general

As a Delta Air Lines jet began roaring down a runway, an air traffic controller at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport suddenly blurted out an expletive, then ordered the pilots to stop their takeoff roll. The controller saw an American Airlines plane mistakenly crossing the same runway, into the path of the accelerating Delta jet. JFK is one of only 35 U.S. airports with the equipment to track planes and vehicles on the ground. The system alerted the airport control tower to the danger, possibly saving lives last year. The National Transportation Safety Board and many independent experts say pilots should get warnings without waiting precious seconds to get word from controllers. Just last week, the NTSB recommended that the Federal Aviation Administration collaborate with manufacturers to develop technology for alerting pilots directly. Honeywell International, a conglomerate with a big aerospace business, has been working on such an early-warning system for about 15 years and thinks it is close to a finished product. The company gave a demonstration during a test flight last week. As pilot Joe Duval aimed a Boeing 757 for a runway in Tyler, Texas, a warning appeared on his display and sounded in the cockpit: “Traffic on runway!” The system had detected a business jet that was just appearing as a speck on the runway about a mile away — ground the Boeing would cover in a matter of seconds. Duval tilted the plane’s nose up and pushed the throttle forward into a G-force-inducing climb, safely away from the Dassault Falcon 900 below. Honeywell officials claim their technology would have alerted the Delta pilots who had the January 2023 near-miss at JFK 13 seconds before the air traffic controller screamed the expletive and told them to stop their takeoff. Merely removing the need for a controller to relay the warning from ground-based systems could be critical.<br/>

The FAA’s top official acknowledged on Thursday that the agency failed to adequately oversee Boeing and that it should have had better visibility into the plane manufacturer’s safety practices long before a door panel blew off a plane while it was in flight on Jan. 5. Mike Whitaker, the agency’s administrator, appeared before the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee weeks after Boeing, which has experienced a spate of problems, submitted a comprehensive plan detailing how it would overhaul its quality control practices and safety culture. “The F.A.A.’s approach was too hands-off, too focused on paperwork audits and not focused enough on inspections,” Mr. Whitaker said. “We have changed that approach over the last several months, and those changes are permanent.” Whitaker said the changes included permanently increasing the agency’s use of in-person inspections and barring Boeing from increasing production of its 737 Max jets until the agency is satisfied with the company’s quality control and safety improvements. The F.A.A. will also continue to maintain a presence at the company’s factories and one of its suppliers, Spirit Aerosystems. Whitaker said he planned to remain engaged with Boeing’s executives and would personally ensure changes were made. He said he would visit Boeing’s Charleston, S.C., factory this month and make another trip to the Renton, Wash., factory in September. As part of the 90-day plan that Boeing submitted, the F.A.A. will also meet with the company weekly to ensure that it is hitting the outlined goals. The hearing was the latest by a congressional committee focused on the aviation sector since the door panel, known as a door plug, blew off during an Alaska Airlines flight shortly after the plane took off from Portland, Ore. The F.A.A. quickly grounded similar Max 9 jets, but allowed them to return to the skies in late January after being inspected. No one was seriously hurt during the incident.<br/>

The FAA and European Union Aviation Safety Agency said on Thursday they would boost collaboration on new airplane certification following a three-day joint meeting in Washington. Since two Boeing 737 MAX crashes in 2018 and 2019 that killed a combined 346 people, aviation regulators around the world have tightened oversight of new airplanes. The FAA and EASA pledged to take a number of steps to work together more closely and deepen proactive collaboration on certification activities. "As we look to the next decade, establishing a unified strategic direction based on information sharing and collaboration with our international partners will meet the needs of our global aviation system of the future," FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker said in a statement. EASA Executive Director Florian Guillermet said it was more important than ever for international aviation regulators to work together and to ensure that safety needs were always met. Guillermet told Reuters last week he would propose the FAA act as an observer on safety audits, including those of European planemaker Airbus. The EASA and FAA also vowed to strengthen information exchanges on safety oversight and to encourage each agency's technical experts to "work together and rely on one another to reduce duplication of effort, taking a risk-based approach." The FAA is closely scrutinizing two new variants of the MAX awaiting certification, including the MAX 7, which is not expected to be certified until 2025 at the earliest after Boeing dropped a request in January for a key safety exemption.<br/>

Boeing said it’s inspecting undelivered 787 Dreamliners after discovering that fasteners were incorrectly installed on a section of the carbon-composite aircraft, underscoring the heightened scrutiny on quality lapses at the embattled manufacturer. The issue is the latest to come to light as US regulators ramp up oversight of Boeing following a near-catastrophe with another jet model, the 737 Max, earlier this year. The US Federal Aviation Administration is also probing the 787 quality defect, the agency said. The FAA has “multiple active investigations” into the planemaker underway following a rise in reports from whistleblowers and through its safety hotline, FAA chief Michael Whitaker said at a Senate hearing on Thursday. “You expect to see an increase in reports when you have a safe place for employees to report, so that’s what we want to see,” Whitaker told reporters after the hearing. “We would be a little concerned if we weren’t seeing an increase in numbers.” The fastener misstep underscores how Boeing continues to unearth manufacturing errors as it works to tighten up quality standards after a door plug blew off a 737 Max mid-flight in January. US investigators have said the panel was missing four bolts meant to hold it in place, a revelation that unleashed withering scrutiny of the planemaker from regulators, airlines and the public. The company hasn’t halted deliveries of the 787 as it determines whether any repairs will be needed to fix the incorrectly torqued fasteners, which connect the mid-section of the carbon-composite barrels to interior strengthening components. The FAA said in a statement that the problem doesn’t pose an immediate flight-safety issue.<br/>

Budget airlines are calling on the Finance Ministry to help reduce the excise tax on jet fuel to lower costs for airlines, which claim to be in a fragile state. Speaking after meeting with representatives of low-fare airlines on Thursday, Deputy Finance Minister Julapun Amornvivat said the carriers discussed the economy and expressed their intention to support government measures to drive tourism. The low-cost carriers said after weathering the pandemic, they are working to strengthen their position. They want the ministry to help reduce the excise tax on jet fuel, and officials are considering their requests, he said. The ministry must consult with the Energy Policy Committee before any changes are made, said Julapun. He said the ministry advised the budget airlines to consider other government assistance mechanisms, such as loans to help with liquidity and state efforts to help address this issue. Given ongoing public complaints and frequent discussions in parliament about high domestic airfares, Julapun said this issue needs to be addressed by low-cost carriers.<br/>