Flight Safety Information November 21, 2012 - No. 234 In This Issue ICAO, Flight Safety Foundation formalize information sharing agreement Yemen military plane crash kills 10 Is there a pilot on board? Passenger helps land jumbo jet Four in 10 British pilots admit falling asleep in cockpit Airplane Medical Reporting System Questioned PROS IOSA Audit Experts Pilots are optional in Firebird US federal transport crash investigators ditch BlackBerry for iPhones Airlines group will fully support improving African air safety Vietnam to make unmanned aircraft Graduate Research Survey ICAO, Flight Safety Foundation formalize information sharing agreement Montréal, Canada, 20 November 2012 - The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and the Flight Safety Foundation (FSF) signed a new agreement today, formalizing their plans to cooperatively promote and advance the sharing of aviation safety information and metrics worldwide. The new collaborative initiative supports ICAO Safety Management System (SMS) guidance that calls for increased monitoring, analysis and reporting of aviation safety results. It is one of several important new agreements signed by ICAO since 2010 as it seeks to expand its cooperative activities. "The establishment of this framework for enhanced cooperation with FSF is an important step in helping us achieve the highest levels of aviation safety worldwide" commented Roberto Kobeh González, President of the ICAO Council. "Aviation safety knows no borders and these types of collaborative data sharing and risk mitigation efforts are essential to help States and industry address safety risks beforethey lead to a serious incident or accident." The ICAO-FSF Memorandum of Cooperation will see the two bodies working more closely to enhance global compliance with ICAO Standards and Recommended Practices (SARPs) and related guidance material. It promotes joint activities between the organizations in the areas of data sharing and analysis, training and technical assistance. The joint analyses developed will facilitate the harmonization of proactive and predictive safety metrics and the promotion of a just safety culture globally. "Safety data sharing has already been successfully established in the United States through cooperative agreements between the FAA and U.S. carriers," stressed William R. Voss, President and CEO of FSF. "We intend to leverage the lessons learned through this ground-breaking work to help other States establish models that are suited to their unique needs and constraints. ICAO's mission and role makes it the perfect partner to help us take this to the global level." ICAO and FSF will shortly begin convening regular regional forums to share aggregated results on emerging safety issues and facilitate improved collaboration on targeted mitigation strategies. Both organizations are already consulting with a number of States on upcoming demonstration projects. Back to Top Yemen military plane crash kills 10 A Yemeni civil defence source said the dead included five military officers (BBC) A Yemeni military plane has crashed in the capital, Sanaa, killing all 10 people on board, officials have said. The Antonov (An-26) came down in an empty market in the al-Hassaba district as it tried to make an emergency landing after one of its engines failed. One resident said there were three explosions as the plane crashed. Several shops were destroyed. It is not clear if anyone on the ground was hurt. Officials said there was no indication of any sabotage. A source at Sanaa's main airport told the AFP news agency that the military aircraft had been on a training mission. It had been attempting to make an emergency landing at a military air base near the airport. A civil defence source said the dead included five military officers. The market in al-Hassaba has been abandoned since clashes between Yemen's biggest tribal confederation and security forces loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh during last year's anti-government uprising. In October 2011, four people were killed when an Antonov crashed on landing at al-Anad air base in southern Yemen. ************* Status: Preliminary Date: 21 NOV 2012 Type: Antonov 26 Operator: Yemen Air Force Registration: 420 Crew: Fatalities: 10 / Occupants: 10 Passengers: Fatalities: 0 / Occupants: 0 Total: Fatalities: 10 / Occupants: 10 Airplane damage: Destroyed Airplane fate: Written off (damaged beyond repair) Location: 9 km (5.6 mls) S of San'a International Airport (SAH) (Yemen) Phase: Unknown (UNK) Nature: Military Departure airport: San'a International Airport (SAH/ODSN), Yemen Destination airport: ? Narrative: An Antonov 26 transport plane, operated by the Yemen Air Force, was destroyed in an accident near in San'a, Yemen. All ten crew members were killed. The airplane came down in the abandoned Al-Hasaba Marketplace, about 9 km south of the San'a International Airport (SAH), on the extended runway 18 centreline. News sources quoted the Ministry of Transport saying that the airplane was coded '420', although there are no known Antonov aircraft with that code operating for the Yemen Air Force. www.aviation-safety.net Back to Top Is there a pilot on board? Passenger helps land jumbo jet An off-duty pilot came to the rescue on board a Lufthansa 747 after the first officer became ill. A German passenger has been hailed a hero after taking over the controls of a plane and helping it land at Dublin airport. Details have emerged of how the off-duty pilot offered to help the flight crew after the first officer of the Lufthansa Boeing 747 became ill while flying over the Atlantic on Monday. The flight from Newark to Frankfurt was diverted to Dublin after the co-pilot suffered an incapacitating migraine. When the cabin crew announced the plane was being diverted, the passenger asked why and then offered to help, pointing out he was a qualified pilot. The German national helped bring the plane down safely in an emergency landing at the airport in the Irish capital shortly before 6am. Ireland's Air Accident Investigations Unit is examining the incident. A Lufthansa spokeswoman said the man who stepped in was fully licensed to operate and fly the 747. "In such circumstances it's absolutely normal procedure for the pilot, the flight captain, to continue to operate the aircraft," she said. "Also, where necessary, the cabin crew are fully trained and can be called upon to read checklists back to the pilot. The procedures are in place for such an eventuality. " Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/travel/travel-incidents/is-there-a-pilot-on-board- passenger-helps-land-jumbo-jet-20121121-29oyn.html#ixzz2CrVkhIIF Back to Top Four in 10 British pilots admit falling asleep in cockpit Four in 10 British pilots have fallen asleep at the controls of an aircraft, a survey has suggested, fuelling concerns over safety regulations. Recent research also revealed that a third of these pilots admitted waking up to find their co-pilot asleep as well. In a 2012 survey for the European Cockpit Association (ECA), more than half of around 6,000 pilots from all over Europe said tiredness had hampered their ability to fly. Of those who felt unfit, 79 per cent said that this was "sometimes" or "often" the case. The research also suggested the issue is under-reported. Fearing the reaction of employers, 70 to 80 per cent of tired pilots said they would not file a fatigue report or declare they were unfit to fly. To the ECA, the results were not surprising. The organisation claims that long duty and standby hours, night flights and disruptive schedules contribute to pilots spending long periods awake. The body, which represents European pilots, is using the survey to bolster its campaign demanding safer flying time regulations. It says the final proposals from the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) on Flight Time Limitations, published in October and designed to "harmonise" regulations across the EU, fail to protect passenger safety, and would only marginally improve the current situation. "Fatigue impairs the judgment and ability of air crews to react quickly, with potentially disastrous consequences," said Philip von Schöppenthau of the ECA. "We cannot wait for another accident before the EU wakes up and realises its rules are insufficient." The British Airline Pilots' Association is also opposed to EASA's proposals which it said are more permissive than those currently in place in Britain. It said pilots will be able to land an aircraft having been awake for 22 hours, could face night flights of up to 11 hours long and be forced to work up to seven early starts in a row. Currently British pilots can go up to 18 hours without sleep. However, a Government report published on September 11 said the current draft of the proposals "will not lead to a diminution of safety in the UK". In response to a Transport Committee Inquiry, it said the rules will offer a similar level of safety to that set by the US Federal Aviation Administration and noted that some other EU member states believed the proposals too restrictive in some areas. The proposals will now enter the legislative process and must be finalised by the European Commission and approved by Member States before being adopted into EU law after mid-2013. Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/travel/travel-news/four-in-10-british-pilots-admit-falling- asleep-in-cockpit-20121121-29p48.html#ixzz2CrV5tQMi Back to Top Airplane Medical Reporting System Questioned Frequency of medical emergencies remains largely a secret to the public Is there a doctor on board? Investigative Reporter Elyce Kirchner examines what happens when medical emergencies happen at 30,000 feet and how often the public finds out about them. Is there a doctor on board? That is something airplane passengers don't want to hear at 30,000 feet, but doctors say the number of people needing medical help on airplanes will increase as the flying population ages. How often medical events actually happen in flight remains largely a secret to the public because the Federal Aviation Administration doesn't require airlines to report them. But the NBC Bay Area Investigative Unit discovered that medical emergencies may be happening more often than anyone knows. And now some doctors are putting pressure on the airline industry to make the data publically available. "Before I experienced this it never occurred to me that the airlines didn't collect this kind of data," said Dr. Melissa Mattison. The Harvard Medical School professor responded when a passenger had a seizure on her flight in January 2011. A few months later in a May issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, Mattison and colleague, Dr. Mark Zeidel, advocated for a standardized recording system for all in-flight medical emergencies with mandatory reporting of each incident to the National Transportation Safety Board. Look in the document bin to read the article. They also called for the debriefing of anyone directly involved with an in-flight medical event. They wrote that "collecting these records and disseminating lessons learned may help improve the care given during in-flight medical emergencies throughout the domestic airline fleet." Their call has yet to be answered. "Anytime they ask for a medical professional on board to tend to another passenger they should be filling out a standard reporting form that should be filed in a database," Mattison said. "There are older, sicker people flying and we are not systematically addressing the problem of in-flight medical emergencies." Seventy-four year old Southern California resident Concepcion Venegas died on an airplane after having a heart attack onboard a Southwest Airlines flight traveling from Phoenix to Ontario, Calif. in May 2005. "She was on a trip (and) was supposed to come home the next week," said Venegas's daughter, Rosa Arencibia. "We never expected her to die." According to the family's attorney, a retired EMT stepped up to help but was unable to revive her, and the pilot decided to continue on with 50 minutes left in flight. Arencibia and her family sued Southwest Airlines for negligence after her mother's death and a jury found that the airline did everything possible to care for her. The airline did not want to comment on the lawsuit. "Maybe there was a chance for her to survive," Arencibia said. "I believe they didn't do everything they possibly could to save my mother's life." When there are medical problems in the sky, 90 percent of commercial airlines in the United States will call MedAire, a global emergency response center that provides real- time medical assistance to pilots, flight attendants and medical professionals who may be on board. The company's headquarters is based in the Banner Good Samaritan Medical Center in Tempe, Ariz., where doctors are available 24 hours a day to field phone calls that come in from flight crews. Other airlines have in-house medical crews to deal with in-flight emergencies. "Every major airline in this country will have some sort of ground-based service to help them in dealing with inflight medical events," said Dr. Paulo Alves, MedAire's Vice President of Aviation and Maritime Health. In 2011, MedAire received 22,594 calls for service, which the company claims represents about one medical event for every 30,000 passengers. The company said that in the same year less than three percent of calls resulted in an unplanned landing or emergency diversion to another airport. But these figures may reflect just a fraction of the in-flight emergencies that actually occur each year. The Investigative Unit found that many airlines do track in-flight medical emergencies, but choose not to make the information available to the public. Kelly Skyles, safety coordinator with the Association of Professional Flight Attendants and current American Airlines flight attendant told NBC Bay Area that she receives reports for every medical event that happens on board American Airlines flights-from routine events such as when a passenger gets airsick to serious life-threatening instances. "There is a medical event that occurs every single day, seven days a week," Skyles said. "It may not be a major medical situation but it gets documented and reports go out...it gets added to the database." NBC Bay Area tried for weeks to get the airlines to explain why they do not make data public, contacting 15 other air carriers by email and phone but all declined to comment for the record on camera. The Investigative Unit also discovered that airlines face a number of challenges when responding to in-flight medical emergencies. NBC Bay Area obtained NASA's Aviation Safety Reporting System database where pilots and flight attendants can anonymously report problems on a voluntary basis. The database chronicles emergencies including 576 incidents where passengers needed medical attention on board since 2001. The database represents just some of the in-flight medical emergencies that happen on commercial airplanes. According to the database, some flight attendants reported having difficulties communicating with medical ground crews such as MedAire, calling the communication "very poor." Others reported that "for medical consultants to be an effective tool in an emergency situation the flight attendants need a direct phone connection..." Go to the link bin to take a look at the database. Even MedAire admitted communication can be a challenge because oftentimes calls are routed through the busy cockpit. "The level of care that we can provide and the level of handling depends heavily on the quality of the communication," Alves said. He admitted that there is no current mandate from the FAA to improve this communication or to document the number of in-flight medical events that occur on board, but he says he supports a more transparent reporting system. The FAA does require that flight attendants know basic life support skills such as how to administer CPR, and also mandates that airlines keep an automated external defibrillator (AED) on board. The agency also requires that airlines carry a medical kit during all flights and that they contain specific items including a stethoscope, tourniquet and certain medications. Look in the document bin for FAA regulations about medical kits. But the Investigative Unit found out that the contents of medical kits vary because airlines often add to the FAA's list of required items. "So what happens is an emergency medical kit on one airplane is organized differently than an emergency medical kit on another airplane," Mattison said. "It's my opinion that the kits be standardized and uniform across the board so that responders can know what is in the kits and how to find it." Mattison believes that if airlines make in-flight medical events public, the industry would be better informed about what kinds of medical emergencies really happen. She says that would dictate what kinds of items contained in a medical kit are the most necessary, and in turn, would make airlines better equipped to respond to sick passengers. "Are they cardiac?" Mattison asked. "Related to breathing? We could use that information to inform what we should put in the emergency medical kit and make the kits standard across the board no matter what airlines you are on. Every kit will be the same. And then we can educate physicians and others who are responding." The FAA did collect data about airplane medical emergencies for five domestic air carriers during a 12-month period between 1996 and 1997, including how frequently air crews used medical kits. Look in the document bin to see the results. http://www.nbcbayarea.com/investigations/Airplane-Medical-Reporting-System- Questioned-180233711.html Back to Top Back to Top Pilots are optional in Firebird One of the last designs fully supervised by Burt Rutan before his retirement from Scaled Composites has reached the production level, and pilots are optional. Northrop Grumman, the parent company for Scaled Composites since 2007, has named the surveillance aircraft Firebird. It can carry two pilots, or not. A Garmin G3000 avionics suite with three 14-inch displays can be removed, the canopy replaced by a satellite antenna (if operating beyond line of sight), and flown as an unmanned aircraft, staying aloft 24 to 40 hours with a single Lycoming TEO-540E engine. After its mission, the avionics can be slid back into the panel, the canopy attached, and flown by pilots to the next mission site. The production model entered testing with a first flight on Nov. 11. It has 72-foot wings, rather than the 65-foot wings used on earlier prototypes since 2010, and can carry 1,240 pounds of surveillance or radar equipment. If needed, surveillance missions can be flown with a pilot and a systems operator. During a military exercise the craft provided cellphone service to the battlefield. It can operate as high as 32,000 feet at 200 knots true airspeed, and has a takeoff weight of 6,650 pounds. It was built for an undisclosed customer. Plans are to build 10 of the aircraft. In an interview with Aviation Week, company officials said they intend to build them for $10 million each including avionics and a sensor suite. The aircraft means competition for the Hawker Beechcraft King Air and Cessna Caravan, company officials told the magazine, since it has greater endurance and versatility. The huge wings and twin fuselage booms provide lots of attach points for systems. http://www.aopa.org/aircraft/articles/2012/121120pilots-are-optional-in-firebird.html Back to Top US federal transport crash investigators ditch BlackBerry for iPhones The US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has followed other federal agencies in ditching Blackberry for iPhone. But it's not just because they love the retina screen, the public sector agency has blamed their Blackberry devices for being unreliable in a document on the FedBizOpps site explaining why they are switching to the iPhone 5. The agency has to deal with transport accident scenes including plane and rail crashes and says they require "effective, reliable and stable communication capabilities to carry- out its primary investigative mission and to ensure employee safety in remote locations." Blackberry 10 is out in January, will it be enough to restore trust in the devices? Blackberries "have been failing both at inopportune times and at an unacceptable rate" says the NTSB, in a harsh critique. The Agency have a contract with Verizon and will use their "device refresh offer" to bring in iPhone 5s. The NTSB has about 400 workers. The NTSB already use iPads so the agency says that standardising with another iOS device would be useful, and that support networks are in place to deal with iOS. This would seem to indicate the advantage that iPad penetration in business has for Apple. Paul Lucier, RIM's vice president for global government solutions, told USA Today that government agencies can trust the security and reliability of Blackberries nonetheless. "BlackBerry remains the most reliable, secure and robust end-to-end mobile communications platform available," Lucier says. "We have 1 million government customers in North America alone who depend on BlackBerry, and more than 400,000 government customers worldwide upgraded their devices in the past year." Other, bigger, US federal agencies have switched to iPhone too in the past few years including the Transport Security Administration (TSA). http://www.theregister.co.uk Back to Top Airlines group will fully support improving African air safety The International Air Transport Association (IATA) will be "totally supporting" the implementation of the Abuja Declaration on Aviation Safety in Africa, IATA regional VP for Africa Mike Higgins said in Johannesburg on Tuesday. The Abuja Declaration is intended to bring African civil aviation safety figures up to the global average level by 2015. The declaration was agreed in July by the director generals of civil aviation from the member countries of the African Union (AU). It is hoped that it will be ratified by an AU Ministerial meeting in January. One of the key elements within the declaration is a requirement that it be made compulsory for all African airlines to undergo the IATA Operational Safety Audit (IOSA). At the moment, 26 African airlines are registered on IOSA. Any airline can register for IOSA, even if it is not an IATA member. Currently, the global aviation safety rate is one hull loss (that is, an airliner is destroyed or damaged beyond repair) for every 2.7-million flights, while the rate for Africa is one hull loss for every 305 000 flights. However, the figure for African airlines that have gone through IOSA is almost the same as the global average. "Safety drives absolutely everything in Africa," affirmed Higgins. "I feel very buoyed by the way we're going. IATA is absolutely focused on helping [African] government agencies and airlines achieve these objectives." Regarding the European Union's (EU's) blacklist of airlines regarded as unsafe, which lists a number of African carriers, Higgins observed that it "doesn't really help, does it? It's not transparent, it's opaque." Once an airline was on it, it was difficult to get it off. With IATA's 2013 annual general meeting to be held in Cape Town, he expected that the blacklist, which has been in existence for six years, would be a focus for the organisation next year. "With our partners, we're trying to get transparency on it. It's a prickly issue. The [US] FAA [Federal Aviation Administration] has a policy of helping African carriers. The EU does not have this policy." "Air transport is vital for the economic and social development of Africa, including aviation-related tourism," asserted Higgins. "Prospects for aviation in Africa are very bright indeed." http://www.engineeringnews.co.za/article/airlines-group-will-fully-support-improving- african-air-safety-2012-11-20 Back to Top Vietnam to make unmanned aircraft VietNamNet Bridge - Sweden will help the Vietnam Aerospace Association (VASA) in technology transfer and development of medium-range unmanned aircraft. Professor Nguyen Duc Cuong (left) and representatives of the Unmanned Group, Sweden, sign a cooperation agreement on unmanned aircraft manufacturing. At the signing ceremony of the cooperation agreement between Vietnam and Sweden on making unmanned aircraft (UAV) held by VASA on November 20, Professor Nguyen Duc Cuong, VASA President, stressed the important role of the UAV in the field of defense and security, search and rescue, protection and management of forests. "Vietnam and Sweden will cooperate to manufacture medium-range unmanned aircraft called Magic Eye 1," he said. Magic Eye 1 weighs 40 kg, with operating time up to 6 hours, maximum flying speed of 200 km per hour, and the radio communication radius of 100 to 200 km. Under the plan, the collaborative project will be divided into three phases. In the first phase, Sweden will give fund to Vietnam to manufacture two Magic Eye 1. They will provide Vietnam with equipment, technology transfer, design and send experts to Vietnam. In the second stage, the two sides will cooperate to develop avionics. In the final stage, they will manufacture UAVs for exports. According to experts, the need for UAV in Vietnam is very large. This produce can perform various tasks such as mapping, surveying, planning, border patrol, search and rescue. Compared to remote sensing satellites, UAVs have several advantages such as having cheaper price, being able to take high-resolution photos, and the UAV technology is updated timely and easy. http://english.vietnamnet.vn/fms/science-it/53079/vietnam-to-make-unmanned- aircraft.html 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