FAA Orders 757 Turbulence Alert : Aviation: After crash of private jet in Santa Ana, air controllers are told to alert small planes to wake hazard posed by Boeing craft. Past incidents are cited.
Citing last week’s crash in Orange County of a private jet that killed five people, the Federal Aviation Administration on Wednesday instructed air traffic controllers nationwide to begin warning small planes of the dangerous turbulence caused by Boeing 757 jetliners.
In response to inquiries by The Times, the agency said it has had indications since February that the mid-size 757 may cause as much “wake turbulence”--miniature horizontal tornadoes--as the giant Boeing 747 or the McDonnell Douglas DC-10, but only issued the new rule to air traffic controllers after the crash in Santa Ana.
In the past year, the FAA said, at least four incidents involving at least 13 fatalities may be linked to turbulence caused by 757s, including the Dec. 15 crash of a Westwind 1124A twin-engine corporate plane as it attempted to land at John Wayne Airport behind a 757.
“Several incidents involving aircraft following or crossing the flight path of the Boeing 757 have created concern for the safety of aircraft in connection with the wake turbulence created by the B-757,” read a “mandatory briefing item” flashed via telex to control towers nationwide Wednesday.
“Accordingly,” the message continued, “to ensure that pilots are aware of the potential wake turbulence hazard created by the B-757, controllers shall provide a wake turbulence cautionary advisory to following aircraft.”
Some controllers said they had been giving such warnings about 757s, even before FAA Administrator David Hinson issued the new policy. A Times reporter monitored air traffic controllers on Tuesday evening and heard several such warnings as 757s were landing.
National Transportation Safety Board investigators said the pilot of the 12-seat Westwind that crashed last week received no such warning. Nor was he told, NTSB investigators said, that he was trailing a 757--information that might have made him more aware of potentially lethal turbulence, some pilots have contended.
FAA spokeswoman Elly Brekke said she did not know why some controllers had been issuing such warnings to pilots flying behind 757s. She added that the air traffic controllers’ handbook does not require them to identify the type of aircraft or issue turbulence warnings unless the aircraft is classified as a “heavy,” such as a 747 or DC-10.
Brekke, quoting from the handbook, said: “Because wake turbulence is unpredictable, the controller is not responsible for anticipating its existence or effect.”
It was unclear from the handbook how much responsibility pilots or controllers bear whenever there is a danger of wake turbulence.
The handbook seems to suggest that controllers must issue wake turbulence advisories whenever, in their opinion, wake turbulence may be a factor for an aircraft trailing heavy jets such as the Boeing 747 or the DC-10.
Since the FAA itself changed its handbook in February to indicate that 757s cause heavy turbulence, some pilots said they think it is reasonable to expect a controller to have issued a turbulence warning to Westwind pilot Stephen R. Barkin even though, technically, the 757 is not classified as a heavy jet.
“It would have been nice if he had at least been given a warning,” said Peter Murray, a longtime airline captain who flies 757s and has spoken out about the turbulence they cause.
“The Westwind is told that it’s a Boeing jet but there are all kinds of Boeing jets out there at John Wayne Airport,” he said. “You cannot throw the entire burden of flying on the pilot.”
Jim Zimmerman, president of the local chapter of the National Air Traffic Controllers Assn., downplayed Wednesday’s announcement, saying the new directive is “something to bring wake turbulence back into everyone’s awareness.” He added that controllers issue such advisories hundreds of times a day.
“The new guideline is just to make the pilot more cognizant of what’s going on out there and to be more careful,” he said.
Hinson’s directive also comes as a result of three other incidents involving turbulence from B-757s that caused other planes to roll or crash.
Hinson cited a December, 1992, crash of a twin-engine jet in Billings, Mont., in which eight people were killed, and the crash of a single-engine Cessna last month in Salt Lake City, in which three were injured. He also made reference to one other instance in which a Boeing 737 “experienced an uncommanded roll” this year over Denver after encountering the wake of a B-757.
Murray, the airline captain, said that while Hinson’s directive is laudable, it falls far short of what is necessary to make the skies safe around John Wayne Airport.
“It would be better for the controllers to put the burden on themselves,” he said. “The warnings are nice, but a controller can’t just say, ‘Well, we warned them and that’s it,’ because people die.”
The FAA first called attention to the 757 turbulence problem in February, when the aircraft was singled out in the controllers’ handbook as posing a turbulence problem.
According to a statement issued by the FAA on Wednesday to The Times, the addition to the handbook was made because of “pilot reports of several encounters with wake turbulence when smaller aircraft were following the Boeing 757.”
The FAA said no definitive data exists showing just how severe the turbulence caused by 757s is. However, the agency has begun testing in a New Jersey facility.
Brekke said Hinson issued the new directive because “he wants to reduce the possibility of any additional accidents involving wake turbulence and B-757s.”
In a separate directive to pilots, Hinson said that aircraft trailing a 757 should avoid the area “below and behind” the 757 and “be particularly alert in calm wind conditions,” when it takes the turbulence longer to dissipate.
Those were precisely the conditions in which the Westwind crashed last week.
Besides requiring turbulence warnings to pilots of planes flying behind 757s, the new directive means that controllers must keep trailing aircraft at least five miles behind 757s.
This would not apply, however, under visual flight rules when a pilot is responsible for maintaining that cushion of safety.
It was under such circumstances that last week’s crash occurred as the pilot, Barkin, was approaching John Wayne Airport. Apparently trapped in the 757’s turbulence, the plane rolled and plummeted to the earth, crashing nose first into a field next to the Santa Ana Auto Mall.
NTSB investigators, after reviewing the plane’s cockpit safety recorder, said Wednesday that Barkin and his co-pilot spent some of their final moments discussing a “control” problem and what their options might be. The cockpit tape shut off automatically five seconds before impact as it is designed to do. The NTSB would not comment on the pilot’s last transmission, saying it was not “relevant” to the cause of the crash.
NTSB investigators also said that Barkin was cleared by the controllers to do whatever was necessary to maintain a safe distance between his plane and the 757, including making an S-turn maneuver. The Westwind was 2.1 miles behind the B-757 when it crashed.
Some pilots and controllers had speculated that the crash might lead the FAA to prohibit small planes from flying under visual flight rules when landing or taking off behind a 757 and instead require instrument-guided landings and takeoffs.
“With the 757s and 767s, the controllers don’t understand these planes either,” said a corporate jet pilot who regularly flies in and out of Southern California airports and who asked not to be identified. “The 757s generate these horizontal tornadoes with 200-knot winds. You don’t ever want to confront them.”
Hinson’s directive may be the first of a series of safety changes involving the 757.
Earlier this week, Don Llorente, the NTSB officer investigating the Santa Ana crash, said he would make an “urgent” recommendation to the FAA that 757s be put in the same “heavy” classification as the larger 747s and other jumbo jets so that they receive special handling.
Llorente, who learned Tuesday of the FAA’s prior knowledge of the wake turbulence created by 757s, suggested that the FAA might have made it more well-known.
“I’m glad to see this in the (FAA) handbook because it already tells me that someone in the FAA already recognized the turbulence from a 757,” he said in an interview Tuesday. “That tells me, ‘Wait a minute, somebody knows something.’ I didn’t know of the severity of wake turbulence (caused by the 757) until this accident.
“There’s a lot to be concerned about.”
John Wayne Airport handles 1,200 arrivals and departures each day, about 240 which are commercial carriers. Of these, 85 to 100 a day are 757s, controllers estimated.
In addition to Barkin and co-pilot John O. McDaniel, 49, killed in last week’s crash were the two top executives of the In-N-Out Burger chain and a marketing consultant.
A public memorial service will be held at 11 a.m. today for Richard A. Snyder, 41, president of In-N-Out, and Philip R. West, 37, the restaurant chain’s executive vice president. A private memorial service was held Tuesday in Dana Point for Jack Sims, 47, a marketing consultant and close friend of Snyder.
Services were held Monday in Cypress for McDaniel. Barkin was memorialized Sunday in Van Nuys and buried in Florida the next day.
Times staff writer Dave Lesher contributed to this report.
