Report: Islander ditching following engine failure caused by overloading

Who continues their flight with an engine failure? Was he close to his destination?

At least the passengers survived this accident

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Report: Islander ditching following engine failure caused by overloading

The Dutch Safety Board published the results of their investigation into an accident involving a BN-2 Islander aircraft of Divi Divi Air in October 2009.

The airplane suffered a right hand engine failure shortly after takeoff from Curacao on an inter-island flight to Bonaire. The pilot elected to continue to Bonaire on the remaining engine. Altitide could not be maintain and the airplane ditched off Bonaire. The pilot was killed in this accident. The nine passengers escaped the airplane relatively unharmed and were picked up by boats nearby the crash site.

The investigation showed that the airplane was unable to maintain horizontal flight after one of the engines had failed, due to overloading. The airplane was overloaded by 9%. With the continuation of the flight under these circumstances the pilot took a completely unacceptable risk. Furthermore the Board has established that Divi Divi Air used standard passengers weight that were too low. A random audit revealed that the maximum takeoff ‐ and landing weights, were systematically exceeded.

The investigation also revealed that the Divi Divi Air management insufficiently supervised the safety of the flight operations of their airplanes. Also safety oversight conducted by the Netherlands Antilles Directorate of Aviation was limited. In this light, the Safety Board referred to the ICAO audit that was conducted in 2008. This audit revealed many deviations of the ICAO standards and regulations. The Board is concerned about safety oversight on civil aviation at Curacao.

The results of the investigation have resulted in recommendation of the Board to Divi Divi Air and the Minister of Traffic, Transportation and Spatial Planning of Curacao and the Governor of Bonaire.

More information:

• Dutch Safety Board
• ASN Accident Description

Airplane's GPS Signals to become Unreliable in Las Vegas

FAA warns pilots in Las Vegas vicinity on GPS

By JOAN LOWY, AP
Wed May 18, 6:24 PM EDT

WASHINGTON — Pilots flying at night near Las Vegas over the next week may have to navigate the old-fashioned way — without GPS.

The Federal Aviation Administration is warning that navigation systems based on GPS technology may be "unreliable or unavailable" in about a 350 mile-radius that includes Las Vegas. LightSquared — a Reston, Va., company that plans to deploy an ultra-fast nationwide wireless broadband network of 40,000 transmitters and cell towers — is field testing its equipment in Nevada southeast of Las Vegas.

The tests are part of a deal LightSquared worked out with the Federal Communications Commission. The company has rights to frequencies located very close in the electromagnetic spectrum to those used for GPS. But the company's signals will be stronger than GPS signals, raising concern that they'll jam GPS in the vicinity of LightSquared transmitters.

Pilots said they see some irony in FAA's warning given the effort expended by regulators and the airline industry to keep passengers from jamming cockpit equipment.

"Flight attendants tell you to turn off your cellphones and your Kindles and whatever else because it may interfere the plane's electronics ... and yet I got this notice from FAA that somebody is going to do exactly the same thing, which is interfere with the navigation of the airplane," said John Gadzinski, an airline captain and aviation safety consultant.

All airliners and many other kinds of planes have backup systems that don't involve GPS. Also, many planes continue to use radio signals from FAA ground stations to navigate rather than GPS. That's been the primary means of aircraft navigation for the last half century. GPS is eventually expected to almost entirely replace radio signals.

Gadzinski also questioned the choice of the Las Vegas for testing.

"It's a hugely popular airport with a lot of traffic and a lot of terrain and a lot of reliance on GPS," he said.

Jeffrey Carlyle, LightSquared's executive vice president, said the Las Vegas area was chosen because it has several types of terrain that the company was looking for, including flat land with little or no "ground clutter," suburban areas with low-rise buildings and urban areas with taller buildings.

"You want to get a sense of how the signal acts in those different environments," Carlyle said. Las Vegas has little air traffic between 11 p.m. and 5 a.m. when the testing will take place, he said.

Dick Knapinski, a spokesman for the Experimental Aircraft Association, which represents 175,000 recreational pilots, said most pilots will see the FAA notice and plan to use something other than GPS to navigate.

"It's like if you are in your car or truck and you've been relying on GPS to get someplace, but you might want to make sure you still have a map in your car and get it out," Knapinski said.

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