The fight against full-body scanners at airports

'We don't need to look at naked 8-year-olds and grandmothers to secure airplanes,' a lawmaker says. The TSA is adding machines to screen more passengers, much to the chagrin of privacy advocates.


A full-body scanner at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport, which has 15 machines and 60 on order. (David Hecker / AFP/Getty Images / January 12, 2010)

Reporting from Washington - The government has promised more and better security at airports following the near-disaster on Christmas Day, but privacy advocates are not prepared to accept the use of full-body scanners as the routine screening system.

"We don't need to look at naked 8-year-olds and grandmothers to secure airplanes," Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) said last week. "I think it's a false argument to say we have to give up all of our personal privacy in order to have security."

After each major terrorism incident, the balance between privacy and security tilts in favor of greater security. But in the last decade, privacy advocates have been surprisingly successful in blocking or stalling government plans to search in more ways and in more places.

A conservative freshman in the House, Chaffetz won a large bipartisan majority last year for an amendment to oppose the government's use of body-image scanners as the primary screening system for air travelers. He was joined by the American Civil Liberties Union, which said the scanners were the equivalent of a "virtual strip search."

The pro-privacy stand does not follow the traditional ideological lines; Republicans and Democrats have joined together on the issue now and in the past.

Advocates of increased security are frustrated.

"Privacy and attacks on profiling have been the big hurdles" to developing a better security system for air travelers, said Stewart Baker, who was a top official in the Department of Homeland Security under President George W. Bush.

Since 2001, privacy advocates have twice blocked moves to collect more personal data on passengers and to compile it in a computerized government system. Critics said mass databases would give the government too much information about ordinary Americans. And they said too many innocent people showed up on the watch lists.

At the same time, privacy concerns slowed the move to put more body-imaging scanners in airports. Currently, 19 airports have at least one scanner in use. Now, however, the specter of a man authorities say is a young Al Qaeda convert walking onto a transatlantic flight with a plastic explosive in his underwear has spurred the drive to put the full-body scanners in all the major airports.

The Transportation Security Administration had already announced plans to buy 300 devices, and is likely to purchase more.

The Senate did not adopt the Chaffetz amendment, so the TSA is free to press ahead with installing the body scanners.

"They significantly enhance security because they can detect metallic and nonmetallic items hidden under clothing," said Greg Soule, a TSA spokesman. "And on average, it takes 12 to 15 seconds."

He also suggested that privacy concerns were exaggerated. "It is 100% optional for all passengers," he said. "They can choose to be screened with a full-body pat-down."

Moreover, the screener who observes the passenger's body image is "in a remote location" and cannot see the individual's face, he said. And the body image itself "looks like a chalk etching of a passenger."

Chaffetz disputes that point. He said the body scanners give an explicit view of a naked person. "It is a whole-body image, and they can spin it 360 degrees. And they can zoom in and see something as small as a nickel or dime," he said. "But they can't spot something hidden in a body cavity. A good old-fashioned sniffing dog is more effective."

ACLU lawyers said air travelers should not have to face the prospect of exposing potentially embarrassing medical details, such as colostomy bags or mastectomy scars or their use of adult diapers.

"We continue to think the American people are being sold a bill of goods with these body scanners. Giving the government the authority to scrutinize your body is a tremendous invasion of privacy, and the benefits are questionable," said Jay Stanley, a privacy expert in the ACLU's Washington office.

If the scanners become standard, "the terrorists will adapt to it," he added. "What will we do the next time if someone inserts an explosive in a body cavity and takes it out in the bathroom of the airplane? At some point, we need to draw the line on how much privacy we are willing to give up."

Despite their disagreements, the defenders of privacy and advocates of increased security agree that a better use of information should permit the government to focus its screening on the individuals who pose a threat.

"We clearly need to move faster to a point where we're looking for terrorists, not just weapons," said Baker, a Washington lawyer and formerly general counsel to the National Security Agency. "And the key to that is having more data and using it with more discretion in screening passengers. The current system condemns children and grandmothers to intrusive screening without any assurance it will catch sophisticated terrorists."

He blames Congress, business travelers and privacy advocates for stalling computerized data systems that could alert airport officials to passengers who pose some risk, so they could be given additional screening. Because of past rebuffs in Congress, the Department of Homeland Security "has been quite gun-shy about programs that could be called profiling or data-mining," he said.

Shortly after the Christmas Day incident, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) called for making it easier to add travelers to a government watch list so they will get extra screening or be denied the right to fly.

President Obama and his top aides also said the government needed to focus more on "high-priority threats" and add names quickly to the no-fly list.

Chaffetz said he strongly supported extra screening -- including the use of a full-body scanner -- if a passenger's name appeared on any of the government watch lists.

"I favor secondary screening for all 550,000 persons in the government database. They should be required to go through a mandatory secondary screening," he said. "If there is some basis for doing a secondary screening, do it. But don't do it for every person. You don't have to screen the grandmother from Boise."

Al Qaeda linked to rogue aviation network

TIMBUKTU, Mali (Reuters) - In early 2008, an official at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security sent a report to his superiors detailing what he called "the most significant development in the criminal exploitation of aircraft since 9/11."

The document warned that a growing fleet of rogue jet aircraft was regularly crisscrossing the Atlantic Ocean. On one end of the air route, it said, are cocaine-producing areas in the Andes controlled by the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. On the other are some of West Africa's most unstable countries.

The report, a copy of which was obtained by Reuters, was ignored, and the problem has since escalated into what security officials in several countries describe as a global security threat.

The clandestine fleet has grown to include twin-engine turboprops, executive jets and retired Boeing 727s that are flying multi-ton loads of cocaine and possibly weapons to an area in Africa where factions of al Qaeda are believed to be facilitating the smuggling of drugs to Europe, the officials say.

Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) has been held responsible for car and suicide bombings in Algeria and Mauritania.

Gunmen and bandits with links to AQIM have also stepped up kidnappings of Europeans for ransom, who are then passed on to AQIM factions seeking ransom payments.

The aircraft hopscotch across South American countries, picking up tons of cocaine and jet fuel, officials say. They then soar across the Atlantic to West Africa and the Sahel, where the drugs are funneled across the Sahara Desert and into Europe.

An examination of documents and interviews with officials in the United States and three West African nations suggest that at least 10 aircraft have been discovered using this air route since 2006. Officials warn that many of these aircraft were detected purely by chance. They caution that the real number involved in the networks is likely considerably higher.

Alexandre Schmidt, regional representative for West and Central Africa for the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, cautioned in Dakar this week that the aviation network has expanded in the past 12 months and now likely includes several Boeing 727 aircraft.

"When you have this high capacity for transporting drugs into West Africa, this means that you have the capacity to transport as well other goods, so it is definitely a threat to security anywhere in the world," said Schmidt.

The "other goods" officials are most worried about are weapons that militant organizations can smuggle on the jet aircraft. A Boeing 727 can handle up to 10 tons of cargo.

The U.S. official who wrote the report for the Department of Homeland Security said the al Qaeda connection was unclear at the time.

The official is a counter-narcotics aviation expert who asked to remain anonymous as he is not authorized to speak on the record. He said he was dismayed by the lack of attention to the matter since he wrote the report.

"You've got an established terrorist connection on this side of the Atlantic. Now on the Africa side you have the al Qaeda connection and it's extremely disturbing and a little bit mystifying that it's not one of the top priorities of the government," he said.

Since the September 11 attacks, the security system for passenger air traffic has been ratcheted up in the United States and throughout much of the rest of the world, with the latest measures imposed just weeks ago after a failed bomb attempt on a Detroit-bound plane on December 25.

"The bad guys have responded with their own aviation network that is out there everyday flying loads and moving contraband," said the official, "and the government seems to be oblivious to it."

The upshot, he said, is that militant organizations -- including groups like the FARC and al Qaeda -- have the "power to move people and material and contraband anywhere around the world with a couple of fuel stops."

The lucrative drug trade is already having a deleterious impact on West African nations. Local authorities told Reuters they are increasingly outgunned and unable to stop the smugglers.

And significantly, many experts say, the drug trafficking is bringing in huge revenues to groups that say they are part of al Qaeda. It's swelling not just their coffers but also their ranks, they say, as drug money is becoming an effective recruiting tool in some of the world's most desperately poor regions.

U.S. President Barack Obama has chided his intelligence officials for not pooling information "to connect those dots" to prevent threats from being realized. But these dots, scattered across two continents like flaring traces on a radar screen, remain largely unconnected and the fleets themselves are still flying.

THE AFRICAN CONNECTION

The deadly cocaine trade always follows the money, and its cash-flush traffickers seek out the routes that are the mostly lightly policed.

Beset by corruption and poverty, weak countries across West Africa have become staging platforms for transporting between 30 tons and 100 tons of cocaine each year that ends up in Europe, according to U.N. estimates.

Drug trafficking, though on a much smaller scale, has existed here and elsewhere on the continent since at least the late 1990s, according to local authorities and U.S. enforcement officials.

Earlier this decade, sea interdictions were stepped up. So smugglers developed an air fleet that is able to transport tons of cocaine from the Andes to African nations that include Mauritania, Mali, Sierra Leone and Guinea Bissau.What these countries have in common are numerous disused landing strips and makeshift runways -- most without radar or police presence. Guinea Bissau has no aviation radar at all. As fleets grew, so, too, did the drug trade.

The DEA says all aircraft seized in West Africa had departed Venezuela. That nation's location on the Caribbean and Atlantic seaboard of South America makes it an ideal takeoff place for drug flights bound for Africa, they say.

A number of aircraft have been retrofitted with additional fuel tanks to allow in-flight refueling -- a technique innovated by Mexico's drug smugglers. (Cartel pilots there have been known to stretch an aircraft's flight range by putting a water mattress filled with aviation fuel in the cabin, then stacking cargoes of marijuana bundles on top to act as an improvised fuel pump.)

Ploys used by the cartel aviators to mask the flights include fraudulent pilot certificates, false registration documents and altered tail numbers to steer clear of law enforcement lookout lists, investigators say. Some aircraft have also been found without air-worthiness certificates or log books. When smugglers are forced to abandon them, they torch them to destroy forensic and other evidence like serial numbers.

The evidence suggests that some Africa-bound cocaine jets also file a regional flight plan to avoid arousing suspicion from investigators. They then subsequently change them at the last minute, confident that their switch will go undetected.

One Gulfstream II jet, waiting with its engines running to take on 2.3 tons of cocaine at Margarita Island in Venezuela, requested a last-minute flight plan change to war-ravaged Sierra Leone in West Africa. It was nabbed moments later by Venezuelan troops, the report seen by Reuters showed.

Once airborne, the planes soar to altitudes used by commercial jets. They have little fear of interdiction as there is no long-range radar coverage over the Atlantic. Current detection efforts by U.S. authorities, using fixed radar and P3 aircraft, are limited to traditional Caribbean and north Atlantic air and marine transit corridors.

The aircraft land at airports, disused runways or improvised air strips in Africa. One bearing a false Red Cross emblem touched down without authorization onto an unlit strip at Lungi International Airport in Sierra Leone in 2008, according to a U.N. report.

Late last year a Boeing 727 landed on an improvised runway using the hard-packed sand of a Tuareg camel caravan route in Mali, where local officials said smugglers offloaded between 2 and 10 tons of cocaine before dousing the jet with fuel and burning it after it failed to take off again.

For years, traffickers in Mexico have bribed officials to allow them to land and offload cocaine flights at commercial airports. That's now happening in Africa as well. In July 2008, troops in coup-prone Guinea Bissau secured Bissau international airport to allow an unscheduled cocaine flight to land, according to Edmundo Mendes, a director with the Judicial Police.

"When we got there, the soldiers were protecting the aircraft," said Mendes, who tried to nab the Gulfstream II jet packed with an estimated $50 million in cocaine but was blocked by the military.

"The soldiers verbally threatened us," he said. The cocaine was never recovered. Just last week, Reuters photographed two aircraft at Osvaldo Vieira International Airport in Guinea Bissau -- one had been dispatched by traffickers from Senegal to try to repair the other, a Gulfstream II jet, after it developed mechanical problems. Police seized the second aircraft.

FLYING BLIND

One of the clearest indications of how much this aviation network has advanced was the discovery, on November 2, of the burned out fuselage of an aging Boeing 727. Local authorities found it resting on its side in rolling sands in Mali. In several ways, the use of such an aircraft marks a significant advance for smugglers.

Boeing jetliners, like the one discovered in Mali, can fly a cargo of several tons into remote areas. They also require a three-man crew -- a pilot, co pilot and flight engineer, primarily to manage the complex fuel system dating from an era before automation.

Hundreds of miles to the west, in the sultry, former Portuguese colony of Guinea Bissau, national Interpol director Calvario Ahukharie said several abandoned airfields, including strips used at one time by the Portuguese military, had recently been restored by "drug mafias" for illicit flights.

"In the past, the planes coming from Latin America usually landed at Bissau airport," Ahukharie said as a generator churned the feeble air-conditioning in his office during one of the city's frequent blackouts.

"But now they land at airports in southern and eastern Bissau where the judicial police have no presence."

Ahukharie said drug flights are landing at Cacine, in eastern Bissau, and Bubaque in the Bijagos Archipelago, a chain of more than 80 islands off the Atlantic coast. Interpol said it hears about the flights from locals, although they have been unable to seize aircraft, citing a lack of resources.

The drug trade, by both air and sea, has already had a devastating impact on Guinea Bissau. A dispute over trafficking has been linked to the assassination of the military chief of staff, General Batista Tagme Na Wai in 2009. Hours later, the country's president, Joao Bernardo Vieira, was hacked to death by machete in his home.

Asked how serious the issue of air trafficking remained for Guinea Bissau, Ahukharie was unambiguous: "The problem is grave."

The situation is potentially worse in the Sahel-Sahara, where cocaine is arriving by the ton. There it is fed into well-established overland trafficking routes across the Sahara where government influence is limited and where factions of al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb have become increasingly active.

The group, previously known as the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, is raising millions of dollars from the kidnap of Europeans.

Analysts say militants strike deals of convenience with Tuareg rebels and smugglers of arms, cigarettes and drugs. According to a growing pattern of evidence, the group may now be deriving hefty revenues from facilitating the smuggling of FARC-made cocaine to the shores of Europe.

UNHOLY ALLIANCE

In December, Antonio Maria Costa, the executive director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, told a special session of the UN Security Council that drugs were being traded by "terrorists and anti-government forces" to fund their operations from the Andes, to Asia and the African Sahel.

"In the past, trade across the Sahara was by caravans," he said. "Today it is larger in size, faster at delivery and more high-tech, as evidenced by the debris of a Boeing 727 found on November 2nd in the Gao region of Mali -- an area affected by insurgency and terrorism."

Just days later, U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration officials arrested three West African men following a sting operation in Ghana. The men, all from Mali, were extradited to New York on December 16 on drug trafficking and terrorism charges.

Oumar Issa, Harouna Toure, and Idriss Abelrahman are accused of plotting to transport cocaine across Africa with the intent to support al Qaeda, its local affiliate AQIM and the FARC. The charges provided evidence of what the DEA's top official in Colombia described to a Reuters reporter as "an unholy alliance between South American narco-terrorists and Islamic extremists."

Some experts are skeptical, however, that the men are any more than criminals. They questioned whether the drug dealers oversold their al Qaeda connections to get their hands on the cocaine.

In its criminal complaint, the DEA said Toure had led an armed group affiliated to al Qaeda that could move the cocaine from Ghana through North Africa to Spain for a fee of $2,000 per kilo for transportation and protection.

Toure discussed two different overland routes with an undercover informant. One was through Algeria and Morocco; the other via Algeria to Libya. He told the informer that the group had worked with al Qaeda to transport between one and two tons of hashish to Tunisia, as well as smuggle Pakistani, Indian and Bangladeshi migrants into Spain.

In any event, AQIM has been gaining in notoriety. Security analysts warn that cash stemming from the trans-Saharan coke trade could transform the organization -- a small, agile group whose southern-Sahel wing is estimated to number between 100 and 200 men -- into a more potent threat in the region that stretches from Mauritania to Niger. It is an area with huge foreign investments in oil, mining and a possible trans-Sahara gas pipeline.

"These groups are going to have a lot more money than they've had before, and I think you are going to see them with much more sophisticated weapons," said Douglas Farah, a senior fellow at the International Assessment Strategy Center, a Washington based security think-tank.

NARCOTIC INDUSTRIAL DEPOT

The Timbuktu region covers more than a third of northern Mali, where the parched, scrubby Sahel shades into the endless, rolling dunes of the Sahara Desert. It is an area several times the size of Switzerland, much of it beyond state control.

Moulaye Haidara, the customs official, said the sharp influx of cocaine by air has transformed the area into an "industrial depot" for cocaine.

Sitting in a cool, dark, mud-brick office building in the city where nomadic Tuareg mingle with Arabs and African Songhay, Fulani and Mande peoples, Haidara expresses alarm at the challenge local law enforcement faces.

Using profits from the trade, the smugglers have already bought "automatic weapons, and they are very determined," Haidara said. He added that they "call themselves Al Qaeda," though he believes the group had nothing to do with religion, but used it as "an ideological base."

Local authorities say four-wheel-drive Toyota SUVs outfitted with GPS navigation equipment and satellite telephones are standard issue for smugglers. Residents say traffickers deflate the tires to gain better traction on the loose Saharan sands, and can travel at speeds of up to 70 miles-per-hour in convoys along routes to North Africa.

Timbuktu governor, Colonel Mamadou Mangara, said he believes traffickers have air-conditioned tents that enable them to operate in areas of the Sahara where summer temperatures are so fierce that they "scorch your shoes." He added that the army lacked such equipment. A growing number of people in the impoverished region, where transport by donkey cart and camel are still common, are being drawn to the trade. They can earn 4 to 5 million CFA Francs (roughly $9-11,000) on just one coke run.

"Smuggling can be attractive to people here who can make only $100 or $200 a month," said Mohamed Ag Hamalek, a Tuareg tourist guide in Timbuktu, whose family until recently earned their keep hauling rock salt by camel train, using the stars to navigate the Sahara.

Haidara described northern Mali as a no-go area for the customs service. "There is now a red line across northern Mali, nobody can go there," he said, sketching a map of the country on a scrap of paper with a ballpoint pen. "If you go there with feeble means ... you don't come back."

TWO-WAY TRADE

Speaking in Dakar this week, Schmidt, the U.N. official, said that growing clandestine air traffic required urgent action on the part of the international community.

"This should be the highest concern for governments ... For West African countries, for West European countries, for Russia and the U.S., this should be very high on the agenda," he said.

Stopping the trade, as the traffickers are undoubtedly aware, is a huge challenge -- diplomatically, structurally and economically.

Venezuela, the takeoff or refueling point for aircraft making the trip, has a confrontational relationship with Colombia, where President Alvaro Uribe has focused on crushing the FARC's 45-year-old insurgency. The nation's leftist leader, Hugo Chavez, won't allow in the DEA to work in the country.

In a measure of his hostility to Washington, he scrambled two F16 fighter jets last week to intercept an American P3 aircraft -- a plane used to seek out and track drug traffickers -- which he said had twice violated Venezuelan airspace. He says the United States and Colombia are using anti-drug operations as a cover for a planned invasion of his oil-rich country. Washington and Bogota dismiss the allegation.

In terms of curbing trafficking, the DEA has by far the largest overseas presence of any U.S. federal law enforcement, with 83 offices in 62 countries. But it is spread thin in Africa where it has just four offices -- in Nigeria, Ghana, Egypt and South Africa -- though there are plans to open a fifth office in Kenya.

Law enforcement agencies from Europe as well as Interpol are also at work to curb the trade. But locally, officials are quick to point out that Africa is losing the war on drugs.

The most glaring problem, as Mali's example shows, is a lack of resources. The only arrests made in connection with the Boeing came days after it was found in the desert -- and those incarcerated turned out to be desert nomads cannibalizing the plane's aluminum skin, probably to make cooking pots. They were soon released.

Police in Guinea Bissau, meanwhile, told Reuters they have few guns, no money for gas for vehicles given by donor governments and no high security prison to hold criminals.

Corruption is also a problem. The army has freed several traffickers charged or detained by authorities seeking to tackle the problem, police and rights groups said.

Serious questions remain about why Malian authorities took so long to report the Boeing's discovery to the international law enforcement community.

What is particularly worrying to U.S. interests is that the networks of aircraft are not just flying one way -- hauling coke to Africa from Latin America -- but are also flying back to the Americas.

The internal Department of Homeland Security memorandum reviewed by Reuters cited one instance in which an aircraft from Africa landed in Mexico with passengers and unexamined cargo.

The Gulfstream II jet arrived in Cancun, by way of Margarita Island, Venezuela, en route from Africa. The aircraft, which was on an aviation watch list, carried just two passengers. One was a U.S. national with no luggage, the other a citizen of the Republic of Congo with a diplomatic passport and a briefcase, which was not searched.

"The obvious huge concern is that you have a transportation system that is capable of transporting tons of cocaine from west to east," said the aviation specialist who wrote the Homeland Security report.

"But it's reckless to assume that nothing is coming back, and when there's terrorist organizations on either side of this pipeline, it should be a high priority to find out what is coming back on those airplanes."

Chinooks ready after eight-year delay

Two of eight Chinook Mk 3 helicopters bound for Afghanistan were unveiled

The first of the Chinook Mk 3 helicopters bound for Afghanistan have arrived at a military base in Hampshire after an eight-year delay.

The two helicopters - refitted by Boeing at Boscombe Down, Wiltshire - were unveiled at RAF Odiham.

The Chinooks, bought in 1995 for £259m, could not be used because they did not meet airworthiness regulations.

Defence Secretary Bob Ainsworth said they would give an uplift in capability to support "coalition efforts".

Mr Ainsworth added: "I am delighted that the first of the Mk 3s are now joining the Chinook fleet.

"By the end of this year we expect to have all eight of these refitted aircraft in service, increasing our Chinook fleet to 46 aircraft."

Software problem

At the end of last year, he revealed the government planned to purchase 22 more Chinooks.

The Commander of Joint Helicopter Command, Rear Adm Tony Johnstone-Burt said: "These aircraft will be vital in helping us expand our ability to train our crews and to support operations.

"They really will make a difference."

When the helicopters were delivered by Boeing (which had met its contractual obligations) to the MoD in December 2001, it was discovered that the avionics' software was unable to meet UK regulations.

The entire cockpit had to be refitted to meet British requirements.

In 2004, the Committee of Public Accounts described the original purchase of the Chinooks as "one of the worst examples of equipment procurement" that it had seen.

The refitted helicopters, which are considered vital to operations in Helmand, also have extended-range fuel tanks and more powerful engines - enabling them to lift heavier weights.

The government has come under heavy pressure in recent months over the number of heavy-lift helicopters in Helmand.

Conservative leader David Cameron has previously called the shortage "a scandal".

SC agrees to borrow money for Boeing plant

A South Carolina board took just three minutes to give final approval to borrowing $270 million to help build a Boeing Inc. aircraft assembly line in a coastal city.

COLUMBIA, S.C. —

A South Carolina board took just three minutes to give final approval to borrowing $270 million to help build a Boeing Inc. aircraft assembly line in a coastal city.

There was no debate when the five-member Budget and Control Board met Wednesday morning to consider the package. Gov. Mark Sanford and other board members praised the company's decision to create 3,800 jobs at the plant in North Charleston.

Borrowing the money will cost taxpayers $23 million initially and it's expected to take at least five years for the state to cover the full cost.

The package also includes a $102 million short-term loan to the state Commerce Department so work can begin right away.

Southwest Airlines’ Pilots Volunteer to Share the Spirit of Learning to Thousands of Students across the United States.

DALLAS (PRNewswire via COMTEX): What do you want to be when you grow up? Perhaps Pilot is one of the answers. For many students across the country that might be closer than they dream. Southwest Airlines today announces the official takeoff of its award winning, Educational and Mentoring program, Adopt-A-Pilot(R)!

From January through May, fifth-grade students in more than 1,200 classes across the country will “adopt” Southwest Airlines Pilots through a program that leads students through science, geography, math, writing, and other core subjects, all based in aviation-related activities. Students also will research careers, develop life values, and realize the importance of staying in school.

“Our pledge to our communities extends farther than our service at the airport, it’s the total involvement of our Employees to empower the participants to learn and understand they can be all they want to be in life through education,” said Linda Rutherford, Southwest’s Vice President of Communications and Strategic Outreach.

Nearly 800 Southwest Pilots are volunteering in this year’s Adopt-A-Pilot(R) program. During the four-week long curriculum, Pilots volunteer their time in participating classrooms and correspond from the “road” via e-mail and postcards. Classrooms chart the Pilot’s course on an official United States route map and complete lessons related to the Pilot’s monthly flying schedule. To learn more about the program visit or our blog.

“We are proud to have so many of our Pilots committed to sharing their knowledge and experiences with tens of thousands of participants nationwide through the Southwest Airlines Adopt-A-Pilot program,” added Chuck Magill, Southwest’s Vice President of Flight Operations.

Beyond the program’s core mentorship and curriculum-based activities, Adopt-A-Pilot includes many other innovative learning opportunities.

Created in 1997, Adopt-A-Pilot(R) started as a small community outreach program in just 50 classrooms in Southwest’s destination cities, to reach more than 1,200 classrooms in large and small-town communities nationwide. Southwest Airlines developed the program in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Education and the Smithsonian Institution of National Air and Space Museum. National leaders such as Gen. Colin Powell, President Bill Clinton, and First Lady Laura Bush have recognized the excellence that the Adopt-A-Pilot program offers students.

Southwest Airlines (NYSE:), the nation’s largest carrier in terms of domestic passengers enplaned, currently serves 68 cities in 35 states. Based in Dallas, Southwest currently operates more than 3,200 flights a day and has nearly than 35,000 Employees.

About Southwest Airlines:

Southwest Airlines’ Share the Spirit program embodies the culture of positive impact in the communities it serves – demonstrated through Southwest’s charitable giving, Employee volunteerism, and community relations programs. Southwest Airlines is one of the most honored airlines in the world, consistently appearing on the FORTUNE Magazine’s “Most Admired Companies” list. After 38 years of service, Southwest Airlines, the nation’s leading low-fare carrier, continues to stand above other airlines – offering a reliable product with exemplary Customer Service. Southwest Airlines (NYSE: ) currently serves 68 cities in 35 states. Based in Dallas, Southwest currently operates more than 3,300 flights a day and has more than 35,000 Employees systemwide who work hard each and every day to provide excellent Customer service and make a difference in the community. To learn more about Southwest’s community involvement

Military Officials to Deploy Assessment Team to Haiti.

MIAMI (AFNS): U.S. Southern Command officials here will deploy a team of 30 people to Haiti to support U.S. relief efforts in the aftermath of the Jan. 12 7.0 magnitude earthquake.

The team, which includes U.S. military engineers, operational planners, and a command and control group and communication specialists, will arrive in Haiti Jan. 13 on two Air Force C-130 Hercules aircraft.

C-130

The team will work with U.S. Embassy personnel as well as Haitian, United Nations and international officials to assess the situation and facilitate follow on U.S. military support.

Other immediate response activities include;
– At first light Jan. 13, a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter evacuated four critically injured U.S. Embassy staff to the Naval Station Guantanamo, Cuba, hospital for further treatment.
– Elements of the Air Force 1st Special Operations Wing are deploying Jan. 13 to the international airport at Port au Prince, Haiti, to provide air traffic control capability and airfield operations. They are expected to arrive in Haiti in the afternoon.
– A Navy P-3 Orion aircraft from the Forward Operating Location at Comalapa, El Salvador, took off early Jan. 13 to conduct an aerial reconnaissance of the area affected by the earthquake.
– The Navy aircraft carrier, USS Carl Vinson, is under way and expected to arrive off the coast of Haiti Jan. 14. Additional Navy ships are under way to Haiti.

SOUTHCOM officals are closely monitoring the situation and is working with the U.S. State Department, United States Agency for International Development and the Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance and other national and international agencies to determine how to best respond to this crisis.

SOUTHCOM officials are well versed at providing humanitarian assistance in the region. Since 2005, the command staff has led U.S. military support to 14 major relief missions, including assistance to Haiti in September 2008. During that mission, U.S. military forces from USS Kearsarge and other units airlifted 3.3 million pounds of aid to communities that were devastated by a succession of major storms.

“Our thoughts and prayers are with the Haitian people and all those affected by this devastating earthquake,” said Army Col. James Marshall, the command spokesman for SOUTHCOM.

Nigeria to allow U.S.-trained air marshals on flights

ABUJA (Reuters) - Nigeria will soon allow U.S.-trained air marshals on its flights to the United States to boost air security after a botched bombing attack on a U.S.-bound airliner, a federal minister said.

World

"The United States approached Nigeria to have their marshals assist in the training and equipping of (Nigerian) marshals," Aviation Minister Babatunde Omotoba told reporters on Wednesday.

Omotoba said an agreement was expected to be signed with the United States "very soon."

Nigeria has been under pressure to boost its air security following the failed Christmas Day bombing attempt on a U.S. airliner blamed on Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.

The United States has put Nigeria on a list of countries required to have tighter air security. Starting this month, passengers flying from Nigeria to the United States must undergo the same checks as people from Iran, Afghanistan and Cuba.

Nigeria, along with other countries including the Netherlands, Britain and Canada, will start using full-body scanners at its international airports to try to prevent such a security breach happening again.

Abdulmutallab, 23, has been charged with trying to blow up Northwest Airlines flight 253 as it approached Detroit from Amsterdam on December 25 with almost 300 people on board. He transferred to that flight from a KLM flight from Lagos.

Piper may enter light sport arena

Rumors in Europe indicate Piper Aircraft is strongly considering a 49-percent stake in Czech Sport Aircraft and may adapt that company’s SportCruiser for the American light sport aircraft market.

A spokesman for Piper said he could not confirm or deny the report by flightglobal.com, but added that Piper sometimes signs a letter of intent in order to look more closely at potential acquisitions. Flightglobal.com said the potential deal has been reported in a Czech business publication as a $30 million proposal. The holder of the 40-percent share is Slavia Capital.

Czech Sport Aircraft is the successor to the bankrupt Czech Aircraft Works. If the report is true, an announcement could come from Piper as soon as next week during the U.S. Sport Aviation Expo in Sebring, Fla.

Bydanjohnson.com lists the all-metal SportCruiser as the fifth best-selling LSA in the United States with fewer than 100 sold, despite the company’s bankruptcy. Flight Design has led the LSA market since the light sport movement began.

By regulation, all LSAs are limited to two seats. The SportCruiser comes in several models ranging from $117,000 to $150,000, depending on equipment and avionics options. The company claims a cruise speed of anywhere from 108 KTAS to 118 KTAS, depending on which Web site you are reading. A 100-hp Rotax ULS engine powers it.

Mid Island Air Service, a U.S. dealer for the SportCruiser, lists several SportCruisers for sale. The useful loads range from 505 to 595 pounds, depending on the model and equipment. It carries a total of 30 gallons of fuel in the wings and has a demonstrated crosswind component of 12 knots.

Hawker Beechcraft lays off 70 workers

Hawker Beechcraft Corporation has issued a “Warn” notice for the pending layoff of 70 workers. Many are on the King Air assembly line while others are material handlers, The Wichita Eagle reported.

Company officials do not comment on pending layoffs. The company has laid off 3,220 workers since 2008, the newspaper reported. The total layoffs for all aerospace workers in Wichita is 13,000. Cessna accounts for 8,200 of those, although it recalled 180 workers last week.

CEOs of both Cessna Aircraft Co. and Hawker Beechcraft warned as early as last year that an economic recovery for them would take longer than for the rest of the country. As soon as the large corporations recover, they can begin to order business jets once again. That could take two to three years.

7th Annual ‘Living Legends of Aviation’® Awards to Honor Tom Cruise, Dr. Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin and Other Aviation Legends.

Beverly Hills, CA: The 7th Annual Living Legends of Aviation Awards, presented by Learjet, are taking flight on January 22nd at the Beverly Hilton.

John Travolta, the official Ambassador of Aviation, will present Tom Cruise with the “Top Aviation Inspiration and Patriotism Award.” Tom Cruise’s passion for aviation started at a young age. Growing up in modest economic conditions, Cruise’s family moved frequently but once young Tom hung his P-51 Mustang photo in his bedroom, he felt at home. Not surprisingly, he now owns a P-51 Mustang and other aircraft and is an accomplished aerobatic pilot. Top Gun, the highest grossing aviation movie of all time, has inspired generations of young pilots and patriotism in many Americans. Cruise’s flying machines and commitment to aviation define his passion for flight

Dr. Buzz Aldrin will receive the “First Out of This World Landing and Take-Off Award.” John Travolta, the Ambassador of Aviation, will present the award. Buzz took his first airplane ride with his father when he was 2 years old. His father, a military man, served as aide to Billy Mitchell, the father of the U.S. Air Force. As a boy, Buzz showed an early interest in all things mechanical, designing all types of contraptions. As a young man he flew 66 missions in Korea. Astoundingly, walking on the moon barely tops the very long list of successes and challenges that have defined Buzz Aldrin’s life as a pilot, military man, scientist, astronaut and one of the world’s most forward-thinking futurists. “The world needs to venture outward to satisfy our curiosity, our need to achieve and learn more about our place in this magnificent universe,” says Aldrin. In 2009, the world celebrated the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11. He is one of only 12 astronauts to walk on the moon, and at age 80, is not slowing down. Buzz Aldrin continues to inspire.

Preston Henne- “Aviation Industry Leader of the Year” – Pres Henne has earned the aviation industry’s highest leadership award. Henne became VP of General Dynamics in July 1999 when the company acquired Gulfstream. He is responsible for Gulfstream’s product program management, engineering, and flight operations. He joined Gulfstream in 1994 and is credited with the design, development and certification of the Gulfstream V aircraft, which was awarded the 1997 Collier Trophy. Henne’s leadership, management and engineering skills have earned him extraordinary respect and admiration throughout the aviation industry.

Elon Musk- “Aviation Entrepreneur of the Year” – South African born, Elon Musk, an American physicist, inventor, entrepreneur, innovator and philanthropist, is best known for founding PayPal, Tesla Motors, and SpaceX. His father inspired his love of technology. In 1999 Musk co-founded x.com, an online financial services and email payments company. He later changed the company’s name to PayPal and sold the company in 2002. Musk founded Tesla Motors, and is Chairman and CEO of the electric sports car company. The company is now developing an economical four-door electric sedan. Musk founded and serves as Chairman and CEO of Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX), which was recently awarded a multi-billion dollar contract with the U.S. Government to develop and build space launch vehicles for NASA to replace the retiring space shuttles.

Joe Clark- “Lifetime Aviation Entrepreneur”- Joe Clark’s early fascination with aviation developed into a lifelong passion. He founded JetAir, the first Learjet distributorship in the Northwest in 1965. His career moved to Raisbeck Engineering where he became VP of Sales. He later partnered with Milt Koult to form Horizon Air, a highly successful Seattle-based regional airline that was purchased by Alaska Airlines. In 1988, Clark, Clay Lacy, and Bruce McCaw formed the Friendship Foundation, raising more than $500,000 for children’s charities, as they set a world speed record flying a 747 around the world. In 1991, Clark and Dennis Washington founded Aviation Partners, inventing and developing bl ended winglets. Clark’s innovations and entrepreneurial impact reach well beyond the aviation industry. His patented winglets are making a huge ecological impact, saving millions of gallons of fuel and diminishing wear on aircraft engines. A recipient of the Horatio Alger award in 2008, Clark is the only person who has been honored as both Aviation Entrepreneur of the Year and Lifetime Aviation Entrepreneur, receiving the Entrepreneur of the Year award in 2005.

Kermit Weeks – “Bob Hoover Freedom of Flight Award” – As a child, Kermit Weeks was a “dreamer and a designer.” When he was 13, his life’s focus became flight and aircraft. He was always fascinated with technical things. Weeks has the largest private collection of vintage aircraft in the world, with over 140 aircraft. All of these aircraft are well-maintained and flying. As founder of Fantasy of Flight, Weeks is dedicated to teaching young people about aviation and flight. Fantasy of Flight is billed as “the world’s greatest aviation attraction”.

Kurt Russell – “Aviation Mentor Award” – Highly successful life-long actor Kurt Russell says, “Flying has taught me more about who I really am than anything I’ve ever done.” Nearly 22 years into his love affair with flying, he encourages others to fly and mentors many pilots in and out of the entertainment business. He’s positively passionate about learning every aspect of flying. “You know what they say about a pilot’s license? It’s a license to learn.” Kurt continues, “Leave your ego at the door; when you get into a plane, it’s serious business. And yes, it’s a love affair in the air that continues to add joy to my life.”

This year’s celebrity/ Legend attendees include: John Travolta, Bob Hoover, Kurt Russell, Clay Lacy, Morgan Freeman, Dr. Buzz Aldrin, Tom Cruise, Joe Clark, Maj. Gen. William Anders, Cliff Robertson, Tony Bill, Dr. Forrest Bird, Carroll Shelby, James Raisbeck, Linden Blue, Barron Hilton, Sir Richard Branson, Harrison Ford, Gene Cernan, Julie Clark, Dick Rutan, Pat Epps, Greg Herrick, Alan Klapmeier, Bob Lutz, Lee Iacocca, Bruce McCaw, Lorenzo Lamas, Max Moga, Zoe Dell Lantis Nutter, Paul Poberezny, Mike Melvill, Vern Raburn, Si Robin, Frank Robinson, Ed Swearingen, Sean Tucker, Steven Udvar-Hazy, Emily Howell-Warner and Kermit Weeks.

Security Investigation Begins at Newark Airport

Officials were trying to determine on Monday how a man who walked through the wrong door on Sunday afternoon turned the busiest terminal at Newark Liberty International Airport into a human traffic jam on one of the busiest travel days of the year

Rich Schultz/Associated Press

Passengers waited after a possible security breach shut down a terminal at the Newark Liberty International Airport on Sunday.

Flights from Terminal C at Newark were halted after a passenger told Transportation Security Administration officials that the man went the wrong way through a one-way door at about 5:20 p.m.

That put the man in the secure area of the terminal even though he had not gone through the screening post a few steps away.

A spokeswoman for the agency, Ann Davis, said a security officer was posted in the area the man entered, the exit lane reserved for passengers on their way to collect baggage after coming off planes that had landed. She said the officer apparently did not react when the man went through the door, which she said was marked with “do not enter” signs.

Whether the officer saw the man pass through “remains to be seen,” Ms. Davis said.

Alerted by the passenger who saw the apparent security breach, officials began looking for the man in the terminal, Ms. Davis said. She said T.S.A. officials also worked with Continental Airlines, the dominant airline at Terminal C, to retrieve tapes from surveillance cameras in the area “to ascertain if in fact an individual had entered the sterile area through the exit lane.”

She said the surveillance tapes confirmed what the passenger had said. And after about two and half hours with the man still unaccounted for, the T.S.A. told passengers in the terminal — passengers who had been cleared at the security checkpoint and were on their way to catch departing flights — to go back and be screened again.

Once the terminal had been cleared, she said, officials from the T.S.A. and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey conducted “a full and complete sweep of every concourse” to be certain that the man was not hiding somewhere in Terminal C and had not left behind anything improper as he walked through.

She said the decision to close Terminal C and begin the sweep was made by T.S.A. officials at the airport. “Standard procedure would call for a closure of the checkpoints,” she said. But she added that T.S.A. managers at the airport were in contact with agency officials in Washington.

The sweep took “a few hours,” she said. She said the terminal was open again at 11:45 p.m., more than six hours after the man went down the exit lane. But lines remained at the security checkpoints as weary passengers waited to take off their shoes and have their carry-on baggage inspected all over again.

During the four hours that the terminal was closed, the area outside the security checkpoint leading to the airport gates was jammed with passengers who had expected to be in the air by then.

The scene looked like the kind of pileup that happens when bad weather forces flight cancellations, with passengers stretched out on the floor by the ticket counters, using their luggage as pillows. Some straddled the weigh-in machines that ticket agents use to check luggage. Some called home and some sent text messages, warning that they would be late — and might still be on the way home on Monday morning.

Ms. Davis said the man who went through the do-not-enter door was not found, although she said video from security cameras showed that he left the secure area through another checkpoint. She said the T.S.A. was “reviewing the circumstances surrounding the incident in their totality” and would decide “what level of disciplinary action is appropriate” for the officer.

Europe Debates Use of Full-Body Scanners at Airports

BRUSSELS (AP) — European nations were sharply divided on Thursday over the need to install full-body scanners at European airports.

Some countries were skeptical of the need for beefed-up security measures, but the European Union indicated that it might compel nations to install the scanners.

After meeting in Brussels, the bloc’s aviation security experts said in a statement that the European Union Commission might issue a binding regulation on imaging technology to improve passenger security, while also addressing privacy, data protection and health issues involved in using the technology.

Italy joined the United States, Britain and the Netherlands on Thursday in announcing plans to install the scanners after a Nigerian man tried to blow up a Northwest Airlines flight as it neared Detroit on Christmas Day.

American officials are seeking enhanced security measures on all trans-Atlantic flights heading for the United States. That represents an enormous undertaking, however, because European airports carry thousands of passengers on more than 800 flights a day across the North Atlantic.

But even as the European Union’s aviation security experts met to discuss scanners, Belgium’s secretary of state for transportation, Etiennne Schouppe, described the enhanced measures as excessive, saying security requirements at European airports were already strict enough.

Spain, too, has expressed skepticism on the scanners, and the German and French governments remain uncommitted.

A German Interior Ministry spokesman, Stefan Paris, said the bloc’s rules on flight safety needed to be changed before scanners could be used. Germany’s position, he said, is that the scanners cannot be deployed until it has been shown that they will improve security, that they are not a health hazard and that they will not be so invasive that they harm individuals’ rights.

Some countries in the European Union have expressed concern that full-body scanners will be dangerous because of the radiation they emit.

However, the American College of Radiology issued a statement on Wednesday saying that a passenger flying cross-country receives more radiation from the flight at high altitude than from either of the two types of scanners that the Transportation Security Administration is using; these are presumably the same systems to be used in Europe.

The Transportation Security Administration, which uses 40 scanners throughout the United States, has announced plans to order dozens more.

Nigerian Arraigned in Bomb Attempt

DETROIT — The Nigerian man accused of trying to bomb a Northwest flight to Detroit on Christmas Day was arraigned Friday here in a quiet hearing that lasted barely four minutes yet attracted a throng of reporters, protesters and curious observers.

Wearing a white shirt and metal shackles on his feet, with his head shaved, the defendant, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, was silent when his lawyers entered a plea of not guilty.

On Wednesday, a federal grand jury indicted Mr. Abdulmutallab on six charges, including attempted murder on an airplane, attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction and related offenses. He is accused of concealing explosives in his underwear and of trying to detonate them with a syringe of chemicals as Northwest Flight 253, which carried 289 passengers and crew members from Amsterdam, was descending for landing in Detroit. He managed to start a small fire but was overpowered by other passengers and flight attendants, and the plane landed safely.

At Friday’s arraignment, Magistrate Judge Mark A. Randon of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan asked Mr. Abdulmutallab a series of perfunctory questions about his background and whether he understood the charges. He said, softly, “Yes, sir.”

Asked whether he was taking medication, Mr. Abdulmutallab responded: “In the last 24 hours? Some painkillers.”

Mr. Abdulmutallab occasionally conferred with his lawyers, led by Miriam L. Siefer. He appeared subdued and did not show any visible signs of the third-degree burns he sustained on the plane.

His lawyers waived a detention hearing and consented to having Mr. Abdulmutallab continue to be held in the federal prison in Milan, near Ann Arbor.

Hebba Aref, 27, who said her seat was six rows in front of Mr. Abdulmutallab’s on the flight, watched the hearing from the front row in the courtroom, with members of her family. Ms. Aref, of Bloomfield Hills, Mich., a Detroit suburb, works as a lawyer in Kuwait and said she would be flying there on Friday night.

“This person has changed my life, and the way things are done in the United States,” she said. “I just wanted to see who this person was again.”

When Ms. Aref saw Mr. Abdulmutallab, she said, “I felt something in the pit of my stomach.” Asked what resolution she wanted in the case, she hesitated before responding, “Whatever the maximum penalty is.”

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. has said that Mr. Abdulmutallab could be sentenced to life in prison if convicted. Mr. Holder has also said that the government has obtained significant information from Mr. Abdulmutallab about the Yemen-based branch of Al Qaeda that is suspected of planning the attack.

Mr. Abdulmutallab’s father, Alhaji Umaru Mutallab, a respected Nigerian banker, alerted both Nigerian and American authorities in the fall that his son, a Muslim, had become radicalized and had moved to Yemen. Two Nigerian lawyers — Maryam Uwais and Mahmud Kazaure — attended Friday’s hearing to observe for the family.

Dozens of Muslims from nearby Dearborn gathered outside the courthouse carrying large American flags and colorful signs that read “NOT in the name of Islam” and “Islam is against terrorism.”

“Abdulmutallab is not Muslim,” said Mohssen Sadeq, 40, who said he came to the United States from Yemen in 2000. “I need peace and freedom everywhere. I don’t want terrorists anywhere. This is my country. I love America.”

Nearby, Rasaq Ibrahim, 39, a Nigerian immigrant who said he came to the United States 12 years ago, held a sign that read, “The action of one Nigerian does not reflect all Nigerians.”

“His actions are totally against our morals and our ideals,” Mr. Ibrahim said. “We feel disgraced and betrayed.”

A Systemic Failure?

Regarding the article “How 12/25 was like 9/11” by Thomas Kean and John Farmer Jr. (Views, Jan. 7): Why was the attempted airplane bombing on Christmas Day “not a failure to collect intelligence” but “a failure to integrate and understand the intelligence we already had,” as President Obama said?

According to Mr. Kean and Mr. Farmer the same question is relevant to the 9/11 attack. The underlying problems are rooted in the organization of the bureaucracies involved. The United States is a country known for innovation, no-nonsense pragmatism and goal-oriented rationality but it also seems capable of building bureaucracies with choking limitations to creativity, independent problem-solving and critical thinking.

Such hierarchies are based on the idea that leaders have absolute knowledge and authority, and subordinates have loyalty and conformity as their greatest assets. This creates an environment in which subordinates have to watch their tongues. This probably does not help “integration and understanding” of available data.

Florida: Airline Passenger Arrested

An airline passenger who yelled “I want to kill all the Jews” on a Detroit-bound plane was arrested on disorderly conduct and other charges, but the authorities said the incident did not appear to be related to terrorism. The passenger, Mansor Mohammad Asad, 43, of Toledo, Ohio, was arrested after a taxiing Northwest Airlines flight returned to a gate at Miami International Airport, Miami-Dade police said. Mr. Asad’s son, Mickey, said his father suffered from bipolar disorder.

Japan Airlines Closes in on Potential Bankruptcy

TOKYO — Japan Airlines, a once-proud flagship carrier now crippled by $16 billion in liabilities, may soon file for bankruptcy protection as part of a state-led turnaround in one of the largest corporate failures in the Japanese history

Passengers check in on Friday at Japan Airlines at Haneda airport in Tokyo. The airline's stock price fell 13 percent on Friday.

Government officials said a final decision had not yet been reached on the fate of JAL, Asia’s largest airline. But they suggested that the airline, already bailed out by the state four times, would likely undergo some form of court-led restructuring similar to a Chapter 11 filing in the United States, a bold step for the new government of Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama.

“This problem was long postponed by the Liberal Democratic Party,” the transport minister, Seiji Maehara, told reporters on Friday, referring to the previous administration. “With a change in government, we will find the ultimate solution,” he said.

In a statement, JAL denied a final decision had been made on its restructuring plans, and said it had no announcement to make.

Prime Minister Hatoyama, whose Democratic Party swept to power in September on promises of sweeping changes to Japan’s postwar order, said the government was committed to keeping JAL’s planes flying smoothly throughout the restructuring process.

“We have made efforts to make sure JAL’s operations are not disrupted. We will continue that effort,” he said.

Despite JAL’s woes, two U.S. carriers — Delta Air Lines and American Airlines — are vying for a stake in the Japanese airline. Considered for decades as a prized and protected national icon, JAL’s downfall provides the U.S. airlines with a rare chance to invest in what is still, despite years of mismanagement, a powerful regional player.

Both U.S. airlines hope to tap JAL’s routes to Asia, the world’s fastest-growing aviation market. Executives at Delta and American have said they hope to bolster Tokyo as their hub in Asia, and are also considering a stronger foothold in Japan ahead of the expansion of Haneda airport south of central Tokyo. A recent “open skies” agreement between the United States and Japan is spurring cooperation between airlines of the two countries.

“Whichever form the restructuring takes, JAL needs a strong international partner by its side,” the president of Delta, Edward Bastian, said Thursday in Tokyo where he was meeting with JAL and government officials. “Our objective here is to invest in the restructured company,” he said.

Delta has offered JAL $500 million in equity, as well as a substantial boost in passengers and revenue from its SkyTeam alliance. American, which already has a link with JAL through its Oneworld alliance, has offered to raise its initial offer of $1.1 billion by $300 million to stay put, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.

Indeed, Mr. Bastian seemed to push for change at JAL.

“Change is hard but is absolutely necessary to make changes if JAL is going to survive,” he said. “Tough decisions need to be taken.”

Any investment would purchase only a minority stake in JAL, because Japanese law prohibits foreign ownership of its airlines.

It is a spectacular fall for JAL, which rose out of the ashes of World War II and became a symbol of Japan’s rise as a global economic power.

Initially state-owned, it opened its first domestic routes in 1951, and expanded overseas just two years later with a flight linking Tokyo to San Francisco via Honolulu.

The airline continued to grow rapidly together with the Japanese economy, and in Japan’s bubble economy of the 1980s supported the heyday of Japanese package tour groups overseas. The red-crested crane on JAL’s aircraft became a national motif, and Japanese girls dreamed of becoming JAL flight attendants.

But ambitious investments in overseas hotels and resorts during the bubble era, coupled with soaring personnel and pensions costs, started to weigh down on JAL’s finances. The airline was privatized in 1987.

Jet Makes Emergency Landing at Newark Airport

Kathy Willens/Associated Press

A United Airlines Airbus 319 sat on the tarmac at Newark Liberty International Airport after making an emergency landing in Newark, N.J., Sunday.

The plane was well into its final descent toward Newark Liberty International Airport on Sunday morning when it began a sudden and unmistakable climb.

There was “a little problem,” the pilot told the 48 passengers aboard United Airlines Flight 634. Only two of the three landing wheels had opened successfully, and after repeated attempts to fix the problem had failed, those aboard were instructed to prepare for a crash landing.

A passenger, Paul Lasiuk, 46, described himself as more shocked than scared.

“You have no choice,” he said. “You’re going to go through this.”

That Mr. Lasiuk and his fellow passengers were able to describe their emotions — as well as the fairly graceful landing with only two landing wheels in place — was testament to the abilities of the five-person crew, they said later.

No one was injured in the emergency landing of the plane, an Airbus A319, which left O’Hare International Airport in Chicago around 6 a.m. and landed just before 9:30 a.m., said a spokeswoman for United Airlines.

As the plane prepared to make its emergency landing, Newark Airport grew large in the cabin windows. The loudspeaker then blared: “Brace! Brace! Brace!”

With the passengers curled into defensive postures and electricity switched off, the plane touched the ground, passengers said. The plane hit gently, riding down the runway on the front wheel and the left rear wheel before tipping to the right, where the rear wheel had failed to deploy. Sparks flew as the metal underbelly of the engine ground against the tarmac, but the plane continued to slide straight.

Jubin Nakhai, 34, said he was still holding his ankles, head between his knees in the brace position passengers had been instructed to assume, when someone told him the plane had stopped moving, adding, “You’re safe.”

The emergency landing briefly shut down the airport, but after about 20 minutes, two of the three runways were back in operation, said a spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

The Airbus remained on the third runway into the afternoon as investigators examined why its landing gear had failed, said the spokesman. The closing of the runway delayed some flights by about an hour.

The emergency landing returned focus to the Newark airport, one of the nation’s busiest, exactly a week after a man skipped past security, causing a six-hour shutdown of a major terminal on one of the biggest travel days of the year. An intensive manhunt following the security breach led to the arrest on Friday of Haisong Jiang, a 28-year-old Rutgers University graduate student, who apparently crossed into the secured area to kiss his girlfriend goodbye.

On Sunday, the scene was mostly celebratory aboard the United flight when it finally came to rest, passengers said. The cabin, which was less than half full, erupted with tears, applause and spirited proclamations that the landing had been even smoother than usual. The pilot thanked everybody for staying calm and helping one another.

“Anytime you’re up in the air and you realize you have a problem, you wonder if you’re going to make it,” said one of the passengers, John Wiman, 51, of Chicago. Outside, where emergency vehicles were already waiting, the smell of smoke hung in the clear, cold morning. The passengers and the crew slid out of the plane on inflatable emergency exit chutes and were taken by bus to an airline lounge in the main terminal, where they recounted the story to investigators and waited for their luggage.

When everyone left about two hours later, the passengers were full of praise for the crew, speaking with amazement at how well everything had worked out.

“I’ve had a lot of worse landings at Newark before,” said Mr. Lasiuk, who lives in Chicago and was traveling on business. “It was unbelievably smooth.”

Jim Falk, 40, who lives in New Jersey, swore that he would buy a bottle of Champagne for the pilot, whose name was not immediately released.

“The pilot did a beautiful job,” didn’t put it in the water like the other pilot did, but he should be commended.”

Moritz Loew, 39, who also lives in New Jersey, was jubilant as he left the airport shortly after noon.

“What’s a great landing?” he asked, laughing as he set himself up for his own punch line. “One that you walk away from.”