Boeing modifikasjon skal hjelpe uoppmerksomme flygere

FAA seeks new safety measures for Boeing 737 planes: report


(Reuters) - U.S. aviation regulators on Monday plan to propose improving cockpit automation to help prevent pilot errors that have caused fatal airline crashes, according to a media report.

The Federal Aviation Administration wants cockpit automation fixes in nearly 500 Boeing Co (BA.N) 737 planes to ensure pilots have adequate safeguards if airspeed falls too low, particularly during landing approaches, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday.

Foreign regulators are likely to follow suit, the newspaper said.

The FAA was not immediately available for comment.

Boeing, in an email to Reuters, said the company "works closely with the FAA to monitor the fleet for potential safety issues and take appropriate actions."

The U.S. aircraft manufacturer said "the proposed rule mandates actions Boeing previously recommended to operators."

The crash of Asiana Airlines Flight 214 into a seawall in San Francisco airport on July 6 raised questions about whether pilots relied too much on automated flight controls in large passenger jets.

Nå er FAA her:

FAA proposes fix for 737 autothrottles

The Federal Aviation Administration is proposing that airlines update the autothrottles on newer Boeing 737 aircraft, to avoid a problem with slowing down prematurely before landing and potentially crashing.

A faulty altimeter reading caused a Turkish Airlines flight to slow down inadvertently and crash Feb. 25, 2009, near Amsterdam, killing nine and injuring 117.

The Dutch Safety Board blamed the crash on a faulty altimeter that automatically slowed down the plane before it stalled and hit the ground. But U.S. investigators with the National Transportation Safety Board said pilots could have recovered if the crew detected and responded to the low decreasing airspeed.

Since that crash, Boeing installed a warning that says "airspeed low, airspeed low" on the same models of 737 involved in the latest proposal. But some safety experts have criticized the lack of similar warning aboard other aircraft, such as the 777 involved in the Asiana Airlines crash that killed three people July 6 in San Francisco, which the NTSB is still investigating.

The latest FAA proposal, which was published Monday in the Federal Register, cited reports of a single, erroneous altimeter reading causing the 737 autothrottle to prematurely slow the plane down while approaching to land. The problem could result in a crash, FAA said.

To correct the problem, the FAA proposed fixing the autothrottle on about 500 planes, which are 737-600, -700, -700C, -800 and -900 series. The remedy costs about $85 per plane.

The pilots of that flight realized too late that the plane was flying too low and much too slowly even though they had set a control system, called an auto-throttle, to keep the Boeing 777 at a constant speed.