STRIKERS AND BOEING RESUME CONTRACT TALKS
Boeing and the International Association of Machinists have agreed to re-enter negotiations for the first time since a five-week old strike began on 6 September. The strike has cost Boeing an estimated $100 million a day and set back progress on new aircraft programmes including the 787. A key union objective is to stop Boeing from extending its 787 outsourcing strategy to other programmes. Outsourcing will also be a key issue when formal talks begin in two weeks between Boeing and its second largest union, the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace.
CRASH DATA SHEDS LITTLE LIGHT ON FLAP MYSTERY
Spanish investigators say the crew of the Spanair Boeing MD-82 that crashed on take-off from Madrid on 20 August ran through normal checklists before the fatal departure, but have yet to explain their apparent failure to extend the flaps to take-off configuration. In its first official release of detailed information about the accident Spain's civil aviation authority revealed that recovered components "presented evidence consistent with a retracted-slat condition".
RUSSIAN AVIATION CHIEF BACHURIN RESIGNS
Russian federal air transport authority Rosaviatsia's chief, Yevgeny Bachurin, is to step down on 1 November in the wake of the crisis over distressed carrier alliance AirUnion. No successor has yet been identified. AirUnion's operations were heavily disrupted during August and September, as intense financial pressure left its main carriers unable to purchase fuel, and the alliance has become the subject of a rescue deal.
DOUBLE SONIC BOOM SPARKS VESUVIUS PANIC
Early in the morning of 8 October two Italian air force Lockheed Martin F-16s from the 37th Wing went supersonic over the sea off Naples while intercepting an unidentified aircraft, which was later identified as Libyan and flying from Austria without having filed a flightplan. The double sonic boom was powerful enough to register on seismographs and rattle windows in the region of Mount Vesuvius, inducing panic among inhabitants living near the periodically active volcano that destroyed Pompeii in 79AD. Fears were assuaged some hours later by an official Italian air force broadcast.
SOCATA SALE 'CLOSE TO COMPLETION'
EADS expects to conclude by year-end a deal that would see Daher Aerospace buy a 70% stake in its Socata single-engine aircraft and aerostructures business. The two companies have been discussing a sale for several months.
US ARMY CUTS BACK UH-60M ORDER
A US Army order for about 1,227 Sikorsky UH-60Ms has been reduced by about 300 in the service's current long-term spending proposals. In July, Sikorsky publicly lowered its estimate for UH-60M orders to "about 1,000" aircraft. The UH-60M will be the first army helicopter to adopt fly-by-wire flight controls.
FLIGHT STAFFER HONOURED
An article on the subject of human factors in maintenance has won senior editor Aimée Turner the Hank McGonagle Journalism Award 2008-9 from the European Regions Airline Association.
Source: Flight International
