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Aviation History
1990
1990 - 0013.PDF
OPERATIONS: AIR TRANSPORT UK outlines aviation security bill UK Secretary of State for Transport Cecil Parkinson has presented new measures to strengthen the 1982 Aviation Security Act. The new measures will give Department of Transport (DTp) inspectors greater powers to en force security requirements, and security infringements by in dividuals will become punish able by law. "My department has issued several new directives to UK airports, requiring, for exam ple, tougher access control for staff in restricted zones, tighter rules for the issuing of security passes and new rules for the searching and guarding of air craft," says Parkinson. Aviation security inspectors will be given powers to take immediate action if security requirements on aircraft or at airports are not being im plemented. This will include the authority to stop operations until remedial action is taken or to require deficiencies to be rem edied by a given time. Compa nies with airport access for services such as catering, cargo British police at Heathrow, armed with Heckler & Kech HK53 sub-machine guns. The armed patrols started in January 1986 handling and aircraft cleaning will also be subject to DTp security directives. Individuals will also be brought within the scope of the new legislation, and acts preju dicial to security will become criminal offences. These include: giving false information about baggage or cargo; giving false information when applying for a pass; being in a restricted zone without proper authority; board ing an aircraft without proper authority; and refusing to leave a restricted zone or aircraft when requested to do so. Other powers are intended to give the Civil Aviation Authority more effec tive powers to enforce dangerous goods requirements. Operating UK airports (and companies which supply them) will become far more complex and costly if recommendations in the new Parliamentary Transport Committee's Airport Security Report are made law. Some of the recommendations will be put into action by the amended Avi ation Security Act, but beyond that the committee wants: spot checks by inspectors posing as terrorists; a mandatory reporting system for breaches of security; pilots to certify, before every take-off, that all required se curity procedures have been car ried out; with immediate effect, hand baggage should be rec onciled in the aircraft with pas sengers. • Volcano flames out KLM 747 A KLM Boeing 747-400 suf fered a simultaneous flame- out of all four engines after flying into a cloud of volcanic ash over Alaska on 15 December. The aircraft was operating on the scheduled service from Amsterdam to Tokyo via An chorage, Alaska with 233 passengers. An Alaskan volcano, Mount Redoubt, had erupted a week previously, leading to the tem porary closure of some airways until the clouds of ash thrown out by the volcano had dispersed. The KLM flight was the first to penetrate the area after the ban had been lifted. The Federal Avi ation Administration believed that the danger had passed and the clouds dispersed. KLM had also obtained once-only per mission for the aircraft to pene trate Soviet airspace to route around the forecast ash disper sion zone if necessary. But Mount Redoubt erupted again an hour before the 747 arrived in the area, at night, and the crew did not realise that the dark cloud they were penetrating was ash. The flame-outs came simulta neously at 23.50 as the aircraft was • descending through 31,000ft. The crew, Captain Karel van der Elst, Senior First Officer Imme Viascher and First Officer Waltar Vuurbomm, man aged to relight two engines as the aircraft passed through 13,000ft and the other two came back on line at 6,000ft. The aircraft landed safely at Anchorage. None of the passengers was re ported injured, although several were said to be shaken. KLM grounded the aircraft for all four engines to be changed and for damage inspection, particularly to transparencies, from the abrasive dust. A British Airways 747 suffered a similar four-engine flame-out after penetrating a volcanic cloud over Indonesia several years ago. • Air Europe begins Fokker 100 services Air Europe's new Fokker 100 xVstarted operations to Diissel- dorf, West Germany, on 8 December, replacing the Shorts 360s which were providing the service. The Gatwick-Dusseldorf ser vice has been increased to three daily, five days a week. The Fokker 100 also flies Dusseldorf- Gatwick on Saturday, and Gatwick-Dusseldorf-Gatwick on Sunday, as well as being available for charter on those days. The airline expected to have four 100s in service by the end of December. The other three air craft are covering the routes to Paris and Brussels, gradually replacing Air Europe's Boeing 737s and increasing the service frequency to those cities. Peak periods on these routes will con tinue to be covered by 737s for the time being. • US airlines investigated for price fixing The US Justice Department is investigating several major airlines to determine whether they collaborated illegally on a round of fare increases which took effect in September. Under US anti-trust laws, air lines may not discuss or agree on fare increases before they are introduced, although carriers competing on individual routes invariably follow suit almost im mediately whenever a price rise or cut is announced. On 18 September American Airlines announced that it was increasing prices across a range of fare categories, tied to the number of days before departure that tickets are purchased. Two days later Midway Airlines and TWA increased their fares in line with American's rises, and on 21 September, Delta, Pan American and Continental followed suit. Over the next few days United Airlines, Northwest Airlines and USAir all announced fare in creases which followed the same pattern. The Justice Department's Anti trust division is investigating the price rises and last week sent out "civil investigative demands" to several airlines, incuding Ameri can and Pan Am. Both airlines confirm that they are co-operat ing with the investigation, and that they have supplied "large numbers of documents" relating to the price rises, including how the rises were decided, and the names of executives involved in the decisions. This is not the first time that American has been investigated for alleged price fixing. In 1982 American chairman Robert Crandall made a well-publicised phone call to former Braniff chairman Howard Putnam, then a competitor at Dallas/Fort Worth, in which he allegedly offered to increase fares by 20% if Braniff would follow suit. Putnam taped the phone conversation, but although American settled the case with a consent decree, the airline did not admit or deny any attempt at collusion. • FLIGHT TNTFRNATinNAI VQ Tannarv 1 QOfl
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