Similar Incident Occurred In December The FAA is investigating an alleged air traffic control error that put two planes landing at Newark Liberty International Airport closer than federal guidelines allow. The incident occurred at 2:10pm last Wednesday, and involved Continental Flight 536, a Boeing 737 arriving from Phoenix, and Continental Express Flight 2614, an Embraer 145 arriving from Halifax, Nova Scotia, the Associated Press reports.

"Initial indications from the interviews and Flight Recorder analyses show the flight and approach to have progressed normally until the aircraft was established on late finals for Runway 27L. At approximately 600 ft and 2 miles from touch down, the Autothrottle demanded an increase in thrust from the two engines but the engines did not respond. Following further demands for increased thrust from the Autothrottle, and subsequently the flight crew moving the throttle levers, the engines similarly failed to respond. The aircraft speed reduced and the aircraft descended onto the grass short of the paved runway surface." Source: From the British Air Accident Investigation Branch (AAIB) initial report on the January 17 landing accident of a British Airways Boeing 777-200 at London's Heathrow Airport.

Says Engines Did Not Respond To Throttle-Up Commands Below is the unedited, initial textual report on the January 17 accident involving a British Airways Boeing 777-200. As ANN reported, the aircraft, inbound from Beijing, touched down short of the runway at London's Heathrow Airport, skidding to a violent stop that, fortunately, only resulted in some minor injuries to those onboard.

Bad Weather Hampered Landing Effort Angolan rescue crews have finished retrieving the bodies of the 13 victims from a Beech King Air B200 that crashed into the mountains of southern Angola, Africa, on Saturday.

When You Wish Upon The Regulations... Once every three years, the FAA asks for public comments on its existing regulations... and the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association always jumps at the opportunity to advance general aviation initiatives. This time around, the association says it is prodding the FAA to catch up with the times.

EU Governments Could Provide Funding... And Fuel New US Complaints European airplane maker Airbus must decide where to seek additional financing to develop its $17 billion A350XWB, and is considering government assistance as an option.

Vibration Problem Plagues SRB Design NASA experts are wrestling with a propulsion vibration problem in its new moon rocket design. Engineers are working to develop options to address a "thrust oscillation" issue in the Ares I rocket, The Associated Press reports.

Congressman Vows To Fight Removal Long Island's MacArthur Airport (ISP) will soon lose its computerized departure system to Morristown Municipal Airport in New Jersey... a move strongly protested by air traffic controllers and elected officials, who say the decision will lead to flight delays.

Appointed Less Than Two Months After Release From Prison The sad, strange saga of Vitaly Kaloyev, the Russian man who served less than three years in prison for the murder of a Swiss air traffic controller he blamed for the loss of his family in a 2002 midair collision, took another odd turn this week... when he was elected to high-level post in regional government.

Nevada's Groom Lake Is Homey Airport Pilots beware! Your GPS contains the airport identifier and location of Groom Lake -- where they keep the space aliens at Area 51, in Nevada -- and it's one airport you don't want to fly into.

"He didn't agree to it immediately. We spoke a month ago, and he went back and forth but finally today he agreed to it." Source: Yevgeny Rodionov, regional construction minister of Russia's North Ossetia province, regarding the appointment of Vitaly Kaloyev -- who served less than three years in prison for the murder of a Swiss air traffic controller he blamed for the loss of his family in a 2002 midair collision -- to high-level post in regional government.

Several years ago, ANN's first web-geek, Al Pike, designed a small "portable" News Ticker that offers current ANN headlines detailing what is happening in the aviation world. It can be copied to virtually any Web site (including YOURS!) on the Internet by simply requesting the code from us. In addition to staying abreast of the latest headlines, you can click on any one of these News Tickers, no matter which site it is on, and then go directly to ANN to read the news, in-depth, anytime you choose. You may get the code using our request form by logging on to www.aero-news.net/ANNTicker.cfm. Installation is a simple matter of copying the code into the HTML source code on a page on your site (and it IS simple... if Campbell can do it, anyone can...). For those of you with web sites, be sure to drop us an e-mail at editor@aero-news.net and let us know where you've installed the ticker, so we can share that info with other ANN readers.

Event Will Also Celebrate Group's 56th Anniversary Mother Nature appears to be cooperating with the Experimental Aircraft Association, as the organization prepares for next week's annual Skiplane Fly-In at Pioneer Airport in Oshkosh, WI.

Out With The Old, In With The Updated Officials from the 8th Fighter Wing at Kunsan Air Base in South Korea received 18 modified F-16 Fighting Falcons in mid-January from Alaska's Eielson Air Force Base, as the two bases exchange fighter aircraft.

A Disagreeable Computer Can Really Ruin Your Approach...

FAA Witness Says Plane Was Level, Slowed To Stall Below is the preliminary report by the National Transportation Safety Board regarding last weekend's downing of a Cessna 340 twin near Port Clinton, OH, that claimed the lives of four people onboard.

Decision Rests On Faltering Talks With Pilots Hawaiian Airlines announced Friday it may cancel a $4.4 billion deal to purchase up to 24 new Airbus aircraft, due to a standoff with its pilots union.

Prototype Inverted V-Tail Aircraft Slated For Completion In '09 One of the more unusual designs to grace the ramp at Sebring the past two years has been Advanced Aero LLC's Inverted V-Tail Technology Demonstrator concept -- a small, pusher-powered, single-seat plane intended to prove the company's concept of a low-cost aircraft.

Making The Echo Super Even "Super-er" Italy's Tecnam was among the first manufacturers to take advantage of the light sport aircraft rules in the United States, offering a mix of high-and-low-wing aircraft to meet the needs of practically every pilot interested in LSA -- the P92 Echo Super, P2002 Sierra and P2004 Bravo. You might call the new P92 Eaglet a second-generation evolution of Tecnam's initial offerings in the US.

Aero-Terms! A stage of compressor blades installed ahead of the front of an axial compressor.