The NTSB wants the FAA to take quick action that could prevent another mid-air collision over the Hudson River like the one earlier this month that killed nine people. Establishing mandatory altitudes for airplanes and helicopters to fly at while in the congested river corridor is one move that could help, the board said in a letter to the FAA. Requiring all aircraft to monitor and transmit on a common traffic advisory frequency could also make a difference, the letter says. The NTSB wants changes to air traffic control procedures so that controllers would be required to either tell aircraft to switch to the advisory frequency or else clear aircraft to enter the Class B airspace above the river corridor. At the time of the collision, the Piper Lance that was involved had asked for flight following and was being handed off from one controller to another, while the sightseeing helicopter was making position reports on the existing common frequency. The FAA has said it will wait to act until it sees the report from a working group of controllers and safety experts that it convened two weeks ago. That group is expected to complete its work this week, the New York Times reported.

The National Transportation Safety Board is seeking stricter and more thorough regulations that would protect airframes of all sizes from bird strikes. The new recommendation comes as the board released its report into the March 2008 collision of a Cessna 500 jet with a pelican near Oklahoma City. The jet lost control and crashed, killing all five people on board. Similar to recommendations the NTSB made after the ditching of a US Airways flight in the Hudson River earlier this year, the board also wants better reporting and data on aircraft bird strikes. The FAA also should do a better job making sure airports in wildlife areas stick to published plans to deter birds and other animals, the NTSB said. In the Oklahoma City crash, the pelican struck one wing, causing extensive damage to it. The NTSB said it wants to see more published guidance for how pilots should respond in such incidents.

The NTSB’s newest chairwoman, five-year board member Deborah Hersman, was sworn in last week, replacing Mark Rosenker at the top post. Hersman’s background includes five years working as a staffer on a U.S. Senate committee that dealt with transportation issues. In the aviation field, she chaired the NTSB’s recent public hearings on the 2006 crash of a regional jet in Jefferson City, Mo. Also in 2006, she was also on the scene of the Delta Connection crash in Lexington, Ky., and the crash of Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle’s Cirrus SR-22 into a Manhattan high-rise. Rosenker leaves the NTSB after six years on the board, serving as acting chairman or chairman for most of that time. During Rosenker’s time as chairman, the board removed one of its “Most Wanted” recommendations, for systems to suppress explosive vapors in aircraft fuel tanks. He also oversaw the Board’s involvement in issues like runway incursions, unmanned aerial vehicle safety emergency medical helicopter safety.

New information released last week into a December accident in which a Continental Airlines flight skidded off a runway at Denver as it tried to take off indicates that winds may have been a factor. The flight crew said they were unable to keep the plane centered on the runway, even with full rudder deflection, the Denver Post reported. While a nose wheel steering cable was found broken after the accident, the National Transportation Safety Board hasn’t said yet whether that was a factor. The crosswind component at the time was 25 knots. While the Boeing 737-500 involved in the accident has a demonstrated crosswind component of 35 knots, the maximum crosswind for a plane with the winglets installed, as that one did, is just 22 knots. The records released last week include transcripts of air traffic control communications, as well as maintenance logs, interview notes and weather information. Just 26 minutes after the crash, first responders told the tower controllers that everyone had gotten off the plane. “Two sweeps through the plane, 105 people and crew … I have no word of casualties at all,” a person in an airport operations vehicle said. Several transmissions later, the controller in charge responded, “Man, you made my day, you made my day.”

In a report released Thursday, investigators said strong downdrafts forced down adventurer Steve Fossett’s plane, causing it to crash on the side of a rugged peak in the Sierra Nevada Mountains in September 2007. The crash site was discovered more than a year later by a hiker. After that find, investigators reviewed radar data from the day Fossett’s plane disappeared and found a radar track that ended one mile from the crash site, the National Transportation Safety Board said. While investigators briefly reviewed that radar track during the search two years ago, they ruled it out because it didn’t match the time a witness reported seeing a plane like Fossett’s fly over a Nevada town 90 miles to the north. That witness’s recollection of the time turned out to have been off by an hour.

Fossett, who holds scores of aviation records, had taken a Bellanca Super Decathlon up from a private airstrip south of Reno, Nev., to scout dry lake beds for a planned land speed record attempt. He never returned, and one of the largest search efforts in U.S. history failed to locate him or his plane in the month after the crash.

The NTSB said Thursday that Fossett’s plane encountered strong downdrafts that pushed the plane down at a rate greater than its climb rate. High density altitudes — a result of warm temperatures that day — further inhibited the Super Decathlon’s climb performance, the NTSB said. The NTSB calculated downdrafts at the time of the crash were about 400 feet per minute, while the Super Decathlon’s maximum climb rate at the 13,000-foot density altitude was only 300 feet per minute.

Updated 10:22 a.m. CDT on July 10 to provide more details.

The pilot in a Cessna Grand Caravan crash over the Cascade Mountains in 2007 had been flying above 14,000 feet without supplemental oxygen and was hypoxic but likely didn’t know it, the National Transportation Safety Board said in its probable cause report. The plane was returning to its base near Seattle after a weekend skydiving event in Idaho on Oct. 7, 2007. The pilot and nine passengers, all skydivers, were killed in the nighttime crash. The plane was not on an instrument flight plan and, though pilot Phil Kibler had an instrument rating, he had only two hours of flight time in actual instrument conditions before the flight. In the final minutes of the flight, the NTSB said, the plane climbed and descended rapidly as Kibler was likely looking for a clear skies in between cloud layers. In the last few minutes, the plane likely entered clouds and may have accumulated ice. It entered a spin and crashed in a forested area west of Yakima, Wash. The plane flew as high as 15,000 feet shortly before the crash. At that altitude, the NTSB said, the mental acuity of the pilot and passengers would have been severely impaired, but they may not have had any other symptoms that they were oxygen-deprived. Following that crash, the families of one of the victims sued Cessna arguing the plane could not fly safely in icing conditions. That suit is now part of a larger class-action lawsuit awaiting trial.

An electrical short-circuit ignited oxygen hoses on a cargo plane that caught fire on the ground at San Francisco International Airport last year. The ABX Boeing 767, bound for Ohio, was loaded and was about to be started when the fire broke out behind the cockpit, burning a large hole in the top of the fuselage, the NTSB said in a news release. The hose at the source of the fire had a metal spring that heated up when a wire shorted and sent an electrical current through the spring. That caused the plastic hose to catch fire, which grew quickly as there was plenty of oxygen to support it. Had the fire ignited in flight, the outcome could have been “catastrophic,” the NTSB said. While that particular plane’s oxygen system had ongoing problems with leaks, that was not a factor in the fire, the NTSB said. Conductive oxygen hoses should be replaced with hoses that don’t have metal parts, the NTSB said, urging that the oxygen systems in all transport-category aircraft be inspected to make sure hoses are properly insulated from nearby electrical wires.

NTSB to put detailed records for all accidents online

Starting this week, the National Transportation Safety Board will begin posting the entire public dockets of its accident investigations, even before the investigations are complete. The policy change – and expected flood of new information – comes as the agency is trying to do a better job complying with federal public records laws, it said in a news release. Previously, the NTSB released public dockets only for high-profile plane crashes, such as February’s Colgan Air crash in Buffalo, N.Y. The dockets contain far more information than the preliminary reports, factual reports and probable cause reports that the NTSB has provided for years in an online database. The docket information often includes flight data recorder information, cockpit and air traffic control transcripts, maintenance logs, weather information and interview notes. The NTSB has not said how long it will take to post the dockets on all accidents currently under investigation. For several years, the NTSB has had a backlog of 1,000 or more records requests, many of which are broad requests for information about a specific accident. By posting all that information online, the agency’s small staff responsible for such tasks won’t have to cull through it for just one person. The NTSB’s list of public docket materials for selected accidents Categories: Accidents, NTSB Tags: foia, NTSB, public dockets —

The two pilots flying Continental Connection flight 3407 when it crashed near Buffalo, N.Y., in February may have slept in the crew lounge at Newark before the flight and one commuted overnight from Seattle the night before. Those and other details into the flight emerged during three days of National Transportation Safety Board hearings last week, shining a bright light on the grueling schedules pilots for regional airlines must maintain, the New York Times reported. Colgan Air, which operated the Continental Connection flight, said at the hearings that Capt. Marvin Renslow made about $55,000 per year and that First Officer Rebecca Shaw earned $25,000 annually. But the NTSB calculated, based on the number of hours in her logbook, that Shaw was actually earning just $16,000 per year, since pay is based on the number of hours in the air. The hearing also focused on whether Shaw may have been sick and whether Renslow had ever received training on how the Bombardier Q400’s stick shaker and stick pusher worked – both devices made to prevent a stall. What the cockpit voice recorder transcripts made clear was that both pilots violated sterile cockpit rules during the approach and neither appeared to notice that the plane was loosing airspeed in the seconds before it stalled. The CVR also captured a conversation between the two pilots in which Shaw said she had never flown in icing conditions and was worried about doing so; the plane crashed in an area of light to moderate icing.

NTSB: Helicopter pilots didn’t see each other before 2008 crash in Arizona

Two medical helicopters arriving simultaneously at the Flagstaff Medical Center in June 2008 crashed into each other, killing seven people, because the pilots did not follow standard see-and-avoid practices. The National Transportation Safety Board’s probable cause report into the accident also singled out one pilot for not reporting his position by radio to the hospital. The other pilot approached from the south, while the standard procedures at that airport were to arrive from the north and east. The NTSB pointed out that neither helicopter had traffic alerting systems installed, something that could have prevented the accident. The deaths were among dozens in air ambulance flights over the last two years, a trend that prompted a series of NTSB recommendations related to improving the safety of those flights. Last month, the FAA said it was considering rules that would require terrain alerting equipment in all medical helicopters.