The children on board were going on holiday to Spain A Swiss prosecutor has filed manslaughter charges against eight employees of an air traffic control firm over an air crash in July 2002.

The collision killed 71 people, most of them Russian schoolchildren. It involved a jet of Russia's Bashkirian Airlines and a DHL cargo plane.

Swiss firm Skyguide controlled flights over southern Germany at the time.

The accused, who were not named by Swiss media, denied responsibility for the collision.

The collision happened over a German village near Lake Constance.

The investigators found that a single Skyguide air traffic controller on duty had given the pilots just 43 seconds to act.

The controller was fatally stabbed by a Russian man in 2004, in a suspected revenge attack.

The controller had told the Russian pilots to descend, while their onboard collision avoidance system had told them to climb to avoid the DHL cargo plane.

Embraer 170, Minor damage. One Fatality

A 5,900-Lb mobile baggage belt loader was driven beneath the airplane while it was being prepared for a US Airways Express flight from Washington Reagan National Airport on June 6, 2005. The driver was wedged into her seat by the lower fuselage of the airplane and the belt loader’s steering wheel, which had been bent back and down on impact. She died of asphyxiation due to thoracic compression, said the NTSB report.

(CBS4) DENVER A servicing truck ran into a United owned Boeing 737 at Denver International Airport Thursday morning. The crash happened outside the east side of the United Airlines hangar.

The food service truck was driving at about 20 mph when the crash happened, according to United Airlines officials.

"The plane was facing west and was pushed about 90 degrees and is now facing south," Robin Urbanski, a spokeswoman for United Airlines said.

The driver of the truck was hurt. His injuries were not believed to be serious.

Mechanics checked the damage and found that the fuel lines were secure and there was nothing leaking from the aircraft.

The plane was scheduled to serve as the aircraft for flight 112 from Denver to St. Louis. Another plane was set to be used.

As with FlightSafety's comprehensive Master Technician course of study, this new program is a five-step process that includes two required courses and three others from among seven elective courses.

"Just as maintenance technicians must keep up with constant changes in aircraft systems, current and those aspiring to be managers must stay up-to-date on the skills needed to effectively direct their department and to provide the ultimate in customer service," says Doug Bowen, Director Worldwide Maintenance Training Sales, FlightSafety International.

The required courses are Aviation Interpersonal Maintenance Management, providing the basic skill sets needed for dealing with co-workers and management on a daily basis and either an aircraft-specific update or aircraft-specific maintenance manager course.

"Today's aircraft maintenance professionals have to be leaders and administrators that can effectively manage highly technical and precise aircraft maintenance programs, the needs of customers and the overall company goals," says J.D. McHenry, President, Global Jet Services.

FlightSafety International is the world's premier aviation training organization. Over 75,000 pilots, technicians and other aviation professionals train at FlightSafety facilities each year. The company designs and manufactures full flight simulators for civil and military aircraft programs and operates the world’s largest fleet of advanced full flight simulators at over 40 training locations.

Plane Impacted Mountain In Stormy Weather This is a story which is becoming depressingly familiar. An aging Russian-made airliner is down in the Democratic Republic of Congo, with all 17 people onboard lost... including the three Russian crew members.

Local officials say the plane went down on approach to the airport in Bukavu, on a flight from the mining town of Lugushwa about 80 miles to the south. Initial reports say the aircraft impacted a mountainside in bad weather.

The twin turboprop was still on fire when search teams arrived at the crash site.

Russian and Armenian officials had initially suggested that bad weather was the most likely cause of the crash. Also, the Russian traffic controller who was in charge of the fatal Yerevan-Sochi flight was reportedly placed under investigation in the wake of the disaster.

Nalbandian claimed that the commission set up by the Interstate Aviation Committee had no right to endorse any conclusions before issuing its own report on the crash signed by all of its members, among them two Armavia executives. "The commission has not yet finished its work," he told a news conference.

"If we are not satisfied with the further work of the commission, we may well appeal to a third party to conduct an independent inquiry," Nalbandian warned.

The Armenian government has not yet officially reacted to Levitin’s statements which most Armenian pilots and other aviation specialists find unconvincing. The leadership of its Civil Aviation Department was scheduled to discuss the matter at a special meeting later on Thursday.

Levitin and Anodina were widely expected to publicize the findings of the Russian inquiry when they visited Yerevan earlier this month. However, they avoided doing so after talks with Armenian leaders.

A 63-year-old man from Canada was killed Sunday when a Navy warbird's propeller hit a Canadian-registered homebuilt aircraft on a taxiway at Wittman Regional Airport at about noon Sunday.

A Grumman TBM World War II Navy airplane taxied up behind a homebuilt R.V.6 and as it caught up with the significantly smaller homebuilt, the Grumman's propeller sliced into the R.V.6. The passenger in the side-by-side seat

R.V.6 was pronounced dead at the scene while the pilot of the aircraft was not injured, authorities said.

Neither the name of the R.V. 6's passenger nor the two pilots were released Sunday. Winnebago County Deputy Coroner Chuck Hable said the victim's name will be released today, following notification of his family.

The accident was the second fatal incident on the airport grounds during the one-week AirVenture convention.

Clifford and Betty Shaw of Edmonds, Wash., died when their Europa XS homebuilt airplane crashed at 8:45 a.m. July 23 while on approach to the east-west runway at Wittman Regional Airport.

"Whether at the open, close, middle, two months before or two months after the event, there's always a concern when there's loss of life," Poberezny said.

Though investigators from the Transportation Safety Board have completed their preliminary probe, they will not be releasing the results until they are approved by the TSB's board members.

There have been hints, however, that the report is not yet conclusive.

"(Investigators) may have to go back and do more research,'' spokesperson Genevieve Lamarche told The Canadian Press, adding the report will be made public once it is finalized.

The A-340 passenger jet was carrying 12 crew and 297 passengers when it went off the runway at Pearson International Airport on Aug. 2, 2005, landed in a ravine and burst into flames. The plane had been trying to land in stormy weather.

Two crew members and 10 passengers were seriously injured, but miraculously, all survived.

Some of those survivors are still haunted by the terrifying crash -- and the lack of answers they've received to date.

Adella Bellone told CTV's Canada AM she is still haunted by the memories. She said she is unable to ride in elevators, is scared to put her seatbelt on, and sometimes wakes up in the middle of the night mistakenly convinced she has heard rain falling.

She also said she has lost her business, has been forced to move, and her marital status has changed -- all since the crash.

"Everything is different," she said Wednesday. "I'm starting to deal with everyday stuff but it's still hard for me. I do see my psychologist and my doctor on a regular basis, and I just have hope that it's going to get better."

An explanation of what caused the crash would be a major step on the road to recovery, she said.

"That's what I'm struggling with. Every day I'm questioning myself. Whose fault was it, who was in charge that day with the decision to end up the way it happened?"

Caroline Diezyn, who was also on the flight, has a markedly different response.

"My life has changed because I want to be able to tell my story to as many people as possible because I feel it's actually really a positive experience that's come from this," she told Canada AM, adding that her example proves it is possible to overcome your deepest fear.

However, Diezyn is also anxious for answers, and wants to know why the plane attempted to land that day instead of rerouting to Montreal.

"Really I'd just like to see a speedy resolution to anything that's going to happen," she said. "I realize that it's a lengthy process and there's a lot of investigation that has to be done, but a year later it's like nothing has changed. I'm still in the exact same position, mentally, financially, emotionally, everything like that."

A class-action lawsuit is being prepared on behalf of many of the passengers, and the group has commissioned its own investigation into the damages caused by the crash, and liability.

The class-action suit is seeking monetary compensation for physical and emotional trauma, as well as compensation for personal property lost as a result of the crash, Miller said.

He said it is too early to estimate what that will amount to, but said individual payouts could range from several thousand to hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Scott Armstrong, a spokesperson for the Greater Toronto Airport Authority, said the crash is the biggest "on-airport incident we've seen."

He said airport officials are also still in the dark about the contents of the report, but will be sure to quickly implement any recommendations it may contain when it is released.

"Although the U.S. military's challenges with electrical wiring are not as well publicized as those from the commercial sector [e.g., the TWA 800 and Swissair 111 accidents, both attributed to a wiring failure], the issues still exist. For instance, during a recent 30-month period, the U.S. Navy lost two aircraft due to electrical wiring failures ...

"The problem is also evident in the roughly two and one-half electrical fires that occur on U.S. navy aircraft each month ...

"The problem with wiring failures are also seen in the approximately 1,400 mission aborts (540 in-flight aborts) and an average of 125 non-mission capable aircraft ... With only 4,700 aircraft in inventory for the U.S. Navy [roughly the size of the commercial U.S. fleet before 9/11], this means that between two and three percent of the fleet is out of service due to wiring problems at any one time.

"Wiring system maintenance on U.S. Navy aircraft has historically been viewed as a reactive maintenance task. In other words, `If it ain't broke, don't fix it.' To compound the problem, the validation of the integrity of the conductive path is only sought if all other maintenance actions have been ruled out. This includes the replacement of a possibly good Weapons Replaceable Assembly [WRA, or in commercial parlance, a line replaceable unit, LRU] into the system to validate the WRA's inoperability. If the maintainer replaces a `suspect' WRA with a `known good' from supply, both the `No Fault Found' rate and unnecessary man-hour rate increases. Again, these `No Fault Found' incidents that are caused by wiring is another reason that the metrics are believed to be underreported. ...

As Aero-News reported, the aircraft (file photo of type, right) went down in April of last year while on a training mission near Chico. The paper's investigation indicates Aero-Union Tanker 26 was flying down the middle of a valley when it strayed east.

Experts consulted by the newspaper say it appears to have been a case of controlled flight into terrain... an assertion they back up with Navy radar data showing the Orion's flight track.

No one's sure which of the three men killed in the crash was flying the plane -- Brian Bruns, Paul Cockrell, or Tom Lynch -- was actually in command of the aircraft when it went down, and the crew issued no distress call.

The Orion wasn't equipped with any sort of flight recorder.

Armstrong's Seat Preserved

An Aero-News reader -- and Purdue University alumnus -- sent along new information in regards to our story Wednesday, concerning Purdue's decision to scrap a Boeing 727 aviation lab because it was too costly to maintain.

Fortunately, the Purdue Exponent reports not everything is being shredded by giant metal jaws. Former astronaut Neil Armstrong's captain seat from the Boeing 727 is being preserved, and will be waiting for him at the university if he ever wants to sit in it again.

Armstrong, himself a Purdue graduate, flew the 727 to Purdue in 1993 when the plane was donated to the school by United Airlines.

The plane was donated by FedEx, and was flown in from Indianapolis by two graduates.

As a small crowd met the new 727, the old 727 lay in ruins not far from the airport’s main runway. The new 727 will be unveiled to the public in September.

Similarly, we have this notion that, like our machinery, employee work capacity is a lineal function. In other words, one can work as many days in a row as they (or we) would like without any significant problem, and we're happy to let them do it. Overtime saves having to hire more people and paying all their costly benefits, and it sure makes a supervisor's job a whole lot easier to fill absences, vacations, and other benefit days off by dishing out the overtime to those who want it. Plus, we rationalize, people are happy to have the extra money. I used to think this way too, when I worked and managed shifts, but after several close calls, I realized that I was kidding myself and putting myself and others at risk.

2. The operational necessity to keep the equipment running 24-hours per day (i.e. automation, continuous process, asset utilization, reduced unit costs, improved customer service, etc...)

Having said all that, let's define what we mean by fatigue and look at some of its consequences and costs:

What is Fatigue

Consequences of Fatigue

Costs of Fatigue

Accidents $8.5 Billion

Lost Productivity $79.7 Billion

Health Care $ 28.3 Billion

Total $116.5 Billion

So how, as a company or as plant mangers, can we objectively and systematically eliminate fatigue from our operations, thereby reducing our costs, risks and liabilities to achieve an overall improvement in operational efficiency....while at the same time improve employee health, safety and quality of life to create a win-win proposition? Perhaps this sounds far fetched, but it’s already being done. With the current knowledge base that exists today, dramatic improvements can be achieved in the way people live and work, to the betterment of both the employees and the business.

The first, and most important step, is to recognize the serious cost of fatigue and make a corporate commitment to fix it. Too many companies are losing money and risking the safety of their employees by not recognizing the importance of fatigue management. This is evident by the fact that over 90% of shiftworkers receive no training on how to manage their schedule and shiftwork lifestyles. I see too many shiftworkers who are well trained and great at their jobs, but who have never been shown how to deal with fatigue and adapt to the unique physical and social challenges of shiftwork. As a consequence, they fall into common shiftwork pitfalls that compromise their ability to perform to their full capabilities. This is just one of the many reasons shiftwork employees cost companies roughly $8,600 per person per year in excess costs over and above their daytime counterparts.

Once a company has made a commitment to reduce fatigue and optimize the productivity and safety of their workforce, they need to develop a comprehensive fatigue management plan. To be successful this program must at the very least:

As responsible managers and operators, we strive to keep our machinery well oiled and well maintained. We ensure that it is operated in full accordance with the design specifications, in terms of operating temperature, pressure, speeds, etc… To do otherwise would ensure premature failure, costly downtime, high maintenance, and lost productivity/capacity.

END with thanks to jetBlue