Flight Safety Information February 13, 2013 - No. 034 In This Issue Helicopter crash overshadows Corvette ZR1 race in 'Top Gear' footage Nigeria: Dana Air Plane Crash Blamed On Human Error Relatives of Colgan crash victims push for pilot training FAA AIRLINE PILOT FATIGUE ANALYSIS FLAWED PROS IOSA Audit Experts You'd Be Arrested if You Tried to Take These Airplane Photos Today Is Google building its own airport? PowerUp 3.0 lets you control a paper airplane with your smartphone 2013 ESASI Seminar in Madrid, April 18 & 19, 2013 Helicopter crash overshadows Corvette ZR1 race in 'Top Gear' footage Helicopter Crash Caught On Camera - Top Gear Korea - Top Gear Filming for a stunt for "Top Gear Korea" nearly ended in tragedy as footage released by the BBC shows. Video from the stunt was posted to the show's YouTube channel on Sunday, depicting presenter Kim Jin Pyo racing a Corvette ZR1 against an AH-1 Cobra helicopter. In the footage, the Corvette beats the ex-military AH-1 Cobra across the finish line. Everything seems to be going just fine until the helicopter banks hard to the right before spiraling into the ground. "Top Gear," which is known for its extreme car-racing challenges including a 1986 Mini racing a skier down a slope and testing whether the jet of a 747 can blow a car over, is aired in over 170 countries worldwide, including four localized versions. Although the crash looks dangerous and takes place close to crew from the show, the description of the video reads, "This was an accident that was caught on camera during filming for Top Gear Korea. Thankfully no one was seriously injured." The clip ends with Pyo running from the Corvette toward the crashed helicopter to help. The Corvette ZR1 featured in the footage has a hand-crafted LS9 638-horsepower supercharged V8 engine and is tested at 0 to 60 mph in 3.4 seconds. General Motors reports that the car has a top speed of 205 mph. The 2013 ZR1 is also the last of the current line of Corvettes as GM prepares to launch the 2014 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray later this year. The stunt for "Top Gear Korea" was based on a similar stunt featured with presenter Jeremy Clarkson on the original BBC show in 2008. http://www.nydailynews.com/autos/top-gear-stunt-ends-helicopter-crash-article- 1.1262162 Back to Top Nigeria: Dana Air Plane Crash Blamed On Human Error Investigations have confirmed that the inability of the pilot to turn on the fuel pumps of the ill-fated Dana Air flight that crashed at a Lagos suburb on June 3, 2012, killing about 160 people, led to the failure of the two engines and the eventual crash. The captain of the aircraft, Peter Waxtan, an American, who was already due for holiday on the day of the crash and who had his flight ticket to travel to the United States on the day of the crash, was making his last flight to Lagos from Abuja when the plane crashed, killing all on board and a few people on the ground. Reports indicated that 17 minutes into the flight, Waxtan noticed problems with one of the engines of the aircraft and a little later, the second engine of the McDonnell Douglas MD-83 aircraft went off and it lost attitude before it crashed a few minutes to landing at the Murtala Muhammed Airport, Lagos. The MD-83, operated by Dana Air, lost power from both engines while approaching the Lagos airport last June and slammed into an apartment building, killing at least six more people on the ground. Although investigations into the accident is still ongoing, a report published in The Wall Street Journal showed that the accident was likely caused by the crew's failure to properly monitor fuel flow and turn on certain fuel pumps, according to people familiar with the joint investigation by the US and Nigerian officials. That would result in both engines shutting down almost simultaneously from lack of fuel. No other significant problems were discovered with the engines or other systems of the aircraft, the officials said, and the 22-year-old plane had plenty of fuel on board to reach the airport. Partly fed by that fuel, the crash sparked an intense fire that raged for nearly a day and compromised the flight-data recorder. So investigators had less data to rely on than is usual in modern jetliner crashes and are still working on the final wording of the report. The preliminary focus on pilot error could be toned down, according to two people familiar with the details. The cockpit voice recorder, which survived intact, showed the pilots spent the last 25 seconds unsuccessfully trying to restart the engines. A preliminary report issued last year by Nigeria's Accident Investigation Bureau did not say why the engines shut down. From the transcript of the conversation between the air traffic controllers and Waxtan, the aircraft lost power from both engines while approaching the Lagos airport and crashed into the residential building at Iju/Ishaga. Reacting to the latest development, the Director General of the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), Dr. Harold Demuren, confirmed that it was a human error that caused the crash, adding that about 80 per cent of air accidents are caused by human error. "We believe the truth is coming out. We know it is human error. It has been confirmed that it was not engine failure; it was not maintenance issue or oversight issue, or airspace problem but human error. The captain did not follow standard procedure. He did not open the pumps. It is called flame out and that was why he reported that there was no response from the throttle...he forgot to open the fuel pump," Demuren said in an interview with THISDAY. The Commissioner of Accident Investigation Bureau (AIB), Captain Usman Murkter, who told THISDAY that he did not wish to comment on the report, explained that accident investigation is scientific and would not depend on such reports, adding that the pilot would not want to kill himself. "We shall appreciate anytime you have this kind of report you let us know. I cannot react to hearsay. We are interested in protecting our airspace. I will not comment on this but the pilot did not want to die," Murkter said. "We have nothing to hide," said Dana spokesman, Tony Usidamen, who declined to comment on the crash's cause until the report is completed. "We hope that the government will take the decision to make the report public... It may or may not affect how the average traveller views the industry." Few weeks after the tragic incident, a seasoned Nigerian pilot, Captain Tito Omaghiomi, blamed the pilot for the accident and alleged that he did not follow his checklist in response to the emergency that resulted from the failure of the two engines. Omaghiomi, who has operated flights for more than 30 years in Nigeria, observed that it was wrong to have allowed Waxton who was going on leave and was excited about it, to operate the aircraft, adding that it was his errors that caused the crash. "Emergency don't kill, it is the action or inaction of the pilot that causes most plane crashes. In fact, what they did, as far as I am concerned, in the Dana plane crash is a cowboy operation. They did not do their job the way they should have done it. So it is their fault," he had said. http://allafrica.com/stories/201302130408.html?viewall=1 Back to Top Relatives of Colgan crash victims push for pilot training About 50 relatives of Colgan Air crash victims were meeting Tuesday on its fourth anniversary to push for better pilot training to prevent a similar crash. The relatives are meeting with lawmakers in Congress and with Michael Huerta, head of the Federal Aviation Administration. Their lobbying effort led to the approval of legislation requiring rules for greater pilot rest between flights and better training for pilots, but the training rules are still being developed. "We've been very patient," Scott Maurer, whose daughter Lorin died in the crash, said he would like to tell President Obama. "But you know, the American public deserves better." Colgan flight 3407 crashed Feb. 12, 2009 in a snowstorm near Buffalo, killing 49 people on the plane and one on the ground. The National Transportation Safety Board blamed a number of problems, including pilots untrained to deal with an aerodynamic stall as the wings iced up. An inspector general's report Jan. 31 said the FAA must overcome industry opposition in completing rules for training pilots about stalls on simulators, which was due in October 2011 and the deadline for co-pilots to train for more hours, which was due in August 2012. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said the FAA assured him Tuesday morning that the agency would complete the rules in August and October. "We're going to watch you like hawks," Schumer said. FAA responded with a statement that the agency and industry have made significant progress in enhancing safety since the Colgan crash, identifying issues before they become serious problems. FAA says it has implemented many elements of 2010 safety legislation, including a rule for more pilot rest between shifts. "The FAA expects to meet the statutory deadline of Aug. 2 to complete a new rule that will raise the required number of hours of experience before a pilot can operate the controls of any airline flight," the agency said. "The agency is also developing a final rule that will require more rigorous and realistic pilot training." But some of the relatives, some of whom have visited Washington 50 times to push for more safety, remained skeptical. "I would submit to you today that the FAA doesn't know how to recover from a stall," said John Kausner, whose daughter Elly died in the crash. "We're here to teach them how to get out of the stall and do what they should have done 10 years ago." http://www.usatoday.com/story/todayinthesky/2013/02/12/relatives-of-colgan-crash- victims-push-for-pilot-training/1913395/ Back to Top FAA AIRLINE PILOT FATIGUE ANALYSIS FLAWED COST NOMINAL TO CREATE ONE LEVEL OF SAFETY FOR PASSENGER AND CARGO FLIGHTS In a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) analysis of its new airline pilot fatigue rules, the administration has seriously overestimated the cost, and undervalued the benefits, of applying the flight- and duty-time restrictions and minimum rest requirements to all- cargo pilots, according to the Air Line Pilots Association, Int'l (ALPA). "When realistic costing is applied and the benefits to pilots' health are considered, an investment far less than what the FAA estimates would be required to bring all airline pilots under one set of fatigue regulations, regardless of whether they fly passengers or cargo in their aircraft," said Capt. Lee Moak, ALPA's president. In comments to the Initial Supplemental Regulatory Analysis of the FAA's final pilot fatigue rule, ALPA, the world's largest independent aviation safety organization, makes clear that the FAA's benefit costing is arbitrary and incomplete. For example: The FAA's selection of the Boeing 727 aircraft is an invalid basis for the analysis. The B- 727 is being phased out by U.S. cargo carriers, with less than 3 percent of the U.S. cargo fleet analyzed by ALPA currently consisting of B-727s. As a result, any future cargo accident would likely involve a larger, heavier aircraft that can carry much larger cargo loads and fly much greater distances, and the FAA's analysis vastly undervalues the monetary effects of not covering all-cargo pilots. The FAA fails to take health benefits to pilots into account. The FAA's own analysis concludes that the final rule would reduce fatigue-related flight crew payroll costs by 0.25 percent, resulting in $4.4 million in annual cost savings for cargo-only operations through reduced fatigue-related sick calls. In the longer view, a growing body of research across industries indicates that long hours of work and night work are linked to sleep loss, which in turn leads to a variety of negative health effects and has been found to be a predictor of both short- and long-term illness. A 10-year accident look-back is insufficient. The air cargo industry has a relatively safe record, but accidents have occurred. The FAA initially included a 20-year look-back in its analysis. Within those 20 years, four fatigue-related air cargo hull loss accidents occurred. By reducing the look-back to 10 years, the FAA reduced the overall fatigue- related cargo accidents to one, even though three had occurred in the previous 10-year span. ALPA estimates that, given the FAA's total cost of applying Part 117 to cargo air carriers, the net annual cost of applying the pilot fatigue regulations to all-cargo pilots would range from $1.1 million to $9.0 million, which for the industry as a whole is nominal. The cost of this safety investment will be more than made up by scheduling changes allowed by Part 117, and if two accidents are assumed, the benefit would outweigh the costs. "Cargo pilots fly the same aircraft, over the same routes, operate in the same airspace and use the same airports," said Capt. Moak. "When you consider the health benefits and do cost analysis using realistic aircraft, the cost of protecting all airline pilots from fatigue becomes nominal and is something the U.S. airline industry simply must do." "While ALPA's all-cargo members are on the front lines of this issue, every member of the Air Line Pilots Association is dedicated to advancing one level of safety for all who depend on air transportation in this country," Capt. Moak concluded. "We urge Congress in the strongest possible terms to pass the Safe Skies Act of 2013 and bring all airline pilots under the FAA's fatigue rules." Founded in 1931, ALPA is the world's largest pilot union, representing nearly 51,000 pilots at 35 airlines in the United States and Canada. Visit the ALPA website at www.alpa.org . http://www.avionics-intelligence.com/news/2013/02/12/faa-airline-pilot-fatigue- analysis-flawed-cost-nominal-to-create-one-level-of-safety-for-passenger-a.html Back to Top Back to Top You'd Be Arrested if You Tried to Take These Airplane Photos Today Like wearing shoes through security before Richard Reid's failed airplane bombing, setting up a telephoto lens at the end of an airport runway wasn't a big deal before 9/11. Photographer John Schabel did just that between 1994 and 1996 for his intriguing portrait series Passengers, which is only now being released as a book. He staked out several airports and snapped away with a Nikon 35 mm film camera and a 500 mm reflex lens with a 2x teleconverter, giving him 1,000 mm of zoom. He says he was occasionally asked to leave, but usually had free reign as long as he was in a public space outside the airport. "It was a different time and there was not the same kind of suspicion of cameras," he says. "There wasn't such a sensitively about the airport." At first Schabel attempted to shoot people in landing planes, but that proved impossible so he compromised by making pictures of passengers while the plane was still at the gate. His subjects weren't actually flying, but he says many of them appeared to have transitioned into their flying mentality, which is really what he was after. "I felt like they were on their way at that point, they were getting into that [flying] frame of mind," he says. While grainy and sometimes blurry, all the photos are scans of 8×10 prints he made in the darkroom. It took almost a decade for the photos to be published partly because Schabel was meticulous about putting it together. He and Jack Woody, the founder of Twin Palms, the book's publisher, took their time to ensure the book turned out the way they wanted. We've come across several other projects that use the windows of public transportation vehicles as portrait frames. Some of them like Michael Wolf's Tokyo Compression project are more in-your-face and easier to read. But we like the distance in Schabel's work because it allows for more audience interpretation. "I think viewers can identify with those situations and then bring their own feelings to it," he says. Schabel won't reveal the names of the airports where he shot because he likes the idea of placeless-ness and the way it relates to air travel. Just because you change planes at the O'Hare in Chicago doesn't really mean you're in Chicago. When you're flying you're not really anywhere. Without any geographic identifiers and without any captions, Schabel's photos blend together the same way the fields blend together at 30,000 feet or the airport buildings blend together as passengers switch aircraft. "I like that the photographs are so no-place," he says. Almost all the photos were shot at night because the light coming from the plane helped Schabel see the passengers better. And quite a few were shot during rainstorms because the rain often lead to delays, which meant he had more time to take pictures before the plane left the gate. There's a certain zen to the photos and that's reflected in the layout of the book. It has almost no text and each photo has its own full page. Schabel says there's no particular rhyme or reason to the ordering of the photos other than needing to fit together visually on the page. "Sometimes you have to work really hard to keep things simple," he says. http://www.wired.com/rawfile/2013/02/john-schabel-airplane-passengers- portraits/#slideid-15613 Back to Top Is Google building its own airport? High-flying Google wants to get in on the aviation game. No, the search engine giant isn't developing the next generation of self-piloting 747s or upping its Street View game with autonomous drones. Instead, the Mountain View-based tech giant desperately needs a place to park its private fleet of jets. To accommodate its many planes, the company plans to build an $82 million facility in San Jose, Calif. Having a private jet is one of the perks of being one of the richest people (and companies) in the world, but finding parking for it is no straightforward feat, especially when you have as many planes as the top brass at Google does. Between founders Larry Page, Sergey Brin and executive chairman Eric Schmidt, the trio have a fleet estimated at eight jets -- and that doesn't even include Google's corporate fleet. Until now, the company kept its planes at Moffett Federal Airfield. Not everyone has been pleased with that setup, however, including Iowa Republican Senator Charles Grassley, who believes Google was getting a sweetheart deal from NASA by paying only $3.7 million a year. Not looking to cause a ruckus, Google is now pushing plans to build its own facilities. "While our base of operation at Moffett Field currently meets our needs, expansion is both limited and uncertain," Schmidt wrote in a letter endorsing the Signature project, according to MercuryNews.com. "[This] will provide us with long term hangar stability and the ability to grow our flight department in Silicon Valley." The new plan is more palatable for locals. The deal would be a 50-year lease that spanned 29 acres and each private plane "would be a property tax generator," Mayor Chuck Reed told the Mercury News. The proposed "Googleport" will also include its own executive terminal, multiple hangars, ramp space, aircraft, parking lot, retail shops and even office space. In all, the new facility would generate over $3 million in rent, fuel fees and taxes. Fresh off a $1.4 billion renovation project, San Jose airport surely won't mind the extra income. Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2013/02/12/is-google-building-its-own- airport/#ixzz2Kmeb0G2U Back to Top PowerUp 3.0 lets you control a paper airplane with your smartphone About a year and a half ago, we took a look at something called the PowerUp. It's a capacitor joined to a propeller by a carbon fiber shaft, that can be used to power a user- supplied paper airplane. At the time, we suggested that it would be good if the user could actually steer the PowerUp-powered plane by remote control. With the soon-to-be- released PowerUp 3.0, it turns out, that's just what they'll be able to do. As with Tailor Toys' original PowerUp, the 3.0 is attached laterally to any folded paper airplane, made from regular A4 or 8.5 x 11-inch copier paper. However, whereas planes equipped with the original simply flew in a straight line, planes sporting the latest version can be controlled via the company's flight control app - a Bluetooth 4.0-equipped smartphone is required. Not many details (including images) are available regarding PowerUp 3.0, but if it's like the first version, it requires a 20-second charge from an included three-AA-battery- powered charger. That gave the original a flight time of 90 seconds - the company claims flight times of up to 10 minutes for the 3.0, although that may be allowing for the option of gliding between boosts from the propeller. We asked the company how the device is actually able to control the airplane's path of flight (does it have its own little ailerons?), but have yet to hear back. In any case, it's scheduled for release this August, at a price of US$49.99. It can be seen in action in the video below. PowerUp 3.0 iPhone Controlled Paper Airplane.mov http://www.gizmag.com/powerup-3-paper-airplane/26215/ Back to Top Frequent flyer fights: drunken airplane passengers spur new flight regulations Being trapped in a metal tube suspended miles above the earth is stressful enough. Add in a violent, alcohol-fueled passenger, and a high-flying journey to a faraway place can turn downright traumatizing. Such was the case for Marina. A lawyer in her 30s who asked that her last name not be used, Marina flew from Moscow to Turkey last year with her small child and ended up with an extremely drunk Russian man as her neighboring passenger. The man fell asleep at first, but conflict arose after takeoff. Another male traveler, wearing tight jeans and sporting slightly long hair, stood up in the aisle to reach the overhead compartment. The drunk man, who had woken up, began loudly admiring the view of the other man from behind - evidently unaware that the object of his affection was not a woman. When the drunkard realized his mistake, he began threatening to hit the other man. His friends made him take a break "to cool off" in the bathroom, and all ended peacefully after Marina expressed her discomfort with his hostility. "I tried to remind him that we are on a plane, that it's scary when a man is losing his temper like that," she told The Moscow News. "When he realized how scared I was, he decided to act like a gallant knight and thankfully fell asleep for the rest of the flight." Though no one was hurt on Marina's plane, that's not always the case when cabin fever, alcohol, and the willingness to throw some punches combine during a long flight. Several other incidents of drunken airborne aggression have made national news in recent weeks. In one episode, heavily intoxicated 54-year-old Sergei Kabalov lit up a cigarette on board a flight from Moscow to Egypt in early January. He punched a flight attendant who tried to stop him, kneed an interfering passenger in the face, and attempted to break into the pilot's cabin - all while shouting "I'm a legislator, I'm a soldier in the special forces of the GRU [Russia's foreign intelligence agency], who can kill anyone with two fingers." Kabalov is neither a legislator nor a GRU agent. On Friday, Russian authorities opened a criminal case against him for attempting to hijack the plane: a charge which carries a maximum penalty of 12 years in prison. In another recent case, an Aeroflot flight to Thailand was forced to make an emergency landing in Uzbekistan last Sunday when Russian businessman Vyacheslav Ismailov got into a fistfight with another passenger after drinking at least one bottle of liquor he had bought from a duty free store. Lack of legal consequences According to Aeroflot General Director Vitaly Savelyev, incidents of violence aboard aircraft are relatively frequent among Russian passengers. Savelyev wrote on his Twitter account last week that there were 490 recorded violations of passenger conduct regulations in 2012 on Aeroflot flights alone. By contrast, there were 101 official incidents of unruly passengers among all airline carriers in the United States last year, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. The difference is especially striking when comparing the amount of air traffic in both countries. In 2011, a total of 730 million passengers flew in the United States - but just over 64 million air passengers in Russia in the same year, according to statistics from the U.S. Department of Transportation and the Russian Federal Air Travel Agency. The U.S., however, has much stricter rules regarding in-flight behavior. Noncompliance with crew members is a federal crime, bearing a possible prison time and a maximum fine of $25,000 per violation. American airlines have a strict zero-tolerance policy for unruly behavior, and are legally allowed to deny ticket purchase to blacklisted passengers. Legal protection for Russian airlines is less comprehensive. Passengers in Russia are under the jurisdiction of the 1963 Tokyo Convention, which allows aircraft commanders to restrain and forcibly disembark passengers who have "jeopardized the safety of the aircraft or the good order and discipline on board." The Air Code of the Russian Federation also allows some administrative fines for smoking on board and refusal to obey orders from crew members. The crew may confiscate duty- free alcohol from passengers, but there is no punishment for overconsumption of alcohol on board. Airlines also cannot refuse to sell tickets to passengers who have caused problems in the past. "Aeroflot has advocated the legalization of blacklists for three years already, but the Air Code forbids airlines from introducing blacklists," Savelyev, Aeroflot's General Director, wrote last week on Twitter. "We have a conditional blacklist of 1821 people - but we can't deny them transportation, since there is no legal basis." Ticket price concerns The State Duma is now considering the issue of passenger safety on aircraft, and plans to draft an official proposal this spring. The draft may include provisions for 3-5 year blacklists for unruly passengers, add harsher penalties for conduct violations to the Air Code, add appropriate articles to Russia's Civil and Criminal Codes, and introduce restrictions on in-flight and duty free alcohol sales, said Igor Barinov, chairman of the State Duma Defense Committee. "At this moment, airline crews are basically without rights," Barinov said at a press conference at RIA Novosti last week. "This situation must be seriously corrected. We don't need to think, we need to pass the law." While many people agree that more regulation is needed, the breadth of legislative action being considered by the Duma has drawn criticism. A ban on alcohol sales - which are a significant source of revenue for both airports and airlines - could lead to an increase in ticket prices as a means of compensation, said Vnukovo airport chairman Vitaly Vantsev at a press conference last Wednesday. "[Retailers] come to us and ask for rate reductions. These costs we will certainly pass on to rates and charges," Vantsev warned. http://themoscownews.com/russia/20130211/191224021/Frequent-flyer-fights.html Curt Lewis