A West Atlantic Bombardier CRJ200 converted freighter crashed in Sweden near the Norwegian border after disappearing from radar during a mail transport flight. Swedish authorities said the aircraft, found in a mountainous region, was destroyed. According to Gothenburg-based West Atlantic, a European mail and express freight carrier, the CRJ200PF was en route from Oslo to Tromso, Norway late on Jan. 7. At 11:31 p.m. local time, just over 20 minutes after taking off, the pilots of flight PT294 declared mayday; the aircraft then disappeared from radar and lost contact with air traffic control. At 3:10 a.m. on Jan. 8, the crash site, near Lake Akkajaure, was located by the Norwegian air force. Swedish police and rescue teams reached the site later in the day. There were two pilots aboard the aircraft who had flown for West Atlantic since 2008 and 2011, respectively, according to the company. The CRJ200 was originally manufactured in 1993 and has 31,036 flight cycles. The cause of the crash is unknown.<br/>
general
Europe’s top air-safety official said he is hiring a group of high-level computer experts to identify and combat looming cyber threats to aviation. Intended to be a kind of digital SWAT team for hacking attacks, the initiative launched last month goes beyond US efforts and is the most dramatic example of the European Aviation Safety Agency’s increasingly aggressive approach to such risks. The aim is to quickly provide technical assistance to carriers or national regulators anywhere in Europe in the event of a cyber attack, Patrick Ky, the agency’s executive director, said in an interview. The move is also part of a broader campaign by the agency, which serves 32 member states, to expand its authority beyond traditional safety regulations. "We think the aviation system is quite vulnerable to cyber attacks,” Ky said. Aviation authorities world-wide have said there hasn’t been a verified instance of an individual or a group successfully hacking into a commercial airliner’s power or flight-control systems while airborne. But, like many experts, Ky worries about growing potential threats as aircraft become more connected to ground-based computer networks, ranging from maintenance to navigation to cabin entertainment. Ky said he has started to recruit cyber experts with the aim of reassuring political leaders and passengers that “we are ready and we are going to help” if aviation computer systems are compromised. The team will be supplemented by staff loaned from various national regulators.<br/>
Vietnam’s civil aviation regulators have accused China of jeopardising regional air safety by flying aircraft to a disputed reef in the South China Sea. The Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam said unannounced flights “threaten the safety of all flights in the region”, according to reports published in state-run media Saturday. It said it had filed a complaint with the UN’s International Civil Aviation Organization, or ICAO, and sent a protest letter to China’s government. “ICAO is responsible for supervising all civil aviation activities in the world, and we expect that it will issue warnings to China after it finds out about its violations,” Vietnam’s civil aviation director Lai Xuan Thanh said. Beijing on Wednesday said it had landed planes on a newly-built airstrip on an island at Fiery Cross Reef, part of the Spratly islands chain claimed by Vietnam and China, which also claims nearly the entire South China Sea as its territorial waters. Vietnam, though, has been mandated by ICAO to supervise international air traffic through a large portion of the South China Sea known as the Ho Chi Minh City Flight Information Region, specifically tracking flights and providing alerts when needed. Aviation authorities were reported in state media as saying they had recorded 46 instances of Chinese planes flying without warning through Vietnam’s area of responsibility in the first week of January, including the test flights to Fiery Cross Reef. Thanh said Chinese planes flew onto the flight paths of several international commercial flights, though none had to change their routes as a result.<br/>
The government is falling short in ensuring airline pilots keep up their flying skills and get full training on how to monitor sophisticated automated control systems in cockpits, according to the Transportation Department's internal watchdog. Most airline flying today is done through automated systems that pilots closely monitor. Pilots typically use manual flying skills only briefly during takeoffs and landings. Studies and accident investigations have raised concern that pilots' manual flying skills are becoming rusty and that pilots have a hard time staying focused on instrument screens for long periods. But the FAA isn't making sure that airline training programs adequately address the ability of pilots to monitor the flight path, automated systems and actions of other crew members, the Transportation Department's Office of Inspector General found. Only five of 19 airline flight simulator training plans reviewed by investigators specifically mentioned pilot monitoring. The FAA also isn't well positioned to determine how often airline pilots get a chance to manually fly planes and hasn't ensured that airline training programs adequately focus on manual flying, according to the report. In January 2013, the agency issued a safety alert to airlines encouraging them to promote opportunities for pilots to practice manual flying in day-to-day operations and during pilot training. But the FAA hasn't followed up to determine whether airlines are following the recommendation, the report said.<br/>
An airport near Stockholm was evacuated and departing flights suspended for several hours on Sunday after staff found a suspicious powder in a bag that had been checked in for a flight, officials said. Police later said no explosive traces had been found and Skavsta airport was reopened. The airport, Sweden's fifth largest, mainly handles low-cost airlines. Skavsta is about 100 kilometres south of Stockholm.<br/>
The Indonesian Transportation Ministry (ITM) has suspended three Lion Air route licenses and has reprimanded the Indonesian low-cost carrier. The action came after both Lion Air and Batik Air had failed to operate flights on certain routes for 21 consecutive days. The three routes, from Jakarta to Surabaya, Medan and Pontianak, had been allocated to Lion Air and its subsidiary Batik Air. The ministry’s air transportation directorate inspectors carried out investigations, which verified that both Lion and Batik had committed contraventions of permit conditions, ITM spokesperson Muzaffar Ismail said. Ismail said the carriers’ standard operating procedure for delay management and implementation is currently at 60% of the target level, which he described as “very low.” “We will revoke a flight route permit of an airline company if it does not use the permit for 21 days at a stretch,” Ismail said. The ministry, which has previously said it will apply regulations more stringently if domestic carriers do not fulfill license requirements, said it would consider further sanctions against Lion Group if it did not improve management of all sanctioned routes. The ITM said the carriers would be given three months to rectify the contraventions, but if they did not satisfy inspectors the issues had been addressed, the likelihood of withdrawing their business license was real.<br/>
Frequent travellers between Sydney and Melbourne face several frustrations: traffic to and from the airport, long security lines, regular ground delays and often the need to circle the congested air space before landing. It can turn what should be a one-hour flight into more than four hours door to door.<br/>Enter the disruptors, Luke Hampshire, 28, and Alexander Robinson, 32. The young pair, both of whom have aviation experience, are looking to take a business model proven by the successful start-up Surf Air in California and transplant it to Australia. The idea is as follows. Several hundred members will pay a $1000 joining fee and a $2550 monthly fee for effectively unlimited flights between Sydney (Bankstown Airport), Melbourne (Essendon Airport) and Canberra on an eight-seater King Air 350 turboprop. The company, Airly, will offer an initial 54 flights a week between those centres, with plans to expand to Adelaide and Brisbane at a later date. "It is going to save them about two hours per round trip. We are working off a membership number. We have a lot of people showing significant interest in it now. Once we reach that break-even number we launch."<br/>