06 JUL 2009 _______________________________________ *Signals detected from crashed Yemenia A310 recorders *Comores president appeals for help to find A310 recorders *AF447: Loss of contact opens rift between Brazil and Senegal *EASA prepares for MRO oversight retaliation against USA *EU action could require US airlines to carry mechanics on board *Angola's TAAG set for blacklist reprieve *Indonesia says expects EU to lift ban on 4 airlines *New safety Initiatives Considered Post Air France, Yemenia Crashes **************************************** Signals detected from crashed Yemenia A310 recorders French investigators have confirmed the detection of signals emitted by flight recorders on the crashed Yemenia Airbus A310-300. The Bureau d'Enquetes et d'Analyses (BEA) says the transmissions were picked up today during the underwater search for the cockpit-voice and flight-data recorders. It says "two acoustic beacons" have been detected. Flight IY626 came down off the coast of the Comorian island of Ngazidja on 30 June while operating a service from Sana'a to Moroni. Only one survivor from the accident has been found from among the 153 passengers and crew on board. Source: Air Transport Intelligence news *************** Comores president appeals for help to find A310 recorders Comores president Ahmed Abdallah Mohamed Sambi has appealed for additional assistance to locate the flight recorders from the crashed Yemenia Airbus A310. The aircraft came down while preparing to land at Moroni, on the Comorian island of Ngazidja, on 30 June. In a statement to the Indian Ocean nation, the president said emergency services would "intensify the search" for victims. "We must also strengthen the search to find the flight recorder of the aircraft in order to explain this occurrence," he adds. "That's why I've launched a new appeal to the world to give us more help and resources." One survivor has been found following the accident, a 14-year old female. The Comorian Government had previously erroneously said rescuers had found a five-year old child. Yemenia's flight IY626 had been conducting a service from Sana'a with 153 passengers and crew. Source: Air Transport Intelligence news **************** AF447: Loss of contact opens rift between Brazil and Senegal Initial details of the handover of Air France flight AF447 from Brazil to Senegal have opened a rift between the two states, as investigators attempt to establish how long the Airbus A330 was out of contact before a formal emergency alert was declared. Preliminary findings into the loss of the AF447 indicate that, after the jet failed to respond to radio calls shortly before leaving Brazilian airspace, several hours elapsed while controllers in 10 different flight information regions tried to determine the aircraft's position. Circumstances of the loss - close to the Brazil-Senegal oceanic airspace boundary, where responsibility for the flight is handed over - have made the transfer issue a sensitive matter. France's Bureau d'Enquetes et d'Analyses (BEA) states that the flight "was not transferred" between Brazil's Atlantico and Senegal's Dakar oceanic centres. This has been backed by West African air navigation service ASECNA. But the Brazilian air force says it wants to "eliminate doubts" about the procedures followed. It has publicly issued an audio segment of the moment the Atlantico controller co-ordinated transfer of AF447 to Dakar, when the A330 was estimating reaching the Brazil-Senegal airspace boundary - the waypoint designated TASIL - at 02:20UTC. Only changes in excess of 3min to this estimated time would have required further co-ordination with Dakar. But the estimate was never revised because the Atlantico controller could not raise AF447 after the last radio contact at 01:35UTC. As a result, argues the air force, Dakar "theoretically" assumed control of the aircraft at 02:20UTC. But in a statement ASECNA claims the "onus" was on the Atlantico controller to call his counterpart at Dakar centre to confirm the aircraft's arrival at the airspace boundary. "This formality was not performed," it says, and the aircraft did not contact Dakar to "signal its presence". ASECNA rejects as "totally unfounded" the Brazilian suggestion that aircraft can be assumed to have entered Dakar airspace if the Dakar centre does not warn otherwise. But BEA's interim report into the crash highlights a September 2008 agreement between the Atlantico and Dakar centres which was in force at the time of the crash. This states that air crews must contact the receiving sector controller 5min before the airspace boundary, but also that controllers in the receiving sector must inform the exiting sector if they cannot establish contact with an aircraft within 3min of the estimated time of arrival. BEA warns against drawing early conclusions over the search and rescue situation, stating that its chronology of subsequent air traffic control communications is "still fragmentary". But the interim report states that Dakar controllers worked with a 'virtual' track of AF447 in the absence of radio contact and a confirmed trajectory. There was no log-on to the Dakar automatic dependent surveillance tracking system. Some 28 minutes after the estimated entry of AF447 into Dakar oceanic airspace, the Dakar controller informed the adjacent centre, Cape Verde Sal, that the aircraft had not yet made contact. More than an hour later, at 03:54UTC, with AF447 running 9min behind the projected time to enter Sal airspace, Sal called Dakar for an update, and was told that AF447 had not contacted Dakar to revise its estimates. Sal informed Dakar at 04:07UTC that it was tracking a second Air France flight, AF459, which had been some 37min behind AF447. This second aircraft failed to raise AF447 on the radio. At 04:21UTC Dakar called Atlantico centre to confirm the whether AF447 had exited Brazilian airspace at TASIL in line with the original estimate. BEA's partial chronology does not yet include full information from the Atlantico and Sal centres. But the Brazilian air force states that, after Dakar queried AF447's position with Atlantico, the Recife-based Salvaero search and rescue division "initiated necessary actions to start air operations to locate the missing aircraft" at 05:20UTC. By this time Air France was also trying to confirm the flight's position and, over a period of about three hours, the carrier and several other control centres - among them Canarias, Santa Maria, Casablanca, Lisboa, Madrid and Brest - exchanged information in a bid to establish the aircraft's whereabouts. At one stage, the BEA chronology shows, the flight was erroneously reported to have been in contact with Moroccan air traffic control. Air France and Brest centre informed BEA of the situation shortly after 07:41UTC. Madrid centre issued an 'alert' emergency phase at 08:15UTC and Brest launched a 'distress' phase about 20min later. Source: Air Transport Intelligence news *************** EASA prepares for MRO oversight retaliation against USA Europe's safety regulator is already preparing retaliatory action to be taken if the US Senate passes the controversial US FAA reauthorisation bill, which would require the FAA to inspect Part 145-certificated foreign repair stations at least twice a year. In a letter to European air transport director Daniel Calleja, European Aviation Safety Agency chief Patrick Goudou writes that the bill's inspection requirements "contravene the confidence built in the regulatory oversight" carried out by the FAA and EASA, currently harmonised by the bilateral EU-US aviation safety agreement signed in June 2008. Goudou adds: "Measures should be put in place to make sure that the European side will act in a reciprocal manner if the above-mentioned act is finally adopted." These measures, he says, would involve EASA's carrying out oversight of all 1,233 US repair stations that have been granted an EASA type 145 approval, and are currently surveilled by the FAA. EASA is already preparing an invitation to tender for a study to define "the most efficient way" to carry out such oversight, writes Goudou, who suggests that surveyors could be based initially in Europe and later, once "legal prerequisites" are met, in the USA. Negation of the US-EU bilateral agreement would impose higher costs on US maintenance organisations. Under EASA rules, organisations covered by bilateral agreements are charged €1,500 ($2,100) for new Part 145/147-equivalent approvals and €750 for renewals. However, those which are not covered by bilaterals are required to seek full maintenance organisation approval, for which charges are imposed on a sliding scale based on employee numbers. An organisation with at least 1,000 employees would face a €53,000 approval fee and a €43,000 surveillance fee. Goudou says EASA will write to all 1,233 of its approved US maintenance organisations this month, requesting information on their employee numbers and on the technical ratings they would seek if their status changed from "bilateral accepted approval" to full EASA Part 145 approval. This communique "would serve the purpose of informing all maintenance organisations on the negative impact of the envisaged change, and this will trigger most probably some reactions in the repair station community", he writes. The study on how best to carry out oversight will be launched this month and conclude in September, with a choice of option to follow in October. Deployment would take place between November and June 2010, according to the timetable set out in Goudou's letter to Calleja, who had previously written to EASA to stress the "urgent need" for the agency to draw up draft measures. Source: Air Transport Intelligence news **************** EU action could require US airlines to carry mechanics on board Retaliation by the European Union to a controversial US FAA reauthorisation bill could force some US carriers to fly with their own FAA-certified mechanics onboard, an industry body has warned. The bill - which was passed by Congress in May and is due to face a Senate vote in August - requires the FAA to inspect Part 145-certificated foreign repair stations at least twice a year. According to Francois Gayet, secretary general of the AeroSpace and Defence Industries Association of Europe (ASD), the bill "stops" the bilateral EU-US aviation safety agreement signed in June 2008, eliminating the cost savings that derive from mutual recognition of certifications by the FAA and the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA). If the Senate passes the reauthorisation bill and the EU imposes similar strictures in retaliation, around 1,200 MRO facilities in the USA would be subject to inspections by EASA, estimates Gayet. The ASD is arguing for the exclusion of territories that have bilateral agreements with the USA from the scope of the reauthorisation bill, and is making representations to the European Commission, European Union member states and its own US counterpart, the Aerospace Industries Association. It expects EU transport commissioner Antonio Tajani to register his objections to the bill in a letter to US officials. According to Gayet, a transatlantic tit-for-tat would lead to some US carriers having to carry mechanics aboard flights to destinations lacking an FAA-certified repair station. "The FAA can't cover all stations," he asserts, adding that the reauthorisation bill presents "a serious, urgent problem", particularly for general aviation operators which serve a wide range of airfields and do not have space to carry mechanics on their aircraft. US Congressman James Oberstar, who sponsored the reauthorisation bill, has defended the inspection provision, saying it "will simply ensure that foreign entities conducting repair work on US aircraft adhere to US safety standards and regulations", adding: "I welcome the same scrutiny by the EU of US repair stations." Gayet is hopeful that the Senate will generate its own reauthorisation legislation. Source: Air Transport Intelligence news *************** Angola's TAAG set for blacklist reprieve Angolan flag-carrier TAAG appears set to be removed from the European Commission's airline blacklist, two years after its inclusion. Portuguese civil aviation authority INAC states that the European air safety committee, in a meeting last week, "unanimously" adopted a recommendation allowing TAAG to resume flights on the Luanda-Lisbon route. The Commission has yet to detail the latest amendments to the blacklist which, last November, was extended to cover all Angolan airlines. INAC says it is co-operating with its Angolan counterpart to assist with lifting this blanket ban in Europe. Carriers from several other African states - Liberia, Sierra Leone, Swaziland, Benin, Democratic Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea - are also banned completely, as are airlines from Indonesia and Kyrgyzstan. Source: Air Transport Intelligence news ***************** Indonesia says expects EU to lift ban on 4 airlines JAKARTA, July 5 (Reuters) - An Indonesian transport ministry official said on Sunday the European Union was expected to lift its ban on four Indonesian airlines soon, but the ban would stay in place for several of the country's other airlines. Indonesia has suffered from a series of deadly air disasters over the years, affecting both commercial and military aircraft. In 2007, the European Union banned all Indonesian airlines from its airspace because of safety issues. While none of Indonesia's airlines flew to Europe at the time, national carrier Garuda Indonesia had said it wanted to start flights to Amsterdam. The ban also deterred some European tourists who visited Indonesia from travelling within the country because of safety concerns. Herry Bakti, director general of air transport, said an air safety commission meeting with 27 European countries last week agreed to give a positive recommendation to their commissioners to lift the ban on several Indonesian airlines. "The air safety commission was satisfied by improvements made by Indonesia," Bakti said. "Logically if it has been discussed by the technical team of 27 countries, and they made a (positive) recommendation, the political decision will not change it," he added, saying that the decision should be official in about two weeks' time. The ban will be lifted for four Indonesian airlines -- Garuda Indonesia, the national carrier, Mandala Air, Airfast, and Premiair -- Bakti said. In January 2007, an Adam Air plane crashed off the coast of west Sulawesi, killing 102 people on board. A few months later a Garuda airplane crashed as it landed at Yogyakarta's airport, killing 23. The military has also experienced several accidents. In May this year, a Hercules military transport plane crashed in east Java, killing more than 100 people. The EU had pushed for improvements in Indonesia's air safety standards. "It is a long journey to improve our civil aviation safety, and to improve our human resources that we know is still very limited," Bakti said. *************** New safety Initiatives Considered Post Air France, Yemenia Crashes Pressure is mounting to overhaul core elements of the air transport industry's approach to aviation safety management in the wake of two fatal crashes of Airbus widebodies within a month. One initiative that is gaining traction is finding a way to transmit from the aircraft to the ground information now stored on cockpit voice and flight data recorders. The interest in such a system has been driven home by the inability to locate the so-called black boxes from Air France Flight 447 a month after the Airbus A330-200 crashed into the ocean, raising the prospect of not being able to adequately establish a probable cause. Airbus officials have suggested that a move to provide some sort of backup was all but inevitable, and the aircraft maker now has decided to take the initiative to try to find a fix. "Various technical means for reinforcing flight data recovery and data transmission to ground centers are principally available," says President and CEO Tom Enders, noting that "we will now study different options for viable commercial solutions, including those where our experience with real-time data transmission from our own test aircraft could support the further development of such solutions." Airbus has not yet decided whether to limit its initiative to relaying data via existing communications means or to pursue new links. However, company personnel point out that "existing air-to-ground links for 'Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System' (Acars) maintenance data transmission do not offer the bandwidth that would be needed for a fully real-time transmission of all the data stored" on recorders. Aviation information technology provider SITA has just begun investigating what data could be collected and linked to the ground, says CEO Francesco Violante. "We are just at the beginning," he notes. Among the issues being looked at is how bandwidth-intensive such a service might be, although he suggests that one option might be to downlink only a critical subset of the data stored on flight data recorders (FDRs). An industry official points out that a data link would never be more than a backup to FDRs because signals could be degraded when flying through storms. However, many unanswered questions crop up when it comes to real-time telemetry, says John Cox, CEO of Safety Operating Systems and a former safety executive for the Air Line Pilots Assn. Because FDRs are almost always recovered, he questions whether the cost of such a backup can be justified. Other issues need addressing, particularly when it comes to pilot concerns about data misuse. Cox says that management of the collected data domestically and internationally is one, as is whether airlines would try to use the telemetry to act punitively against pilots. A regulatory push could spark a rift with the pilot community similar to the cameras-in-cockpits debate. Back-up data recorders are not the only topic coming to the fore. Safety concerns existed regarding Yemenia Airways even before the June 30 crash of its Airbus A310-300 with 153 on board and are driving the European Union to urge for an expansion of its aviation blacklist to a global one. When the European Union created the blacklist, the move was not without controversy, in part because of a sense it was mainly punitive and did not do enough to improve safety at blacklisted carriers. The U.S. also maintains a list of barred carriers, although it uses a different methodology. European Transport Commissioner Antonio Tajani vowed to push the subject of a global blacklist with the International Civil Aviation Organization. Yemenia Flight IY626 went down on approach to the Comoros' Moroni Airport at 1:51 a.m. local time while making its second landing attempt. The A310-300 (registered 70 - ADJ) left Sana'a in Yemen with 142 passengers and 11 crew on board; one survived. Airbus says the aircraft, MSN535, rolled off its Toulouse assembly line in 1990 and has been in service with Yemenia since 1999. The aircraft had logged around 51,900 flight hours and 17,300 flights and was powered by Pratt & Whitney PW4152 turbofans. It was one of four A310s Yemenia operated and one of two the carrier acquired used. French Transport Minister Dominique Bussereau says the mishap aircraft, in 2007, had drawn critical scrutiny from the French civil aviation agency, DGAC, causing Yemenia to be considered for inclusion on a blacklist of carriers banned from operating in the EU. Yemenia was operating its A330-200s in France due to concerns there about its A310s. Yemenia had passed the International Air Transport Assn.'s (IOSA) operational safety audit, which has become a standard for the airline industry. But aviation safety officials were wary of the airline. A year ago, the European Commission scrutinized the carrier's safety record, but only requested that corrective actions be taken. At the time, the EC argued that "there is verified evidence of non-compliances with specific safety standards established by the Chicago Convention on the part of the carrier Yemenia," problems French, German and Italian officials identified during ramp inspections. The airline then took corrective measures. Meanwhile, investigators released an interim report on the crash of AF 447, and disclosed they believe the A330 impacted the Atlantic at high velocity in the direction of flight and with the underside of the fuselage striking the sea first. Visual examination of debris, including the tail fin and parts of the galley, suggested that impact pattern. They noted, too, that the aircraft did not break apart in flight, says Alain Bouillard, lead investigator for the French air accident bureau (BEA). Also, no signs of fire or an explosion have been detected. The speed at impact and time the aircraft hit the surface are not established, nor is whether more passengers were alive at impact. Some clues to those questions may lie in personal effects now held by Brazilian authorities and pending autopsy results of the 51 bodies recovered. Debris and 24 Acars fault messages broadcast just before all communication was lost remain the primary areas of investigation. France will continue until July 10 to try and locate cockpit voice and FDRs by searching for signals from the attached beacon, but they are now beyond the 30-day required operational life. Starting this week, the search effort will shift to using sonar and other systems to try to find debris. The focus is largely on a 40-naut.-mi.-sq. area and Bouillard is hopeful more wreckage can be recovered. The search will run until mid-August, with a decision due then on whether to continue. The BEA report confirms the known problems with anomalous speed information, but investigators point out that they still have no data to suggest a pitot tube failure or that a mandatory replacement of the Thales-designed probes is needed. They merely note that the tubes remain under examination as part of the chain of events to have led to the crash. Bouillard says the BEA is in touch with the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, which is reviewing two other cases when Airbus A330s had pitot tube problems (see story, below). Prior to the sequence of Acars messages, there were no indications of anything wrong with the flight, although two Acars messages were transmitted early on, related to the configuration of lavatories. The aircraft also dispatched that it experienced an issue on one of three radio control panels, but investigators do not see a link to the accident there, either. Beyond what may have brought down the Rio de Janeiro-Paris-bound AF 447, investigators are also looking at why it wasn't properly handed off from Brazilian to Senegalese ATC authorities. Bouillard notes that inquiry has nothing to do with the crash, per se, but could have led to rescue operations beginning more promptly. Those did not commence until Madrid and Brest ATC personnel sounded the alarm 6 hr. later. The crew of the mishap aircraft also tried unsuccessfully to contact - for a third time - ATC at Dakar, around 2:01 or 13 min. before the last Acars message was sent. http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/story.jsp?id=news/aw070609p3.xml&headline=New%20safety%20Initiatives%20Considered%20Post%20Air%20France,%20Yemenia%20Crashes&channel=awst ****************** Curt Lewis, P.E., CSP CURT LEWIS & ASSOCIATES, LLC