Flight Safety Information march 7, 2011 - No. 049 In This Issue Airbus to Make Cockpit Changes Agencies Seek to Resolve Air-Safety Flap... Russian Airplane Crash Kills Six People, Two From Myanmar Turkish Air Incidents Threaten Growth Air India plans all-women crew flights to mark International Women's Day Thief nabs nearly $250,000 from airplane cargo Airbus sees a third of jet demand from Asia Airbus to Make Cockpit Changes By ANDY PASZTOR ISTANBUL (WSJ) -- European jet manufacturer Airbus, expanding cockpit automation across its entire model lineup, is introducing a new feature to help planes fly close to each other in busy airspace without triggering airborne-collision warnings. Slated to be phased in over the next few years, the move underscore the company's commitment to increasingly rely on automation -- without requiring any pilot commands -- in order to reduce the hazards of midair collisions. It also illustrates how most segments of the airline industry, particularly some previously skeptical pilot groups, over the years have come to accept that Airbus design philosophy. The planned software changes to flight-control computers were outlined earlier this week by a senior Airbus test pilot at a European safety conference here. The goal, according to Claude Lelaie, is to allow aircraft to climb or descend within 1,000 feet of each other -- typically during cruise and while following instructions from air-traffic controllers -- without triggering collision warnings that otherwise would disrupt flight paths by requiring planes take immediate evasive action. The Airbus official said such warnings, called collision-avoidance advisories, frequently prompt pilots to overreact by making their planes climb or dive too steeply or for to long. Such responses can injure passengers and inadvertently create dangerous conflicts with other nearby traffic. Data gathered by Airbus indicates that roughly half of all midair- collision warnings occur when jets are merely changing altitudes quickly, but there isn't a danger of a collision. The warnings stem from current cockpit systems that mistakenly project that aircraft cruising toward each won't level off in time to maintain different assigned altitudes. Airlines told Airbus, a unit of European Aeronautic Defence & Space Co., they were "fed up with all the nuisance" warnings, Mr. Lelaie told the conference sponsored by the Flight Safety Foundation To eliminate the problem, the new feature will kick in, on its own, to smoothe out aircraft flight paths and ensure that computers aboard converging planes automatically communicate with each other about intended trajectories. Planes headed toward each other will automatically reduce vertical speeds as they approach assigned altitudes. With airliners and business jets now routinely cruising with less vertical separation than before in heavily-used airspace, and sometimes coming even closer together during airport approaches or departures, the new Airbus feature is intended to enhance safety by preventing unnecessary warnings that can distract pilots. The safeguards will work even if only one of two planes near each other has the updated Airbus system. The result will be "less stress for the crews" and fewer "unnecessary traffic perturbations," according to Mr. Lelaie. French accident investigators identified the basic problem and urged fixes as early as 2003 In addition to installing revised software on newly-built planes within the next two or three years, Airbus later intends to encourage airlines to retrofit the new systems on existing fleets The announcement follows many years of separate Airbus efforts to automate aircraft responses to impending collisions. In 2006, Airbus sparked some controversy by announcing automated cockpit systems that would take evasive action, on their own, in the event pilots failed to react to aural and visual midair-collision warnings. Some pilot groups initially were cool or outright opposed to the concept, arguing that it limited the crew's authority to deal with emergencies. But the controversy has largely died down, as pilots increasingly embraced the earlier changes as important safety backups. Those systems already are flying on Airbus A380 superjumbo jets, and are slated to be installed on all newly-built Airbus aircraft in coming years. In explaining the latest concept to pilots and airlines, however, Mr. Lelaie said in an interview that "there has been no major opposition" and the design changes have been "well received by the industry." Yet today's flight-control revisions go well beyond previous Airbus automation initiatives, because activation of the new safety feature no longer will depend on what pilots do or fail to do. The plane's flight- management computer and autopilot effectively will take over whenever midair-collision warnings pop up in the cruise phase of flight. Cockpit instruments will make pilots aware of what's happening, though they won't have a role in adjusting the aircraft's trajectory. Meanwhile, Airbus engineers also continue to pursue what they envision as a failsafe automation feature to prevent airliners, regardless of the circumstances, from flying into mountains, buildings or other obstacles on the ground. Such ground-collision prevention systems would have important application, among other things, for fatigued pilots, hijacked aircraft and malfunctioning onboard instruments or systems. The hurdles, however, for devising highly-reliable software for such applications, and then getting safety regulators to give the green light, are more difficult than any automated flight-control scheme Airbus has ever developed. Nevertheless, Mr. Lelaie said the company continues to work actively on the issue. Back to Top Agencies Seek to Resolve Air-Safety Flap By ANDY PASZTOR (WSJ) U.S. aviation regulators and accident investigators both appear to be searching for ways to resolve a previously reported dispute over who should have access to safety data that airlines voluntary provide to the government, according to federal and industry officials. For weeks, the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board have sparred over what information board investigators should gain access to regarding safety lapses by U.S. airlines over the years. The NTSB has sought such material, previously voluntarily disclosed by airlines and pilots, as part of its ongoing probe of an American Airlines Boeing 757 jetliner that ran off the end of a runway last December in Jackson Hole, Wyo. Nobody was hurt, but safety board investigators are looking into why certain panels on top of the wings failed to automatically deploy as usual to help slow the plane. The board also wants to determine why the panels, sometimes called speed brakes or spoilers, weren't manually deployed as safety and operational rules typically require. AMR Corp.'s American Airlines unit has declined to comment on precisely what happened. A final compromise about the data at issue, these people said, is likely to take some time and could still end up being blocked by strong feelings in both camps. The bureaucratic, inside-the-Beltway flap has potentially important policy implications, however, because it could set a precedent about the scope of the safety board's activities in the future. The board's chairman has talked about getting broad access to incident data historically off-limits to NTSB accident investigators. The FAA and industry officials, on the other hand, worry that such a policy reversal could chill collection of voluntary safety data. In return for obtaining a steady stream of voluntary safety data, FAA officials for more than a decade have promised they typically won't use the disclosures to punish or publicly embarrass airlines or pilots. While several industry and government officials initially said the board wanted full access to specific incident data, others familiar with the matter recently said the NTSB's official request is for "summary data" that doesn't identify specific flights or demand other data that could result in public disclosure of mistakes previously reported by individual carriers or pilots. The FAA, for its part, initially reacted coolly to the board's request, with some agency officials hinting they were poised to reject it. But last week, government officials clarified the latest status and tenor of the fluid discussions. The FAA, according to these officials, has stopped short of formally making any decision, referring the issue instead to a high-level group of industry and government safety experts. The board wants the historical information to determine trends about safety system malfunctions and pilot mistakes that led to runway incidents similar to the Wyoming event. So far, the board hasn't officially indicated what theories it is pursuing in the American AIrlines incident. FAA officials have declined to comment on the agency's position. But recently, the FAA's discussions with the safety board became less tense and more cordial, according to several people close to the developments. "The current sense is that with some common sense and care, this can be worked out to everyone's satisfaction," according to one veteran government expert familiar with the details. Back to Top Russian Airplane Crash Kills Six People, Two From Myanmar An airplane crashed in the Belgorod region of central Russia this morning, killing all six people on board, including two citizens of Myanmar, Emergency Situations Ministry spokeswoman Yelena Smirnykh said by telephone. The Antonov An-148 regional jet belonged to OAO VASO, the Voronezh-based company that produces the aircraft, the Investigative Committee said on its website. The jet crashed 140 kilometers (87 miles) from Voronezh, the committee said. The An-148 was one of two to be delivered to Myanmar's air force under a contract signed last year, Interfax reported, citing an unidentified official close to OAO United Aircraft Corp., Russia's state- controlled umbrella company for aviation designers and manufacturers. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/ ****** Status: Preliminary Date: 05 MAR 2011 Time: ca 11:00 Type: Antonov 148-100 Operator: Voronezh Aircraft Production Association (VASO) Registration: RA-61708 C/n / msn: 41-03 First flight: Crew: Fatalities: 6 / Occupants: 6 Passengers: Fatalities: 0 / Occupants: 0 Total: Fatalities: 6 / Occupants: 6 Airplane damage: Destroyed Airplane fate: Written off (damaged beyond repair) Location: Garbuzovo, Belgorod Region (Russia) Phase: En route (ENR) Nature: Test Departure airport: Voronezh-Pridacha Airport () (UUOD), Russia Destination airport: Voronezh-Pridacha Airport (UUOD), Russia Narrative: Crashed and burned during test flight. The airplane was destined for Myanmar Air Force. Two Myanmar Air Force crew members were on board the flight. Back to Top Turkish Air Incidents Threaten Growth By ANDY PASZTOR ISTANBUL(WSJ)-Nagging safety problems, including two dangerously botched landings in the past five months, threaten to undermine the ambitious growth plans of Turkish Airlines, according to some company pilots and safety experts. Building on an expansion spurt since 2003 that rapidly increased the size of its fleet and catapulted the once-sleepy carrier into a major industry player, Turkish Airlines is now pursuing an even more aggressive strategy, Chief Executive Temel Kotil said in an interview Friday. Opening service to dozens of new cities will dramatically raise awareness of its brand, Mr. Kotil said, with the goal of doubling international transit passengers to 10 million a year by 2015 and turning Istanbul into a world-class hub for passengers connecting with Europe to and from Asia, Africa and the Middle East. But Europe's anticipated No. 3 full-service airline, based on the number of passengers carried in 2010, has a spotty safety record and a management philosophy that critics contend could lead to more hazards. The company has suffered three major fatal accidents since 1999, including a Boeing 737 that stalled and crashed into a field in February 2009 on final approach to Amsterdam's airport because the crew failed to keep track of the plane's speed and became confused by cockpit automation, according to Dutch safety investigators. Last October, the airline had two separate hazardous landing incidents that were also probably caused by pilot lapses but didn't result in any injures or deaths, according to people familiar with the details. Around the same time, British air-crash investigators also criticized a Turkish Airlines crew for violating basic safety rules by failing to follow the instructions of automatic midair-collision warning systems while descending amid heavy traffic toward London's Heathrow International Airport. Nuri Sakarya,general secretary of the Turkish Airline Pilots Association, believes that "automation issues sometimes have not been understood well by Turkish pilots," and that, as a result, the carrier should dial back growth and "needs to make a commitment to find the gaps" while enhancing training. In an interview last week, Capt. Sakarya also emphasized that before flying to new destinations, the company's management doesn't do enough to help pilots understand the ground-collision threats and other potential risks. One of the Turkish airliners involved in the landing incidents last October veered off the runway in bad weather after touchdown and sped on for some 3,000 feet as the crew barely managed to wrestle the plane's wheels back to the strip. The other aircraft slammed both engines attached to its left wing onto the runway as the flight crew struggled to keep from becoming airborne again. Now, some of the airline's own pilots and outside experts increasingly worry those mistakes haven't served as an adequate wake-up call for management to scale back growth projections and enhance training. Today's aviators need training for "a lot more automation failures instead of engine failures," Aydin Ozkazanc, another Turkish pilot, told a European aviation safety seminar here last week. Since "it's very hard to keep track of which aircraft has [precisely] what system" onboard, Mr. Ozkazanc said, it's essential to maintain "open communication" between management and pilots about automation design differences. Turkish Airlines is hardly alone in struggling with such questions. Revising training in order to help pilots better understand and cope with computer or automation problems is one of the toughest safety issues confronting the entire industry. Some Turkish Airline pilots said the carrier has made preliminary moves in that direction, partly by getting crews to inform safety leaders about automation failures. But so far, management has declined all comment. In the interview last week, Mr. Kotil, the Turkish Air chief, said he hopes to launch at least 50 new routes in the next few years, even as Turkish Airlines, which already boasts one of the industry's youngest fleets, begins flying more-advanced and longer-range jets. Nonstop flights between Los Angeles and Istanbul kicked off last week, with management considering adding service down the road to Miami, Houston, Detroit and perhaps Boston. The rapid growth means the carrier has had to scramble to hire and train enough young pilots to fill its cockpits. In the next few years, Mr. Kotil said, those co-pilots will likely be promoted to captains. Having such relatively inexperienced captains commanding international flights would be unusual when compared with European and U.S. carriers, which require more experience on such routes. Meanwhile, about 15% of the cockpit crews at Turk Hava Yollari A.O., as the airline is formally called, are expected to continue to be expatriate pilots for the next few years, underscoring the shortage of homegrown talent and potentially creating the kinds of discipline and cultural stresses that other airlines have found can result from mixing nationalities in cockpits. Yet Mr. Kotil, who has a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan and worked in the past for the Istanbul municipal government, was excited about the breakneck growth. "Our major strategy is to go to as many cities as possible," he said. Asked if the accidents and close calls have affected simulator training and the carrier's safety culture, Mr. Kotil responded, "Whatever procedures we were applying those days, yesterday and today, they are the same," he said. Unlike officials at most U.S. and foreign carriers, who typically highlight the internal changes that follow a high-profile accident, Mr. Kotil took the opposite tack when he was interviewed. "There is no change, there is nothing specific to do," he said, except to routinely review incident data "and continue business as usual." Amid tricky winds and low visibility one night last October, pilots flying one of the airline's twin-engine Airbus A310 cargo planes had a hard time lining up to land at the airport in Casablanca, Morocco. According to the people familiar with the sequence of events, the captain disregarded normal practices and opted to land even though the jet was coming in too high. One safety expert, who refused to be identified, said the crew was lucky to eventually regain control given the stiff crosswind and slick runway surface. A week earlier, a much larger Airbus A340 powered by four engines touched down hard at the Brussels airport, but the nose gear remained airborne for longer than normal. The right wing started to gain lift and the left wing dropped, causing both engines on that side to hit the runway. Against this backdrop, there are some officials inside Turkish Airlines who favor changes. For instance, Huseyin Ozkarafakili, the manager of the simulator facility near the Istanbul airport used by pilots, said there have been some high-level corporate discussions about the possibility of reducing training intervals to three months from the current six months. "It could help pilots face more emergency situations [and] be more aware of how to react," he said. Reducing scheduled intervals for recurrent pilot training-even if simulatior sessions end up being required less often than every three months-would be significant because most large U.S. airlines are moving to stretch out rather than shorten the time between training activities. Some big carriers have special programs in place designed to stretch out mandatory refresher training and pilot-proficiency testing to 15 months or longer. Mr. Kotil's growth projections could also falter because of chronic capacity constraints at Istanbul's Ataturk International Airport. Despite air-traffic-control upgrades and the construction of additional high-speed runway turnoffs that together have yielded a roughly 20% bump in aircraft flow in good weather, chronic airfield and airspace limitations persist. David McMillan, Europe's top air-traffic control official, told the conference last week that more than one million flights are expected in Turkish airspace this year, up from 700,000 five years ago. But as a result, he added, Istanbul "now has one of the highest levels of delay in the European network." Back to Top Air India plans all-women crew flights to mark International Women's Day New Delhi, March 7, 2011 - National carrier Air India has planned several flights with all-women crews to mark International Women's Day tomorrow while the Ministry of Civil Aviation will honour women aviators at a special function in the capital. An official press release said Air India's non-stop AI 187 on the Delhi- Toronto sector would be operated Commanders Capt Rashmi Miranda and Capt Sunita Narula and first officers Capt Varsha Sheoran and Capt Nidhi Suri. The flight wil be despatched by Ms Rashmi Verma. Other flights that will be operated by all-women crew tomorrow are AI-409/410 Delhi-Patna-Delhi, AI-469 Delhi-Raipur-Nagpur-Delhi, AI- 811/812 Delhi-Lucknow-Delhi, AI-603/604 Mumbai-Bangalore- Mumbai, AI-569 Chennai-Mumbai, IX-671 Chennai-Colombo-Chennai and IX-302 Kozhikode-Mumbai-Kozhikode. Apart from the crew, women despatchers, load and trim staff, engineers, check-in counter staff, doctors for crew breathalyser test, security personnel and safety audit personnelwill be involved with the flights, the release said. sThe release said Air India's foray into all-women crew flights dated back to November 1985 when Capt. Saudamini Deshmukh and Capt. Nivedita Bhasin operated an Indian Airlines Fokker Friendship flight from Kolkata to Silchar, followed by the first jet flight when they operated a B737 from Mumbai to Goa in 1989. The first A310 flight with all-women crew was operated on March 8, 2004 to Singapore with Capt. Rashmi Miranda in command and Capt. Kshmata Bajpai as co-pilot. Last year, Air India had organised an all-women crew flight. The Boeing 777-200LR non-stop flight AI-141 from Mumbai to New York at midnight on March 8, 2010 took off which created history when an all-women crew operated an ultra long-haul flight. In 2010, Air India operated a record 22 all-women crew flights across its domestic and international network. The function to felicitate women aviators has been organised by the Ministry to mark the Day and also as part of events to celebrate the centenary year of civil aviation in India. Civil Aviation Minister Vayalar Ravi, Information and Broadcasting Minister Ambika Soni and Member of Parliament Jayanthi Natarajan will be present on the occasion. Those will be honoured tomorrow include the late Capt Prem Mathur, the first woman to obtain a commercial pilot license in India, Capt Durba Banerjee, the first woman commander of an airline and Ms Chanda Budhabhatti, founder of the Indian Women Pilots' Association. They also include Ms. Bhubaneshwari Gautam, the first woman aircraft maintenance engineer, Capt Aruna Kandarpa, the first woman helicopter pilot, Capt Sonica Chhabra, first woman instructor/examiner in airlines, Ms Harpreet A De Singh, first woman technical ground instructor and first head of quality management systems in an airline, Ms Tulsi Mirchandani, CEO, Blue Dart, Ms Shobha K Mani, CEO, North- East Shuttle, Ms Tuhinanshu Sharma, first woman ICAO auditor from DGCA and Airports Authority of India (AAI) officials Kalpana Sethi, K Hemalatha, Aryama Sanyal and R Vasundhara. The cabin crew of the Indian Airlines IC 814 that was hijacked to Kandahar in Afghanistan in December 1999 will also be honoured. They include Ms Sapna Menon, Ms Rajni Chandrasekhar, Ms Kalpana Mazumdar, Ms Tara Debnath, Mr Anil Sharma and Mr M A Satish. http://netindian.in/news/ Back to Top Thief nabs nearly $250,000 from airplane cargo hold after crawling through the bathroom A thief stole more than a quarter of a million dollars from an airplane cargo hold after sneaking through the bathroom. Related NewsNew resort packages can make this spring a season to remember Trinidad & Tobago going all out to attract more touristsMcCallister: Two airlines unite and make historyJamaica plane crash pilot 'happy to be home'All 154 passengers survive as American Airlines Flight 331 crashes in JamaicaFlight cuts may hurt Caribbean tourism A crafty thief nabbed more than a quarter of a million dollars from a Caribbean-bound airplane after crawling through the bathroom to access the cash-stocked cargo hold, police said. The unidentified crook complained of feeling sick and spent most of the flight in the bathroom, flight attendants told police. But in fact, airline officials said, the man was tearing out panels in the restroom in order to crawl into the cargo hold. A Brink's security guard had placed sacks of cash containing $1.6 million in the hold of the Air Antilles plane before it took off from Guadeloupe for a 40 minute trip to Saint Martin, according to Fox News. The guard discovered that $238,000 was missing after he retrieved the sacks when the plane landed. The thief, meanwhile, tried to slip away by asking a flight attendant to call an ambulance to pick him up, Fox reported. He later said he felt fine and walked out of the airport without being searched, according to Fox. A woman who was travelling with the man was questioned but did not have any cash on her. Police suspect the thief used the bathroom to sneak into the hold after airplane cleaners found a bundle of cash he had left behind near the toilet. http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ Back to Top Airbus sees a third of jet demand from Asia HONG KONG (Reuters) - European planemaker Airbus said it expects airlines in Asia to take delivery of 8,560 aircraft in the next 20 years, representing a third of the global total as the region's fast-growing economic growth fuels demand for air travel. Airbus, the world's largest passenger aircraft maker, also said it was on track to deliver its first A380 to a Chinese airline, China Southern Airlines (1055.HK)(600029.SS), in the second half, following a mid- flight engine explosion in one of the superjumbos last year. With air travel increasing, the division of Franco-German-Spanish group EADS (EAD.PA) said it hoped to maintain a market share of about 50 percent in coming years. "It just means that for us to maintain that market share we cannot sit back and be idle," Christopher Emerson, senior vice-president of product strategy at Airbus, told reporters in Hong Kong. "The Airbus forecast is based on stronger-than-average growth in passenger and freight traffic in the region, combined with the replacement of many existing aircraft in service." Currently, about a quarter of Airbus' aircraft orders are from Asia- Pacific, with the aircraft maker banking on growth in the number of passengers from the region. Airbus expects passenger numbers carried by Asia-Pacific airlines to rise by 5.8 percent annually, outpacing global growth of 4.8 percent. Emerson forecast demand in the region over the next 20 years at 3,360 wide-bodied aircraft and 5,200 new planes in the 100-210 seat category, such as its best-selling A320 series. Airbus sold 644 aircraft with a list value of more than $84 billion in 2010, beating rival Boeing Co's (BA.N) 625 planes. Curt Lewis, P.E., CSP CURT LEWIS & ASSOCIATES, LLC