Hawker Beechcraft learned during the initial status conference at the Court of Federal Claims that the U.S. Air Force awarded the Light Air Support contract to the Sierra Nevada Corporation and its Brazilian manufacturer, Embraer.

During the hearing, the government revealed that the unannounced award apparently was made on December 22, 2011, shortly after the Government Accountability Office declined to review Hawker Beechcraft’s protest against its exclusion from the LAS competition.  Per federal regulations, federal agencies are generally required to make a public award announcement by 5:00 P.M. ET on the day of the award.

“This is yet another example of the Air Force’s lack of transparency throughout this competition,” said Bill Boisture, Hawker Beechcraft chairman and CEO.  ”With this development, it now seems even clearer that the Air Force intended to award the contract to Embraer from early in this process.”

During the hearing on December 28, Hawker Beechcraft requested that the court grant a temporary restraining order to preclude the Air Force from moving forward in the contract process.  The court agreed to establish an accelerated schedule for briefings on the temporary restraining order and the legal merits of the case.  A ruling on Hawker Beechcraft’s request for a temporary restraining order is expected as early as January 11.

The company still has no concrete reasons for the exclusion of the Beechcraft AT-6, having been denied explanation by the U.S. Air Force on two occasions.  The LAS contract, on track to benefit a non-U.S. company, is valued at nearly $1 billion of U.S. taxpayer money.

The AT-6 is a world-class, light attack aircraft that has been evaluated and proven capable through a multi-year, Congressionally-funded program led by the Air National Guard. Hawker Beechcraft and its industrial partners worked closely with the Air Force for two years to develop parameters for the LAS competition and invested more than $100 million preparing to meet the Air Force’s specific requirements for a light attack aircraft.  The benefits of the AT-6 include the following:

• The AT-6 is designed and manufactured in the U.S. to be used by the U.S and its allies.
• Keeping this contract in the U.S. will help preserve 1,400 domestic jobs at 181 companies in 39 states.
• The AT-6 draws its heritage from the airframe of the number one training aircraft in the world, the Beechcraft T-6. The company has built more than 725 T-6 aircraft, which are used to train every fixed-wing military pilot in the United States and are successfully operated by six allied air forces around the world. The graduation to the AT-6 light attack airplane would be a natural progression.
• The AT-6 is the sum of the Air Force’s proven T-6, A-10C mission system and MC-12W sensor suite.
• The weapons and avionics systems included on the AT-6 are familiar to NATO allies and have been proven effective on many continents and in other NATO aircraft.

The article Air Force Awarded Light Air Support Contract appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.

Saturday, a plane carrying 25 passengers and crew went down in eastern Indonesia, killing everyone onboard according to local radio. “I can confirm that all the passengers were killed when the plane exploded as it crashed into the sea,” a navy officer told ElShinta radio. “The aircraft was smashed to pieces… We found 15 bodies floating on the water and the other passengers are trapped inside the wreckage.”

The crash happened during bad weather and the plane reportedly went into the ocean just short of the airstrip at the port town of Kaimana, in the eastern province of West Papua. The Indonesian archipelago is dependent on its air traffic but has one of Asia’s worst air safety records, according to the BBC. The twin turbo-prop plane, operated by Merpati Airlines, was flying from the coastal city of Sorong, also in the eastern part of West Papua.

The transport ministry initially told The Times of India that 27 people – 21 passengers and 6 crew members – had been onboard the Merpati Airlines MA-60 aircraft, but airline officials confirmed this evening, local time, that the deaths include 16 adult passengers, one child, two infants, two pilots, two flight attendants and two technicians, according to The Jakarta Post.

“The plane crashed as it was trying to make an emergency landing due to bad weather,” the Indonesian government spokesman Bambang S. Ervan said. Later the conditions of the fatal event were further elaborated; “The weather was bad as there was heavy rainfall, which shortened the [pilot's] range of vision. It was also very dark. Thus, the airplane did not reach the runway,” the director general at the Ministry of Air Transportation, Herry Bakti, was quoted as saying by the Jakarta Post.

Indonesia has been plagued by commercial airline crashes in recent years. According to The Times of India’s report, a Twin Otter plane – also operated by the aforementioned Merpati Airlines – crashed into a mountain side in a remote area of Papua in 2009, killing the 16 people onboard. Merpati Airlines was also responsible for the plane which in 2010 overran a runway after landing in Manokwari in West Papua. The craft broke intro three pieces and injured 44 of the more than 100 passengers.

In 2007, the European Union banned all of Indonesia’s airlines, including the national carrier Garuda. This followed a crash by the now-defunct Adam Air in which 102 passengers and crew were swallowed by the deep water off the coast of Sulawesi. No bodies were ever recovered and only fragments of the aircraft were washed up.

The EU relaxed the ban two years later under the reasoning that many of the safety issues had been resolved. Garuda and three other carriers were approved but Merpati Airlines is still on the ban-list.

The article No Survivors after Plane crash off Papua, Indonesia appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.