Air France flight recorders located in Atlantic

Signals from the flight data recorders of the Air France jet that crashed into the Atlantic killing all 228 people on board have been located, a media report said Tuesday.

The Le Monde newspaper said French naval vessels had picked up a weak signal from the flight recorders at the site of the June 1 crash. The paper did not give the source of the information.

The report said a mini-submarine had been dispatched Monday to try to find the black boxes on the ocean floor. The devices may contain information on what caused the crash of the Airbus A330 en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris.

‘The search effort has been complicated by the uneven surface of the ocean floor. The depth at the site is almost 5,000 meters (16,400 feet),’ the paper said.

Air France said it could not confirm the report.

Beacons on the recorders send an electronic impulse every second for at least 30 days. The signal can be picked up from two kilometres away.

French vessels involved in the search operation include a nuclear submarine with advanced sonar equipment and a research ship equipped with mini submarines.

Ten of the 50 bodies recovered from the plane have been identified as Brazilians.

Turkish Airlines launching Toronto

Turkish Airlines is launching 3 new weekly nonstop flights to Toronto from its Istanbul hub effective July 11th 2009.

The airline will be using an Airbus A 330-200 for this nonstop flight flown on MON / THU / SAT.

Flight timings are as follows:

TK 017 Dep IST 1130 Arr YYZ 1540
TK 018 Dep YYZ 2350 Arr IST 1730

These flight timings allow excellent connections in both directions via TK’s IST hub to Saudi Arabia, Iran, BOM, DEL, AMM, BEY, CAI, DAM, Central Asia, BKK and GCC (DXB/AUH/DOH).

Introductory return fares are as follows:

In peak season (July-August):

YYZ-Middle East-YYZ…C$ 870 + tax
YYZ-BOM/DEL/KHI-YYZ…C$ 1100 + tax

In off season i.e. Sept onward:

YYZ-Middle East-YYZ…C$720 + tax
YYZ-BOM/DEL/KHI-YYZ…C$ 950 + tax

Airbus denies planning to ground A330/340 fleet

Airbus denied on Wednesday a French newspaper report that it is considering grounding its fleet of A330 and A340 planes in the wake of last week’s Atlantic plane disaster, saying they are safe to fly.

Le Figaro reported in its early Thursday edition that Airbus does not exclude the move after the Air France plane, an A330, crashed during a storm.

Responding to the report that Airbus may ground the fleet of almost 1,000 jets and order airlines to change speed sensors, Airbus spokesman Stefan Schaffrath told Reuters: “We are not considering grounding the fleet because it is safe to operate.”

The report appeared on the front page of Le Figaro’s Thursday edition, which was released before publication.

The twinjet A330 and four-engine A340 come from the same family of aircraft and have many shared components. The longer-distance A340 has four engines instead of the A330’s two.

There are 605 A330s and 359 A340s in operation, according to the planemaker, part of European aerospace group EADS.

These include 340 of the variant involved in last week’s disaster, known as the A330-200.

French crash investigators have said the Air France jetliner sent out 24 error messages including one suggesting that its speed sensors, known as pitot tubes, were giving inconsistent readings. But they have stressed it is too early to say whether this was linked to the cause of the crash.

The sensors on the Air France plane were built by Thales which has declined to comment pending investigations.

According to Airbus, the Thales sensors are an optional alternative to the sensors in the basic design of the A330, which are made by Goodrich of the United States.

They are among many components on an aircraft for which airlines can choose between alternative suppliers.

The French media and the media in general seem to be cornering Airbus at almost every stage. Doesn’t speak well of Airbus as it ends up looking like it’s covering up.

New Signs That Air France Jet Broke Up in Flight

Two pieces of evidence have emerged that lend new credence to the theory that the Air France jet that crashed more than a week ago broke up in flight.

The Brazilian Air Force released information on Tuesday night showing that bodies from Flight 447 had been recovered from locations that were more than 50 miles apart. And Airbus, the plane’s manufacturer, sent its airline customers a bulletin saying a re-analysis of the stricken plane’s last automatic transmissions reinforced the idea that many parts malfunctioned, but that the parts that measure air speed may have failed first.

A faulty air speed indicator could mislead pilots into flying faster than the aircraft could withstand, or faster than it should be flown into turbulence — two circumstances that could lead to the craft coming apart in flight.

The theory will remain just that, however, until more evidence is collected. The black boxes that contain data and voice recordings are likely to be the key to resolving the mystery of what happened to the plane, which was carrying 228 people. According to news service reports, the French nuclear attack submarine Émeraude, with a crew of 72 men, has joined two sonar-detecting surface vessels in the search for the boxes. Each vessel is able to sweep a narrow strip of ocean for the “pings” emitted by the boxes and audible for a distance of no more than three miles under ideal conditions.

In its message sent to airlines this week, Airbus said that no data was available beyond the automatic transmissions from the Air France jet, but it appeared that the manufacturer was fitting those messages into a scenario that began with the air speed problem. It said those messages “indicate that there was unreliable air speed indication” and that that situation was “consolidated” by messages indicating other failures that would be consequences of such a failure.

The Web site of The Wall Street Journal, WSJ.com, first reported on the Airbus bulletin.

Airbus evidently did not fit all the messages into a clear sequence. It said one message showed a change of cabin pressure equal to an altitude change of greater than 1,800 feet per minute “which remains to be explained.” One explanation would be cabin depressurization.

Perhaps to reassure airlines, Airbus said the data did not suggest a loss of the computerized instrument display, or the Air Data Inertial Reference Unit, which helps planes locate their positions and which has had problems on other A330s.

Long before the crash, Airbus had recommended that airlines replace parts, called Pitot tubes, that scoop in air to help planes measure their air speed. The company said in its new message that for now, airlines could continue flying with older Pitot tubes.

The Federal Aviation Administration sometimes makes such manufacturer recommendations mandatory, as air worthiness directives, but Laura J. Brown, an agency spokeswoman, said “we don’t think we’re at the point where we can issue an air worthiness directive.”

“We don’t have data to indicate an unsafe condition exists,” she said.

A Delta Air Lines spokeswoman, Betsey Talton, said Delta had replaced the tubes on some models and was replacing them on its A330s, the model in the accident.

Retrieving Air France black box will be epic task

 

The first sighting off Brazil’s coast of possible wreckage from a missing Air France jet signals the start of what could be one of the most challenging operations ever mounted to retrieve the tell-tale “black box.”

The box, which is in fact two separate devices containing cockpit voice recordings and instrument data, offers the best chance of finding out why the Airbus jetliner vanished in an Atlantic storm en route to Paris with 228 people on board.

The devices are designed to send homing signals when they hit water, but merely locating them presents one of the most daunting recovery tasks since the exploration of the Titanic and barring good fortune, could take months, experts said.

If they are in waters as deep as some people fear, 4,000 meters (13,100 ft) or more, unmanned submersibles would be tested to their limits. Yet past disasters have led to advances in equipment which do give hope for finding out what happened.

“There is a good chance that the recorder would survive but the main problem would be finding it,” said Derek Clarke, joint managing director of Aberdeen-based Divex, which designs and builds military and commercial diving equipment.

“If you think how long it took to find the Titanic and that the debris would be smaller, you are looking for a needle in haystack. You are very quickly looking at a large area to survey and could spend months running sonars down to a deep depth.”

Black boxes have an underwater beacon called a pinger which is activated when the recorder is immersed in water. The beacon can transmit from depths down to 14,000 feet, according to the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board.

RECORD DEPTHS

Clarke spends time preparing for the unthinkable as part of an industry network on stand-by to help rescue submarines.

But the depths in this stretch of ocean far exceed the 600 meter maximum at which any navy could attempt a useful submarine rescue, a senior diving expert at Britain’s Royal Navy said.

Brazil said on Tuesday its military planes had spotted wreckage 400 miles off its northern coast.

Speaking beforehand, based on reports of the plane’s probable location, Neil Wells, senior lecturer in oceanography and meteorology at Britain’s National Oceanography Center, said the black box could be more than 4,000 metres below the surface.

“There is no doubt about it; you will be pushing the limits of the technology. It is not a straightforward operation.”

The oil industry has significant unmanned deep-sea capability but only operates down to 3,000 metres, Clarke said.

Such depths are well below the reach of manned craft.

A handful of deep-sea prowlers such as the U.S. Navy’s Alvin, which surveyed the wreck of the Titanic at 4,000 metres below the Atlantic in 1986, could be equipped for such depths.

A U.S. Navy report based on similar disasters, released under the Freedom of Information Act late last year, found it was possible to recover aircraft wreckage including the black boxes from depths of up to 6,000 metres.

It cited advances since the 1980s in technology such as sonar for combing rugged sea floors, new software and acoustic beacons or “pingers” which indicate a position under water.

Both recorders were recovered from the crash of Air India Flight 182, which was blown up off the Irish coast in 1985.

They were recovered from some 2,000 metres in a search which lasted more than two weeks.

Two years later, South African Airways Flight 295 crashed into the Indian Ocean near Mauritius, triggering the deepest hunt for an airliner yet undertaken, with investigators recovering the cockpit voice recorder after a three-month search from a record depth of more than 4,200 metres.

Whatever the challenges, industry experts say the stakes are too high to give up on the search. “Not knowing would be totally unacceptable to Airbus and to aviation in general,” said David Learmount, safety and operations editor of British-based aerospace magazine Flight International.

The first sighting off Brazil’s coast of possible wreckage from a missing Air France jet signals the start of what could be one of the most challenging operations ever mounted to retrieve the tell-tale “black box.” The box, which is in fact two separate devices containing cockpit voice recordings and instrument data, offers the best chance of finding out why the Airbus jetliner vanished in an Atlantic storm en route to Paris with 228 people on board.

The devices are designed to send homing signals when they hit water, but merely locating them presents one of the most daunting recovery tasks since the exploration of the Titanic and barring good fortune, could take months, experts said.

If they are in waters as deep as some people fear, 4,000 meters (13,100 ft) or more, unmanned submersibles would be tested to their limits. Yet past disasters have led to advances in equipment which do give hope for finding out what happened. ”There is a good chance that the recorder would survive but the main problem would be finding it,” said Derek Clarke, joint managing director of Aberdeen-based Divex, which designs and builds military and commercial diving equipment.

“If you think how long it took to find the Titanic and that the debris would be smaller, you are looking for a needle in haystack. You are very quickly looking at a large area to survey and could spend months running sonars down to a deep depth.”

Black boxes have an underwater beacon called a pinger which is activated when the recorder is immersed in water. The beacon can transmit from depths down to 14,000 feet, according to the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board.

Brazil said on Tuesday its military planes had spotted wreckage 400 miles off its northern coast.

Speaking beforehand, based on reports of the plane’s probable location, Neil Wells, senior lecturer in oceanography and meteorology at Britain’s National Oceanography Center, said the black box could be more than 4,000 metres below the surface.

The oil industry has significant unmanned deep-sea capability but only operates down to 3,000 metres, Clarke said. Such depths are well below the reach of manned craft. A handful of deep-sea prowlers such as the U.S. Navy’s Alvin, which surveyed the wreck of the Titanic at 4,000 metres below the Atlantic in 1986, could be equipped for such depths. A U.S. Navy report based on similar disasters, released under the Freedom of Information Act late last year, found it was possible to recover aircraft wreckage including the black boxes from depths of up to 6,000 metres.

It cited advances since the 1980s in technology such as sonar for combing rugged sea floors, new software and acoustic beacons or “pingers” which indicate a position under water. Both recorders were recovered from the crash of Air India Flight 182, which was blown up off the Irish coast in 1985. They were recovered from some 2,000 metres in a search which lasted more than two weeks. Two years later, South African Airways Flight 295 crashed into the Indian Ocean near Mauritius, triggering the deepest hunt for an airliner yet undertaken, with investigators recovering the cockpit voice recorder after a three-month search from a record depth of more than 4,200 metres. Whatever the challenges, industry experts say the stakes are too high to give up on the search. “Not knowing would be totally unacceptable to Airbus and to aviation in general,” said David Learmount, safety and operations editor of British-based aerospace magazine Flight International.

Debris Found of Air France by Brazilian teams

Search teams scouring the Atlantic Ocean for the Air France jet which came down in a storm yesterday have found debris from an aircraft that included plane seats..

The Brazilian air force said “small remains” were located 650km (400 miles) northeast of the Fernando do Noronha archipelago in the area where the jet is thought to have crashed.

It could not immediately be confirmed that the debris was from Air France flight AF 447 – which had 228 passengers and crew aboard but reports from Brazil suggested that the search teams had seen aircraft seats bobbing in the sea.

Brazil’s Globo TV quoted a ham radio operator who reported hearing air force radio traffic that debris possibly from the plane had been spotted. The Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper reported on its website that air force radar has detected signs of oil and metal in the same area.

If the debris is confirmed as that of the Air France Airbus A33-200, air crash investigators will be significantly more confident as to the prospects of recovering the plane’s “black box” flight recorder, which will give clues as to what happened.

As search teams scoured a remote area between Brazil and the coast of Africa for traces of the plane, the French Government announced that the investigation would be led by Alain Bouillard, who led the inquiry into the fatal Concorde crash over Paris nine years ago which helped hasten the end of the supersonic airliner.

More details Awaited

Possible burning wreckage spotted after Air France plane disappeared

A pilot from Brazil’s airline TAM may have spotted a burning piece of wreckage of the Air France passenger plane that disappeared early Monday morning.

    The Brazilian Air Force confirmed late Monday that the pilot saw “orange-colored spots” on the Atlantic Ocean, about 40 minutes after the last contact between Air France Flight 447 and Brazil’s air control center.

    Investigators are now searching for more information to confirm whether these “glowing spots” are the burning pieces of the plane wreckage, the Brazilian Air Force said.

    The TAM pilot “saw glowing spots on the high sea on its path between Europe and Brazil, about 1,300 km off the island Fernando de Noronha,” the TAM airline said in a statement. Fernando de Noronha is about 350 km off the Brazilian coast.

    Air France Airbus A330-200, Flight 447, with 228 people on board, was probably hit by lightning and suffered an electrics failure while flying through an Atlantic storm, according to Air France. French President Nicolas Sarkozy said Monday in Paris that the chances of finding any survivors are “very slim.”

    The airplane, bound for Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, lost contact with the control center shortly after its takeoff from Rio de Janeiro on Sunday at 7 p.m. (2200 GMT).

Missing French jet hit thunderstorms over Atlantic

 

A missing Air France jet carrying 228 people from Rio de Janeiro to Paris ran into lightning and strong thunderstorms over the Atlantic Ocean, officials said Monday. Brazil began a search mission off its northeastern coast.

Chief Air France spokesman Francois Brousse said “it is possible” that the plane was hit by lightning.

Air France Flight 447, an Airbus A330, left Rio on Sunday at 7 p.m. local time (2200 GMT, 6 p.m. EDT) with 216 passengers and 12 crew members on board, company spokeswoman Brigitte Barrand.

About four hours later, the plane sent an automatic signal indicating electrical problems while going through strong turbulence, Air France said.

The plane “crossed through a thunderous zone with strong turbulence” at 0200 GMT Monday (10 p.m. EDT Sunday). An automatic message was received fourteen minutes later “signaling electrical circuit malfunction.”

Brazil’s Air Force said the last contact it had with the Air France jet was at 0136 GMT (9:30 p.m. EDT Sunday), but did not say where the plane was at that time.

Brazil’s air force was searching near the archipelago of Fernando de Noronha, about 300 kilometers (180 miles) northeast of the coastal city of Natal, a spokesman said, speaking on condition of anonymity in keeping with department policy.

The region is about 1,500 miles northeast of Rio.

The head of investigation and accident prevention for Brazil’s Civil Aeronautics Agency, Douglas Ferreira Machado, told Brazil’s Globo TV that he believes the plane must have left Brazilian waters and could have been near the coast of Africa by the time contact was lost, based on the speed it was traveling.

“It’s going to take a long time to carry out this search,” he said. “It could be a long, sad story. The black box will be at the bottom of the sea.”

Air France-KLM CEO Pierre-Henri Gourgeon, at a news conference at Charles de Gaulle Airport north of Paris, said the pilot had 11,000 hours of flying experience, including 1,700 hours flying this aircraft. No name was released.

Aviation experts said the risk the plane was brought down by lightning was slim.

“Lightning issues have been considered since the beginning of aviation. They were far more prevalent when aircraft operated at low altitudes. They are less common now since it’s easier to avoid thunderstorms,” said Bill Voss, president and CEO of Flight Safety Foundation, Alexandria, Va.

He said planes have specific measures built in to help dissipate electricity along the aircraft’s skin.

“I cannot recall in recent history any examples of aircraft being brought down by lightning,” he told The Associated Press.

Experts said it was clear the plane was not in the air any longer, due to the amount of fuel it would have been carrying.

“The conclusion to be drawn is that something catastrophic happened on board that has caused this airplane to ditch in a controlled or an uncontrolled fashion,” Jane’s Aviation analyst Chris Yates told The Associated Press.

“I would suggest that potentially it went down very quickly and so quickly that the pilot on board didn’t have a chance to make that emergency call,” Yates said, adding that the possibilities ranged from mechanical failure to terrorism.

Families who arrived to meet passengers on board were cordoned off, away from reporters, at a special Air France information center at the Charles de Gaulle airport. That center said 60 French citizens were on the plane. Italy said at least three passengers were Italian.

“Air France shares the emotion and worry of the families concerned,” Barrand said.

The flight was supposed to arrive in Paris at 0915 GMT (5:15 a.m. EDT), according to the airport.

Airbus said it was cooperating with transport authorities and Air France, but would not further comment until more details emerged.

“Our thoughts are with the passengers and with the families of the passengers,” said Airbus spokeswoman Maggie Bergsma.

The Airbus A330-200 is a twin-engine, long-haul, medium-capacity passenger jet that is 58.8 meters (190 feet) long. It is a shortened version of the standard A330, and can hold up to 253 passengers. It first went into service in 1998 and there are 341 in use worldwide today. It can fly up to 7,760 miles (12,500 kilometers).

French President Nicolas Sarkozy expressed his “extreme worry” and planned to visit the Charles de Gaulle airport later Monday.

A missing Air France jet carrying 228 people from Rio de Janeiro to Paris ran into lightning and strong thunderstorms over the Atlantic Ocean, officials said Monday. Brazil began a search mission off its northeastern coast.

Chief Air France spokesman Francois Brousse said “it is possible” that the plane was hit by lightning.

Air France Flight 447, an Airbus A330, left Rio on Sunday at 7 p.m. local time (2200 GMT, 6 p.m. EDT) with 216 passengers and 12 crew members on board, company spokeswoman Brigitte Barrand.

About four hours later, the plane sent an automatic signal indicating electrical problems while going through strong turbulence, Air France said.

The plane “crossed through a thunderous zone with strong turbulence” at 0200 GMT Monday (10 p.m. EDT Sunday). An automatic message was received fourteen minutes later “signaling electrical circuit malfunction.”

Brazil’s Air Force said the last contact it had with the Air France jet was at 0136 GMT (9:30 p.m. EDT Sunday), but did not say where the plane was at that time.

Brazil’s air force was searching near the archipelago of Fernando de Noronha, about 300 kilometers (180 miles) northeast of the coastal city of Natal, a spokesman said, speaking on condition of anonymity in keeping with department policy.

The region is about 1,500 miles northeast of Rio.

The head of investigation and accident prevention for Brazil’s Civil Aeronautics Agency, Douglas Ferreira Machado, told Brazil’s Globo TV that he believes the plane must have left Brazilian waters and could have been near the coast of Africa by the time contact was lost, based on the speed it was traveling.

“It’s going to take a long time to carry out this search,” he said. “It could be a long, sad story. The black box will be at the bottom of the sea.”

Air France-KLM CEO Pierre-Henri Gourgeon, at a news conference at Charles de Gaulle Airport north of Paris, said the pilot had 11,000 hours of flying experience, including 1,700 hours flying this aircraft. No name was released.

Aviation experts said the risk the plane was brought down by lightning was slim.

“Lightning issues have been considered since the beginning of aviation. They were far more prevalent when aircraft operated at low altitudes. They are less common now since it’s easier to avoid thunderstorms,” said Bill Voss, president and CEO of Flight Safety Foundation, Alexandria, Va.

He said planes have specific measures built in to help dissipate electricity along the aircraft’s skin.

“I cannot recall in recent history any examples of aircraft being brought down by lightning,” he told The Associated Press.

Experts said it was clear the plane was not in the air any longer, due to the amount of fuel it would have been carrying.

“The conclusion to be drawn is that something catastrophic happened on board that has caused this airplane to ditch in a controlled or an uncontrolled fashion,” Jane’s Aviation analyst Chris Yates told The Associated Press.

“I would suggest that potentially it went down very quickly and so quickly that the pilot on board didn’t have a chance to make that emergency call,” Yates said, adding that the possibilities ranged from mechanical failure to terrorism.

Families who arrived to meet passengers on board were cordoned off, away from reporters, at a special Air France information center at the Charles de Gaulle airport. That center said 60 French citizens were on the plane. Italy said at least three passengers were Italian.

“Air France shares the emotion and worry of the families concerned,” Barrand said.

The flight was supposed to arrive in Paris at 0915 GMT (5:15 a.m. EDT), according to the airport.

Airbus said it was cooperating with transport authorities and Air France, but would not further comment until more details emerged.

“Our thoughts are with the passengers and with the families of the passengers,” said Airbus spokeswoman Maggie Bergsma.

The Airbus A330-200 is a twin-engine, long-haul, medium-capacity passenger jet that is 58.8 meters (190 feet) long. It is a shortened version of the standard A330, and can hold up to 253 passengers. It first went into service in 1998 and there are 341 in use worldwide today. It can fly up to 7,760 miles (12,500 kilometers).

French President Nicolas Sarkozy expressed his “extreme worry” and planned to visit the Charles de Gaulle airport later Monday.

Air France crash: ‘No hope’ of survivors

An Air France plane bound for Paris that disappeared with 228 people on board today has almost certainly crashed with no survivors, according to airline and government officials.

Brazilian air force planes are searching the Atlantic for flight AF447, an Airbus A330-200 that left Rio de Janeiro at 7pm local time (2300 BST) yesterday. It had been expected in Paris at 11.15am.The Brazilian air force told the Associated Press that a search was under way near the island of  Fernando de Noronha.

An Air France source was quoted as saying that there was “no hope” for those on board.

Jean-Louis Borloo, the second most senior figure in the French cabinet, said: “By now it would be beyond its kerosene [aviation fuel] reserves so unfortunately we must now envisage the most tragic scenario.”

Borloo told France Info radio that the plane had disappeared from military as well as civilian radar screens.

Brigitte Barrand, a spokeswoman for the airline, said: “Air France regrets to announce that it is without news from Air France flight 447, flying from Rio to Paris.”

The French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, expressed his “extreme worry” and sent the junior minister for transport, Dominique Bussereau, and the environment minister, Jean-Louis Borloo, to Charles de Gaulle airport to monitor the situation.

The Air France flight was full – today is a French bank holiday and Brazil is an increasingly popular tourist destination among the French. The mood at Charles de Gaulle airport this morning was of extreme concern.

The plane was carrying 216 passengers and 12 crew. The Italian press agency Ansa reported that five Italians were on board

The plane disappeared about 190 miles north-east of the coastal Brazilian city of Natal, near the archipelago of Fernando de Noronha, about 1,500 miles north-east of Rio. A spokesman said the search and rescue mission was mounted after the jet failed to make regular radio contact.

According to the French media, Paris airport authorities were told by their Brazilian counterparts that the aircraft had vanished from radar screens.

The A330-200 model has not had any fatal accidents involving passengers. But in June 1994 an A330 owned by Airbus on a test flight simulating an engine failure on take-off crashed shortly after leaving Toulouse, killing all seven on board.

In October last year a Qantas A330 flying from Singapore to Perth reportedly experienced a sudden change in altitude.

The crew issued a mayday call before diverting the aircraft. About 36 passengers and crew members were injured, more than a dozen seriously.

Air France Rio-Paris flight missing with 228 aboard (Breaking News)

An Air France plane on its way from Brazil to Paris has gone missing with 228 people on board. 

Its last known location was unclear. Brazilian television said theBrazilian air force had started a search mission over the Atlantic Ocean for the plane.

Flight AF 447 has 216 passengers and 12 crew on board. It left Rio de Janeiro on Sunday at 7 p.m. local time and was expected in Paris on Monday at 11:15 a.m. (5:15 a.m. EDT).

“Air France regrets to announce that it is without news from flight AF 447, which was flying on the Rio de Janeiro – Paris Charles de Gaulle route and was scheduled to arrive at 11.15 a.m. today (5:15 a.m. EDT),” an Air France spokesman said.

An Air France-KLM spokeswoman in Amsterdam said there had been no radio contact with the missing plane “for a while.”

The plane was an Airbus 330-200, according to the Paris airports authority website.

Air France said relatives of people traveling on board flight AF 447 were being taken care of in a special area of Charles de Gaulle airport.

More updates as they are made available.

Jet Airways to put freeze on new fleet addition

Jet Airways, the country’s second largest private carrier by market share, has decided to put a freeze on the addition of new fleet, apart from postponing future aircraft deliveries for two years. This is on the back of overcapacity for most airlines with a large number of aircraft lying unused. 

Jet Airways, which operates over 370 flights daily, operates a fleet of 86 aircraft that includes Boeing, Airbus and ATR. Out of these, 38 are owned by Jet with the other 48 being leased. The Jet-JetLite combine has a total fleet of 110 aircraft. 

Jet Airways chief executive officer Wolfgang Prock-Schauer confirmed the development to ET saying, “There will be no addition of fleet with the operating remaining the same in the current financial year. We will expand our fleet once operation stabilise.” 

Jet Airways had Rs 1,330 crore cash at the end of March 31, 2009 with a debt equity ratio 5:1. The debt on the books stands at $3.1 billion. The Naresh Goyal-promoted airline has reduced capacity by a fifth in the domestic market and is expected to reduce further. “We are evaluating the situation as the industry still has excess capacity of 20%,” Prock-Schauer said. 

In April, Jet’s domestic traffic was down 38% to 5.52 lakh passengers from 8.39 lakh a year earlier. It has cut back on flights through route rationalisation and has already wet-leased nine surplus aircraft. For the last quarter, it earned revenues of $34 million from leasing out its fleet. On airfares, Prock-Schauer said fares will be competitive in the coming weeks and as long as overcapacity remained, yields in the domestic segment will continue to remain under pressure. 

Jet and Kingfisher came together last October and formed an operational alliance to reduce capacity. “The alliance is still in progress and we cannot comment at this juncture,” Prock-Schauer said in a conference call with analysts. When queried on allowing foreign airlines to pick up equity in domestic companies, he said there was no need to change the rule. 

In a bid to contain losses, Jet has significantly cut down its fleet size and reduced flights on the domestic network. Loss incurred by domestic airline industry was about Rs 10,000 crore in 2008-09.

Jet Airways gets access to fly to Sharjah from India

India’s second-ranked airline by passengers carried, Jet Airways (India) Ltd, has been permitted by the aviation ministry to expand services to West Asia, connecting four Indian cities with Sharjah, raising concern among smaller rivals planning to fly to the region that their large peers are hogging limited, bilaterally negotiated rights. 

Jet entered the West Asia market in January last year on expiry of a rule that allowed only the national carrier—National Aviation Co. of India Ltd, or Nacil, that runs the Air India services—to fly to this region. With some six million Indians estimated to be working in the region, with about a quarter of them in the United Arab Emirates, Jet Airways expanded quickly into these lucrative routes as part of its first phase of international expansion that included connections to the US and Europe. 
Of the 18 cities it connects internationally now, six are in this region, including Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Bahrain, Doha, Kuwait and Muscat. It plans to add three more cities—Riyadh, Jeddah and Sharjah—to its West Asia network. 
Kingfisher Airlines Ltd, Jet Airway’s bigger rival by share of passengers carried, which flies to London, Dhaka and Colombo, does not operate flights to West Asia yet. 
A Jet Airways spokeswoman confirmed to Mint that her airline had received permission for flights to Sharjah but declined further detail. 
Outbound: Jet Airways chairman Naresh Goyal. Six of the airline’s current international destinations are in West Asia. Ramesh Pathania / Mint 
The permissions for Jet Airways from the outgoing government cover daily services to Sharjah from Kochi, Kozhikode (formerly Calicut), Thiruvananthapuram and Mumbai, according to a senior government official who wanted to remain anonymous. 
The airline earlier this year started flying the Chennai-Dubai and Mumbai-Kuwait routes even as it cut down on domestic routes. 
“The introduction of these new flights will serve to further strengthen our Gulf network, better enabling us to offer passengers seamless connectivity and a world-class product on the Indo-Gulf sector,” Wolfgang Prock-Schauer, chief executive officer, Jet Airways, said in an April statement while announcing the launch of Mumbai-Riyadh and Mumbai-Jeddah services. 
The ongoing expansion by large carriers to West Asia is likely to make it difficult for smaller carriers such as SpiceJet Ltd, which too is in the process of selecting routes to fly international next year when it completes flying the stipulated minimum of five years on domestic routes for eligibility to fly overseas. 
On routes in countries in West Asia or those such as China, the civil aviation ministry grants rights to carriers based on agreed bilateral rights with each of those countries, and several West Asian routes have already used up the maximum number of flights. 
SpiceJet may have to keep in mind the bilateral capacity while selecting the routes it chooses to fly, said Samyukth Sridharan, its chief commercial officer. “It is too early. We are still doing our study and will finalize (routes) by mid-July,” he said of the international operations from next year. “Obviously we will have to keep that (bilaterals) in mind.” 

An aviation expert said the ministry should check if the permission given to Jet Airways to fly on any overseas routes governed by bilateral agreements are utilized or not. “If not, other carriers should get an equitable share,” said Kapil Kaul, India CEO for the Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation, an aviation consultancy. 
The permission given to Jet Airways comes at a time when the airline has been told by West Asian carriers to which it had leased four long-haul Boeing Co.-made 777 planes to that the aircraft will be returned by the end of this year. A Jet Airways executive, who asked not to be identified, said it was in talks with two SouthEast Asian airlines and one West Asian carrier to lease out these aircraft for six more months after December. 
The once profitable Jet Airways has seen its losses mount over the past three years, and analysts expect it to post a loss of Rs150-250 crore for the last quarter of fiscal 2009. 
If the airline is unable to clinch the new leases, this executive said, it could result in changes in its international operations or parking the planes on ground.

Thai to begin new service to Oslo

Thai airways is beginning a new long haul flight from Bangkok to Oslo. This will be a 5x weekly flight operated on a A340-500. Services begin June 15, 2009

All 155 survive as pilot ditches US Airways plane in Hudson

 

A cool-headed pilot maneuvered his crippled jetliner overNew York City and ditched it in the frigid Hudson River on Thursday, and all 155 on board were pulled to safety as the plane slowly sank. It was, the governor said, “a miracle on the Hudson.”

One victim suffered two broken legs, a paramedic said, but there were no other reports of serious injuries.

US Airways Flight 1549, an Airbus A320 bound for Charlotte, N.C., struck a flock of birds just after takeoff minutes earlier at LaGuardia Airport, apparently disabling the engines.

The pilot, identified as Chesley B. “Sully” Sullenberger III of Danville, Calif., “was phenomenal,” passenger Joe Hart said. “He landed it — I tell you what, the impact wasn’t a whole lot more than a rear-end (collision). It threw you into the seat ahead of you.

“Both engines cut out and he actually floated it into the river,” he said.

In a city still wounded from the aerial attack on the World Trade Center, authorities were quick to assure the public that terrorism wasn’t involved.

The plane was submerged up to its windows in the river by the time rescuers arrived, including Coast Guard vessels and commuter ferries that happened to be nearby. Some passengers waded in water up to their knees, standing on the wing of the plane and waiting for help.

Helen Rodriguez, a paramedic who was among the first to arrive at the scene, said she saw one woman with two broken legs. Fire officials said others were evaluated for hypothermia, bruises and other minor injuries. An infant was on board and appeared to be fine, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said.

“We had a miracle on 34th Street. I believe now we have had a miracle on the Hudson,” Gov. David Patersonsaid.

The crash took place on a 20-degree day, one of the coldest of the season in New York. The Coast Guardsaid the water temperature was 36 degrees.

Dave Sanderson, who was flying home to Charlotte after a business trip, said the sound of an explosion was followed by passengers running up the aisle and people being shoved out of the way.

As the plane descended, passenger Vallie Collins tapped out a text message to her husband, Steve: “My plane is crashing.” He was desperately trying to figure out whether she had been on the downed plane when the message arrived.

Another passenger, Jeff Kolodjay, said people put their heads in their laps and prayed. He said the captain instructed them to “brace for impact because we’re going down.”

“It was intense. It was intense. You’ve got to give it to the pilot. He made a hell of a landing,” Kolodjay said.

Witnesses said the pilot appeared to guide the plane down. Barbara Sambriski, a researcher at The Associated Press, watched the water landing from the news organization’s high-rise office. “I just thought, ‘Why is it so low?’ And, splash, it hit the water,” she said.

As water slowly filled the cabin, Sanderson said he and another passenger helped people out onto the wing. One woman had a 3-year-old child, he said, and safely tossed the toddler onto a raft before climbing on herself.

One commuter ferry, the Thomas Jefferson of the company NY Waterway, arrived within minutes of the crash, and some of its own riders grabbed life vests and lines of rope and tossed them to plane passengers in the water.

“They were cheering when we pulled up,” ferry captain Vincent Lombardi. “We had to pull an elderly woman out of a raft in a sling. She was crying. … People were panicking. They said, ‘Hurry up, hurry up.’”

Paramedics treated at least 78 patients, fire officials said. Coast Guard boats rescued 35 people who were immersed in the frigid water and ferried them to shore. Some of the rescued were shivering and wrapped in white blankets, their feet and legs soaked.

Two police scuba divers said they pulled another woman from a lifeboat “frightened out of her mind” and lethargic from hypothermia. Another woman fell off a rescue raft, and the divers said they swam over and put her on a Coast Guard boat.

The plane took off at 3:26 p.m. for a flight that would last only five minutes. It was less than a minute after takeoff when the pilot reported a “double bird strike” and said he needed to return to LaGuardia, said Doug Church, a spokesman for the National Air Traffic Controllers Association. He said the pilot apparently meant that birds had hit both of the plane’s jet engines.

The controller told the pilot to divert to an airport in nearby Teterboro, N.J., but it was not clear why the pilot did not land there.

Church said there was no mayday call from the plane’s transponder. The plane splashed into the water off roughly 48th Street in midtown Manhattan — one of the busiest and most closely watched stretches of the river.

US Airways CEO Doug Parker said 150 passengers, three flight attendants and two pilots were on board the jetliner.

An official speaking on condition of anonymity because the investigation was still ongoing identified the pilot as Sullenberger. A woman answered and hung up when the AP asked to speak with Sullenberger’s family in Danville.

Sullenberger, 57, described himself in an online professional profile as a 29-year employee of US Airways. He started his own consulting business, Safety Reliability Methods Inc., two years ago.

Bank of America and Wells Fargo said they had employees on the plane. Charlotte is a major banking center.

Eric Doten, a Florida aviation safety consultant, said he could not recall another example of a modern jetliner water crash in which everyone survived. He said many things had to go right to avert catastrophe: The plane didn’t cartwheel when it hit, the fuselage remained intact, and the fuel did not ignite — in fact its buoyancy probably helped the plane stay afloat.

The plane sank slowly as it drifted downriver. Gradually, the fuselage went under until about half of the tail fin and rudder was above water. A Fire Department boat tugged the plane to the southern tip of Manhattan and docked it there.

The Federal Aviation Administration says there were about 65,000 bird strikes to civil aircraft in the United States from 1990 to 2005, or about one for every 10,000 flights.

“They literally just choke out the engine and it quits,” said Joe Mazzone, a retired Delta Air Lines pilot. He said air traffic control towers routinely alert pilots if there are birds in the area.

The Hudson crash took place almost exactly 27 years after an Air Florida plane bound for Tampa crashed into the Potomac River just after takeoff from Washington National Airport, killing 78 people. Five people on that flight survived.

On Dec. 20, a Continental Airlines plane veered off a runway and slid into a snowy field at the Denver airport, injuring 38 people. That was the first major crash of a commercial airliner in the United States since Aug. 27, 2006, when 49 people were killed after a Comair jetliner took off from a Lexington, Ky., runway that was too short.

Kingfisher launches Dubai flights from Bangalore (Bengaluru) BLR-DXB

Kingfisher Airlines will launch its Bengaluru(Bangalore)- Dubai flights starting March 1.

IT 45 BLR D 1940 DXB A 2215 A320 
IT 46 DXB D 2330 BLR A 0445 A320 

Tickets can be booked through their website. The fare for March is INR 20319 including taxes.

Kingfisher launches Mumbai-London daily flight

Expanding its overseas operations, Vijay Mallya-run private air-carrier Kingfisher Airlines launched its daily non-stop Mumbai-London flight today at Mumbai Airport. Mumbai-London is the airline’s second overseas route after its Bangalore-London flight was launched in September last year. 

The airline has deployed a brand new Airbus 330-200 aircraft, configured in two classes, Kingfisher First and Kingfisher Class. 

The Mumbai-London flight will take off from Mumbai at 1.50 pm (IST) and arrive at Heathrow’s Terminal 4 at 5.55 pm (GMT), the spokesperson said. 

The return flight from London will leave at 8.30 pm (GMT) and arrive at Chhatrapati Shivaji International Terminal the next day at 11 am (IST), he said. 

Kingfisher has also plans to launch Mumbai-Hong Kong operations from January 12 and the Mumbai-Singapore flight from January 16. 

Kingfisher flights from Bangalore and Chennai for Sri Lanka capital Colombo will start from January 19.

Emirates To Introduce A-380 To Rome

 Emirates will go to upgrade its Dubai-Rome daily route from 773 to 388 eff from Dec 1st, 2009. Rome would be the 2nd 380’s destination in Europe after London (with EK metal) and probably their shortest scheduled flight (just 5h30m) with the ‘giant’.

Airbus delivers 11th A380 to Qantas, aims for 12 this year

Airbus today handed over its 11th A380 superjumbo to Qantas. Airframe serial number MSN022 was registered VH-OQC and christenedPaul McGinness. The plane was the third A380 for Qantas this year.With just four days left in 2008, Airbus, the world’s largest maker of commercial aircraft, is scrambling to make one more delivery, in order to reach its goal of 12 deliveries this year.
That aircraft is expected to be delivered to Emirates, its largest customer for the A380, by Dec. 31

Airbus flight-tests blended winglets on A320

Airbus’s A320 flying testbed (F-WWBA) began another round of winglet flight-trials from Toulouse today, this time equipped with a blended winglet designed by Aviation Partners (API). 
Airbus says that the objective of the tests and subsequent evaluation is to identify both the performance and economic benefits that these devices could offer. “In conjunction with follow-up analyses, they will provide data on the overall viability of the devices and help to determine whether API’s technology could be considered for an integrated Airbus programme,” says Airbus.

Arik in talks for A340-500s as Kingfisher retrenches

Nigeria’s Arik Air is to take over part of Kingfisher Airlines’ Airbus A340-500 order as the Indian carrier seeks to reduce capacity in an effort to cut costs and stem losses.

A source at Arik Air says the airline is in negotiation with Airbus for two new A340-500s: “We are buying the aircraft from Airbus, they are ex-Kingfisher,” the source told Flight’s Commercial Aviation Online.

Kingfisher placed orders in 2006 for five A340-500s along with five options, the first of which have been awaiting delivery in Toulouse. However, at Farnborough in July, chairman Vijay Mallya revealed that Kingfisher was planning to sell at least two of the ultra-long-range aircraft this year.

The Mumbai-based airline, which is in the process of integrating operations with low-cost carrier Deccan, is also returning some leased aircraft and seeking 300 voluntary redundancies.

“Upon rationalising the route network of the airline and having closely examined aircraft utilisation, we have identified surplus aircraft that are now redundant and are therefore being returned to lessors,” says Kingfisher. It adds that the cost-reduction drive has taken on greater urgency because of “the ongoing turbulence faced by the aviation industry”.

Arik Air has approval to serve London Heathrow and is expected to start operations this autumn. It is also cleared to start US services in April. The airline’s expansion plan includes the acquisition of more than 50 new aircraft over the next 10-15 years. According to Flight’s ACAS database, Arik Air has firm orders for 12 Boeing long-haul aircraft – five 777-300ERs and seven 787-9s, as well as commitments for four 747-8Is.