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Pilot Avoids Houses In Henderson, Nevada Crash
One person was killed and at least three were badly injured Monday when a Piper PA32-RT-300 Lance made an emergency landing on a Henderson, NV city street after an apparent engine failure. Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Sgt. John Sheahan total local media that two men and two women were aboard the Lance, which had just departed Hendersons Executive Airport around 8 a.m. on Monday. Pilot Douglas Touchet, 45, of Erath, LA died. His wife and the two others, also from Louisiana, were hurt. The group was apparently heading home after a long weekend in Las Vegas. Henderson is just south of Las Vegas. Police said no one on the ground was injured, perhaps because the pilot pointed the airplane away from houses."I think we can attribute that to the pilot trying to put it down in a safe place," he said. "You're talking the plane crashed maybe 20 or 30 feet (from the nearest home)," Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Sgt. John Sheahan said.
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Scrap The First Officer: Ryanair's O'Leary
The airline CEO who suggested introducing pay toilets on his aircraft is now saying the right seat in the cockpit should fly empty. Michael O'Leary, the sometimes controversial and always publicity-hungry head of Ryanair said he advocated abolishing first officers and since he said it to Bloomberg Business Week, it's now being widely reported. "Really, you only need one pilot. Let's take out the second pilot. Let the bloody computer fly it," were the exact words. And if the lone pilot can't, for some reason, make sure the computer is doing its job, O'Leary suggested he do what his passengers do when they have a problem and that's call a flight attendant, in this case, one that's been trained to land the aircraft. "If the pilot has an emergency, he rings the bell, he calls her in, she could take over." He apparently wasn't asked if it might make as much sense to make the FO push a snack cart when he or she isn't needed to watch the computer.
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AVmail: September 6, 2010
Letter of the Week: LSA, IFR Clarifications by Dan JohnsonWhile I thank AVweb for frequent coverage of Light Sport Aircraft activities, I must object to some words appearing in the Sept. 2, 2010 article with the title "LSA, IFR, and IMC: An Update." I would appreciate if you could communicate the following to your readers so they more accurately understand the situation.The following statement is incorrect: "'The IMC change is driven more by committee members' concerns about liability than about safety,' Johnson said." Safety was not secondary. In my interview with reporter Mary Grady, I referred to a defensive position taken by the design and performance subcommittee of the F37 LSA standards-writing committee of ASTM. I intended to suggest that the subcommittee felt it advisable to recommend a placard prohibiting flight into IMC because the subcommittee did not believe IMC flight in LSA was defensible until another subcommittee working on an IFR standard was able to come to consensus. In reverse of the referenced sentence, the main thrust of the subcommittee was to focus on safety, not to worry over a manufacturer's legal liability....Dan JohnsonPresident,Light Aircraft Manufacturers AssociationClick through to read the rest Dan Johnson's letter and many more from AVweb readers.
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Short Final
Overheard in IFR Magazine's "On the Air"Heard on Chicago Center frequency:Pilot:"Chicago, Piper 12345 en route to St. Louis. Request flight following."Center:"Piper 12345, where in the world are you?"Pilot:"I'm down below the water [meaning south of Lake Michigan], heading for St. Louis."Center (deadpan) :"Piper 123, it must be pretty wet down below the water. Want to try again?"Pilot:"I'm ten miles south of Michigan City."Center:"That's more like it."John Urschalitvia e-mail
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FBO of the Week: Orion Flight Services (Wittman Regional Airport, KOSH, Oshkosh, WI)
>>> AVWEB FUEL FINDERCURRENT PRICE FOR 100LL: $4.76 (down 1¢ from last week)CURRENT PRICE FOR JET A: $4.42 (down 2¢ from last week)Fuel prices provided weekly by AirNav, based on prices from the past 2 weeks. Changes are relative to last week's prices. /TEXT_ONLY-->http://media.avweb.com/banmanavweb/a.aspx?Task=Click&ZoneID=0&CampaignID=5860&AdvertiserID=167&BannerID=2980&SiteID=19&RandomNumber=251669563&Keywords=/TEXT_ONLY-->AVweb reader Doug Latch pointed out that we'd given due praise to two FBOs who stepped up to the plate when traffic was routed away from Wittman Regional Airport in Oshkosh at the beginning of AirVenture but no one had given a nod to KOSH's own Orion Flight Services:These people went well beyond normal. They treated me like I had a Gulfstream or Boeing business jet, and they knew from the start I was flying a 1966 Cessna Skyhawk. During AirVenture this year, parking was extreme and almost gone. [While] the other FBO was only accepting twins and jets, Toby Kamark took me and my Skyhawk and treated us like Royalty ... [then] he took as many people as he could to register for the show and returned. ... I was there after the show, and the level of service did not decline.Keep those nominations coming. For complete contest rules, click here.AVweb is actively seeking out the best FBOs in the country and another one, submitted by you, will be spotlighted here next Monday!
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AVweb Insider Blog: The Limits of Sim Training
Can pilots be trained in a simulator to handle every conceivable emergency situation, or are we just kidding ourselves? In the latest installment of the AVweb Insider blog, Paul Bertorelli argues that at some point, you have to stop training and start flying. Read more and join the conversation.
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S-LSAs And IMC Clarified
The issues surrounding special light sport aircraft flight in instrument conditions are complex and arcane, and in an effort to ensure that some of the finer points are crystal clear, Dan Johnson, chairman of the Light Aircraft Manufacturing Association, sent a follow-up letter to AVweb this week expanding and clarifying some of the details touched on in Thursday's AVweb report. In his letter, Johnson adds background about some of the ASTM committee debates over the issue and emphasizes that safety is the prime concern. "The [committees] always put safety first in their efforts," he says. For the rest of Johnson's comments, see our Letters section.
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Spectator Killed In Airshow Accident
One woman was killed and up to 38 people were injured when a Tiger Moth taking part in a small German airshow ran into the crowd Sunday. The accident happened at the Lillinghof airfield about 20 miles from Nuremberg. Witnesses told German media the vintage biplane was taking off when it veered off the runway and into the crowd. About 5,000 people were on hand for the event, which featured mostly small aircraft and an AN-2 Russian transport. It was the second airshow fatality on the weekend in Germany.
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B.C. Sues Transport Canada Over Crash
The provincial government of British Columbia is suing Transport Canada, among others, to recover the cost of medical treatment for passengers injured in an horrific balloon accident in 2007. B.C. says Transport Canada didn't do enough to ensure the commercial ballooning company involved was properly qualified and equipped to carry out the type of flight that ended in disaster on Aug. 24, 2007. Two people were trapped and died and most of the 11 others were hurt when they jumped from the balloon's basket after a propane fire erupted. Under Canada's public medical system, provincial governments fund a major portion of healthcare. Earlier this year, British Columbia enacted a law enabling it to recover the cost of treatment of those injured due to negligence or criminal acts. The province alleges at least four of the passengers suffered serious injuries, including brain injury, burns, broken bones and traumatic stress disorder. The mother and grown daughter who died couldn't escape and burned to death as the balloon broke its tether and shot 400 feet before the basket broke loose, landing in a campground, destroying several cars and RVs in the ensuing fire.
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JetBlue Lets Slater Slide Away
Steven Slater has made his final exit from JetBlue. The airline confirmed Saturday that Slater, the allegedly frustrated flight attendant who popped the emergency slide on an E190, grabbed two beers from the galley and abandoned the aircraft at JFK last month, is no longer with the airline. Slater achieved Internet folk hero status after his dramatic departure, allegedly triggered by an altercation with a female passenger who ignored instructions to remain seated until the plane was chocked. Slater later said he'd been bonked in the head by the passenger's carry-on as she, against his instructions, pulled it from the overhead. Slater was later quoted as saying he wanted his job back but the airline deflated that dream with a brief statement.
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