102 Air India pilots found flying with lapsed licences

New Delhi: The next time you take a flight in India, keep your fingers crossed and hope that your pilot is flying on a valid licence, not a lapsed one.

Air India has discovered that as many as 102 pilots of its wide body Boeing fleet have been flying without clearing a mandatory test that helps keep their licences valid and without which the same lapse.

The airline informed the downgraded-by-US directorate general of civil aviation (DGCA) which, worryingly, failed to detect on its own  the flying by so many pilots with lapsed licences.

The AI admission comes on the heels of the regulator last month finding that 131 Jet AirwaysBSE 0.54 % pilots were also flying without clearing a mandatory biannual exam - meaning on a lapsed licence.
26/10/14 Saurabh Sinha/Economic Times

MH370: Authorities 'Covering Up Vital Information' About Missing Jet, Says Aviation Expert

 An aviation expert has alleged that Malaysian and Australian authorities, who are handling the search for missing Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370, could be involved in a cover-up, local media reports said Sunday. Desmond Ross, who is also a pilot, also claimed that a breach of protocol by authorities made the ongoing search costly, The Malaysian Insider reported.

 Ross, who is a pilot and air-traffic management specialist, reportedly blamed the authorities' failure to release recordings from the first hours of the aircraft's disappearance for the delay in finding the Boeing 777. “If proper protocols had been followed, we would not be looking for the aircraft today,” Ross said, according to The Malaysian Insider.

Writing for Aviation Business Asia Pacific magazine, Ross also reportedly raised doubts over the official version of Flight MH370’s final moments.
“Many facts are missing, but many are available and should be released. We know that the initial period was filled with confusion and even misinformation from the airline itself which, at one stage, told ATC (Air traffic control) that it had contact with the aircraft in Cambodian airspace,” he reportedly said.
Ross also reportedly referred to a BBC documentary called “Where is Flight MH370?” in which Malaysian authorities in charge of the search said that they could not reveal the military’s tracking of the missing jetliner due to security reasons. He also claimed it could be a case of "criminal negligence" if there had been no recording of communication between civil air-traffic controllers at the Kuala Lumpur control center and military air defense officers.
“Nobody can tell us that the recordings do not exist,” Ross reportedly said, adding that Malaysia and Australia “could be accused of covering up vital information which would help the families and independent investigators to work out what happened.”

Drug cartels

Drug cartels in the Mexico state of Tamaulipas have turned their attention to prominent social media users.

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behind every successful man there is a woman
behind any unsuccesful man there are women.

hoax;;;; NASA Confirms Earth Will Experience 6 Days of Total Darkness in December 2014!

WORLDWIDE - NASA has confirmed that the Earth will experience 6 days of almost complete darkness and will happen from the dates Tuesday the 16 – Monday the 22 in December. The world will remain, during these three days, without sunlight due to a solar storm, which will cause dust and space debris to become plentiful and thus, block 90% sunlight.

This is the head of NASA Charles Bolden who made the announcement and asked everyone to remain calm. This will be the product of a solar storm, the largest in the last 250 years for a period of 216 hours total. Reporters interviewed a few people to hear what they had to say about the situation with Michael Hearns responding “We gonna be purgin my n*gga, six days of darkness means six days of turnin up fam”.

Despite the six days of darkness soon to come, officials say that the earth will not experience any major problems, since six days of darkness is nowhere near enough to cause major damage to anything. “We will solely rely on artificial lig

Total CEO dead after jet's collision with snowplough

 

 

 

 

 

Chairman and CEO of the French company Total, Christophe de Margerie, died just after 23:57 local time, on October 20 in a private plane crash at Vnukovo Airport in Moscow, following a collision with a snowplough. Three crew members that were in the plane did not survive either.

Among the priority versions of the incident, investigation is considering actions of the snowplough driver, who was confirmed to be intoxicated with unknown substances during the incident; and error of the controllers. In addition, unfavorable weather conditions and pilot error are also considered. The airport said that visibility was at 350 metres at the time of the accident

Currently investigative team made inspection of the scene with the participation of representatives of the IAC, withdrawn technical papers on aircraft and fuel samples from the tanker, interrogated as witnesses employees Vnukovo airport. Organized set of necessary investigative actions aimed at establishing the circumstances and causes of the crash.

De Margerie was on a list of attendees at a Russian government meeting on foreign investment in Gorki, near Moscow, on Monday. Hours before his death he had met the Russian prime minister, Dmitry Medvedev, at his country residence outside Moscow to discuss foreign investment in Russia, the Vedomosti business daily reported.

Given the large public outcry, the Chairman of the Investigative Committee of Russia Alexander Bastrykin will hold a meeting with the operative investigative team and representatives of all services involved in the investigation of Incidents.

The French oil giant was one of the top foreign investors in Russia and has been hit by the worsening relations between Moscow and the West.

Source and image: Total, Vnukovo, Russia's Investigative Committee

 

Changes in aviation aftermarket influence spares demand patterns

As carriers worldwide are determined to benefit from the ever-growing demand, the largest aircraft manufacturers - Airbus and Boeing - have pushed their narrowbody production rates to 42 aircraft per month each, while announcing plans to go over 50 in the nearest future. Earlier, such developments within the industry would mean respective changes in airline spare parts stocking levels and parts demand, since increasing demand for air travel used to represent more flight hours and cycles across the global fleet, meaning that the parts in use wear out more quickly. However, some recent trends suggest that a significant structural shift is occurring.

“The recent uptick in traffic coincides with several new trends, which have emerged in the aviation aftermarket, namely the increased popularity of used serviceable material, greater reliability of components, improved aircraft utilization, as well as growing presence of the OEMs in the aftermarket processes. As a result, dependence of spare part sales on the demand for travel and aircraft use has become considerably weaker. In fact, part sales have been slower than suggested by the growth in global available seat kilometers,” shares Zilvinas Sadauskas, the CEO of Locatory.com.

While it may be too soon to draw definite conclusions, many industry players are inclined to believe that the increased used spares consumption in causing the most noticeable disruptions. After all, the worth of this considerably new market is currently heading towards $4 billion (a significant rise from slightly over $1 billion in 2001) at a rate of about 5.5%, as forecasted by IFC International. As a result, according to a recent survey conducted by Oliver Wyman, 84% of airlines are currently adopting an “active serviceable materials strategy”. In the meantime, Canaccord Genuity reports almost a third of parts bought from MROs and OEMs in the end of 2013 were used serviceable material.

As the demand for used materials grows, more and more airlines have been practicing buying entire aircraft for teardown, to get the most of the cost-cutting benefits surplus material provides. Moreover, some have even considered dismantling their own machines for own fleet support, as well as for sale. Consequently, roughly 80% of surplus parts in the aftermarket today come from part-outs. In addition, more and more carriers are requesting used parts support from their providers as a means of extending service lives of sunset fleet types, while becoming more efficient at managing their own spares.

“At the same time, PBH providers have also started offering used parts to lower the service costs, while some OEMs have been utilizing surplus material in order to make product overhauls more cost-effective. For instance, Boeing's recent deal with GA Telesis on selling used airframe and engine parts on the manufacturer’s Boeing Part Page is the latest example of OEMs getting deeper into the aftermarket in search of revenue - even if it means selling used material. All in all, as more and more players see the aftermarket as an increasingly perspective segment, it may well be expected that the familiar rules of the game will continue to change,” concludes the CEO of Locatory.com.

Source and image: Locatory.com