Small cracks caused landing gear on JAS MD-81 to break in 2004 accident Small cracks that were overlooked by mechanics during inspections caused the main landing gear of a Japan Air System (JAS) MD-81 to break when it landed at Tokunoshima Airport (TKN) on January 1, 2004, according to the investigation report released by the ARAIC. Three cracks were found, believed to be the starting points of the break. Inspectors suspect that the cracks, measuring between 3 and 5.2 millimeters long, developed as a result of metal fatigue. The committee concluded that cracks probably developed as a result of stresses generated during a gear walk (serious fore and aft oscillations of the gear) before restrictor plates were installed.

I experienced the micro sleep you described. For some reason the mind rationalizes our ability to perform.

I’m not drunk-no just dead asleep. I drove down an exit ramp approx ¼ mile eyes open but no sensory perception.

I appreciate the articles and I am working on changing my personal behavior. The train or a night sleeps on the Island have become my best options.

Loss of situational awareness in hailstorm quoted as cause for Peruvian 737 crash.
According to the Peruvian accident investigators, the August 2005 accident involving a TANS Boeing 737 near Pucallpa was caused by a loss of situational awareness in a severe hailstorm on approach to Pucallpa. The flight crew failed to abort the unstabilized approach and continued their fast descent despite the GPWS warnings and the severe storm that they were penetrating. It also appeared that a copilot under instruction was in the right hand seat while the regular copilot was in the passenger cabin at the time of the accident. (CIAA)

NEW DELHI, JULY 27: As many as 12 A-320 aircraft of state-owned carrier Indian Airlines have been grounded for major maintenance or want of engines, the House was informed on Thursday.

He said normally about six A-320s remain grounded for maintenance, but currently there were 12 aircraft.

In its report -- which is published in its entirety below -- the NTSB says the aircraft's ailerons were apparently misrigged... so that control inputs for roll control would have had the opposite effect than the plane's pilots intended.

"Examination of the translation linkage on the aft side of the aft pressure bulkhead revealed that it was connected in a manner that reversed the roll control," say the Prelim. "Specifically, the linkage was connected such that left roll input from the side sticks would have deflected the ailerons to produce right roll of the airplane, and right roll input from the side sticks would have deflected the ailerons to produce left roll of the airplane."

YEREVAN, July 28 (RIA Novosti) - Armenia's top civil aviation official said Friday that the May crash of an Armenian Airbus into the Black Sea had been largely because the crew panicked in the last few seconds of the flight.

Movsisyan's comments follow a report from the Interstate Aviation Committee into the cause of the crash. The report said human error was to blame for the accident.

Movsisyan did not reject this conclusion, but said stormy weather and inadequate ground control had to be factored in as well. He said flight recordings suggested that the air traffic controller's instructions had made the crew angry and nervous.

USA TODAY is wise to issue a wake-up call about fatigue as a growing safety concern for the nation's passenger and cargo pilots. Allowing pilots to take structured naps while on duty might help in the short term, but it would amount to a bandage when we need a cure to make certain that pilots are rested and ready to perform their jobs.

If the Federal Aviation Administration decides to approve napping as a measure to bridge current policy gaps in duty and rest regulations, the public might view it as a permanent fix for pilot fatigue, and the FAA would be able to postpone real rulemaking once again. I can almost guarantee that many airline managers might point to sanctioned shut-eye as a reason not to act to reform rest and duty regulations.

Naps do not allow human beings to close their sleep deficits. Science from NASA and other sources backs this truism. Further, many of us cannot go to sleep on demand, making it impossible to use napping as any kind of solution for sleep deprivation.

People need adequate, extended periods of sleep. Let's get the public focused on helping bring pilot rest and duty regulations into the modern era, leveraging the reams of data that science has yielded. While it may make sense, under careful conditions, for pilots to take advantage of controlled rest, the FAA can never rest when it comes to ensuring safety.

Airline flying is becoming less safe, and maintenance errors are playing an increasing role in the reduced level of operational safety, according to a study directed by professor Gary Eiff at Purdue University's Department of Aviation Technology in Lafayette, IN.

The findings -- that maintenance errors were a contributory factor in far more incidents and accidents than previously thought -- come at a time when financially-strapped operators are contracting out more maintenance to save money, and in a period when federal oversight of repair stations has been found lacking.

Eiff and his graduate students, who did the grunt work in the Purdue study, looked at all accidents and incidents in the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) database over a 20-year period from 1982 to 2002. The Purdue study focused on scheduled passenger operations; it excluded cargo aircraft, where there are known cases of unairworthy aircraft being returned to flight service, and the study excluded charter operations.

The purpose of the study was to determine if maintenance played a more prominent role in aviation accidents and incidents than previously thought.

The Purdue researchers analyzed roughly 1,300 NTSB records of airline accidents and incidents. The study found that maintenance problems were factors in nearly a third (29 percent) of the events. One of the key assumptions in the study was that mechanical failures were maintenance-related. "While the reports do not directly link these mechanical failures to maintenance, it is reasonable to believe that many result from maintenance shortcomings," the report said.

What is to be done? Eiff argues that both managers and maintainers can do better. "The industry has put a lot of time and effort into increasing compliance with procedures for pilots. We need to do that for mechanics," he maintained. As for the mechanics, he said, "[Some] don't look at the policies and procedures as an error defense, as a way to stay out of trouble. So there's an educational process here."

The Transportation Safety Board announced yesterday its investigators had fully examined whether the crash was caused by human error, mechanical failure or bad weather and filed their conclusions -- but the findings will remain confidential until they're approved by board members. The TSB won't say when that will be.

Eddie Ho is still haunted by the smell of jet fuel, the pounding of rain and the terrified screams.