Flight Safety Information November 20, 2012 - No. 233 In This Issue FAA to Airbus: Install rudder warning after fatal crash Jet plunges 3,300 feet in turbulence; 30 injured Washington DC-bound plane escorted by military jet Passenger Pulled From S. Fla. Bound Plane For Possible Threat Flying doctor pilot who breached drug and alcohol policy sacked after in-flight incident NBAA "Disappointed" In Safety Board Action Lightning Strike At Brisbane Airport Appears To Hit Plane PROS IOSA Audit Experts China's home-grown jet challenges Boeing, Airbus Kenya Aircraft Engineers to Be Trained in China Under New Deal Airport Security Is Killing Us Graduate Research Survey FAA to Airbus: Install rudder warning after fatal crash Airbus says it can install warning lights on the planes but says there's no way it can design and install equipment to limit movement of the rudder in four years. * Warning lights will be installed on Airbus A300 and A310 planes * The changes are being ordered 11 years after deadly American crash in Queens * Warning lights are less expensive than equipment to limit use of rudder November 19. 2012 - The Federal Aviation Administration has ordered aircraft maker Airbus to update the rudder systems on 215 of its planes because of a fatal 2001 crash, but some industry officials question the remedy, and safety experts wonder why it took so long. The FAA rule was finalized almost exactly 11 years after the fiery crash of American Airlines flight 587 in Queens, N.Y., on Nov. 12, 2001. The crash occurred soon after take- off from New York's JFK airport, when the Airbus A300-605R's tail came apart. All 260 on the plane were killed, as were five people on the ground. The National Transportation Safety Board found that the plane's tail fin -- the vertical stabilizer -- tore off because the pilot put too much stress on the rudder by flipping it from side to side as he fishtailed in the wake of another plane. A half-dozen other flights have suffered problems with rudder movement causing high stress on tails, but without catastrophic results. The board blamed the crash on the pilot's "unnecessary and excessive rudder" movement, which is controlled by foot pedals. But American pilots were trained at the time to use the rudder to deal with wake turbulence, so training changed across the industry in the years after the crash. Now, the FAA has worked with the counterparts at the European Aviation Safety Agency and Airbus to install a flashing light and sound in the cockpit to warn against excessive rudder movement on A300 and A310 planes. The FAA estimates the update will cost $72,720 to $107,720 per plane. Another option the FAA approved, which would cost $198,500 per plane, is to install equipment limiting movement of the rudder pedal. Airbus has warned there's "no realistic" way to design and install the pedal equipment within the four years that FAA has ordered. But Airbus won FAA certification of its warning system in March. "Airbus already has service bulletins available for airplane operators to incorporate this new warning system into their fleet," the FAA said. Airbus says the goal of the warnings is to stop a pilot from making the wrong movements rather than trying to minimize the consequences. A spokeswoman denies that cost came first in making decisions about safety. "We believe it is more appropriate to stop wrong inputs rather than counter them mechanically," says the spokeswoman, Mary Anne Greczyn. NTSB Chairman Deborah Hersman has said "a warning light alone will not rectify the unsafe condition." She also says "it is unfortunate" that no design changes are available for airlines for more than a decade. Wil Angelley, a former six-year Navy pilot and now a Dallas aviation lawyer, compares the pedal device to the anti-lock brakes in a car that prevent a driver from stomping down too hard. Airlines will have to decide whether to install that as the safest course or the warning light at one-third the cost, he says. "What's a little exasperating for me is that it took 11 years," Angelley says. The FAA says development of the warning system followed years of other actions from the agency, its European counterparts and the industry. Other steps included improving flight manuals, increasing training and updating FAA rules about misconceptions with rudder use. Two of the plane's bigger customers, delivery companies FedEx and UPS, each plan to comply with the rule by installing warning lights, but they disagreed about the need for the rule. "FedEx continues to believe that proper rudder control in response to wake turbulence is most effectively addressed through pilot education and training," says Maury Donahue, a spokeswoman for the company with 106 of the targeted planes. UPS, which has 53 of the planes, initially expressed concern about the cost of installing pedal equipment. But the company says installing a flashing light and its software could be done within the four years that the FAA allows. "UPS Airlines places the utmost value on safety and takes regulatory compliance very seriously," says spokesman Mike Mangeot. The Air Line Pilots Association also supported the rule, focusing on better rudder training for pilots while continuing to evaluate pedal sensitivity. The plane wasn't blamed in the crash because the NTSB found stress on the tail was almost twice as much as it was certified to endure. Airbus had warned that "only a small amount of rudder is needed" and that "too much rudder applied too quickly or held too long" could result in "structural failure." "The airplane was put in a position well beyond what it was designed and required by the FAA to do," says John Cox, a former commercial pilot who is an aviation-safety expert as president of Safety Operating Systems. "This is not a first-time event. It is not specific to Airbus." Cox says, however, that he would like to see FAA safety rules developed faster. The NTSB investigation of the American crash found three other incidents involving A300- 600 planes and three involving A310 aircraft in which excessive stress on the tails was blamed on use of the rudder pedal. The board singled out two that featured enough rudder movement to break the tail: -- One passenger was seriously injured in May 1997, when an American Airlines flight stalled while banking to land at Miami airport. The crew ultimately stabilized the flight. --Nobody was injured in February 1991, when a German Interflug flight aborted a landing in Moscow because of a blocked runway, then stalled repeatedly as it circled before landing safely. http://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/flights/2012/11/19/airbus-rudder/1707421/ Back to Top Jet plunges 3,300 feet in turbulence; 30 injured An airliner flying from Havana to Milan abruptly plunged some 3,300 feet when it hit unusually strong turbulence over the Atlantic on Monday, terrifying passengers and leaving some 30 people aboard with bruises and scrapes, airline officials said. ROME (AP) - An airliner flying from Havana to Milan abruptly plunged some 3,300 feet when it hit unusually strong turbulence over the Atlantic on Monday, terrifying passengers and leaving some 30 people aboard with bruises and scrapes, airline officials said. The flight continued to Milan's Malpensa airport after the plane's captain determined that it suffered no structural damage and two passengers who are physicians found no serious injuries, Giulio Buzzi, head of the pilots division at Neos Air, told Sky TG24 TV. The ANSA news agency quoted bruised passenger Edoardo De Lucchi as saying meals were being served when suddenly there was `'10 seconds of terror." He recounted how plates went flying and some passengers not wearing seatbelts bounced about. Buzzi had said that the drop measured some 10,000 feet in a cloudless sky. But Milan daily's Corriere della Sera's web site, quoting Neos official Davide Martini, later reported that the plane first bounced up some 1,650 feet, then dropped about 3,300 feet to 1,650 fee) below the original altitude. ************ Date: 19-NOV-2012 Time: Type: Boeing 767-306ER Operator: Neos Registration: I-NDMJ C/n / msn: 27958/589 Fatalities: Fatalities: 0 / Occupants: Other fatalities: 0 Airplane damage: Unknown Location: en route Havana-Milan - Phase: En route Nature: International Scheduled Passenger Departure airport: Havana-José Martí International Airport (HAV/MUHA) Destination airport: Milano-Malpensa Airport (MXP/LIMC) Narrative: Some 30 passengers were injured when flight NOS731 encountered severe turbulence en route from Havana-José Martí International Airport (HAV/MUHA), Cuba to Milano-Malpensa Airport (MXP/LIMC), Italy. The airplane is said to have descended 3000 m during the episode. www.aviation-safety.net Back to Top Washington DC-bound plane escorted by military jet DENVER (AP) -- A United Airlines flight from Denver has landed safely in Washington, D.C., after its crew reported an emergency because a passenger began praying in an aisle. KUSA-TV reports (http://on9news.tv/RLS8NO) the plane was escorted by military jets after the crew declared the emergency. The plane landed Thursday at Dulles International Airport. The Denver TV station reports that the crew made the decision because a male passenger started praying in the middle of an aisle. United spokeswoman Megan McCarthy says a passenger wasn't following flight attendant instructions for landing. Back to Top Passenger Pulled From S. Fla. Bound Plane For Possible Threat Spirit Airlines Jet sits on tarmac at LaGuardia NEW YORK (CBSMiami) - A Spirit Airlines jet headed for Fort Lauderdale was held on the tarmac at LaGuardia Airport due to a passenger threat on Monday. Flight 197, from LaGuardia to Fort Lauderdale, was scheduled to depart at 10:45 a.m. Monday. However, a flight attendant overheard a passenger make a comment, and the flight was moved to a separate part of the runway on the west side of the airport. The Port Authority said the person was removed from the plane after making a remark to another passenger that was perceived as a threat. The passenger was removed from the plane and the flight was given the all clear to take off around 12:30 p.m. Back to Top Flying doctor pilot who breached drug and alcohol policy sacked after in-flight incident (Australia) A PILOT has been sacked for breaching the Queensland Royal Flying Doctor Service's drug and alcohol policy. The pilot was today dismissed after a disciplinary process was completed into an incident on the RFDS King Air B200 flight between Bundaberg and Brisbane. The aircraft and all on board landed safely, the RFDS said. In a written statement, RFDS CEO Nino Di Marco said the pilot had returned a positive test to a substance which is prohibited under the RFDS drug and alcohol policy. "Patient welfare and employee safety are always of paramount importance," Mr Di Marco said. "A full investigation including an internal review of the incident is currently under way. The relevant authorities, including CASA and the ATSB, have been notified. We are also providing support to the others who were on the aircraft while investigations continue." Mr Di Marco defended the integrity and professionalism of the RFDS pilots, saying it was the only incident of its kind in the organisation's history. RFDS pilots are randomly tested under CASA's drug and alcohol testing program. "As part of our ongoing safety improvement commitment we will be consulting with CASA to ensure that the testing processes are as effective as possible," Mr Di Marco said. http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/national/flying-doctor-pilot-who-breached-drug-and- alcohol-policy-sacked-after-in-flight-incident/story-fndo45r1-1226520475798 Back to Top NBAA "Disappointed" In Safety Board Action The NTSB said last week it won't make any major changes in the way it oversees FAA enforcement actions against pilots, and NBAA says that's not fair to small aviation businesses. The current NTSB rules stipulate that NTSB administrative law judges who review emergency actions by the FAA against certificate holders must assume the allegations presented by the FAA are correct and accurate. NBAA and other aviation advocacy groups including AOPA, EAA, NATA, and the Air Line Pilots Association, objected to this "assumption of truth" standard, but the safety board declined to change it. The NTSB said it considered all of their arguments, but decided to retain the rule, mainly because it doesn't have enough staff or time to do things differently. The NTSB said it would make some minor changes in the rule's language and would remain open to reconsidering the policy again in the future. "NBAA and its members have seen examples of perceived 'misuse' of this government-benefitting provision that provides practically no opportunity for a certificate holder to present additional information that may materially alter whether an emergency safety issue does or does not, in fact, exist," said Doug Carr, NBAA vice president for safety, security, operations and regulation. He said NBAA was "disappointed" in the NTSB's decision, calling the assumption-of-truth requirement "a practice of biased judicial review." http://www.avweb.com/avwebflash/news/NBAADisappointedInSafetyBoardAction_207722- 1.html Back to Top Lightning Strike At Brisbane Airport Appears To Hit Plane An amateur photo of an apparent lightning strike at Brisbane International Airport in Australia circulated on the Internet Nov. 17. In the photo, a bolt of lightning appears to strike near an Air New Zealand passenger jet that is parked at the gate. Although it could be an illusion caused by perspective, several Reddit users who cross- posted the photo to different forums on the social news site described lightning hitting the plane. The original post, submitted by user "mongaloid" to the Brisbane subreddit, referred to delays caused by the storms. The user said his mother took the photo at the airport while waiting for her flight to Fiji. Violent storms ripped through southeast Queensland on Saturday, leaving 29,500 homes without power. More than 22,000 lightning strikes hit the southeastern part of the state between 7 p.m. and 11 p.m., according to the Australian. The ABC featured the photo on its front page, and included it in a curated gallery of images from around the region. According to CNN, lightning strikes planes in flight with some frequency, but rarely with dire consequences. The last confirmed civilian airplane crash due to lightning strike occurred in 1967, when a bolt hit a fuel tank, according to Scientific American. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/17/lightning-strike-brisbane-plane- photo_n_2151346.html Back to Top Back to Top China's home-grown jet challenges Boeing, Airbus China's home-grown passenger plane was only a model at the country's premier airshow, but a growing number of orders show Beijing's drive to challenge the dominance of Boeing and Airbus. State-backed Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (COMAC) said it won 50 orders for the planned 168-seat C919 plane at the Zhuhai airshow, which ended on Sunday, bringing the total to 380. China's rapid economic growth is creating massive demand for planes as growing incomes boost air travel, with US aviation giant Boeing estimating the country will need 5260 commercial jets over the next 20 years. But China wants a piece of that multi-billion dollar market as it tries to develop its own technology and then look overseas for sales. The plane is a symbol of national pride which would compete with Boeing's 737 and the A320 of European consortium Airbus, but catching up might take at least a decade, industry officials and analysts said. The challenges are formidable: China not only needs to get the plane in the air -- targeted for 2014 -- but ramp up production and build a market by convincing buyers of its safety and reliability, they said. "The goal of the Chinese is to be in a few years at the same level as different parties around the world -- of course Airbus and Boeing," said David Lopez Grange, general director of Spanish aeronautics firm Aritex. "Maybe it's not a long time -- 10 years. China will be a very important player in the world in a few years," he said. Aritex, a top-tier supplier for Airbus, has just won a contract to assemble the central wing box -- which secures the wing in the body -- of China's C919. Although COMAC says the plane will have "Chinese characteristics", it is relying on foreign technology for key parts of the project, including the engines, to be supplied by French- American venture CFM International. "The project provides a chance for China to obtain certain technology through cooperation with foreign countries, so as to advance its own aviation manufacturing," an aviation analyst at a Chinese securities firm said. "The aircraft may have a share of the market, but it may take years before it can compete against the two foreign producers (Boeing and Airbus)," the analyst, who declined to be named, told AFP. China's aviation dreams date back to the 1970s, when leader Mao Zedong's wife Jiang Qing backed a project to build China's own plane. Only three Y-10s were ever built and their heavy weight made them impractical. As COMAC develops the C919, it is also building a smaller regional jet which seats 78 to 90 passengers, but that project is years behind schedule. The ARJ21 regional jet made a test flight in 2008 but the deadline to deliver planes to customers a year after has fallen by the wayside. COMAC, which took over the project from its shareholder Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC), said earlier this month that it would assemble 50 regional jets annually by 2014. It has four prototypes now. The company is targeting annual production of 150 of the larger C919 planes by 2020. "Increasing orders show that both domestic and foreign consumers have given the C919 their endorsement," COMAC general manager He Dongfeng told state media. But some potential buyers are waiting, including Chinese budget carrier Spring Airlines, which is a devoted customer of the Airbus A320. "If the plane's performance is mature and the market welcomes it, then we can consider buying it," Spring spokesman Zhang Wuan said. The latest orders were booked by two Chinese carriers: Joy Air, partly owned by AVIC which is backing the project, and two-year old Hebei Airlines. A foreign company, aircraft leaser GE Capital Aviation Services, also ordered 10, Chinese media reported. Another unit of GE in the aviation sector has said it will supply engines and avionics to the plane through ventures. http://www.asiaone.com/News/AsiaOne%2BNews/Asia/Story/A1Story20121120- 384592.html Back to Top Kenya Aircraft Engineers to Be Trained in China Under New Deal THE Kenya Aeronautical College has partnered with the Shenyang Aerospace University in China to train aircraft manufacturing engineers to bridge the technical personnel gap in the aviation industry. The partnership will allow students pursue a five-year bachelor degree in Aerospace Engineering at the Wilson Airport-based college and then proceed to Shenyang Aerospace University in China. KAC director Samson Muliro says the degree programme seeks to create a pool of aircraft engineers skilled in assembling and installing new aircrafts as well as handling maintenance duties locally. "China is a leading player in aircraft manufacturing and the partnership will provide students from the region greater exposure and opportunities to compete internationally," says Muliro. He regretted the regional aviation industry has failed to keep pace with the fast changing technologies in the global aviation industry due inadequate aircraft manufacturing engineers. "Lack of programmes in local training institutions and high cost of training abroad has made it difficult to develop aeronautical engineers who can deal with the increasing demands in the fast developing aviation industry," says Muliro. It costs about Sh2 million per year to train an aircraft manufacturing engineer in Europe and America. In China, the cost is about Sh250, 000 per year. http://allafrica.com/stories/201211200187.html Back to Top Airport Security Is Killing Us by: Charles Kenny Do You Feel That Our Security Is as Safe, That We're as Strong as We Were Four Years Ago? This week marks the beginning of the busiest travel time of the year. For millions of Americans, the misery of holiday travel is made considerably worse by a government agency ostensibly designed to make our journeys more secure. Created in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the Transportation Security Administration has largely outlived its usefulness, as the threat of a terrorist attack on the U.S. homeland continues to recede. These days, the TSA's major role appears to be to make plane trips more unpleasant. And by doing so, it's encouraging people to take the considerably more dangerous option of traveling by road. The attention paid to terrorism in the U.S. is considerably out of proportion to the relative threat it presents. That's especially true when it comes to Islamic-extremist terror. Of the 150,000 murders in the U.S. between 9/11 and the end of 2010, Islamic extremism accounted for fewer than three dozen. Since 2000, the chance that a resident of the U.S. would die in a terrorist attack was one in 3.5 million, according to John Mueller and Mark Stewart of Ohio State and the University of Newcastle, respectively. In fact, extremist Islamic terrorism resulted in just 200 to 400 deaths worldwide outside the war zones of Afghanistan and Iraq-the same number, Mueller noted in a 2011 report (PDF), as die in bathtubs in the U.S. alone each year. Yet the TSA still commands a budget of nearly $8 billion-which is why the agency is left with too many officers and not enough to do. The TSA's "Top Good Catches of 2011," reported on its blog, did include 1,200 firearms and-their top find-a single batch of C4 explosives (though those were discovered only on the return flight). A longer list of TSA's confiscations would include a G.I. Joe action doll's 4-inch plastic rifle ("it's a replica") and a light saber. And needless to say, the TSA didn't spot a single terrorist trying to board an airline in the U.S., notes Bruce Schneier. According to one estimate of direct and indirect costs borne by the U.S. as a result of 9/11, the New York Times suggested the attacks themselves caused $55 billion in "toll and physical damage," while the economic impact was $123 billion. But costs related to increased homeland security and counterterrorism spending, as well as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, totaled $3,105 billion. Mueller and Stewart estimate that government spending on homeland security over the 2002-11 period accounted for around $580 billion of that total. The researchers quote Rand Corp. President James Thomson, who noted most of that expenditure was implemented "with little or no evaluation." In 2010, the National Academy of Science reported the lack of "any Department of Homeland Security risk analysis capabilities and methods that are yet adequate for supporting [department] decision making." In short, DHS (and the TSA in particular) is firing huge bundles of large denomination bills completely blindly. There is lethal collateral damage associated with all this spending on airline security- namely, the inconvenience of air travel is pushing more people onto the roads. Compare the dangers of air travel to those of driving. To make flying as dangerous as using a car, a four-plane disaster on the scale of 9/11 would have to occur every month, according to analysis published in the American Scientist. Researchers at Cornell University suggest that people switching from air to road transportation in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks led to an increase of 242 driving fatalities per month-which means that a lot more people died on the roads as an indirect result of 9/11 than died from being on the planes that terrible day. They also suggest that enhanced domestic baggage screening alone reduced passenger volume by about 5 percent in the five years after 9/11, and the substitution of driving for flying by those seeking to avoid security hassles over that period resulted in more than 100 road fatalities. That's not to say TSA employees bear responsibility for making the roads more dangerous- they're just following incentives that reward slavish attention to overbearing and ambiguous rules over common sense. And don't blame the officials of Homeland Security, either. They're merely avoiding the far greater backlash associated with doing nothing than with doing something-even if nothing is probably the right course in a lot of cases. Instead, the blame lies somewhere among the politicians, the media, and the electorate, who will happily skewer officials over a single fatal plane incident while ignoring car crashes, gun homicides, and even bathtub accidents, which kill far more Americans than terrorism does. If Americans really care about saving lives this Thanksgiving travel season, for goodness' sake, don't beef up airport security any further. Slashing the TSA will ensure that more people live to spend future holidays with loved ones. http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-11-18/how-airport-security-is-killing-us Back to Top Graduate Research Survey EFB RESEARCH SURVEY My name is Jared Wingo. I'm currently a graduate student at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University working on my master's thesis entitled Benefits and Drawbacks of Electronic Flight Bags on Pilot Performance. As a requirement of my thesis, I am required to conduct a survey and am currently seeking participants who have at least a private pilot certificate and have experience using Electronic Flight Bags (EFBs) to take part in a five minute online satisfaction survey experiences with EFBs and paper-based aeronautical charts and manuals. Participants may reach the online survey through the following link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/EFBRESEARCH If you have any comments, concerns or questions, feel free to contact me via email at efbresearch@gmail.com Thank you for your assistance! Jared Wingo Curt Lewis