By Michael D. Topf, MA

How Understanding Error Can Improve Business

The quality of systems, products and services; and

The safety, health and well-being of employees, customers and the public

Corporate Contributions to Human Error

2. Organization-Based Confusion

3. Industry Changes

Conclusion

MOSCOW, Russia (CNN) -- A Russian plane with 171 people aboard crashed in eastern Ukraine Tuesday, after the pilot reported a fire on board and heavy turbulence, emergency officials said.

At least 30 bodies have been pulled from the wreckage, about 40 kilometers

(25 miles) northwest of Donetsk in a hard-to-reach area, the Ukrainian Emergency Situations Ministry told CNN.

CNN's Matthew Chance, quoting Ukraine officials, said the plane had 160 passengers -- including six children -- and 11 crew members on board.

The officials added that there was "no likelihood of any survivors," Chance said.

"The plane is on the ground and is ablaze," Ihor Krol, director of the ministry's press service, told the Russian news agency Interfax.

He said rescuers from the ministry, including fire brigades, were heading to the crash site.

Flight 612 was en route from the Black Sea resort town of Anapa to St.

Petersburg.

Interfax said the Tupolev Tu-154 aircraft crashed shortly after 3:30 p.m.

Moscow time (1130 GMT).

"Early reports say the plane crashed 45 kilometers (28 miles) north of Donetsk," Irina Andrianovaa, a senior spokeswoman for the ministry, told Interfax.

"At 3:37 p.m. Moscow time the plane sent an SOS signal and at 3:39 it disappeared from radar screens," Andrianova said.

Andrianovaa said the plane belonged to Pulkovo airlines, which is based in St. Petersburg.

The three-engine Tu-154 is the workhorse of Russia's commercial fleet, carrying about half of all Russian air passengers.

It was designed as the Soviet counterpart to the Boeing 727 and the European-made Trident, but with the added ability to operate from short, rough runways. About 1,000 were produced.

Although a popular aircraft, it has had a checkered history and has been involved in at least 30 air disasters since it went into service in 1968.

The former Soviet air fleet has been plagued by chronic safety problems since the 1991 collapse of the country.

Experts have blamed poor maintenance, safety violations and cost-cutting for a high accident rate.

After emergency communications with the control tower, the plane hurriedly returned to pick up the cabin attendants. Due to this rare incident, the plane was about 50 minutes behind schedule.

Aviation authorizes have started an investigation into the case.

The plane, which was flying to Jeju islands via Daegu airport, was due to pick up passengers from another Asiana Airlines domestic flight which was crippled shortly before e departure for the Jeju islands. Asiana Airlines, South Korea's second air carrier after Korean Air.

This is for the first time that such a stipulation has been mandatory for women aspiring to be flight attendants, said sources in the Sichuan Airlines.

According to the China Daily, next Thursday the airline would be recruiting 70 hostesses from Chengdu and Chongqing to work for a new flight route from Chengdu to Seoul in South Korea. One of the priority conditions for candidates would be knowledge of kung fu, the paper added. --- ANI

WASHINGTON, July 26 (UPI) -- The National Transportation Safety Board says

inspections of aging planes.

USA Today said the NTSB is concerned that older planes -- like the 1947

Grumman G-73T Mallard seaplane that crashed in Miami last year -- won't be

subject to new federal rules designed to protect the safety of older

aircraft.

The Aging Airplane Safety Act passed by Congress in 1991 requires the

Federal Aviation Administration to mandate improved inspections and

maintenance. When the FAA issued new regulations last year, it exempted

planes with fewer than 30 passenger seats, as well as planes designed before

1958, the newspaper said.

"The safety board is concerned that the exemptions ... exclude airplanes

such as the accident airplane," the NTSB said in a letter sent to the FAA.

The letter said the NTSB also is concerned that the rules will not take

effect until 2010.

"Pre-disciplinary hearings have been scheduled for the employees involved,"

Airport Director Kevin Dolliole told the Post-Dispatch.

Dolliole did not say how many employees were involved.

The generators had been evaluated by St. Louis consultant Ross & Baruzzini, which recommended the airport replace most of the old equipment with a new

$9 million system. However, Lambert cited financial concerns and declined to take the advice, said Deputy Airport Director Gerard Slay.

The Federal Aviation Administration said the new directive, set to be implemented at the end of the month, mandates a 70 pct reduction in the interval between inspections and repairs for the oldest General Electric CF6-80 engines. Newer engines will face an average 40 pct cut in the number of permitted takeoffs and landings before such work must be done.

The engines, about 4,100 in use worldwide, are installed on a wide range of Boeing Co passenger jets and two Airbus models, the paper said.

The plane, a Boeing 737 operated by a Turkish charter company, was supposed to land at a civilian airport, Lawica, in Poznan. Instead, it touched down at a military airfield, Krzersiny, 15 kilometers away, where anti-terror security forces immediately surrounded the aircraft.

The aircraft was later cleared to fly to the civilian airport for its scheduled landing.

The French-registered aircraft (F-GFEO) was approaching the Isle of Man off the northwest UK mainland and, at the time of the low-level flight, was heading for 600ft-high terrain only 1nm away.

It had been conducting a shuttle flight from Manchester, with seven passengers and three crew, on 31 March last year. During preparations for approach to runway 08 at Ronaldsway Airport, the captain realized that the aircraft’s instruments were not tuned to the instrument landing system

(ILS) frequency but instead to the airport’s VOR frequency.

The captain was training an inexperienced first officer at the time, and deliberately did not point out the error, or retune the ILS instrument to the correct frequency, in order to use the oversight to highlight safety issues.

At a distance of 5.2nm from the runway the captain initiated a descent.

Visibility was around 4,000m with scattered cloud at 600ft.

The aircraft continued to descend until it was just 475ft above the surface of the sea. Its primary and secondary radar returns briefly vanished and air traffic controllers, concerned about the aircraft’s height and position relative to high ground, contacted the crew to ask if they had the terrain in sight.

Once satisfied that the first officer had realized the ILS tuning error, the captain executed a climb to bring the turboprop back up to 1,600ft.

"Originally it was considered that the most likely reason for this incident was that the pilots had made a genuine mistake," says the Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB). "However, later in the investigation the commander was insistent that he was fully aware of his actions, wishing to use the mistake as a training point for the first officer.

But investigators were unable to made a recommendation to audit the operator, because the company – unidentified in the AAIB report – was sold and renamed, before losing its air operator’s certificate in December last year over "unsafe operations". The company subsequently ceased trading.

Investigators have studied a number of events during which aircraft have been at risk of colliding with terrain while attempting an approach to the Isle of Man. Previous inquiries highlighted the fact that the island’s main navigation beacon, used during landings, was sited several miles away from the airport.

Critics say that because often the only deaths in cargo crashes are of the pilot, safety regulators simply don't pay much attention to the industry, The Miami Herald reported yesterday in an extensive investigation of the business.

``I'm not sure why we need to wait until one crashes in the middle of Disneyland before people are going to take notice of the fact that these planes are going down," said Lara Goldman Lennon. Her husband, Thomas, died when he crashed a cargo plane in 2004 near Baltimore.

Air cargo crashes are 50 percent more likely to kill people than crashes of similar planes carrying passengers, although crashes of large passenger planes would have higher death tolls, the newspaper said.

The Herald analyzed National Transportation Safety Board data from 2000 to 2005, internal company memos, and documents from court cases, investigations, and inspection files. It also conducted extensive interviews with pilots and others in the industry.

``The Federal Aviation Administration spent very few resources on cargo oversight," said Mary F. Schiavo, former inspector general of the US Department of Transportation. ``It equals a greater risk, and sometimes it means a loss of life."

The FAA said it has established a new unit to explore safety issues involving cargo and other aircraft besides the big passenger jets.

The FAA also said that its regulations provide a high level of safety, but that ``the primary responsibility for compliance with regulations and safe operations lies with the air carrier." 

The plane had minimal damage. None of the three crew members on board was injured, said Kristy Nicholas, a spokeswoman for the airline.

The accident occurred about 6:30 a.m., as preparations were being made for the plane's first flight of the day. No passengers were on board, Nicholas said.

"While it looked pretty amazing, it really is not something that's going to cause a lot of damage to the aircraft," she said. "It's similar to a very minor fender bender, if you will."

Nicholas said damage to the plane was near the passenger door that the jet bridge was being placed against.

"I don't have a full understanding of what happened," she said, adding that the airline was still trying to figure out how the jet bridge could get into a position to lift the plane.

Continental Express had to call in extra help to get the jet bridge and plane separated. The job took several hours.

"The plane has been ferried to our main location in Knoxville, Tenn.,"

Nicholas said.

The plane and its flight crew left Blue Grass Airport for Knoxville about lunchtime, she said.

Passengers scheduled for the early morning flight on the 50-seat jet were rebooked on other flights, Nicholas said

The Boeing 747 jumbo jet had just arrived from Australia and was rolling toward the terminal Monday when it was struck by the cargo truck, damaging one of its engines, according to an incident report by the Federal Aviation Administration.

No one was hurt. The 291 passengers and 19 crew members were taken off the plane and removed from the airfield by bus. The jet was towed to a maintenance hangar, where it remained on Tuesday.

The plane was expected to be back in service on Wednesday after mechanics received a replacement part, said Qantas Airways spokesman Mike Abraham. He said the engine didn't suffer any major damage.

The FAA said in its report that damage to the engine was "substantial."

Abraham declined to provide more details about the accident.

"We're investigating the circumstances and it would unfair to describe anything until we know more," he said.

Abraham said passengers who were booked on a 10:30 p.m. flight to Sydney on Monday were assigned to other Qantas flights.

There are few things more relaxing or romantic than a summer evening on the patio — the hammock, the friends and the mood lighting made possible by pretty torch candles positioned around your garden.

Keep the flame contained — and your evening relaxed — by following these few pointers: