Large hole discovered after Southwest flight makes emergency landing

CNN News, By the CNN Wire Staff,April 2, 2011

A 3-foot hole formed in the fuselage of Southwest Airlines Flight 813
on Friday.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Passengers arrive in Sacramento, California, on a second plane
• A 3- to 4-foot hole is discovered in a plane's fuselage
• FAA: The captain made a rapid descent from 36,000 feet to 11,000 feet
• A passenger commends airline personnel for their control of the situation

(CNN) -- A Southwest Airlines flight landed safely at a military base in Yuma, Arizona, on Friday with what passengers described as a 3-foot hole in the fuselage of the Boeing 737.

"I heard a loud popping sound about three or four minutes before it blew open on us," passenger Greg Hansen told CNN.

"(Then) a big explosion happened. A big noise, and from there, you felt some of the air being sucked out. It happened right behind me, in the row behind me and it covers about two and a half rows," he said from seat 11C.

Hansen, 41, a regional sales manager for a biotech company, was flying home to Sacramento, California, from a business trip. Some people panicked and screamed as the blue sky and sun began to shine through the cabin in mid-flight, he said.

"Most people were just white knuckles holding onto the arm rests. The pilots did a great job and were under control to get us to a manageable level," he said.

But just behind him, Hansen said he could see the jagged edge of the aircraft where the rivets used to be.

"You can see the insulation and wiring. The interior ceiling panel was bouncing up and down with the air," he said.

"It was surreal, when you're riding in a modern aircraft. You're used to being enclosed and not having the window rolled down," he said.

Hansen described the hole as being about 3 or 4 feet long and about a foot wide.

Passenger Brenda Reese told CNN affiliates KCRA and KOVR she began to fear for her life.

"I was texting my sister to make certain that she told my kids that I loved them," Reese said.

Southwest Flight 812 made an emergency landing at Yuma Marine Corps Air Station/International Airport at 7:07 p.m. ET.

The Federal Aviation Administration said the captain made a rapid, controlled descent from 36,000 to about 11,000 feet after the cabin lost pressure.

"We do not know the cause of the decompression," said Ian Gregor of the FAA.

Hansen said the incident took place about 35 minutes into the flight. He says that it took about 45 seconds or a minute before the oxygen masks came down after the hole blew open.

"The crew was pretty calm about it. They walked around and checked on everyone," he said. "But it wasn't like the movies where papers get sucked out of the hole, but you could feel it and hear the noise."

One of the passengers told KOVR that the incident occurred shortly after flight attendants took drink orders.

"There was a hole in the fuselage about 3 feet long," said the passenger, identified only as Cindy. "You could see the insulation and the wiring. You could see a tear the length of one of the ceiling panels."

Southwest said in a statement that the flight crew "discovered a hole in the top of the aircraft."

Hansen said that most of the passengers were complaining of a pain in their eardrums from a rapid descent.

Southwest Airlines said only one injury was reported.

RELATED TOPICS

• Air Travel
• Southwest Airlines Inc

"There are no reported customer injuries," according to a statement released by the airline. "One of the flight attendants, however, received a minor injury upon descent."

Hansen said one male flight attendant appeared to fall and was bleeding from a facial injury.

Yuma International Airport spokeswoman Gen Grosse said passengers were tended to and given refreshments because the temperature on the tarmac was close to 100 degrees.

Hansen said passengers deplaned and boarded another Southwest Airlines plane for Sacramento. He said the airline offered passengers accommodations in Yuma, but did not know if any passengers chose to stay.

The second flight landed in Sacramento on Friday night.

But one passenger, Debbie Downey, opted to take a small Cessna aircraft back to the Phoenix area.

"Just wanted a change of scenery," said Downey, who was traveling with her husband. "My uncle is a retired pilot with Northwest Airlines and offered to come get us in his Cessna 182."

In a written statement, Boeing spokeswoman Julie O'Donnell declined to comment on possible causes of the incident.

"Boeing is dedicated to the safety of its airplanes and the people who fly on them," O'Donnell said. "We are providing technical assistance to the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board as it investigates the incident.

In accordance with international convention, we cannot speculate on either the cause or whether this incident is similar to or different from anything in the past; any questions about the investigation must be directed to the NTSB."

The NTSB said an investigative team will arrive in Yuma on Saturday.

CNN's John Branch, Rich Phillips, Deborah Doft and Greg Morrison contributed to this report.

Related Articles:

Small cracks found in three Southwest Airlines jets

NTSB: Southwest jet had pre-existing fatigue

Another Southwest Airlines flight diverted

Southwest cancels 300 flights after emergency

Southwest to ground 79 planes after hole prompts emergency landing

Holed Southwest Airlines flight makes emergency landing

Video: Elektra One All-Electric Plane Makes Successful Maiden Flight

Meanwhile, jet contrails found to be a worse climate-change culprit than carbon

POPSCI, By Clay Dillow, 03.30.2011

ELEKTRA ONE via PS-Aero

German company PC-Aero is trying to win NASA’s CAFE Green Flight Challenge, and Saturday they took a big step toward doing just that. The company’s ELEKTRA ONE aircraft, designed by PC-Aero’s founder and president Calin Gologan, made its successful first flight. But this one-seater isn’t your average single-prop. ELEKTRA ONE flies on electricity alone.

The Green Flight Challenge seeks a demo aircraft that can fly 200 miles in less than two hours on the energy equivalent of less than one gallon of fuel per person. ELEKTRA ONE didn’t push the envelope that far just yet--the maiden flight hit a ceiling just above 1600 feet and lasted just 30 minutes, burning just half the 6 kWh stored up in its batteries. But the fact that the lightweight aircraft was able to comfortably circle the airfield for half an hour-- more or less silently, we might add--is nothing short of impressive.

RELATED ARTICLES

• Who Birthed the Electric Plane?
• A Silent Electric Plane
• Global Warming Better, Worse Than We Thought

And the timing for such a flight couldn’t be better. A study released Tuesday claims that airplane contrails--those long, white condensation trails jets leave in the sky--may warm the planet more on the average day than all of the carbon emissions spewed from airplanes in the history of modern aviation.

The carbon lingers longer of course--the contrails and any heat-trapping cirrus clouds they cause dissipate in hours or days, while the carbon remains for decades--but still, that’s a lot heat being trapped on any given day. Electric planes, as you may have surmised, wouldn’t contribute to warming on either front. See ELEKTRA ONE take flight in the video below.

[Treehugger, Reuters]

Lawmaker Involved in Another Plane Seat Incident

Jakarta Globe, March 26, 2011

Related articles

• Man Traumatized After 9-Hour Ordeal in Mosque Toilet
• Indonesia Airport Foils Smugglers with 40 Pythons
• East Java Officials Get Caught Watching Porn During Speech
• Cambodia Sets Age, Wealth Limits for Foreign Husbands
• US Man Maintains Suicide, Murder Threat

Indonesian Twitter users woke up on Satuday to an early morning plane seat mix-up incident that ended with lawmaker Roy Suryo being asked to leave a Lion Air flight.

Twitter user @ernestprakasa said he boarded the 6:15 a.m. flight to Yogyakarta with his friend only to find their seats occupied by the Democrat Party lawmaker and his wife.

“When it was checked, it turned out that Roy Suryo's tickets were for the 7:45 flight, instead of 6.15 a.m. but he refused to leave the plane, dropping the name of Lion Air's director,” Ernest wrote.

Ernest said he and his friend decided to just leave the plane, but suddenly some of the other passengers shouted, “Don't let officials beat you!” and “Hey, Roy Suryo, don't pull a Nurdin Halid. You must step down now!”

In the midst of the chaos, the pilot, identified only as Capt. Vino, came out to the cabin to ask what was going on because the flight was already 15 minutes late.

After receiving an explanation from a flight attendant, the captain walked into the cockpit, grabbed his bag and angrily walked over to the plane's door, cursing government officials as he did so.

The captain refused to take off if Ernest and his friend were not on the plane.

Shortly after, a group of airport officers approached Roy Suryo, and the lawmaker finally got up and apologized to the passengers.

“I am sorry for having disturbed your flight,” he said, to the applause of the passengers.

After Suryo left, the captain returned to the cockpit and started the take-off procedure.

However, Suryo said he was simply a victim of Lion Air's mistake.

“Tweeps, I was the one who became the bigger man and took the blame for Lion Air's mistake in the double-seat incident. As the people's representative, I know ethics require me to apologize and prioritize others,” he wrote on his Twitter account.

Roy claimed Lion Air has apologized to him for the "miscommunication."

Lion Air refused to comment on the incident, saying they will verify the flight documents first.

Related Article:

The seven months pregnant woman told to give up her British Airways seat... just so Gordon Brown could fly Club Class

Boeing's new 747 completes first test flight

Reuters, SEATTLE | Sun Mar 20, 2011

The Boeing 747-8 Intercontinental taxis down the runway before its maiden
 flight from Paine Field, in Everett, Washington, March 20, 2011.
(Credit: REUTERS/Robert Sorbo)

(Reuters) - Boeing Co's 747-8 Intercontinental, the new passenger version of its legendary jumbo jet, completed its maiden flight without a hitch on Sunday, marking a key milestone for the aircraft model more closely associated with Boeing than any other plane.

The behemoth began its first test flight from Boeing's Paine Field north of Seattle into clear blue skies at 9:58 a.m. local time. The take-off, witnessed by thousands of Boeing employees and aviation enthusiasts, occurred almost 42 years after the first flight of the original 747, which later became one of the most recognized planes in the world.

After almost four and half hours in the air, the red and white plane landed safely at Boeing Field just south of central Seattle.

The 747-8 Intercontinental will seat 467 passengers, 51 more than the current version of the 747. It promises to burn less fuel and offer more passenger comforts. The plane also boasts new wings, a new tail, state-of-the-art engines and a new cockpit.

The 747 was the world's largest airplane until 2005, when Airbus unveiled its 525-seat A380.

Boeing has taken orders for 33 747-8 passenger planes, according to the company website on Friday. The plane lists at $317.5 million.

Germany's Lufthansa has ordered 20 of the planes, and is set to be the first airline to bring the new jumbo into service early next year.

Production of the new 747 has been delayed as has the mid-sized 787 Dreamliner, a carbon-composite plane, which represents a bigger leap in technology than the revamped 747-8.

The stronger-selling freighter version of the 747 has already flown and is due to be delivered in mid-2011 -- 18 months later than first planned. Boeing has sold more than 70 747-8 freighters.

(Reporting by Bill Rigby in Seattle and Kyle Peterson in Chicago; Editing by Diane Craft)

Nissan scanning vehicles for radioactive material

CNN News, From Kyung Lah, March 18, 2011

Nissan Motors' pickup trucks line up for export to the Middle East
area as a freighter approaches to the Nissan pier at the Yokohama
port, Kanagawa prefecture, 15 September 2006.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• A company official says the measures aim to "reassure the public"
• The monitoring for radioactive material started this week
• Some Nissan production remains suspended

  

Tokyo (CNN) -- Nissan has started scanning vehicles made in Japan for traces of radioactive material, a company official said Friday.

"Looking ahead, we will continue to implement all appropriate measures to reassure the public that all products from our company remain within globally accepted safety standards and until we are confident that any risk of contamination is completely removed," said Simon Sproule, corporate vice president of marketing for Nissan Motor Company.

RELATED TOPICS

• Japan
• Earthquakes

Sproule said the monitoring began this week.

Sources inside the company said there is virtually no risk of contamination from a car and no potential health risk to customers, but testing began because of public concern.

Production at several Nissan facilities remains suspended after a 9.0-magnitude earthquake damaged plants and equipment on March 11, the company said in a statement Thursday.

Storm Chaos Reignites Calls for Relocation of the Capital

The Jakarta Post, Dessy Sagita & Arientha Primanita | March 18, 2011

A tree collapsed in front of National Police headquarter in South Jakarta
on Wednesday. Extreme weather in the capital saw hail falling from the
sky, trees uprooted, widespread surface flooding and damage to the
exclusive Senayan City in South Jakarta. (JG Photo/Farouk Arnaz)

Related articles

• Storm Causes Traffic Chaos in Jakarta
• Two-Wheeling Fun in Jakarta and Beyond
• For Greater Jakarta Commuters, It's Railways Over Roads
• Traffic Chief Lauds Singapore Model
• Drivers in Jakarta May Pay up to Rp 21,000 a Day

The Jakarta administration is organizing compensation for vehicles and structures damaged by Wednesday’s freak weather, but frustrated Jakartans say more is needed: a capital relocation.

“Jakarta is under pressures it can no longer handle,” said Andrinof Chaniago, a public policy expert from the University of Indonesia, raising once again the debate of whether Indonesia needs to move its capital.

The sever weather on Wednesday afternoon quickly flooded roads throughout the capital, downed 42 trees and broke off branches from at least 100 more, damaging several cars and buildings in the process.

Catharina Suryowati, head of Jakarta’s Parks and Cemeteries Office , said the city would compensate the owners of each unit damaged by the trees with Rp 10 million ($1,140) each. “To claim it, the owners must give visual evidence in the form of photos, a police letter and the vehicle documents, while for buildings or houses, they must attach a letter from their neighborhood heads,” she said, adding that claims would be accepted for two months.

She acknowledged that more than 2,000 of the 70,000 trees in the city are at risk of collapse. “The trees are old, sick, rotten or tilting by more than 30 degrees. The trees’ trunks are prone to be broken,” she said.

Hari Sasongko Kushadi, head of the city’s Building Control and Monitoring Office, said owners of cars damaged by four collapsed billboards could also make claims with the city’s Tax Office against the sign owners.

Nirwono Joga, an urban planner from Trisakti University, said the city administration was always reactive to incidents like this, but rarely made attempts to prevent incidents. “It is not the trees’ faults but the planning of the trees planters,” he said.

But Andrinof said the problem was insufficient infrastructure and services creaking under the weight of a growing population.

Jakarta has become a magnet for people across the country because it is the center for both government and business. “It is now time to consider separating these two functions,” he said.

Intan Wibisono, a public relations consultant, agreed. “If the center of administration is relocated, development will spread to another part of the country and people wouldn’t flock to Jakarta,” she said. “It’s going to be a very big investment, and I know the transition period is going to be chaotic and painful, but it might pay off in the long run.”

The price of inaction, Andrinof said, was expensive for Jakartans who are forced to spend more for gas and medical costs. “Not to mention, wasting hours on the road makes people aggressive; Jakarta is full of angry, impatient people,” he said.

Emil Hartanto, an office worker who rides a motorbike from his house in Depok to his office in Pancoran, South Jakarta, every day, knows this all too well. “When you spend hours in the maze of traffic, your mood is ruined, you arrive in the office tired and grumpy, with not much energy left to stay productive,” he said.

The capital urgently needs to be relocated, Andrinof said. “There is no way to catch up, a breakthrough must happen,” he added.

Extreme Weather Causes Havoc in Jakarta

Jakarta Globe, March 16, 2011

The damaged Senayan City mall. Extreme weather in the capital on
Wednesday saw hail falling from the sky, trees uprooted, widespread
surface flooding and damage to the exclusive Senayan City in South
Jakarta. (Photo Amanda Valani)

Related articles

• Jakarta's Skyscrapers Ready for Quakes, Governor Says
• Jakarta Sets Out Vision for City’s ERP Toll Scheme
• Jakarta Putting Brakes on Police Plan to Impose Morning Truck Ban in City
• Reinventing Jakarta's Motorcycle Taxis
• Jakarta Expats Pay Ninth Highest Rents in Asia: Report

Extreme weather in the capital on Wednesday saw hail falling from the sky, trees uprooted, widespread surface flooding and damage to the exclusive Senayan City in South Jakarta.

Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) forcaster Bunga confirmed that hail had fallen in the Senayan and Thamrin areas in the central capital.

Bunga said hail would fall on rare occasions in Jakarta during the transition between the wet and dry seasons.

“It is also triggered by extreme weather like we are experiencing now,” she said.

Trees had also blown over throughout the capital, including at the Al Azhar Islamic School, Bunga said.

Miraculously, there no injuries when a tree was flown over at National Police headquarters, damaging 14 cars at 3 p.m.

Heavy winds also caused panels from the outside of Senayan City mall to peel away from the building. The ceiling to the Brewhouse cafe on the ground floor also collapsed. There were a number of shocked customers but no injuries.

Afdita Sari, a public relations consultant, said the hailstorm caused damage to buildings in the Senopati area in South Jakarta.

She said the thumb-sized hail broke windows in her office building at 3 p.m.

“My colleagues and I rushed out the building because of the clanking on the roof,” she said. “We saw ice pellets falling from the sky and the hailstorm lasted for about 15 minutes.”

Afdita said the hailstorm was followed by strong winds that lasted for 10 minutes.

“It was the first hail I’ve seen — very scary.”

She said a stall selling cigarettes in front of her building was damaged when a tree was blown over on top of it.

Bunga said the bad weather would continue tonight.

The Traffic Management Center said traffic from the Jalan Sudirman traffic circle to Senayan was at a standstill.

“Take the TransJakarta bus if you must,” the center said on its Web site.

The traffic is expected to be heavy this evening.

Related Articles:

Falling trees in Jakarta hit 14 cars

Storm Causes Traffic Chaos in Jakarta

Governor : high-rise buildings in Jakarta quake-proof

Flight ban imposed within 30km of Fukushima nuclear plant

Antara News, Tue, March 15 2011

Tokyo (ANTARA News) - The transport ministry banned aircraft on Tuesday from flying within 30 kilometers of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant in Fukushima Prefecture, following a deepening crisis that has developed into brief leaks ofhigh-level radiation.

The move, imposed under the Civil Aeronautics Law, excludes aircraft engaged in search and rescue operations, and is not expected to have a large impact on scheduled commercial flights in the country, according to the Land, Infrastructure,Transport and Tourism Ministry.

Similar irregular flight bans have been imposed three times before, including one for the Group of Eight summit meeting in Hokkaido in 2008 and another for meetings of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Yokohama last October, Kyodo reported.

Editor: Suryanto

Related Article:

100 evacuees to arrive in Jakarta from Japan this evening

Plane Forced to Land For Flying Without Permission

Jakarta Globe, Rahmat, March 07, 2011

Makassar. A charter plane headed for Malaysia was forced to land in Sulawesi on Monday for flying over Indonesia without proper permission.

The plane landed at Sultan Hasanuddin International Airport in Makassar, South Sulawesi, at 1.50 p.m. on Monday.

The were 49 passengers, all of which are Pakistani policemen who are serving in East Timor as part of the peacekeeping troops, and five crew members on board. They have been questioned by the authorities.

First Air Marshal Agus Supriatna, the commander of the airport, said the plane was a Boeing 737-300 owned by Pakistan International Airlines (PIA).

“The airport radar detected the plane at 12 a.m. and the crew didn’t communicate with the control tower,” Agus told the Jakarta Globe.

He instructed a Sukhoi plane to chase the Boeing and force it to land at the airport.

“The plane landed at 1.50 p.m. It was piloted by Captain Tariq Khalil ur Rehman Awan,” he said, adding the plane took off from Dili, East Timor, and was headed for Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

The plane allegedly flew over Indonesia without fulfilling three requirements — namely diplomatic clearance, security clearance and flight approval.

“Every plane planning to fly over a foreign country must meet these three requirements,” Agus said.

The plane was parked at the airport while the crew and passengers were questioned by the airport authority, immigration and officials from the Indonesian Air Force.

“We have filed a report to the Malaysian Embassy, the Foreign Ministry and the Transportation Ministry to help the plane fulfill the clearances,” Agus said.

Related Article:

Foreign aircraft held for illegally entering RI territory

Adjust your compass now: the north pole is migrating to Russia

Movement of the magnetic north is causing problems for aviation, navigation and wildlife

The Independent, by Guy Adams in Los Angeles, Sunday, 6 March 2011

It sounds unlikely but it's true: the magnetic north pole is moving faster than at any time in human history, threatening everything from the safety of modern transport systems to the traditional navigation routes of migrating animals.

Scientists say that magnetic north, which for two centuries has been in the icy wilderness of Canada, is currently relocating towards Russia at a rate of about 40 miles a year. The speed of its movement has increased by a third in the past decade, prompting speculation that the field could be about to "flip", causing compasses to invert and point south rather than north, something that happens between three and seven times every million years.

Already the phenomenon is causing problems in the field of aviation. Tampa International airport in Florida has just spent a month renaming its three runways, which in common with those at most US airports are identified using numbers that correspond to the direction, in degrees, that they face on a compass. "Everything had to be changed; it was a huge project," Brenda Geoghagan, a spokeswoman for the airport, said.

The current rate of magnetic north's movement away from Canada's Ellesmere Island is throwing out compasses by roughly one degree every five years, prompting the US Federal Aviation Administration to re-evaluate runway names across the country every five years. Similar changes were recently made to runways at Fort Lauderdale and Palm Beach.

Geologists believe that magnetic north pole (which is different from the true North Pole, the axis on which the Earth spins) moves around due to changes in the planet's molten core, which contains liquid iron. They first located it in 1831, and have been attrying to follow its progress ever since.

Records indicate that the pole's location barely moved in the early decades, but in about 1904, it began tracking north-east at a rate of about nine miles a year. That speed increased significantly from about 1989, possibly because of a "plume" of magnetism deep below ground. The pole is now believed to be heading towards Siberia at about 37 miles each year. "Earth's magnetic field is changing in time. And as far as we know, it has always been changing in time," geophysicist Jeffrey Love of the US Geological Survey in Colorado told Discovery News, which investigated the issue last week.

GPS systems, which rely on satellites, have replaced compasses as the means by which the majority of professional navigators orientate themselves. But compasses are still valuable, and are widely used by hikers and other amateur map-readers. In some environments, such as underwater or beneath ground, which cannot be reached by satellite signals, they remain the only option. The oil industry, which uses magnets to determine which angle it should drill into the earth, needs to keep track of the exact location of magnetic north.

Birds that fly south for the winter, along with migratory sea creatures, could face confusion. Long-living animals, such as whales and turtles, may in future be required to recalibrate their navigational instincts.

Despite the cost and inconvenience of altering runway names, not to mention the indignity of losing magnetic north to Russia, inhabitants of North America stand to benefit from the changes in at least one respect: it will give them more opportunities to observe the aurora borealis.

No one can predict the impact of "polar reversal", during which magnetic north and south reverse, since one hasn't happened for 780,000 years, the longest stable period in the past 5 million years. Some geologists think we could be about to find out, though: they believe that the current changes to magnetic north could be the early stages of a "flip". But Mr Love says we shouldn't be too concerned. "Reversals typically take about 10,000 years to happen," he said. "And 10,000 years ago civilisation did not exist. These processes are slow, and therefore we don't have anything to worry about."

Related Articles:

Alarming NOAA data, Rapid Pole Shift In Progress

North Magnetic Pole Moving Due to Core Flux

NASA Claims Polar Shift Due in 2012

Pole Shift & Pole Reversal in 2012

Shift of Earth's magnetic north pole impacts Tampa airport

Mercedez-Benz set to sell 6,100 vehicles this year in Indonesia

Rangga D. Fadillah, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Mon, 02/14/2011

PT Mercedes-Benz Indonesia (MBI), the subsidiary of Germany-based automaker Mercedes-Benz, says that it was upbeat about reaching its target of selling 6,100 passenger and commercial vehicles in 2011, growing 29 percent from 4,730 in 2010.

Speaking at a press conference on Monday, MBI President Director Rudi Borgenheimer reported that the country's steady economic growth had opened ample opportunity for premium automakers to expand their market targets due to people's stronger purchasing power.

“Our remarkable achievement in 2010 had paved the way for us to broadened our business lines in 2011,” he said in Jakarta.

The company's data shows that in 2010, total sales topped 4,730 units, up 37.2 percent from 3,446 a year earlier. The company also sustained its domination in the passenger car segment by recording a total sales of 3,590 units, representing 67.4 percent of the country's premium passenger car market.

“For many years, Mercedes-Benz has continued to lead the premium car segment, showing that our brand is still the most preferred premium car brand for the discerning users in Indonesia,” said Borgenheimer.

Merpati aircraft force-lands due to engine failure in C. Kalimantan

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Sat, 02/12/2011

Merpati Nusantara Airlines's aircraft MZ 539 has force-landed at the Haji Asan Sampit airport in East Kotawaringin, Central Kalimantan due to engine failure.

"Our Fokker 100 departed from the Haji Asan Sampit airport to Surabaya at 1:07 p.m. but after seven minutes flying it found problem on its left engine," said Harianto, head of safety flight of the airport as quoted by Antara on Saturday.

The plane carried 101 passengers and cargo weighing 520 kilograms.

Harianto said that the plane managed to land safely at the airport despite the problem.

All passengers along with their luggage were unloaded from the troubled aircraft. The plane is now parked at the airport waiting from technicians from Jakarta to repair it.

"We don't know whether or not Merpati will replace the plane or repair it," he said.

Meanwhile, an officer with Merpati Nusantara's Sampit branch, Masykur, confirmed the flight cancellation.

"We won't replace the plane, but we will repair it. Now, we are still waiting for the technicians," he said.

Five Killed in Indonesia Plane Crash

Jakarta Globe, February 12, 2011

Related articles

• Qantas Grounds all A380s After Emergency Over Indonesia
• Conflicting Reports Over Qantas Plane Crash in Indonesia  -  Nov 4, 2010
• Breaking News: Possible Indonesia Plane Crash  -  Nov 4, 2010
• Indonesia Police Ground Skytrucks After Deadly Papua Crash   -  Oct 30, 2010
• Pilot Dies in Indonesia Plane Crash: Police   -  Sep 6, 2010

All five people on a test flight were killed in Indonesia on Saturday when their small plane crashed having changed one of its engines, a Transportation Ministry spokesman said.

The Cassa aircraft of Sabang Merauke Raya Air Charter left Batam island and crashed on Bintan island, both in Riau Islands province.

"The pilot, co-pilot and three technicians died in the accident. They were on a flight test after they changed one of the engines for the aircraft," ministry spokesman Bambang Ervan said.

Five police on a mission to help flood victims in eastern Indonesia were killed in October when their plane crashed into a tree during an emergency landing.

Agence France-Presse

Air Ticket Scalpers Bypass Security in Indonesia

Jakarta Globe, Straits Times Indonesia | February 06, 2011     

Ticket touts are making use of security loopholes at Indonesia's airports to sell tickets on domestic flights at inflated prices, as they prey on travellers desperate for a ticket during busy periods.

Lax security at Indonesian airports allow domestic travelers
to fly using tickets under other people's names purchased
 from scalpers. (SP Photo)  

While the Indonesian government is boosting security in airline travel with new biometric passports and electronic identity cards, one major gap remains.

Travelers — whether local or foreign — who fly within Indonesia are required to produce formal identification before they board their flights, but this rule is often not closely enforced.

This has allowed ticket cartels to spring up at Jakarta's Soekarno-Hatta airport — where 44 million domestic passengers passed through last year — hawking domestic air tickets registered under random names.

Analysts say the security loophole could allow all sorts of criminals, including terror suspects on the run, to move around the country.

The Sunday Times spoke to four ticket touts at the airport's domestic terminal who explained the process, though they did not want to be named.

It starts with travel agents making advance block bookings of seats on various airlines in busy travel periods, such as long weekends or festive holidays. The reservations are made under fake names — something that cannot be done with international flights, as this requires passport numbers to be given.

Armed with the tickets, touts then linger near the ticket counters on the day of the flight, looking out for passengers who are turned away because flights are full or the tickets cost too much to buy on the spot.

"Agents know that domestic flights during holidays can go for as much as Rp 5 million ($555) one way," said a licensed tour agent based in central Jakarta. "So they'll block seats early, buy them for as little as Rp 200,000, and sell them off for Rp 1 million."

Sometimes, he said, the touts even work in cahoots with airline ticketing staff, who sell off the tickets of passengers who do not arrive early enough to check in. Check-in counters on domestic flights usually close 20 minutes before take-off.

All this is possible because security checks on domestic flights are lax, he added, and security staff rarely hassle the touts — or are allegedly bribed to turn a blind eye.

It was common, said the travel agent, for licensed travel agents to check in their clients without having to produce any form of identification. "The airlines don't care who flies as the ticket is already paid for," he claimed.

Travelers' identities are checked more thoroughly on international flights, but even so, rogue tax official Gayus Tambunan recently managed to visit a few Asian countries on a fake passport while supposedly in police custody.

Transport Ministry spokesman Bambang Ervan admitted that the lax identification checks were an "administrative problem," but maintained that the authorities took safety seriously and passengers were screened thoroughly before they boarded their flights.

Indonesia has in recent years tightened security as part of efforts to clamp down on terrorism. Last month, the government launched its first biometric passports, which it hopes will help prevent the use of forged ones.

It has also started a registration process to give Indonesians a single identity number — making for better tracking — starting with Jakarta residents, though this will take a while to cover the whole country.

This article is brought to you by Straits Times Indonesia and the Jakarta Globe.  For a daily subscription to the Straits Times Indonesia print edition, call 021 2553 5055.

Five Separate Airlines Pilots Confirm UFO Sighting Over India On 26 January, 2011

Airlines Pilots Confirm UFO Sighting Over India On 26 January, 2011

According to media reports A glowing round object making a speedy descent near the West Bengal-Bihar border early on January 26 left pilots of five aircraft baffled, triggering widespread speculation about UFO.

Above image is just a artistic reconstruction

The first person to sight the object was a senior Air India pilot who was navigating the aircraft at a height of 34,000 ft during its flight from Kolkata to New Delhi.

“The plane was just entering the airspace of Gaya, close to Bengal-Bihar border, when I first noticed the glowing object, below the aircraft, hurtling down at a very high speed,” Captain Rishi was quoted as saying by the Air Traffic Control (ATC) Tower here at Dum Dum International Airport.

The Air India pilot initially didn’t pay much attention as it is customary for the pilots to notice several such things midair. But when the aircraft was close to Varanasi, the object was still brightly visible.

Without wasting time, he informed the Varanasi Air Traffic Control from where ATC, Kolkata, was alerted.

The officials at ATC pondered over whether pilots of other international flights that might have crossed the Kolkata-Bihar-Varanasi route, had also observed the glowing object reported by Capt Rishi.

Accordingly, the ATC, Kolkata, beamed asking signals for other international flights that flew the same airspace during the period concerned.

To their utter surprise, the air traffic control officials were told by as many as four foreign airlines flight pilots that they had seen the same object and all of them reiterated that it was falling down at a great speed!

FinAir of Finland and Novou Air of Sweden were flying from the West to East while a couple of flights of Cathay Pacific and Dynasty Airways of China were moving in the opposite direction at an altitude between 34,000 and 37,000 ft over the airspace supposed to be in the trajectory of the object.

Once the foreign airlines pilots radioed back the ATC tower here, confirming their sighting of the object, ATC engineers immediately got in touch with the Indian Air Force. However, the IAF engineers pointed out that their powerful radar had failed to track or notice any unusual object.

source

Russia loses military satellite: reports

Antara News, Wed, February 02 2011

Moscow (ANTARA News/AFP) - Russia`s top military and space official launched a search Tuesday for a missing military satellite that apparently was put into the wrong orbit shortly after its launch.

The Russian defence ministry confirmed that it had lost sight of the craft -- a dual-use vessel that can draw a three-dimensional map of the Earth and locate the precise positions of various targets.

The incident came just a month after President Dmitry Medvedev sacked two top space officials for a similar setback and delivered another humiliating blow to Russia`s much-maligned space industry.

The seriousness of the situation was underscored late Tuesday by reports that the defence ministry had set up an urgent joint task force with the Russia`s space agency to look for the missing craft.

The Geo-IK-2 satellite was created in Russia to help the military survey land and create a detailed three-dimensional map of the Earth. It was designed to spin in a circular orbit 1,000 kilometres (600 miles) above ground.

But news reports said that the satellite had been put in an an elliptical orbit whose lowest point brought it to within 330 kilometres of Earth.

"We have still not been able to establish contact with the craft, and it looks like most likely, it will be declared lost," a Russian space source told the Interfax-AVN news service.

"The spacecraft will not be able to perform its intended functions at these orbit characteristics," another space official told the news agency.

Reports pointed the initial blame for the failure on the satellite`s Briz-KM upper stage rocket.

The satellite`s launch had already been delayed from December because of technical malfunctions that were detected at its northern Russian launch site in Plesetsk.

Tuesday`s malfunction came less than five weeks after Medvedev fired two top space officials and reprimanded the space agency chief for a launch failure caused Russia to delay the deployment of its own navigation system.

Russia`s Proton-M rocket had on that occasion proven too heavy to reach its initial orbit and had been forced to dump its three high-tech Glonass-M satellites near the Hawaii Islands.

Investigators said that accident was caused by a basic fuel miscalculation that made the craft too heavy to reach its required height.

The three Glonass satellites would have completed a system whose research had been started by the Soviet Union in 1976.

Dumai airport built for Boeings

Antara News, Wed, February 02 2011

Related News

• Dumai`s Pertamina reprimanded for black smoke from refinery
• Garuda to buy 11 new planes this year

Dumai, Riau (ANTARA News) - The Pinang Kampai airport of Dumai, Riau, normally used by Fokker planes, will be built for use by bigger planes like Boeings.

Head of the Dumai transportation agency H Marwan said here Tuesday that the promotion is first of all carried out by increasing the length of the runway from 1,800 x 40 meters to 2,250 x 40 meters.

"We are doing this because the runway of a Boeing is basically 2,000 meters long. We therefore have to renovate the airport by making its runway longer," he said.

The renovation of the airport Marwan said is also necessary because of the loan (for use) cooperation in running Pinang Kampai or a grant of state oil company PT Pertamina to Dumai city administration for 2011 will be continued.

"This is an agreement of the city administration which had reviewed the MoU reached in 2008," Marwan said.

Marwan said not only to lengthen the runway, the other facilities of the airport which are thought to be not enough need to be renewed by the procurement of supporting heavy equipment.

"The improvements and building of Pinang Kampai will have its funding and budget from the State Budget of the Transportation Ministry estimated at Rp 34 billion," Marwan said.

The company has five Fokker-50 planes, and is trying to procure several Boeings.

Editor: B Kunto Wibisono