, clean-cut, with a youthful face and thick eyebrows, he had never traveled beyond the United States and his native Mexico. But something about the fiery gray clouds of tephra and ash captured his imagination. I want to see this through my own eyes, he thought as he sat on his couch watching the ash spread.

It took a brutal week in October 2015 to ­finally get him to go for it—Tuesday a taxi hit his Mazda; Wednesday a tree nearly fell on the car; Thursday, when he went to his girlfriend for comfort, she dumped him. “I was heartbroken and just wanted to get away,” he recalls feeling at the time. Scrolling through his Facebook news feed, he came across a friend’s photo of Iceland’s famous Blue ­Lagoon spa. “So Iceland comes back into my head,” he says.

Four months later, on a frigid, pitch-black winter morning, he was driving away from Keflavík airport in a rented Nissan Versa hatchback toward a hotel in Reykjavík, excited that his one-week journey was beginning but groggy from the five-hour red-eye flight. As a pink sun rose over the ocean and illuminated the snow-covered lava rocks along the shore, Santillan dutifully followed the commands of the GPS that came with the car, a calm female voice directing him to an address on Laugarvegur Road—a left here, a right there.

Though he sensed that something was off, Santillan made a consciuos choice to trust the machine. He had come here for an adventure, after all.

But after stopping on a desolate gravel road next to a sign for a gas station, Santillan got the feeling that the voice might be steering him wrong. He’d already been driving for nearly an hour, yet the ETA on the GPS put his arrival time at around 5:20 P.M., eight hours later. He reentered his destination and got the same result. Though he sensed that something was off, he made a conscious choice to trust the machine. He had come here for an adventure, after all, and maybe it knew where he was really supposed to go.

The farther he drove, the fewer cars he saw. The roads became icier. Sleeplessness fogged his brain, and his empty stomach churned. The only stations he could find on the radio were airing strange talk shows in Icelandic. He hadn’t set up his phone for international use, so that was no help. At around 2 P.M., as his tires skidded along a narrow mountain road that skirted a steep cliff, he knew that the device had failed him.

He was lost.

Getting lost is a fading phenomenon of a distant past—like pay phones or being unable to call up the lyrics of the Welcome Back, Kotter theme song in a heartbeat (“…your dreams were your ticket out”). Today, more than 50 years since the Navy built the first suborbital navigation system, our cars, phones, and watches can track our every move using signals from the 70-plus satellites circling the earth twice a day.

Most people would agree that this is a good thing. It’s comforting to know where you are, to see yourself distilled into a steady blue icon gliding smoothly along a screen. With a finger tap or a short request to Siri or Google Now—which, like other smartphone tools, rely heavily on data from cell towers and Wi-Fi hot spots as well as satellites—a wonderful little trail appears on your device, beckoning you to follow. Tap the icon of a house and you’re ­guided home from wherever you are. By knowing the most direct route—even one that ­changes on the fly with traffic conditions—we save time and fuel and avoid hours of frustration. The mass adoption of GPS technology among wilderness users has, it seems, helped make backcountry travel safer. According to the National Park Service, search-and-rescue missions have been dropping, from 3,216 in 2004 to 2,568 in 2014.

The convenience comes at a price, how­ever. There’s the creepy Orwellian fact of Them always knowing where We are (or We always knowing where They are). More concerning are the navigation-fail horror stories that have become legend. Last March, a 64-year-old man is believed to have followed his GPS off a demolished bridge in East Chicago, Indiana, killing his wife. After Nicaraguan troops mistakenly crossed the Costa Rican border in 2010, to stake their nation’s flag on rebel turf they thought was in their country, they blamed the snafu on Google Maps. Enough people have been led astray by their GPS in Death Valley that the area’s former wilderness coordinator called the phenomenon “death by GPS.” The source of the problem there, as in most places, is that apps don’t always have accurate data on closed or hazardous roads. What looks like a bright and shiny path on your phone can in fact be a highway to hell.

Then there’s the bigger question that’s raised when we hear about people like Santillan who, in their total dependence on technology to find their way, venture ­absurdly off course. What, we wonder, is our now habitual use of navigation tools doing to our minds? An emerging body of research suggests some unsettling possi­bilities. By allowing devices to take total control of navigation while we ignore the real-world cues that humans have always used to ­deduce their place in the world, we are letting our natural wayfinding abilities languish. ­Compulsive use of mapping technology may even put us at greater risk for memory loss and Alzheimer’s disease. By turning on a GPS every time we head somewhere new, we’re also cutting something fundamental out of the experience of traveling: the adventures and surprises that come with finding—and losing—our way.

By the time Santillan white-knuckled down the mountain in northern Iceland, he figured that despite the insistence of his GPS, he wasn’t anywhere near his hotel. There was no one else on the road, but at that point there wasn’t much else to do but follow the line on the screen to its mysterious end. “I knew I was going to get somewhere,” he says. “I didn’t know where else to go.”

The directions ended at a small blue house in a tiny town. He parked his car out front and slipped his hotel-reservation printout into his jacket as he headed toward the door. A pretty blue-eyed blond woman answered after the second ring. She smiled as he stammered about his hotel and handed her his reservation.

No, she told him in accented English with a laugh, this wasn’t his ­hotel, and he wasn’t in Reykjavík. That city was 380 kilo­meters south. He was in Siglufjördhur, a fishing village of 1,300 people on the northern coast. The ­woman, who’s name happened to be Sirry, pronounced just like the Apple bot, offered to phone the hotel for him. She quickly figured out what had happened: the address on Expedia (and his reservation printout) was wrong. The hotel was on Laugavegur Road, but Expedia had accidentally spelled it with an extra “r”—Laugarvegur.

Santillan checked into a local hotel to get a good night’s sleep, with the plan of driving to Reykjavík the next day. When he told his story to the woman at the front desk, she chuckled. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t laugh at this,” she said, “but it’s funny.”

“It’s funny to me also,” Santillan replied.

And when she told him that her name was also Sirry, Santillan felt like he was part of some grand cosmic joke. The next morning, when he went to check out, the joke became even grander. “Some reporters want to talk with you,” said Sirry.

The first Sirry had posted his absurd ­story on her Facebook page the previous day, San­tillan soon learned, and it had quickly been shared around. Something about the tale struck a nerve. Here was a sympathetic character who personified a defining ­aspect of the modern human condition—and hil­ariously so. A Facebook friend of Sirry’s who’s the editor of an Icelandic travel site wrote a blog post on the “extraordinary and funny incident.” Soon the misadventure ­attracted the interest of TV and radio journalists.

They weren’t the only ones who wanted to talk with him. “Everybody in the town knew about me,” he says. Some of the locals of Siglu­fjördhur came to the hotel to welcome him and take pictures. One offered him a tour of their local pride and joy, the Icelandic Herring Era Museum, a small red building devoted to the town’s biggest industry that plays films on the salting process and has an exhibit of a brakki, a dorm for the so-called herring girls who worked the docks. The chef at Santillan’s hotel prepared the local beef stew for him, on the house.

Enjoying all the hospitality, Santillan decided to spend an extra night. The following day he went on TV, explaining to a reporter that he’d always found GPS to be so reliable in the past. By the time he made it to Reykjavík that evening, he had become a full-blown sensation in the national media, which dubbed him the Lost Tourist. DV, an Icelandic tabloid, marveled that despite all the warning signs, the American had “decided to trust the [GPS].” Santillan sat down for a radio interview on a popular show. “World famous here man!” one Icelandic fan posted on Santillan’s Facebook page soon after. “Like your style. Enjoy our beautyful country.” Before long, his experience made international news, with reports in the Daily Mail, on the BBC, and in The New York Times, which headlined its story “GPS Mix-Up Brings Wrong Turn, and Celebrity, to an American in Iceland.”  

The manager of the hotel in Reykjavík had seen reports on Santillan’s odyssey and, to make up for the traveler’s hard time, offered him a free stay and a meal at the fish restaurant next door. Out in the streets, which were full of revelers celebrating the annual Winter Lights Festival, Icelanders corralled the Lost Tourist for selfies and plied him with shots of the local poison, Brennivin, an unsweetened schnapps. As a band played a rock song outside, Santillan kept hearing people shouting his name. Some guys dragged him up a stairway to a strip club, where one of the dancers also knew his name. The whole thing seemed surreal. “I just felt like, This isn’t happening to me,” he says.

Still, he was going to ride it out as long as he could. After the marketing manager of the country’s most famous getaway, the Blue Lagoon geothermal spa, wrote him ­offering a free visit, Santillan headed out the next day. The address came preloaded in his rental car’s GPS, since it was the one place everyone wanted to go.

As Santillan drove out under the winter sky, he marveled at how far he had come. Not long ago, he’d been just another working stiff on his couch in New Jersey. Now he was a rock star. He pictured himself resting in the cobalt blue waters, breathing in the steam. But half an hour later, when his GPS told him he had arrived, he got a sinking feeling. Looking out the window, he saw no signs of a geothermal spa, just a small lone building in what seemed like the middle of nowhere. The Lost Tourist was lost again.

Scientists have long sought to understand how we navigate our physical environment. A key early moment came in the 1940s, when psychologist Edward C. Tolman was studying how rats learned their way around a maze. He concluded that they were building representations of the layout in their nervous systems, “which function like cognitive maps.”

Some 30 years later, neuroscientist John O’Keefe located cognitive maps in mammalian brains when he identified “place cells” in the hippocampus region which became active when lab rats were in specific locations. In 2005, Norwegian neuroscientists Edvard and May-Britt Moser expanded on O’Keefe’s findings, discovering that the brain also contains what they called grid cells, which, in coordination with the place cells, enable sophisticated navigation. The trio was awarded the 2014 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for uncovering what the committee called our inner GPS. Their work has profound implications—not only for our understanding of how we orient ourselves but for how our increasing reliance on technology might be undercutting the system we carry around in our heads.

Individuals who frequently navigate complex environments the old-fashioned way, by identifying landmarks, literally grow their brains. University College London neuroscientist Eleanor Maguire has used magnetic resonance imaging to study the brains of London taxi drivers, finding that their hippocampi increased in volume and developed more neuron-dense gray matter as they memorized the layout of the city. Navigate purely by GPS and you’re unlikely to receive any such benefits. In 2007, Veronique ­Bohbot, a neuroscientist at McGill ­University and the Douglas Mental Health University Institute, completed a study comparing the brains of spatial navigators, who develop an understanding of the relationships between landmarks, with stimulus-response navigators, who go into a kind of autopilot mode and follow habitual routes or mechan­ical directions, like those coming from a GPS. Only the spatial navigators showed significant activity in their hippocampi ­during a navigation exercise that allowed for different orientation strategies. They also had more gray matter in their hippocampi than the stimulus-response navigators, who don’t build cognitive maps. “If we follow our GPS blindly,” she says, “it could have a very detrimental effect on cognition.”

There’s no direct link between habitual use of navigational technology and memory loss, but the implications are certainly there. Bohbot cites studies showing that a smaller and weaker hippocampus makes you more vulnerable to brain diseases like Alzheimer’s, since it’s one of the first regions to be ­affected. “It may be the case that if you don’t use the hippocampus, it shrinks and you’re at greater risk,” she says.

Individuals who frequently navigate complex environments the old-fashioned way, by identifying landmarks, literally grow their brains.

Other researchers suggest similarly foreboding possibilities. Julia Frankenstein, a psychologist at the Center for Cognitive Science at the University of Freiburg, has found that people are capable of orienting themselves within a city based on memories of traditional maps, which help us develop a larger perspective of an area. When you navigate by GPS, focusing only on a route without a broader spatial context, you never gain that perspective. “It is likely that the more we rely on technology, the less we build up our cognitive maps,” she says.

New research is adding to our understanding of exactly how we create those maps. Maguire recently worked with programmers to create Fog World, a shadowy virtual-­reality environment studded with alien landmarks. By scanning test subjects’ brains as they made their way around the scape, she could observe the spatial-­learning process in action. In a series of tests last summer, she found that the retro­splenial cortex, located in the middle of the brain, played a key role in logging landmarks that were useful for navigation. Once enough landmarks were logged, the hippocampus would engage. These two sections of the brain, it appears, work together to form a cognitive map. Maguire’s data also suggests that some of us just have a stronger sense of direction than others. “What we found was that poor navigators had a harder time learning the landmarks,” she says. “They never did as well as the good navigators.”

Maguire is planning experiments to see if it’s possible to intervene with the learning process to improve navigation. As for what we can do to retain our skills, she and other researchers offer the same strong suggestion: as often as you can, turn off the GPS.

One of the most passionate and informed champions of that advice is Harvard professor John Huth. A highly respected experimental physicist who was part of the team that discovered the Higgs boson (the so-called God particle, because it endows other particles with mass), he became obsessed with our disappearing ability to find our way in the world after a tragic event near his home on Cape Cod.

On a Sunday in October 2003, two young kayakers set off onto Nantucket Sound from the southern coast of the Cape. Mary Jagoda, a 20-year-old from Huntington, New York, and her 19-year-old friend Sarah Aronoff, from Bethesda, Maryland, paddled into the choppy, 60-degree waters without a compass, map, or GPS. A dense fog soon rolled in. When they were reported missing an hour or so later, a frantic search ensued. The following day, their kayaks were spotted tied together but empty. Coast Guard cutters, helicopters, and local police canvassed the area through the night to no avail. Jagoda was recovered on Tuesday, having died from drowning. Aronoff was never found.

Huth was kayaking just a half-mile from the women when they went missing. He, too, had become disoriented in the fog, but he’d been sure to take note of the wind and wave direction before leaving the shore, a habit he’d picked up after a scary experience several months earlier in Maine. He paddled back to shore blindly but with a strong sense of where he was headed.

The deaths of the women left him with a serious case of survivor’s guilt. His response was to embark on what he now calls a year of self-imposed penance by learning everything he could about navigation. He used flash cards to memorize constellations, studied the routes of 1600 B.C. Pacific Islanders and medieval Arab traders, and learned to orient himself using shadows. Eventually, he says, “I realized I was looking at the world very differently than I had beforehand.”

Huth hopes that modern humans will rediscover a deep sense of place rather than “outsource cognitive functions to auto­mation.”

He dug in deeper, compelled by a sense of duty to fight back against automation bias, the human tendency to trust machines more than ourselves. In 2009, he began teaching a new undergraduate class at Harvard on primitive navigation techniques. The course led to his 2013 book, The Lost Art of Finding Our Way, which makes a powerful case for learning how to get where you need to go simply by paying attention to the environment around you.

Last summer, I visited Huth on Cape Cod to get a primer on what he teaches his Harvard students. One morning, he suggested we try a method for tracking distance used by the Roman legionnaires. Huth, an ath­letic, bearded 58-year-old, was wearing ­cargo shorts and a white T-shirt as we walked ­silently along a rocky beach near his home, counting paces, with every 1,000 paces equaling mille passus, the Latin phrase at the root of the word “mile.” We passed lobster red tourists, stopping every so ­often so he could compare our paces, which he penciled into a small notebook for later calculation. After a little while, he led us up a series of sand dunes.

“It was right here,” he said, pointing to an overgrown patch of beach grass where, he explained, there used to be a handmade wooden sign with a picture of one of the kayakers. There had been one phrase on it, he recalled: “No one is lost to God.”

Over Huth’s years of research on traditional navigation, one of the places that turned out to be an especially rich source of techniques was Iceland, an isolated island frequently shrouded in fog and surrounded by tempestuous seas. Europeans discovered it by accident, just like they had North America. As Huth recounted to me, a Norse sailor named Naddodd arrived there after drifting off course on his way to the Faeroe Islands. Others found means of reaching it purposefully. When the Norse colonized the country in the ninth century, they found it populated by Irish monks who had arrived, Huth speculated, by following the paths of migrating ducks. (Subsequent Norse explorers employed ravens.) As the Norse learned, Iceland’s weather was so unruly that summer offered the only reliable winds to get there. Sailing 50-foot wooden boats with tar-soaked moss sealing the hulls, they would hug the coast of Norway as they traversed between known landmarks.

Huth was particularly fascinated by how “for the Norse,” as he writes in his book, “time reckoning and direction were inter­twined.” They divided days into eight pieces that reflected the eight divisions of the horizon—north, northeast, east, southeast, south, southwest, west, and northwest—and created clocks by reading the sun’s relative position to markers, like a farmhouse or large rock. “The time of day,” he writes, “is then associated with a place.”

Huth hopes that modern humans will rediscover that deep sense of place. In the meantime, he rails against our choice to “outsource so many of our cognitive functions to auto­mation.” There are, he told me, “tons of examples of people substituting ­automation for actual reasoning.” None better, of course, than Noel Santillan.

As it happens, Huth could have found himself in his own lost-tourist predicament a couple of summers ago, when he took a vaca­tion to Iceland with his wife and daughter. As usual, he relied on a map instead of a GPS to get around. But as he drove into Reykjavík from the airport, he got mixed up on the city’s winding roads. At that point, he did what the Norse did centuries before: he sought out markers that he had already identified and coordinated them with the cognitive map he’d created in his head—the water shouldn’t be over here, it should be over there.

“I just stopped, looked around, and tried to identify landmarks,” he told me as we completed another mille passus. Fairly soon he was back on the right path.

This, he said, is what Santillan should have done. “If I’ve gotten to the point where the roads start looking impassible, I would say, ‘OK, this is fucked.’ Then I’d basi­cally try to retrace my steps.”

Santillan had no idea how he’d become lost again. For whatever reason, the GPS had led him not to the Blue Lagoon but to some convention center off an empty road. All he wanted to do was submerge himself in those wondrous warm waters, but instead he was trudging through the snow to see if anyone inside could help him find his way.

As he stepped into the building, a funny thing happened. He was recognized—again. The people inside were workers from the Blue Lagoon who had assembled there for a meeting, and they had seen the news reports about him. The fact that Santillan was lost again made him all the more credible. ­After ­patiently posing for a bunch of pictures, he succumbed to an old-fashioned way of getting to where he was going: following the directions given to him by another human being.

And so, with the GPS turned off, he drove on—a right here, a left there—looking for landmarks along the way. His hippocampus, acti­vated by the incoming data, stitched together the beginnings of a cognitive map. Before long he was soaking in a steamy bath, white volcanic mud smeared on his face—though not enough to mask his identity from some fawning spa employees. By then he’d ­already vowed to return to Iceland. ­Maybe, he thought, I’ll even live here at some point. Until he returns, he has something to remember his misadventure: an Icelandic GPS. The rental agency presented it to him when he returned his Nissan. Santillan tried hooking it up to his car when he got back to New Jersey, but alas, the foreign model didn’t work. So now it sits in a box in his bedroom, a reminder of his time as the Lost Tourist, a nickname he considers a badge of honor. “I like it,” he says, “because that’s how you find interesting things. If you don’t lose yourself, you’re never going to find yourself.”

Hmm...so perhaps next time when your head is down in the cockpit and you suffer a bout of discombobulation and your situational awareness becomes hazy..  - turn the bloody auto-pilot off and either scan your primary instruments (PFD if you prefer) or look out the bloody window...

MTF...P2

[ventus45]

The research rings true. Navigational spatial awareness is an incremental, cumulative, cognitive process.

That story is a tragic commentary on modern day stupidity, and it's biggest failing, the "refusal to learn" by his "first mistake", only to repeat it next day, his "second mistake".

When we were kids, we were taught to "follow your nose until it smells wrong, then back-up to when it smells right again, then look around, re-orient, then proceed".

(PS: for P2 = What a difference an additional "r" made. I still think Uprob instead of Upron is a "goer".)

[Peetwo]

LAMIA Bolivia Avro RJ85 tragic Colombian accident.

Although it is still very early in the accident investigation the following is being reported this AM EST Australia.

First via Flight Global:

Fuel emergency reported by Bolivian Avro RJ85 before fatal crash

• 30 November, 2016
  
• BY: Rainer Uphoff
  
• Madrid
  

The flight crew of the Bolivian British Aerospace Avro RJ85 that crashed in Colombia had declared a fuel emergency while waiting to land at Medellin airport in Rionegro, according to an air traffic control recording.

Operated by charter carrier LAMIA Bolivia, the aircraft was awaiting clearance for final approach to the airport, which had been temporarily closed due to an unscheduled arrival of a VivaColombia flight.

The pilot of the Avro RJ85 initially mentioned an "issue with fuel" while communicating with Medellin airport's ATC, according to the recording reviewed by FlightGlobal.

The air traffic controller responded and said the runway at Medellin would re-open within about 7min, and indicated that LAMIA Bolivia will be given priority to land over other flights operated by Avianca and LATAM Airlines Group.

The LAMIA Bolivia flight was assigned FL210 but declared a fuel emergency 2min later, which prompted ATC to assign the aircraft an approach path while warning the crew of other aircraft below and ahead of it. However, the LAMIA Bolivia crew said they were already below the other aircraft, which were holding at FL180.

About 4.5min after declaring a fuel emergency, the LAMIA Bolivia crew alerted ATC to a "total electrical and fuel failure" and repeatedly shouted: "Give me vectors".

The air traffic controller attempted to guide the pilot to the Rionegro VOR but said she could not ascertain the aircraft's altitude. The pilot confirmed that the aircraft was at an altitude of 9,000ft and again requested for vectors.

ATC told the crew that they were 8.2miles from the runway, which has an elevation of 7,000ft.

ATC subsequently lost contact with the aircraft, 6min after it declared an emergency.
Medellin airport had temporarily closed its runway following the diversion of a VivaColombia Airbus A320 to the airport after its flight crew reported a cabin alert. VivaColombia says the flight crew had diverted as a precautionary measure and did not declare an emergency. The VivaColombia aircraft was operating from Bogota to San Andres.

Aerocivil

The crash of the Avro RJ85, which broke into pieces after coming down in a mountainous area, killed 71 people while six survived. Colombian authorities initially reported that 81 people had been on board, but subsequently revised the passenger numbers.

There were no signs of fire at the crash site of the aircraft, indicating that the jet could have run out of fuel. A source at Argentina's transport ministry tells FlightGlobal that Argentine authorities were investigating LAMIA Bolivia after its aircraft arrived in Buenos Aires earlier this month with insufficient fuel on board.

Questions have also been raised over LAMIA Bolivia's operation of the Avro RJ85, which has an operational range that is just slightly above the distance of the flight between Medellin and Santa Cruz in Bolivia, where the aircraft took off from.

Next from Reuters via the Oz:

Colombia crash: Other pilot says LAMIA Airlines plane low on fuel

The pilot of a LAMIA Airlines plane that crashed in Colombia, wiping almost an entire Brazilian soccer team, had radioed that he was running out of fuel and needed to make an emergency landing, according to the co-pilot of another plane in the area.

The crash on Monday night killed 71 people. Six survived, including just three members of the Chapecoense soccer squad en route to the biggest game in their history, the Copa Sudamericana final.

Avianca co-pilot Juan Sebastian Upegui said in a chat message with friends that the LAMIA pilot told the control tower at the airport in Medellin that he was in trouble.


The crash site in a mountainous area near Medellin, Colombia. Picture: AP

Priority had already been given to a plane from airline VivaColombia, which had also reported problems, Upegui said. Reuters confirmed the audio message, which local media played on Wednesday, was from Upegui.

After reporting being low on fuel, the LAMIA pilot then said he was experiencing electrical difficulties before the radio went silent.

“Mayday mayday ... Help us get to the runway ... Help, help,” Upegui described the pilot as saying. “Then it ended ... We all started to cry.”

The BAe 146, made by BAE Systems Plc, slammed into a mountainside. Besides the three players, a journalist and two crew members survived.

One survivor, Bolivian flight technician Erwin Tumiri, said he only saved himself by strict adherence to security procedure, while others panicked. “Many passengers got up from their seats and started yelling,” he told Colombia’s Radio Caracol. “I put the bag between my legs and went into the fetal position as recommended.”

Bolivian flight attendant Ximena Suarez, another survivor, said the lights went out less than a minute before the plane slammed into the mountain, according to Colombian officials in Medellin.

Of the players, goalkeeper Jackson Follmann was recovering from the amputation of his right leg, doctors said.

Another player, defender Helio Neto, remained in intensive care with severe trauma to his skull, thorax and lungs.

Fellow defender Alan Ruschel had spine surgery.

Reuters
Timeline.

Based on the rapidly emerging & disturbing facts, PT takes the MSM speculation to another level in this article today:

Ugly truth about football team air crash disaster comes out
Ben Sandilands Dec 1, 2016
There are no secrets kept when new media covers air crashes

On twitter Carol H asked: "..How does this happen in this day and age!.."
Well where do I start...
Now I know we are talking about poorer South American countries, operators and civil aviation authorities with perhaps less than stellar aviation safety standards but as PT intimates we are not immune to such aberrations and several classic minimum fuel related occurrences spring to mind - Read: O&O post #61 or Four incidents, a ditching & two cover-ups?

And after nearly 2 decades since this safety issue was 1st identified what is our esteemed, envy of the world, (self-assessed) 96%+ ICAO compliant, fully independent & Annex 13 defined ATSB, doing about helping industry mitigate this safety risk?

Read here: "Better, better get a bucket - better make that two .."

MTF...P2

[Peetwo]

Update: Courtesy the Times, via the Oz.

‘Get-home-itis’ and macho pride is a lethal mix for pilots


A photograph from the cockpit of this week’s doomed flight, which was carrying players from Brazilian football club Chapecoense. Picture: Twitter

• Charles Bremner
  
• The Times
  
• 7:01PM December 1, 2016
  

Flying on fumes, as pilots call it, may sound impossible in the modern age but running out of fuel still happens. The cause is usually psychological.

Pressure to reach a destination, known in the industry as “get-home-itis,” can lead to flight planning that cuts corners and introduces risk.

Every year dozens of small aircraft fall victim to wishful thinking by pilots who gamble on stretching range to the maximum.

Unexpected headwinds and air traffic delays quickly eat up reserves. The fate of turning into a glider only very rarely befalls airliners, which are governed by strict regulations on reserves and benefit from computerised monitoring of fuel burn.

In a case eerily similar to this week’s crash, an Avianca Boeing 707 came down near John F Kennedy airport in New York in 1990. The crew of the Colombian airliner was reluctant to declare an emergency when they were put into a holding pattern while low on fuel. After flying from Medellin to New York, they told controllers that they were concerned about fuel but failed to make the distress call that would have given them immediate priority to land. Seventy-three people were killed and 85 survived.

The crew’s failure was put down to language problems plus the reluctance of all pilots to declare an emergency that was likely to damage their pride and land them in trouble.

• More: ‘Help us get to the runway’
  
• More: Digital pills to battle jet lag
  

Pilots explained the fate of the LaMia airliner this week as the likely result of risk-taking under pressure. Miguel Quiroga, the captain, was intent on landing the football team in Medellin, a difficult mountain-ringed airport, in time for them to sleep and prepare for a match.

He was not only pilot-in-command but also co-owner of the small Bolivian charter airline that is struggling to make its name.


Rescue teams at the scene of the Colombia plane crash.

The pilots told the controllers only that they had a “fuel problem” when it was almost too late and even then failed to utter the magic word “emergency” that could have saved them, according to other pilots on the frequency.

Gustavo Vargas, the airline’s managing director, was at a loss to explain why Captain Quiroga, a former military pilot, decided to forgo a fuel stop in Bogota and head straight to Medellin. According to the rules he was required to have enough fuel to fly back to Bogota if he met unexpected delays once he had arrived over Medellin. Unless there was a physical explanation such as a fuel leak or a feed problem, the crew was breaking the rules.

Pilots who operate in South America were astounded that a crew would cut margins so fine in a mountainous area prone to unpredictable weather. Pilots are trained intensively on the danger of bad decision-making under the pressure of “macho” pride and external factors.

Commercial pressures on airlines have in recent decades led to the cutting of fuel margins on busy routes. Aircraft sometimes land to refuel short of their destination, but the decision is closely regulated. That does not seem to have been the case at Medellin.
The Times

MTF...P2

 Ps I like to add to the mix (discussion.. ) the following archived post from P9 off the O&O thread:

A Sunday rant. (My turn).

This report –HERE - Absolutely overdue and most definitely obfuscated.  Don’t read the fluffy ‘abridged’ version, download the whole disgusting thing for the full nauseating effect.

Well Senator Sterle; I’ll see your 42 tons and raise you 49 tons.  The differences are worthy of comment.  Our 49 tons was doing about 280kph approaching the ‘bridge’, it cannot be reversed, nor can it be decoupled; it also had many of your fellow West Australians inboard. Had it 'jack-knifed', there is no friendly RTA to sort out the mess; only fire engines, police and ambulances initially, coroners and inquiry later.  

This nasty, grubby little report from the ATSB, for what they seem to find a cut and dried matter, has been three years in the making.  It is a grubby attempt to distract the reader away from several core issues which are not even paid the courtesy of being obfuscated; they are simply ignored.  

No calculator required for the simple mathematics.  Using the index finger of your right hand, count the fingers on your left hand – Norfolk (1) Mildura (2) Mildura (3) Perth (4).  Four known close calls all with several things in common, short of fuel and rapidly changing weather, three ending happily on runways, one ditched in open water.  

The common threads are easily discerned,but even this latest pathetic report tries to hint at pilot error.  It is a good thing that the ATSB do not apportion blame; but they do hint at it.  Why?, well, another common factor is the sacred cow of the BoM, who only need to be within +/-70% accuracy of actual in their forecast (from memory) to be off the hook.  This level of accuracy has little intrinsic or practical value to a pilot.  In court the responsibility will all fall to the pilot, everyone else has wriggle room and bolt holes, all except the poor mutt in the dock.  

ATSB, ASA, BoM and CASA need to resolve this situation; we now have escaped four times from disaster where bad weather and low fuel reserves have been intricately bound with poor, late weather forecast.  It’s a trend and ATSB should be screaming from the roof tops, demanding something be done to reverse that trend.  Do they? No sir, they do not.  We get presented with a snide, trite, puerile little report which tries to shift the spotlight off the piss poor service to the travelling public delivered by our expensive ‘safety watchdogs’.    

When planning for the return flight at Paraburdoo, the Perth aerodrome forecast (TAF) and the trend forecast (TTF) did not contain any forecast operational requirements for this aircraft to carry sufficient fuel to fly to an alternate aerodrome. At 2300, 5 minutes after take-off, the Perth TTF changed with the forecast onset of fog 65 minutes after the estimated time of arrival (ETA).

Snipe 1: perhaps on the basis of the new forecast the aircraft should have landed and uploaded more fuel, then tried again?  Bollocks.

At 0010, which was about the time when the aircraft commenced its descent and shortly before the aircraft no longer had sufficient fuel to divert safely to a suitable landing aerodrome, the Perth TAF was amended to indicate a requirement for the carriage of sufficient fuel to divert to an alternate airport on the basis of more than four OKTAS8 of cloud with a base below the alternate minimum of 700 ft above the aerodrome reference point. The forecast also predicted that 35 minutes after the aircraft’s ETA, there was a 30 per cent probability of fog reducing the visibility to 300 m, which was below both the alternate and landing minimums for runway 03.

Snipe 2: Neatly blurred; the implication is that somehow it’s the pilots fault that there is insufficient fuel.  There is little point (other than spite) to be mentioning any of the above; they were dead set legal and righteous to continue and had adequate fuel to complete the task as scripted on the weather forecast as applicable to the time; not the clucking future but right there and then.

Soon after, at 0014, a TTF SPECI9 was issued for Perth Airport indicating that the visibility had reduced to 7,000 m and the airport was partially covered in fog. The observed visibility, as reported on the TTF SPECI issued at 0030, which was soon after the aircraft’s landing time, was 900 m in fog.

Snipe 3:16 minutes from touch down, visibility 7000 meters partial fog – so what, still all good. Continue on; the nasty bit is the statement “soon after” etc.  This implies the landing was in ‘marginal’ (borderline illegal) conditions.  

When you break down the time line, you realise that this flight was always legal, the only ‘indiscretion’ was a conflict with company procedure.  The decision to land off the go around was righteous, given the circumstances.  ATSB would prefer you believed otherwise, they just hint at it though.    Pure spite and malice. 

During the flight, the flight crew did not seek or obtain an amended or updated forecast for Perth.

2255 – Take off.  Time en-route 90 minutes - ETA Perth 0130.

2300 – amended forecast for Fog at 1 hr 05 minutes after ETA.  Fog @ 0235.

0010 – Top of Descent (TOD).  Forecast amended to reflect a 30% chance of low visibility 35 minutes after landing; fog forecast from 0205.  

0014 -  Special weather visibility 7000 meters.

0030 visibility 900 meters.  AFTER LANDING...... FFS.  What's your point?

The captain reported that he normally obtained the latest TTF for Perth when overflying the automatic en route information service (AERIS) at Meekatharra, about 360 NM (667 km) north-north-east of Perth.

However, the timing of the flight and the delay normally encountered in updating the available weather information on the AERIS meant that he did not expect to obtain the latest TTF at that time.

When the aircraft was about 240 NM (440 km) from Perth, the crew obtained the latest automatic terminal information service (ATIS) weather observation for Perth, which provided no indication of deteriorating weather.

Routine, bog standard, sensible operating practice.  The rules and the BoM failed the public yet again, with everyone off the hook except those burned alive.  It is high time the ATSB started bringing this trend into focus instead of drafting a carefully prepared, prejudicial statement for prosecution use.

The Beyond all Reason methodology and those that espouse it are not only becoming an international embarrassment, but part of the causal chain.

There you go Glen; my little Sunday rant; and yes, I feel better now.

Toot toot.

[Peetwo]

Update: Courtesy the Times, via the Oz.

‘Get-home-itis’ and macho pride is a lethal mix for pilots

• Charles Bremner
  
• The Times
  
• 7:01PM December 1, 2016
  

 Ps I like to add to the mix (discussion.. ) the following archived post from P9 off the O&O thread:

A Sunday rant. (My turn).

This report –HERE - Absolutely overdue and most definitely obfuscated.  Don’t read the fluffy ‘abridged’ version, download the whole disgusting thing for the full nauseating effect.

Well Senator Sterle; I’ll see your 42 tons and raise you 49 tons.  The differences are worthy of comment.  Our 49 tons was doing about 280kph approaching the ‘bridge’, it cannot be reversed, nor can it be decoupled; it also had many of your fellow West Australians inboard. Had it 'jack-knifed', there is no friendly RTA to sort out the mess; only fire engines, police and ambulances initially, coroners and inquiry later.  

This nasty, grubby little report from the ATSB, for what they seem to find a cut and dried matter, has been three years in the making.  It is a grubby attempt to distract the reader away from several core issues which are not even paid the courtesy of being obfuscated; they are simply ignored.  

No calculator required for the simple mathematics.  Using the index finger of your right hand, count the fingers on your left hand – Norfolk (1) Mildura (2) Mildura (3) Perth (4).  Four known close calls all with several things in common, short of fuel and rapidly changing weather, three ending happily on runways, one ditched in open water.  

The common threads are easily discerned,but even this latest pathetic report tries to hint at pilot error.  It is a good thing that the ATSB do not apportion blame; but they do hint at it.  Why?, well, another common factor is the sacred cow of the BoM, who only need to be within +/-70% accuracy of actual in their forecast (from memory) to be off the hook.  This level of accuracy has little intrinsic or practical value to a pilot.  In court the responsibility will all fall to the pilot, everyone else has wriggle room and bolt holes, all except the poor mutt in the dock.  

ATSB, ASA, BoM and CASA need to resolve this situation; we now have escaped four times from disaster where bad weather and low fuel reserves have been intricately bound with poor, late weather forecast.  It’s a trend and ATSB should be screaming from the roof tops, demanding something be done to reverse that trend.  Do they? No sir, they do not.  We get presented with a snide, trite, puerile little report which tries to shift the spotlight off the piss poor service to the travelling public delivered by our expensive ‘safety watchdogs’.    

When planning for the return flight at Paraburdoo, the Perth aerodrome forecast (TAF) and the trend forecast (TTF) did not contain any forecast operational requirements for this aircraft to carry sufficient fuel to fly to an alternate aerodrome. At 2300, 5 minutes after take-off, the Perth TTF changed with the forecast onset of fog 65 minutes after the estimated time of arrival (ETA).

Snipe 1: perhaps on the basis of the new forecast the aircraft should have landed and uploaded more fuel, then tried again?  Bollocks.

At 0010, which was about the time when the aircraft commenced its descent and shortly before the aircraft no longer had sufficient fuel to divert safely to a suitable landing aerodrome, the Perth TAF was amended to indicate a requirement for the carriage of sufficient fuel to divert to an alternate airport on the basis of more than four OKTAS8 of cloud with a base below the alternate minimum of 700 ft above the aerodrome reference point. The forecast also predicted that 35 minutes after the aircraft’s ETA, there was a 30 per cent probability of fog reducing the visibility to 300 m, which was below both the alternate and landing minimums for runway 03.

Snipe 2: Neatly blurred; the implication is that somehow it’s the pilots fault that there is insufficient fuel.  There is little point (other than spite) to be mentioning any of the above; they were dead set legal and righteous to continue and had adequate fuel to complete the task as scripted on the weather forecast as applicable to the time; not the clucking future but right there and then.

Soon after, at 0014, a TTF SPECI9 was issued for Perth Airport indicating that the visibility had reduced to 7,000 m and the airport was partially covered in fog. The observed visibility, as reported on the TTF SPECI issued at 0030, which was soon after the aircraft’s landing time, was 900 m in fog.

Snipe 3:16 minutes from touch down, visibility 7000 meters partial fog – so what, still all good. Continue on; the nasty bit is the statement “soon after” etc.  This implies the landing was in ‘marginal’ (borderline illegal) conditions.  

When you break down the time line, you realise that this flight was always legal, the only ‘indiscretion’ was a conflict with company procedure.  The decision to land off the go around was righteous, given the circumstances.  ATSB would prefer you believed otherwise, they just hint at it though.    Pure spite and malice. 

During the flight, the flight crew did not seek or obtain an amended or updated forecast for Perth.

2255 – Take off.  Time en-route 90 minutes - ETA Perth 0130.

2300 – amended forecast for Fog at 1 hr 05 minutes after ETA.  Fog @ 0235.

0010 – Top of Descent (TOD).  Forecast amended to reflect a 30% chance of low visibility 35 minutes after landing; fog forecast from 0205.  

0014 -  Special weather visibility 7000 meters.

0030 visibility 900 meters.  AFTER LANDING...... FFS.  What's your point?

The captain reported that he normally obtained the latest TTF for Perth when overflying the automatic en route information service (AERIS) at Meekatharra, about 360 NM (667 km) north-north-east of Perth.

However, the timing of the flight and the delay normally encountered in updating the available weather information on the AERIS meant that he did not expect to obtain the latest TTF at that time.

When the aircraft was about 240 NM (440 km) from Perth, the crew obtained the latest automatic terminal information service (ATIS) weather observation for Perth, which provided no indication of deteriorating weather.

Routine, bog standard, sensible operating practice.  The rules and the BoM failed the public yet again, with everyone off the hook except those burned alive.  It is high time the ATSB started bringing this trend into focus instead of drafting a carefully prepared, prejudicial statement for prosecution use.

The Beyond all Reason methodology and those that espouse it are not only becoming an international embarrassment, but part of the causal chain.

Update 03/12/16: Damning evidence in flight notification 

P2 comment: Note that the listed alternate was Bogota, which the PIC chose to overfly -  

&.. via the Guardian:

 
Little sympathy for Colombia plane crash pilot: 'What he did was mass murder'

Miguel Quiroga’s father-in-law asked for forgiveness, as flight plan revealed inadequate fuel reserve for journey that killed most of a Brazilian football team.       
[/url] Coffins of members of Chapecoense soccer team lie in Medellín, Colombia. Seventy-one people were killed on flight in total. Photograph: Raul Arboleda/AFP/Getty Images

[url=https://www.theguardian.com/profile/dom-phillips]Dom Phillips in Rio de Janeiro
Saturday 3 December 2016 04.44 AEDT First published on Saturday 3 December 2016 04.35 AEDT

The father-in-law of the pilot who was operating the charter flight which crashed in the Andes killing 71 people, has asked for forgiveness, amid growing evidence that the aeroplane embarked with barely enough fuel to complete the journey.



Chapecoense plane crash: fans' anger after confirmation plane ran out of fuel
Colombian media release audio of pilot telling air traffic controllers plane – which crashed killing 71 players, crew and journalists – was ‘without fuel’

But his apology is unlikely to appease a growing sense of anger in Brazil, which is still mourning the loss of most of the Chapecoense football team, who were traveling on plane to their first-ever international final in the Colombian city of Medellín.

A copy of the flight plan has been circulated widely in Brazil, showing that the estimated time of the journey and the plane’s total range were the same – four hours and 22 minutes – leaving no time for any delays. As the flight neared its destination late on Monday, another flight with problems jumped in front of the team’s plane, leaving it circling while its fuel ran out.

Roger Molina, the father in law of Bolivian pilot Miguel Quiroga, 36, issued his apology in an interview with TV Globo.

He said he wanted to tell “millions of Brazilians, but specifically those relatives, children, parents and brothers and sisters of Chapecó, that we are very sorry”.

Speaking for the family, who live in the Brazilian town of Epitaciolândia, near the Bolivian border, Molina said he did not want to comment on the causes of the crash. “The word sorry does not resolve anything, but we want to ask for pardon,” he said.

Victims’ relatives and Brazilian pilots have said Quiroga should never have been allowed to set off with a flight plan as flawed as the one the company presented. There were no plans to refuel, nor did the plane have enough range to reach an alternative airport or keep flying beyond expected flight time, as is standard safety procedure.

Their anger and frustration has been compounded by media reports that Quiroga was also a partner in the charter airline LaMia, leading to speculation that he did not stop to refuel to save money.

“It was 77 people’s lives in the hands of one pilot. It was not just one family. It shocked the whole world, there is no doubt the company was wrong,” said Caroline Machado, 19, whose uncle Eduardo Preuss, one of the coaching staff, was killed in the crash. “We are very shaken.”

Brazilian pilots have strongly criticised LaMia for apparently taking unacceptable risks.

“This really was a tragedy, a tragedy that this happened because of pure irresponsibility,” said one pilot, speaking anonymously because he was not authorized to give interviews. “What he (Quiroga) did was mass murder.”

On Friday Brazil’s Estado de S Paulo newspaper reported that the same British Aerospace-built plane had flown four other trips at the limit of its fuel capacity.

Another Brazilian pilot, Evandro Garcia also pointed the finger at the Bolivian civil aviation authorities, who he said were more lax than other South American countries.

“Their criteria, their demands, are below other countries,” he said.

On Friday, the Associated Press reported that one of the LaMia airlines owners, Gustavo Vargas, had served as pilot to Bolivian president Evo Morales in 2006 and that his son, also called Gustavo Vargas, headed the office at the country’s civil aviation agency tasked with licensing aircraft. The younger Vargas was one of a number of high-level aviation officials suspended on 1 December as part of an investigation into the crash, AP said.
Marcelo Chavez, regional director of Bolivia’s air traffic control agency and one of the suspended officials, told AP that an inspector had flagged the issue with the aircraft’s fuel and range but the airline went ahead anyway and air traffic controllers had no authority to stop them. Morales said he did not know the airline existed and called a “profound investigation”.



'Our club represented Brazil': Chapecoense tragedy a crushing blow to nation in crisis
For many in the southern city of Chapecó the football team, whose players and staff were nearly all killed in a plane crash in Colombia on Monday, were a balm against the political and economic upheaval battering their country

The bodies of the victims are due to arrive in the team’s home of Chapecó, the medium-sized city in the south of Brazil, by Saturday, when a joint funeral will be held at the team’s small Arena Condá stadium. Large screens will be erected outside the stadium for a crowd that is expected to reach 100,000 – half the city’s population.

But controversy surrounds what happens next to the giant-killing team who had enchanted this football-mad nation.

This week, Brazilian Football Association president Marco Polo Del Nero caused controversy when he insisted that Chapecoense play their next league game against Atlético Mineiro.

“This game has to happen. There has to be a big party,” Chapecoense’s surviving vice-president Ivan Tozzo told Globoesporte. When Tozzo said he had no players, Del Nero replied: “You have the youth team and the players who stayed.”

Atlético have refused to play the game. “We believe in sport, respect the pain, this is not the moment to demand anything of any player,” Daniel Nepomuceno, Atlético’s president told reporters on 1 December.

Three Chapecoense players were among the six survivors – defenders Allan Ruschel and Helio Neto, and goalkeeper Jackson Follman.

Neto’s father has said his son will return to playing.

“He has just done surgery on his leg and the doctors say he will go back to football,” the player’s father, Helam Zampier, wrote on Facebook, the UOL site reported.

MTF...P2

[Peetwo]

Update 05/12/16: The knock on effect of poor NAA oversight.

Via Yahoo7 courtesy the AP:

Bolivia minister: country could face US aviation downgrade

Associated Press
By PAOLA FLORES and JOSHUA GOODMAN | Associated Press – Sun, Dec 4, 2016 5:27 AM AEDT

Related Content


A black bow hangs outside the office of LaMia airline in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, Friday, Dec. 2, 2016. Victims of this week's tragic air crash in the Andes were flown home Friday as Bolivia's president called for "drastic measures" against aviation officials who signed off on a LaMia flight plan that experts and even one of the charter airline's executives said should never have been attempted because of a possible fuel shortage. (AP Photo/Juan Karita)



Coffins carrying LaMia flight crew members who died in a plane crash are carried by soldiers to a hearse at the Viru Viru airport in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, Friday, Dec. 2, 2016. Victims of this week's tragic air crash in the Andes were flown home Friday as Bolivia's president called for "drastic measures" against aviation officials who signed off on a flight plan that experts and even one of the charter airline's executives said should never have been attempted because of a possible fuel shortage. (AP Photo/Juan Karita)

LA PAZ, Bolivia (AP) — The U.S. could downgrade the country's aviation safety rating because of irregularities that may have contributed to this week's crash of a chartered plane carrying a Brazilian soccer team, Bolivia's Defense Minister said Saturday.

As investigators probe what caused the crash that killed all but six of the 77 people on board, a string of human mistakes and irregularities have emerged, leading experts to conclude that one of the worst disasters in sports history could have been prevented.

Attention has focused on why the British-built regional jet was allowed to attempt the flight between Santa Cruz, Bolivia and the Colombian city of Medellin with barely enough fuel to cover the route. According to a flight plan obtained by Bolivian media, the total flying time was set at 4 hours and 22 minutes — the same amount of time of fuel the aircraft had on board.

"I've never seen a flight plan like this. The fuel on board should never, never match the estimated flight time," said John Cox, a retired airline pilot and CEO of Florida-based Safety Operating Systems, who reviewed the internationally standardized flight plan. "In a lot of countries this flight plan would not have been accepted."

Questions have also been raised about how the charter airline LaMia, which was licensed earlier this year, was able to quickly amass an impressive list of clients from South America's top soccer clubs as well as the national teams of Argentina and Brazil.

One of the airline's owners died in the crash while another, Gustavo Vargas, is a retired air force general who once served as Bolivian President Evo Morales' pilot. On Friday authorities revealed that Vargas' son headed the office responsible for aircraft registration at the civil aviation authority. He was immediately suspended along with several other aviation officials as authorities look into whether LaMia received favorable treatment.

Defense Minister Reymi Ferreri said it was possible Bolivia could be sanctioned with a downgrade by U.S. aviation authorities.

"All the information points to the airplane having crashed because of a lack of fuel, no mechanical errors," Ferreri told journalists from Santa Cruz, where he was on hand to receive the bodies of four members of the aircraft's all-Bolivian crew. "One of the dangers from the investigations are sanctions for civil aviation."

Bolivia in 2001 regained a category 1 rating from the Federal Aviation Administration after having lost the top status in 1994. If the category is downgraded, the South American country would join only a handful of nations including Bangladesh and Thailand deemed as not meeting international aviation standards. Such a move could limit the ability of state-run carrier Boliviana de Aviacion to expand its service to the U.S. The airline currently operates a single flight between Santa Cruz and Miami.

The FAA declined to comment except to say that Bolivia's status had not been changed.
Investigators were being helped in their probe by the six survivors' accounts of what happened. The first of those survivors to be released after the accident, crew member Erwin Tumiri, arrived Saturday in his hometown of Cochabamba in central Bolivia, where an ambulance took him to a local hospital.

Speaking from a stretcher and immobilized by a neck brace, he briefly thanked the many people who prayed for his recovery.

"I'm very happy to have arrived," he said.
___
Goodman reported from Bogota, Colombia.

MTF...P2

[Peetwo]

Update 05/12/16: The knock on effect of poor NAA oversight.

Via Yahoo7 courtesy the AP:

Bolivia minister: country could face US aviation downgrade

Associated Press
By PAOLA FLORES and JOSHUA GOODMAN | Associated Press – Sun, Dec 4, 2016 5:27 AM AEDT

Related Content


A black bow hangs outside the office of LaMia airline in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, Friday, Dec. 2, 2016. Victims of this week's tragic air crash in the Andes were flown home Friday as Bolivia's president called for "drastic measures" against aviation officials who signed off on a LaMia flight plan that experts and even one of the charter airline's executives said should never have been attempted because of a possible fuel shortage. (AP Photo/Juan Karita)



Coffins carrying LaMia flight crew members who died in a plane crash are carried by soldiers to a hearse at the Viru Viru airport in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, Friday, Dec. 2, 2016. Victims of this week's tragic air crash in the Andes were flown home Friday as Bolivia's president called for "drastic measures" against aviation officials who signed off on a flight plan that experts and even one of the charter airline's executives said should never have been attempted because of a possible fuel shortage. (AP Photo/Juan Karita)

LA PAZ, Bolivia (AP) — The U.S. could downgrade the country's aviation safety rating because of irregularities that may have contributed to this week's crash of a chartered plane carrying a Brazilian soccer team, Bolivia's Defense Minister said Saturday.

As investigators probe what caused the crash that killed all but six of the 77 people on board, a string of human mistakes and irregularities have emerged, leading experts to conclude that one of the worst disasters in sports history could have been prevented.

Attention has focused on why the British-built regional jet was allowed to attempt the flight between Santa Cruz, Bolivia and the Colombian city of Medellin with barely enough fuel to cover the route. According to a flight plan obtained by Bolivian media, the total flying time was set at 4 hours and 22 minutes — the same amount of time of fuel the aircraft had on board.

"I've never seen a flight plan like this. The fuel on board should never, never match the estimated flight time," said John Cox, a retired airline pilot and CEO of Florida-based Safety Operating Systems, who reviewed the internationally standardized flight plan. "In a lot of countries this flight plan would not have been accepted."

Questions have also been raised about how the charter airline LaMia, which was licensed earlier this year, was able to quickly amass an impressive list of clients from South America's top soccer clubs as well as the national teams of Argentina and Brazil.

One of the airline's owners died in the crash while another, Gustavo Vargas, is a retired air force general who once served as Bolivian President Evo Morales' pilot. On Friday authorities revealed that Vargas' son headed the office responsible for aircraft registration at the civil aviation authority. He was immediately suspended along with several other aviation officials as authorities look into whether LaMia received favorable treatment.

Defense Minister Reymi Ferreri said it was possible Bolivia could be sanctioned with a downgrade by U.S. aviation authorities.

"All the information points to the airplane having crashed because of a lack of fuel, no mechanical errors," Ferreri told journalists from Santa Cruz, where he was on hand to receive the bodies of four members of the aircraft's all-Bolivian crew. "One of the dangers from the investigations are sanctions for civil aviation."

Bolivia in 2001 regained a category 1 rating from the Federal Aviation Administration after having lost the top status in 1994. If the category is downgraded, the South American country would join only a handful of nations including Bangladesh and Thailand deemed as not meeting international aviation standards. Such a move could limit the ability of state-run carrier Boliviana de Aviacion to expand its service to the U.S. The airline currently operates a single flight between Santa Cruz and Miami.

The FAA declined to comment except to say that Bolivia's status had not been changed.
Investigators were being helped in their probe by the six survivors' accounts of what happened. The first of those survivors to be released after the accident, crew member Erwin Tumiri, arrived Saturday in his hometown of Cochabamba in central Bolivia, where an ambulance took him to a local hospital.

Speaking from a stretcher and immobilized by a neck brace, he briefly thanked the many people who prayed for his recovery.

"I'm very happy to have arrived," he said.
___
Goodman reported from Bogota, Colombia.

Update 08/12/16: Criminal negligence investigation heats up -

Via Fox News Latino:

Bolivia arrests Lamia Airlines chief after lack of fuel caused crash that killed 71 people
Published December 06, 2016







La Paz –  Prosecutors who on Tuesday raided the headquarters of Bolivia's Lamia Airlines in the city of Santa Cruz arrested the firm's general director, Gustavo Vargas Gamboa, after confiscating documents and computers in keeping with their investigation to determine the firm's responsibility in the air crash that took 71 lives in Colombia.

Authorities arrested Vargas at the office and transported him to the district attorney's office in the city, EFE learned.

Vargas is a former member of the Bolivian air force who was the pilot for several of the country's presidents between 2001-2007, including current President Evo Morales.

Also arrested in the raid were one of the company's secretaries and a technical staffer.

Vargas is the father of Gustavo Vargas Villegas, one of the top officials within the Civil Aeronautics General Directorate until he was suspended last week in the investigation into the airline's operations.

Prosecutors ordered the arrests after spending several hours reviewing the firm's documents and computers, which had been confiscated and hauled off in two trucks to the DA's office.

The arrests came on the eve of a meeting in Santa Cruz among Bolivian, Brazilian and Colombian prosecutors investigating the crash, in which almost the entire Chapecoense soccer team from Brazil were killed when their charted Lamia plane crashed near Medellin, Colombia, on Nov. 28.

Bolivian Attorney General Ramiro Guerrero said Tuesday that the crash investigation in his country "certainly could get to murder charges" against anyone found to have responsibility for the tragedy.

A few hours before the arrests, Bolivian prosecutors also raided the offices of the AASANA air navigation and airports administration at Santa Cruz's Viru Viru international airport.

Specifically, authorities searched the office of Celia Castedo, who had questioned the Lamia aircraft's flight plan prior to the accident mainly because she noticed that the scheduled flight time was the same as the amount of fuel the plane was to carry, apparently leaving no cushion for emergencies.

The AG's Office on Friday denounced Castedo for not reporting her observations regarding the flight plan in a more timely way.

On Monday, Castedo had traveled to the Brazilian city of Corumba and spent all day speaking with her attorney and officials with that country's General Prosecutors Office, after which they took her to request asylum from the Brazilian Federal Police.

Bolivian Interior Minister Carlos Romero said Tuesday that Castedo had left the country illegally and her presence in Brazil was also illegal, being "a clear act designed to elude justice."

MTF...P2

[Cap'n Wannabe]

This just in - an aircraft has gone down in Pakistan with the loss of all 47 on board..




"K" - ATR - I wonder how 'bumpy' it was?

[Peetwo]

Update 05/12/16: The knock on effect of poor NAA oversight.

Update 08/12/16:
Via Fox News Latino:

Bolivia arrests Lamia Airlines chief after lack of fuel caused crash that killed 71 people
Published December 06, 2016

The implications of survival in AAI -

The following is an excellent article by Joseph Wheeler (courtesy the Oz) which considers the implications for survivors and the further psychological trauma they are exposed to post accident/incident:

Colombia air disaster survivors endure hearing crash tapes

• Joseph Wheeler
  
• The Australian
  
• 12:00AM December 9, 2016
  

Imagine surviving a catastrophic airline disaster and then having to listen to the news playing sound recordings of those last moments of terror.

It is something the survivors of last week’s air crash tragedy in Colombia regrettably will have to endure.

The crash will long be remembered for the deeply disturbing tapes that have been released outside the context of an official Annex 13 air accident investigation. The nation of Brazil mourns, the sporting world mourns; and the world of air accident investigation mourns the irretrievable cost of leaks of such sensitive recorded information which, properly decoded in context, will be one of the keys to properly determining just what went wrong.

It is not often that there are survivors to such disasters and their evidence about the aircraft’s final flight will also be important in settling the actual events that led to the accident. But think of the life that awaits them: injured, scarred, and robbed of sleep by the moments of terror and sights imprinted into their minds — sights that no one should ever see.

Their futures may be marred by a single night in November when disaster struck, and publicly available information that should never have been made free for all to hear — particularly those recovering as survivors of the crash itself.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the world many others experienced a similar kind of terror — the shock precipitated by reportedly severe turbulence that injured seven people as they came to land in Sydney on an Air China flight.

Is there anything in common with the two events as markedly separated as they were in location and cause? It turns out that precisely the same international law potentially applies to both incidents to control the liability of the respective air carriers for death, and injury. In some ways it seems anomalous that a charter flight in South America, a simple point-to-point operation should be in the same category as an international airline’s long-haul flight from Asia to Australia — but the law was designed to make it simpler for those involved to access justice.

In both cases those injured or the families of the victims have recourse against the carrier by way of strict liability (meaning negligence does not need to be proven) with compensation payable to them essentially limited only by their proven financial losses.

In both cases, the essential element of the law applying is the fact that a contract of carriage was in place and the carriage was “international”.

There is a major battle in international air law over the specific circumstances when compensation may be paid for psychiatric injury by air carriers for surviving air passengers — and it is happening in Australia.

The case arises out of the 2009 ditching near Norfolk Island of a medevac aircraft operated between Samoa and Melbourne. Nurse Karen Casey is battling for the right to compensation for her mental injuries, particularly post traumatic stress disorder as a species of “bodily injury” rather than “pure” psychiatric injury.

The distinction is an important one and, because of the nature of international air law, the results of the appeal, presently being decided after a hearing in late November, will certainly have implications for claims made by those survivors who suffer PTSD.

If the appeal succeeds, then the prospect of compensation for PTSD following the terror of surviving an air accident will be lost; if the appeal is dismissed, the decision opens the way for those suffering PTSD (whether in Australia, following severe turbulence, or the jungles of South America, following a crash) to hold the air carrier accountable for the very real mental anguish suffered.

Joseph Wheeler is the principal of IALPG, national head of aviation law at Maurice Blackburn Lawyers, and aviation legal counsel to the Australian Federation of Air Pilots.

MTF...P2

[Kharon]

Well said Mr. Wheeler.

It is most refreshing to read an accurate, concise summary on air accident aftermath, in particular on the legal ramifications. If – gods forbid – but if Australia looses an aircraft the wise words spoken, warning government, will return to haunt.

The world wide aviation industry tries, very hard, to learn the lessons, writ in blood and fire taught by every accident and incident. Nearly every occurrence bring about ‘change’ – in one form or another – as the reasons for the event become clear. Government seems to avoid taking these essential steps, living in a fools paradise, believing it cannot happen here.

Granted, the percentage chances are low, but we have come awfully close the abyss, several times in the last few years and it is a numbers game. The government rump, like it or not, is well and truly exposed. Simply denying that any government agency could be part of the causal chain will not withstand, nor satisfy close examination. There are enough loose ends in the government's knitting to keep a quarrel of lawyers gainfully employed for many years.

The crash in Brazil for example seems, from information available, simple enough to fathom. The aircraft ran out of fuel; pilot error plain and simple. But – the penalties for carrying insufficient reserve failed to act as a deterrent – however; those for declaring a fuel emergency did not fail. Had the crew ‘declared’ they may, just, have squeaked into an area suitable for a survivable landing. Sure, its debatable, but the reality is stark.  The ‘law’ failed to prevent an accident; twice.  It is this failing which must be addressed; more bad law heaped on existing bad law simply creates anarchy. The intent cannot be prevented by the written word. Never could: well, not before the fact anyway.

Toot toot.

[Peetwo]

Once a hero, forever a villain -  

If there is one article that you should read on the tragic & criminally negligent LAMIA 2933 accident, it is the following courtesy of Airways magazine (link via Flightaware):

Op-Ed: Pilots Can be Heroes, but Also Murderers
Submitted 2 days ago


 
The LAMIA 2933 crash that killed 71 people in Colombia was a foolish, irresponsible tragedy that should have been avoided by the Captain himself, as well a number of other people who hopefully will be investigated and brought to justice. (airwaysmag.com) More...

{P2 comment - Due to the nature of and references to PelAir I have copied across the last two posts to the Karen Casey thread - see HERE}   

MTF...P2

[Gobbledock]

One from the archives

I was doing some weekend surfing and stumbled across this little gem of an article and thought it worth a weekend twiddle on AP;

Unearthing the 32-Year Mystery of Crashed Eastern Airlines Flight 980

Story link;

http://abcnews.go.com/International/unea...d=44175532

I love the tenacity and dedication of the two lads who took up the challenge to find the wreck and the black boxes. Chocolate frogs to these youngish men. I also find it interesting how bureaucracy and Government pony pooh tends to not be bounded by countries or borders. It is the same everywhere!

P7 - Thank you GD; very much. Great story, great blokes .

[Peetwo]

One from the archives

I was doing some weekend surfing and stumbled across this little gem of an article and thought it worth a weekend twiddle on AP;

Unearthing the 32-Year Mystery of Crashed Eastern Airlines Flight 980

Story link;

http://abcnews.go.com/International/unea...d=44175532

I love the tenacity and dedication of the two lads who took up the challenge to find the wreck and the black boxes. Chocolate frogs to these youngish men. I also find it interesting how bureaucracy and Government pony pooh tends to not be bounded by countries or borders. It is the same everywhere!

P7 - Thank you GD; very much. Great story, great blokes .

Update: EgyptAir Flight MS804 investigation

Agree with Ol'Tom, excellent catch GD and definitely one for the archives...

Been trying to get to this one for a couple of days when it was first brought to my attention by Chillit and Carol.

Courtesy Reuters, via Simply Marvellous Horsepooh:

December 16 2016

Traces of explosives found in EgyptAir plane crash investigation

Cairo: Egyptian air accident investigators said on Thursday traces of explosives had been found on the remains of victims of an Egyptair flight that crashed en route from Paris to Cairo.

Flight MS 804 plunged into one of the deepest parts of the Mediterranean Sea on May 19, killing all 66 people on board.

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Explosives found on EgyptAir crash victims

The Egyptian Aviation Investigation Committee has found traces of explosives on remains of victims from crashed EgyptAir flight MS804

Explosives found on EgyptAir crash victims
The Egyptian Aviation Investigation Committee has found traces of explosives on remains of victims from crashed EgyptAir flight MS804

Egypt's investigation committee issued a statement saying the coroner had found traces of explosives on the remains of some victims. It gave no more details but said its findings were sent to prosecutors investigating foul play.

"The technical investigation committee ... places itself and its expertise at the disposal of prosecutors," it said.
Related Content

• 
  EgyptAir voice recorder indicates attempt to put out fire before crash
  
  

A judicial source said the prosecution had not received details about the explosives traces but would include the coroner's findings in its inquiries.

An Egyptian source familiar with the matter said Egypt had informed France months ago about its findings but French investigators had requested more time to study them.

"That is why it took so long to make an announcement," the source said, declining to be named as the investigation is continuing.

Paris newspaper Le Figaro reported in September that French investigators had seen trace levels of TNT on the plane's debris but were prevented from further examining it.

Egyptian officials denied at the time obstructing French inquiries.

The EgyptAir plane was making the journey from Paris to Cairo when it disappeared.  Photo: AP

France has hinted at its frustration at the pace of the investigation but has stopped short of openly criticising Cairo, with which it enjoys broadly positive relations and which has ordered French Rafale fighter jets.

In a telephone call between the countries' foreign ministers on August 3, France's Jean-Marc Ayrault spoke of the "difficult situation for families waiting to recover bodies and personal effects of the victims and to know the causes of the crash."

Personal belongings and other wreckage retrieved from EgyptAir flight 804. Photo: Egyptian Armed Forces

Two Western sources briefed on the investigation expressed reservations about the explosives findings and said a technical cause remained the most likely.

One of the sources said the traces of explosives reportedly found appeared to be identical to samples previously held in stock, whereas there would usually be tiny forensic differences.

Neither source agreed to be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter.

A spokesman for France's BEA air crash investigation agency said it was not involved in the analysis and declined further comment. The BEA is accredited to the investigation as the Airbus aircraft was designed and built in France.

It provided help on the sea search and repairs to damaged flight recorders, but Western sources say it has mainly been kept at arm's length from the rest of the investigation.

Airbus declined comment on the Egyptian announcement.

Audio from the flight recorder mentions a fire on board the plane in its final moments and analysis of the flight data recorder showed smoke in the lavatory and avionics bay.

The Paris prosecutor's office opened a manslaughter investigation in June but said it was not looking into terrorism as a possible cause of the crash at this stage.

No group has claimed responsibility for the crash.

In October 2015, a bomb brought down a Metrojet plane carrying Russian holidaymakers home from the Red Sea resort of Sharm al-Sheikh, killing all 224 people on board.

Islamic State claimed responsibility for that attack, saying it smuggled aboard explosives in a soft drink can. 

Reuters
  

MTF..P2

[Peetwo]

Update to LAMIA 2933 AAI (27/12/16).

Via AP:

Colombia probe finds human error, lack of fuel in air crash
By ALBA TOBELLA and CESAR Garcia
1 hour ago

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — A series of human errors caused an airliner to run out of fuel and crash in Colombia last month, killing 71 people including most of a Brazilian soccer team, aviation authorities said on Monday.

Colombia's Civil Aeronautics agency concluded in its investigation that the plan for the flight operated by Bolivia-based charter company LaMia did not meet international standards. Among the errors made were the decisions to let the plane take off without enough fuel to make the flight safely and then to not stop midway to refuel. The pilot also did not report the plane's emergency until it was too late, it said.

Neither the company nor Bolivian authorities should have allowed the plane to take off with the flight plan submitted, said Freddy Bonilla, air safety secretary for Colombia's aviation authority. He said the agency's preliminary conclusions were based on the plane's black boxes and other evidence.

Experts had earlier suggested that fuel exhaustion was a likely cause of the Nov. 28 crash that wiped out all but a few members of the Chapocoense soccer team, as well as team officials and journalists accompanying them to a championship playoff match in Medellin, Colombia.

The BAE 146 Avro RJ85 has a maximum range was 2,965 kilometers (1,600 nautical miles) — just under the distance between Medellin and Santa Cruz, Bolivia, where the plane had taken off at almost full capacity.

The plane was in the air for about 4 hours and 20 minutes when air traffic controllers in Medellin put it into a holding pattern because another flight had reported a suspected fuel leak and was given priority.

Investigators found that crew members of the LaMia flight were aware of the lack of fuel but waited too long to report the emergency.

Bonilla said that during the flight the pilot and co-pilot are heard on "various occasions" talking about stopping in Leticia — a city near the borders separating Brazil, Peru and Colombia — to refuel but decided not to do so. When the plane entered Colombian airspace it was flying into a wind, which caused more fuel to be consumed.

And when the pilot asked for priority to land in Medellin, six minutes before crashing, the plane had already spent two minutes with a motor shut off, the investigation concluded. All the motors shut down minutes later.

In a recording of a radio message from the pilot, he can be heard repeatedly requesting permission to land due to a lack of fuel and a "total electric failure." A surviving flight attendant and a pilot flying nearby also overheard the frantic pleas from the doomed airliner.

In addition, there was no explosion upon impact, pointing to a scarcity of fuel.

Investigators in Colombia concluded that the plane did not have the fuel reserves required by international standards for such a flight. They said there was no evidence of sabotage or mechanical failure.

Authorities also detected an excess of baggage, but did not relate it to the accident, and, according to its plan, the flight was expected to reach 30,000 feet, an altitude the plane was not certified for.

Details of the complete report by Colombia's aviation agency will be released in April 2017. Bolivia, Brazil and the United Kingdom contributed to it.

Bolivia's government has already blamed the airline and its pilot for the accident

MTF...P2

[Gobbledock]

It really defies belief that this can happen in 2016 FFS. Absolutely unnecessary waste of life. The Crew are normally the last line of defence once all the other defences have been breached.

Poor passengers didn't stand a chance on that day. That was the day LAMIA's clock stopped ticking.

[Peetwo]

Update to LAMIA 2933 AAI (27/12/16).

Via AP:

Colombia probe finds human error, lack of fuel in air crash
By ALBA TOBELLA and CESAR Garcia
1 hour ago

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — A series of human errors caused an airliner to run out of fuel and crash in Colombia last month, killing 71 people including most of a Brazilian soccer team, aviation authorities said on Monday.

Colombia's Civil Aeronautics agency concluded in its investigation that the plan for the flight operated by Bolivia-based charter company LaMia did not meet international standards. Among the errors made were the decisions to let the plane take off without enough fuel to make the flight safely and then to not stop midway to refuel. The pilot also did not report the plane's emergency until it was too late, it said.

Neither the company nor Bolivian authorities should have allowed the plane to take off with the flight plan submitted, said Freddy Bonilla, air safety secretary for Colombia's aviation authority. He said the agency's preliminary conclusions were based on the plane's black boxes and other evidence.

Experts had earlier suggested that fuel exhaustion was a likely cause of the Nov. 28 crash that wiped out all but a few members of the Chapocoense soccer team, as well as team officials and journalists accompanying them to a championship playoff match in Medellin, Colombia.

The BAE 146 Avro RJ85 has a maximum range was 2,965 kilometers (1,600 nautical miles) — just under the distance between Medellin and Santa Cruz, Bolivia, where the plane had taken off at almost full capacity.

The plane was in the air for about 4 hours and 20 minutes when air traffic controllers in Medellin put it into a holding pattern because another flight had reported a suspected fuel leak and was given priority.

Investigators found that crew members of the LaMia flight were aware of the lack of fuel but waited too long to report the emergency.

Bonilla said that during the flight the pilot and co-pilot are heard on "various occasions" talking about stopping in Leticia — a city near the borders separating Brazil, Peru and Colombia — to refuel but decided not to do so. When the plane entered Colombian airspace it was flying into a wind, which caused more fuel to be consumed.

And when the pilot asked for priority to land in Medellin, six minutes before crashing, the plane had already spent two minutes with a motor shut off, the investigation concluded. All the motors shut down minutes later.

In a recording of a radio message from the pilot, he can be heard repeatedly requesting permission to land due to a lack of fuel and a "total electric failure." A surviving flight attendant and a pilot flying nearby also overheard the frantic pleas from the doomed airliner.

In addition, there was no explosion upon impact, pointing to a scarcity of fuel.

Investigators in Colombia concluded that the plane did not have the fuel reserves required by international standards for such a flight. They said there was no evidence of sabotage or mechanical failure.

Authorities also detected an excess of baggage, but did not relate it to the accident, and, according to its plan, the flight was expected to reach 30,000 feet, an altitude the plane was not certified for.

Details of the complete report by Colombia's aviation agency will be released in April 2017. Bolivia, Brazil and the United Kingdom contributed to it.

Bolivia's government has already blamed the airline and its pilot for the accident

MTF...P2  

It really defies belief that this can happen in 2016 FFS. Absolutely unnecessary waste of life.  The Crew are normally the last line of defence once all the other defences have been breached.

Poor passengers didn't stand a chance on that day. That was the day LAMIA's clock stopped ticking.

Further to, via ABC courtesy Reuters... :

Chapecoense crash: 'Human error' led to Colombian plane crash that killed 71
Updated about 8 hours agoTue 27 Dec 2016, 12:27pm
Photo: The crash on November 29 was one of the worst in Colombia's history. (AP: Fernando Vergara)

Errors by the pilot, airline and Bolivian regulators are to blame for a plane crash in Colombia that killed 71 people last month, including most of Brazil's Chapecoense soccer team, Colombian aviation authorities say.

Key points

• Investigators find engine failures were not reported until too late
  
• Officials had already determined the plane was out of fuel
  
• Airline's chief executive remains in custody
  

The plane, operated by Bolivia-based charter company LaMia, crashed on a wooded hillside near Medellin because the pilot failed to refuel en route and did not report engine failures caused by the lack of fuel until it was too late, officials said.

"No technical factor was part of the accident, everything involved human error, added to a management factor in the company's administration and the management and organisation of the flight plans by the authorities in Bolivia," Colombia's Secretary for Air Safety Colonel Freddy Bonilla said.

Aviation authorities in Bolivia and the airline "accepted conditions for the flight presented in the flight plan that were unacceptable," Mr Bonilla added.

Besides a lack of fuel, the plane was over its weight limit by nearly 400 kilograms and was not certified to fly at the altitude at which the journey took place, Mr Bonilla said.

The preliminary conclusions of Colombia's investigation coincide with assertions by Bolivian authorities last week that LaMia and the plane's pilot were directly responsible for the accident.

Aviation officials had earlier confirmed the plane had no fuel on impact, prompting this investigation.

A leaked recording of the final minutes of the flight showed pilot Miguel Quiroga reporting "no fuel" before the crash.

Quiroga was also a co-owner of the airline and was killed in the tragedy.

The aircraft had been transporting the Chapecoense team to the biggest game in its history, the final of the Copa Sudamericana.

All but three of the players and staff on board were killed.

Two crew members and one reporter also survived.

Photo: The death of the Chapecoense soccer team prompted an outpouring of grief from around South America. (AP: Ivan Valencia)

LaMia maintains innocence

Gustavo Vargas Gamboa, LaMia's chief executive, was jailed pending trial earlier this month on manslaughter and other charges, which he has denied.

His son Gustavo Vargas Villegas, a former official with Bolivia's aviation authority, is also being held on charges that he misused his influence in authorising the license of the plane that crashed.

He also says he is innocent.

Criminal charges have also been brought against LaMia co-owner Marco Antonio Rocha Benegas, whose whereabouts are unknown, and air traffic controller Celia Castedo, who fled Bolivia after the crash and is seeking asylum in Brazil.

Bolivian authorities have said the crash was an isolated incident, but that the Government will accelerate the process of implementing a new safety system.

Colombian investigators have the final word on causes of the crash, Bolivian authorities have said.

Reuters

MTF...P2