Ex-girlfriend of Andreas Lubitz says he told her he wanted to "change the system" and was angry about career prospects. Searches at Andreas Lubitz's homes turned up documents pointing to "an existing illness and appropriate medical treatment" [AFP] The co-pilot suspected of deliberately crashing a passenger plane in the French Alps told his girlfriend he was in psychiatric treatment, and that he was planning to do something that everyone would remember. The German mewspaper Bild published an interview on Saturday with a woman who said she had had a relationship in 2014 with Andreas Lubitz, the man French prosecutors believe locked himself alone into the cockpit of the Germanwings Airbus on Tuesday and steered it into a mountain, killing all 150 people on board. "When I heard about the crash, I remembered a sentence, over and over again, that he said," the woman, a flight attendant of 26 named only as Maria W, told Bild. "One day
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Germanwings co-pilot's torn sick note, recent treatment at hospital provide clues in crash probe Published March 27, 2015 NOW PLAYING Inside Germanwings co-pilot's home and secrets Germanwings co-pilot Andreas Lubitz ripped up a doctor’s note excusing him from work on the day he crashed a crowded passenger plane into a mountain, according to prosecutors Friday, and was undergoing treatment at a German hospital where doctors last saw him two weeks before the crash. University Hospital Dusseldorf acknowledged treating Lubitz but dismissed as "incorrect" media reports that it was for depression. The facility refused to say what Lubitz was being treated for, citing patient confidentiality. ADVERTISEMENT The hospital said Friday Lubitz visited the clinic for “diagnostic clarifications” in February and, most recently, on March 10. Prosecutors in Germany reported Friday that Lubitz was being treated for a medical illness that he hid from hi
Photos (1) Boeing Global Positioning System (GPS) IIF satellites are steadily replenishing the orbiting constellation, continuing to improve reliability and accuracy for users around the world. The ninth GPS IIF reached orbit about three hours, 20 minutes after launching today aboard a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Delta IV rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., and sent signals confirming its health. “Boeing, ULA and the Air Force successfully launched four GPS IIFs last year, the highest operations tempo in over 20 years, and today’s mission marks the first of three launches planned in 2015,” said Dan Hart, vice president, Boeing Government Space Systems. “As they enter service, the IIFs are advancing and modernizing the GPS constellation by improving accuracy, signal strength and anti-jamming capability. We are also introducing the L-5 civilian ‘safety-of-life’ signal intended mainly for aviation and transportation.” The GPS IIF-9, designated as SVN-71, will underg
Airliner crashes in French Alps Last updated 8 minutes ago An Airbus A320 airliner has crashed in the French Alps between Barcelonnette and Digne, French aviation officials and police have said. The jet ,according to an update from BBC news, belongs to the German airline Germanwings, a subsidiary of Lufthansa. The plane had reportedly been en route from Barcelona to Dusseldorf and was carrying 142 passengers and six crew. French President Francois Hollande said: "The conditions of the accident, which have not yet been clarified, lead us to think there are no survivors." Mr Hollande said the crash was a tragedy and called for solidarity with the victims, adding that the area of the crash was very difficult to access. French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said he had sent Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve to the scene and a ministerial crisis cell to co-ordinate the incident had been set up. Both Airbus and Germanwings have said they aware of the reports but
An Airbus A320 airliner has crashed in the French Alps between Barcelonnette and Digne, French aviation officials and police have said. The jet belongs to the German low-cost airline Germanwings, a subsidiary of Lufthansa. The plane was reported to be carrying 142 passengers and six crew members. Both Airbus and Germanwings have said they aware of the reports but cannot yet confirm them. BBC © 2015
… GIVES PASSMARK TO TRACON Agency for Aerial Navigation Safety in Africa and Madagascar (ASECNA) and the Nigerian Airspace Managing Agency (NAMA) are to collaborate and partner on air navigation services to promote safety and provide seamlessness in airspace coordination within the AFI region. In his remarks, Mr Guitteye stated that their visit to Nigeria was pursuant to the Cotonou declaration of 2010 which harped on “the need for African ANSPs to move to a single African sky through close collaboration, coordination and partnership that would bring about a standardized, harmonized, seamless and interoperable CNS/ATM systems within intra and adjacent FIRs.” The ASECNA boss noted that with the impending sectorization of Accra FIR which hitherto included Benin and Togo airspaces, soon to be taken over by ASECNA, there was the need to review letters of procedures with Nigeria, as the closest neighbour to ASECNA in the region. Amadou also solicited collaboration
Nigeria is preparing for another round of International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) Security Audit in June, 2015 including the Universal Safety Oversight Audit Programme (USOAP) in November, this year. The Director General of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), Captain USMAN Mukhtar disclosed in Lagos on Monday during a media chat The ICAO -USOAP was established in accordance with strategic objective A3 to ‘’conduct aviation safety oversight audits to identify deficiencies and encourage their resolutions by contracting states.’’ The programme is managed by ICAO Safety Audit Oversight Section. According to Captain Mukhtar, the objective of USOAP is to promote global aviation safety.ICAO does this by auditing the contracting states on a regular basis. This is to determine the States’ capability for safety oversight. ICAO assesses the effectiveness of implementation of the critical elements of a safety oversight system and the status of States’ implementa
The Air Transport Services Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (ATSSSAN) has warned the federal government over its policy banning civil servants from foreign training saying that such ban is a threat to air safety . At the end of the National Executive Council (NEC) meeting of ATSSSAN in Abeokuta, Ogun State, the union leaders , warned that ban on foreign training in the aviation sector is dangerous in the hitch industry . The communiqué jointly signed by Comrade Benjamin Okewu and Captain Taiongu president and Deputy General Secretary respectively also disclosed that the activities of the concessionaires in the industry have been worrisome desc ribbing them as slave drivers in the country, extorting the nation and exploiting workers with various obnoxious anti-labour practices . It would want the federal government to quickly attend to the demands of the ex-staff of liquidated national carrier, Nigeria Airways for the payment of their remaining terminal benefits and 5% ter
By Tony Borroz The Boeing Airplane Company's ecoDemonstrator 757 (Photo: Boeing) Boeing is at it again, continuing its on-going ecoDemonstrator test program by ramping up a series of flight tests with a modified 757 airliner. The lengthy tests will assess new methods to advance efficiency, cut noise and lower carbon emissions. The flight tests, a continuing part of Boeing's ecoDemonstrator series, are being conducted in collaboration with the TUI Group and NASA using the ecoDemonstrator 757 for the tests. Boeing is actually using the single aircraft to conduct three separate tests simultaneously, on three separate aerodynamic surfaces. The experiments being conducted with TUI focus on aerodynamic efficiency. The two other investigations in conjunction with NASA will focus reduced fuel use and carbon emissions. We covered an earlier phase of Boeing's ecoDemonstrator initiative back in November when the company was using its new 787 Dreamliner as t
Ben Vogel - IHS Jane's Airport Review Controller Pilot Datalink Communication (CPDLC) services are to be adopted by air navigation service providers (ANSPs) in Nigeria and the Danube Functional Airspace Block (FAB). SITA OnAir is rolling out CPDLC functionality in partnership with BULATSA and ROMATSA, the ANSPs of Bulgaria and Romania respectively, to comply with EC Regulation 29/2009. SITA OnAir is providing ATN routers and VHF ground stations in both countries. Two other FABs are already working with SITA OnAir: FABEC (covering Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Switzerland) and South West FAB (Portugal and Spain). "Flights over the Danube FAB will now enjoy the use of data channels where messages are unambiguous and available on screen in the cockpit," said François Bardin, SITA OnAir director of air traffic solutions.
...woo passengers with N9, 900 fare Dana Air will on Tuesday, 24th March, begin daily flights to Owerri to expand domestic routes bringing to five destinations of the airline namely;Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt, Uyo and Owerri. The Chief Commercial Officer of Dana Air, Mr. Obi Mbanouzuo, said the airline" is working with the objective of integrating most major cities in Nigeria into its route network and making air transport accessible by developing new routes and linking same to its existing routes network to better serve the demands of passengers" “We are constantly reviewing our operations and our decision to commence operations to Owerri is hinged on our desire to offer passengers in Owerri and its environs access to Dana’s wider route network”, said Mr. Mbanuzuo. Also, the airline has set an introductory online fare of N9,900 to boost leisure and business trips across its route network. Dana Air currently operates flights from Lagos to Abuja, Port Harcourt
Ben Vogel - IHS Jane's Airport Review Police officers examine remains of the fuselage of Indonesia AirAsia Flight 8501 in Jakarta on 2 March 2015. Despite this and other high-profile accidents in 2014, the latest IATA annual report indicates an overall improvement in air transport safety. Source: PA The latest annual survey from IATA found that commercial aviation safety improved in 2014, despite high-profile losses of two Malaysia Airlines aircraft (Flight MH370 in March and Flight MH17 in July) and the Indonesia AirAsia Flight 8501 crash in December. Hull losses (destruction of an aircraft or damage beyond repair) reached a historic low in 2014, with one accident per 4.4 million flights. Among IATA member airlines, the hull loss rate was one per 8.3 million flights. "Any accident is one too many and safety is always aviation's top priority," said Tony Tyler, IATA director general and CEO. "While aviation safety was in the headlines in 2014, th
Complies with the most stringent regulatory standards for Extended Boeing has received 330-minute Extended Operations (ETOPS) approval from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for the Boeing 747-8 Intercontinental. It is the first time a four-engine airplane has received this type of design approval. With this approval, required for four-engine passenger airplanes built after Feb. 2015 to fly beyond 180 minutes from an en-route alternate airport, the 747-8's design is approved to conduct 330-minute ETOPS missions. These missions allow operators to fly long-distances more directly on virtually any worldwide city pair routing. Although ETOPS has been a requirement for twin-engine airplanes since the 1980s, the regulations have recently been applied to the design of passenger airplanes with more than two engines. "Our customers will benefit from this additional level of reliability inherent to ETOPS design approvals while still leveraging the vast network
The Director General of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), Capt. Muhtar Usman , has directed the management of Arik Air to review it existing security system and surveillance on all fleet when not in service. A statement by NCAA said " the airline operator has been ordered to ensure the presence of static security guards at all times at its aircraft parking positions." According to Captain Usman, this directive is consequent upon the stowaway incident involving an Arik aircraft A340 CS-TX on a scheduled service to JFK Airport, New York. This directive the NCAA boss said "is to forestall any future occurrence and subsequent security breach, the airline needs to take urgent remedial actions.”
The National Association of Air Traffic Engineers (NAAE) has assured air travelers of safety of the Nigerian airspace ,just as it expressed the need for more spare parts for equipment across the country's airports. The National President of NAAE ,Engr Ebenezer Makanjuola ,speaking at the 33rd anniversary of the association in Lagos,remarked that lack of spare parts could affected the performance of equipment at airports across the country. "Our greatest challenge today is spare parts, spare parts for our Navigational equipment, communications equipment and we are facing this today because of the lacuna in the system, government is aware of it and they are doing . Makanjuola said "there can never be a perfect system as there are bound to be failure in every system hence the the need for professionals to attend to them ". "If there is no failure , there won't be engineers. December 14 in the UK the whole system failed and they cancelled all the fli
ARAP STEERING COMMITTEE SUBMITS REPORT ...AS CHIDOKA LAUDS NAMA FOR CREATION OF PMO _THE steering committee of the Aviation Revenue Automation Project (ARAP), inaugurated for the purpose of driving the full automation of all activities in the aviation agencies on Monday submitted its report to the Honourable Minister, Chief Osita Chidoka in Lagos. Among the recommendations of the committee was the need to drive commitment and enforcement to ensure strict compliance by all stakeholders while chief executives of all agencies should be held responsible to ensure that all revenue lines are captured under ARAP platform; also that all agencies should be encouraged to establish the Project Management Office (PMO) as is the case with NAMA. Receiving the report, Chief Chidoka stated that “the power of automation especially in the dynamic world of aviation cannot be wished away as it would facilitate the one aviation vision and also set targets and measurable timelines”. While thanking member
THURSDAY, the 5 th of March, 2015 marked the first a nniversary of the ascendancy of Engr. Ibrahim Abdulsalam as NAMA helmsman. This week we bring to you more views from those behind NAMA’s recent success story. The Director of Safety Electronics and Engineering Services, Engr. Emma Anasi says a lot has happened in NAMA within the past year in terms of deployment of infrastructure, like the Fibre Optic Link between the TRACON site and the MMIA terminal building which has enabled the agency to interface more telephone hotlines to the VCCS of TRACON. ‘’ Also, Abdulsalam resuscitated the Kano Safe Tower which was stalled and as we speak now, the project is almost completed. We have also made progress in the replacement of the SATCOM systems in Kano and Lagos Gateways with more efficient and latest technology . The AIS Automation is moving as it never did before, and hopefully by the 3 rd quarter of 2015, 11 stations will become operational. According to N