JetLite Boeing 737-300
A JetLite Boeing 737-800 performing flight S2-361 from Kolkata to Guwahati, India, returned to Kolkata airport, after the crew declared an emergency after the left hand engine caught fire shortly after take-off at 0629 local 0059 GMT, January 17, 2009.

The crew shut the engine down, activated fire extinguisher, and stopped the fire. The plane landed 0648 local.


The entire incident was handled in such a smooth and practised manner, that emergency services attending the aircraft did not need to jump in to action. All 38 passengers and 8 crew disembarked normally. Kudos to the JetLite crew.

The flight was cancelled, the passengers were rebooked onto another flight four hours later.

The cause of the engine fire has not yet been determined.

Update 1 - January 18, 2009

Similar to the US Airways A320 crash in New York, a bird hit has been held responsible for the engine failure.

A kite was sucked in to the left side engine before the aircraft reached an altitude of 500ft AGL. Smoke starting billowing from the engine. An air traffic controller alerts the flight crew, who must have also received in-flight alarms by that time. With alacrity, the crew led by Captain Ajay Keri, goes through the emergency procedures, extinguishes the fire, turns the aircraft around, and lands.

From news photos, the aircraft appears to be VT-SJI. Construction Number: 34399, Line Number: 2030, Aircraft Type: Boeing 737-89P; Engines 2 x CFMI CFM56-7B24, First Flight: August 16, 2006, delivered to Air Sahara: August 24, 2006. Air Sahara was acquired by Jet Airways and renamed JetLite.

On Friday, January 16, 2009, in a very similar incident occurred halfway across the world.

An Interjet Airbus A320-200, flight 4O-809 from Guadalajara to San Jose Cabo, Mexico, with 106 passengers, struck a vulture with its left engine while departing from Guadalajara forcing the crew to shut the engine down and return to Guadalajara. The airplane landed safely about 20 minutes after lift-off.

Be it geese in New York, kites in Kolkata, or vultures in Guadalajara, for the third time in this incident laden week-end, pilots across three countries and three airlines, have calmly done what they repeatedly train for, and completed their primary duty, by safely bringing back the people in their charge.

Kudos.

The Sunday Times of India has published an article detailing the slamming of the Ministry of Civil Aviation by the Standing Parliamentary Committee on Transport and Tourism.

Minister for Civil Aviation, Mr. Praful Patel, frequently flies in to Bangalore HAL airport, on board an aircraft owned by Delhi and Hyderabad airport promoters GMR.

HAL airport closure violated

In a damning rebuke to the central government, a parliamentary panel has stated that the closure of HAL airport was a clear violation of the due process. The department-related parliamentary standing committee on transport, tourism and culture headed by Sitaram Yechury said in its report, a copy of which is available with the STOI (Sunday Times of India), "The closure of HAL airport was not mentioned in the tender for Bengaluru Greenfield Airport. Naturally, all the parties who participated in the tender process would have made their offers on this basis only. Making an offer of closure of HAL Airport after the Notice Inviting Tender (NIT), appears to be a clear violation of the due process," the report that was presented to the Rajya Sabha and laid on the table of the Lok Sabha explains.

As regards the restriction on having another airport within 150 km of the existing airport, granting permission to start a new Greenfield Airport within that radius prima facie seems to be in violation of the government policy on airport infrastructure.

As per the policy, if another airport is allowed within an aerial distance of 150 km of an existing airport, a passenger-sharing formula has to be evolved. The government in the present case, not only allowed the new airport to share passengers but also closed down the existing profit-making airports. The closure of existing airports has been done in haste, the report objected.

"The Government of India appears to be unconcerned about the obligation of BIAL to construct and provide an airport as per the concession agreement. Even the area and capacity were not verified before permitting to open new and closing HAL airport. This appears to be an irregularity committed by GOI in this matter," the committee has also stated.

"Hundreds of crores of rupees were spent for developing infrastructure at the old airports both at Bengaluru and Hyderabad but it is lying unutilised due to the closure of old airports for commercial purposes. Another interesting fact is that the old airports at these two places are being used for operation of VIP flights, non-schedule flights, general aviation and helicopter taxis etc.

During the deliberations of committee, the AAI reported that there is absolutely no problem in operating of two airports simultaneously in a city. So, the committee recommends that the old airports may be used for short-haul flights, which are operating from the nearby airports, as it is more convenient. There is no reason or justification for keeping the hundreds of crores of worth infrastructure at the old airports idle just to be used for VIP and other flights.

The committee also notes that closure of HAL airport led to loss of jobs due to reduction in flights and due to closure of airline operators. Thousands of direct and indirect workers also lost their jobs including trolley retrievers, small time vendor, taxi drivers, auto drivers, loaders etc. Despite assurances by the respective managements they have not been accommodated in the new airports.

"Commercial Civil aviation activities are continuing in the Bangalore HAL with the consent of the management of BIAL and GOI, whereas the concessional Agreement and the notification issued by the GOI clearly prohibits any commercial aviation activity. This shows that if the government wants, they can operationalise the old airports not withstanding the agreement.

The paragraph of the article is in clear reference to the air taxi service operated by Air Deccan.

It appears the folks at Praja have obtained the minutes of the meetings of the Steering Committee for the new International Airport at Devanahalli (which has now become Bengaluru International Airport), under the Right To Information Act. I strongly suggest visiting the site and studying the document. It is an eye opener and provides a wealth of information on the thinking of the government.

In particular, I was rather shocked to read the minutes of the eighth meeting. It was interesting to see the unfair, but clever, tactics, the eventual winner, the Siemens consortium, used to eliminate the competition, rather than beat them.

The Aviation Herald is reporting the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) has issued an updated Emergency Airworthiness Directive (EAD) 2009-0012-E following two incidents involving Qantas Airbus A330 and A340.

These incidents were attributed to Air Data Inertial Reference Unit #1 (ADIRU-1) providing erroneous data. The EAD recognizes additional failure modes, that have been discovered in the meantime.

EAD 2009-0012-E : Navigation – Air Data Inertial Reference Unit (ADIRU) – Operational Procedure, requires flight crews of the Airbus A330 and A340, who experience failures by one of the three ADIRUs on board of their aircraft not to limit their actions to turning off the affected ADIRU off, but to completely de-energize it under all circumstances by selecting the IR mode rotary to OFF.

A first EAD 2008-225-E had been issued on December 18th 2008 following an inflight upset of a Qantas Airbus A330-300 near Learmonth on Oct 7th 2008. During this event a faulty ADIRU-1 had transmitted randomly faulty data producing unjustified stall and overspeed warnings prompting the airplane's systems to pull the airplane into a dive. Disengaging the ADIRU did not stop the faulty ADIRU from transmitting such faulty data. The resulting EAD required the crews to verify, whether the disengagement of the ADIRU was followed by the OFF light to illuminate and in case of this light not appearing to de-energize the ADIRU.

A second incident occured to another Qantas Airbus A330-300 near Perth on December 27th 2008 leading to the disconnection of the autopilot, but without an inflight upset. The emergency directive now suggests, that the crew, following the first version 2008-225-E of the emergency directive received the OFF light for their ADIRU-1, however, the ADIRU-1 still did not disconnect and continued to supply faulty data.

The full Emergency Airworthiness Directive is available here.