Flight Safety Information May 23, 2013 - No. 104 In This Issue Aviation safety agencies 'endangering lives', says senate committee report (Australia) Parts of jet plane wing fall on woman's house Early Thursday morning, the future landed at DFW Airport JetBlue flight makes emergency landing at MSP Annual SMS Audit Results Released Dubai reveals new aviation vision to 2045 Third European Flight Data Monitoring Conference (EOFDM), January 2014...Call for Presenters Aviation safety agencies 'endangering lives', says senate committee report (Australia) Careflight crash plane AUSTRALIA'S major aviation safety agencies operate in a cloud of incompetence and are endangering lives. That's the wash-up from a senate committee report which has sparked calls for urgent action after probing a 2009 plane crash off Norfolk Island. "It's an alarming report because it outlines a number of deep concerns that the committee had about systemic and serious failures in terms of aviation safety in this country," committee member Nick Xenophon told reporters on Thursday. "Right now my confidence in our aviation watchdogs has been shaken to the core. "This report reveals a disturbing trend in Australia's aviation industry, where the regulatory safety system is failing the travelling public." Aviation safety consultant and former senior Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) investigator Mick Quinn said the report "really does ring alarm bells for the industry and for the government". "... if nothing is done there could be tragic results and the details of these recommendations need to be implemented as a matter of urgency," he said. The Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport References Committee tabled the scathing report outlining inadequacies on the part of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) and CASA. The 150-page report followed the committee's review of investigations into a November 2009 plane crash off Norfolk Island. The committee found a raft of shortfalls on the part of CASA and ATSB, including poor channels of communication, which failed protocol. "The question that has to be asked on behalf of every member of the travelling public who jumps on a plane in this country is: if they've stuffed up in relation to this, where else are they going wrong?" Senator Xenophon said. Pilot Dominic James was forced to ditch a Pel-Air medical evacuation flight in the ocean near Norfolk Island on a stormy night after repeated attempts to land failed. All six people on board survived. While the captain admits "there were things I wish I did better on the night", Senator Xenophon said the ATSB used him as a "scapegoat" to cover up its own inadequacies. "This is not just about one flight that ditched in the sea and the investigation that ensued. This is about some serious systemic concerns and the committee has made it very clear ... that there are serious issues with respect to aviation safety in this country as a result of the inactions and incompetence of both CASA and the ATSB," Senator Xenophon said. Nurse Karen Casey was working on the medivac flight on the night of the crash and was seriously injured. She has not worked since and suffers from ongoing physical and psychological trauma. "I really do hope that the recommendations that are in this report will be noted and acted upon for the public who fly every single day, which I think is around two million people per month," the 42-year-old Queensland mother of three told reporters. "It's time for safety to come first." Senator Xenophon called for the appointment of an inspector general of aviation to oversee the operations of the CASA and ATSB. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/aviation/aviation-safety-agencies- endangering-lives-says-senate-committee-report/story-e6frg95x-1226649372813 Back to Top Parts of jet plane wing fall on woman's house, Walmart parking lot Federal authorities are investigating why pieces of a 747 cargo plane crashed into the woman's house Sunday afternoon. CLAYTON COUNTY, Ga. - Federal authorities are investigating why pieces of a 747 cargo plane crashed into the woman's house Sunday afternoon. The woman lives on Newton Estate Drive in Clayton County, along a direct flight path to Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. Another piece of the plane landed at a Walmart on Anvil Block Road, just a couple of miles away. Channel 2's Tony Thomas watched as mechanics and inspectors canvassed the right wing of the plane Wednesday night, replacing the 20-foot section that ripped off. Homeowner Pamela Ware told Thomas she's thankful she survived after part of that wing hit her house. "And boom! I was like, 'Huh?' Actually, I hit the floor," Ware said. "If it had landed in here because that is just Sheetrock, it would have... oh boy, I wouldn't be no good." She showed Thomas pictures she took of the chunk that she said put two holes in her roof before bouncing into the yard. She took Thomas into the attic to see the splintered rafters and holes that were left behind. Ware was lucky in more ways than one. Authorities said a 20-foot section of the plane crashed into the parking lot in front of a Walmart. No one was hurt. Federal investigators told Thomas the 747 cargo plane coming from Anchorage was about 5 miles east of Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport when a piece of the right wing flap ripped off, breaking into at least two pieces and potentially damaging the aircraft body. The pilot declared an emergency and landed safely at the airport. Thomas was told by Boeing and China Airlines, inspectors are on site as the jet sits just off Hartsfield's runways. Ware has now spent several sleepless nights, wondering who's going to pay for her repairs and when the next piece might drop. "I just keep thinking of what could have happened," Ware said. Federal investigators now have taken those pieces of the wing flap as part of their investigation. Thomas tried reaching China Airlines several times Wednesday but received no answer. http://www.wsbtv.com/news/news/local/parts-jet-plane-wing-fall-womans-house- walmart-par/nXzhT/ Back to Top Early Thursday morning, the future landed at DFW Airport: a solar-powered airplane on a record-shattering sojourn SolarImpulse Lands at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport From a distance, it looked, well, exactly as advertised - like a UFO on the horizon, 200 feet of bright white lights spread across the early-morning skies over Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. As it floated in for a landing on runway 13L, it made no sound at all. It appeared to hover, then float, then shimmy slightly from side to side. Later, an onlooker would offer the perfect description of this heretofore unseen contraption: a Popsicle stick with the wings of a jetliner. Bertrand Piccard, one in a long line of Piccards past (and future) who went looking for answers in the thin air Only, it's much, much more: the SolarImpulse, the so-called "zero fuel airplane" whose wings are covered with some 12,000 monocrystalline silicon cells - solar panels, in other words, that store sunlight and make it possible to pilot the plane from here to there without a drop of anything. "We could stay up till the next sunrise and capture the next rays of the rising sun to continue the flight," says its co-creator and co-pilot, Bertrand Piccard. "This is what's completely revolutionary." Till now Piccard was best known as one half of the pioneering pair - with Brian Jones - who circumnavigated the globe, non-stop, in a balloon. Their travels were chronicled in the book Around the World in 20 Days. Now he's traveling across the U.S. - from San Francisco to Phoenix to Dallas to St. Louis to Washington D.C. to New York City at an average of 26 miles per hour - using his plane to sell the concept of a "Clean Generation" that can and will survive solely on renewable energy. The trip from Phoenix to Dallas, which took some 18 hours, set the distance for a solar- powered flight. In other words, the future is here. It just doesn't go real fast. The SolarImpulse, in the works since 2003, landed just after 1 a.m. Thursday at Dallas- Fort Worth International Airport. It was piloted by one man, Piccard's partner, Andre Borschberg, because only one person can fit inside its cramped cockpit. Borschberg hovered above DFW for hours, in the breezy, bumpy darkness, until the sky cleared of air traffic, lest any turbulence jostle the fragile craft. Upon landing Borschberg joked that he was on the lookout for good steakhouses, but couldn't espy any in the dark. He asked for suggestions. Many were given. Piccard, who piloted the craft from San Francisco to Phoenix, is the perfect spokesman for this endeavor; his, after all, is the name-brand last name. "Star Trek, you know Jean-Luc Picard? The captain of Enterprise? He is named after the twin brother of my grandfather," he says. He's referring to Jean Felix Piccard, the chemist-turned-balloon-maker, and his brother Auguste, the first person to touch the stratosphere in a balloon. "Star Trek used his name for the captain of Enterprise. So, actually, he's my great-grand-grand-grand-grand-grand-nephew, because he's in the future. ... Piccard greeting Borschberg upon the arrival of SolarImpulse early Thursday morning "My grandfather was the first man to see the curvature of the earth with his own eyes. My father [Jacques] built the bathyscaphe with my grandfather and made the deepest dive in the Mariana Trench with Don Walsh in 1960. Charles Lindbergh I met at Cape Kennedy when I was a kid. Sir Edmund Hillary, the first man to climb Mount Everest, was a friend of my father's. I thought it was a normal way to live, to be an explorer. I have to say, I was disappointed when I was older to see a lot of people aren't explorers, that a lot of people are afraid of the unknown, are afraid of the question marks, and they want to reassure themselves with the old ways of thinking. I remember thinking, 'At least I'm not going to be like that. I'm going to be an explorer also.'" The pair, and the support crew and filmmakers traveling with them, will be at the airport for several days; public viewings of the plane will take place Friday and Saturday. Check the website for available times. Even on the ground the plane is a sight to behold, a behemoth whose wingspan fills a runway yet looks as fragile as child's toy. Piccard says it will be the product he uses to sell the future. "The team of SolarImpulse, we believe there are a lot of big challenges and problems to solve for the future, and we cannot solve them with old patterns of thinking," he says. "We need to leave the certitudes and common assumptions behind. But if we make a press conference about the psychology of pioneering, I'm not sure a lot of people would be interested. We have to show clear solutions, new technologies that really save energy. And SolarImpulse is, for us, the best example we can show. It's an airplane that raises the awareness of people, that attracts attention. Everybody is passionate about these new type of adventures, and this adventure is made possible only because we use renewable energy - a plane that flies almost forever day and night with no fuel." http://thescoopblog.dallasnews.com/2013/05/early-thursday-morning-the-future- perhaps-landed-at-dfw-airport-a-solar-powered-airplane.html/ Back to Top JetBlue flight makes emergency landing at MSP MINNEAPOLIS - A JetBlue flight made an emergency landing at Minneapolis St. Paul International Airport on Wednesday night. Patrick Hogan, of the Metropolitan Airports Commission, the flight arrived at MSP shortly before 10 p.m. Hogan said the pilot noticed fumes in the cockpit and landed as a precautionary measure. Hogan did not know where the flight originated from. There are no injuries. Passengers were taken off of the plane while technicians looked for the problem. Hogan said it will be JetBlue's decision on how to proceed with the flight. http://www.kare11.com/news/article/1026872/396/JetBlue-flight-makes-emergency- landing-at-MSP Back to Top Back to Top Dubai reveals new aviation vision to 2045 Dubai Airports CEO Paul Griffiths. Dubai is working to extend its ambitious aviation growth plan by an additional 15 years to 2045, emphasising the emirate's desire to remain a global leader in the industry. The new "extremely long timeframe" was revealed during an exclusive interview with Dubai Airports CEO Paul Griffiths to be published in the June edition of CEO Middle East magazine, a sister publication of Arabian Business. Government-owned Dubai Airports is undergoing a massive expansion at both Dubai International, which is the world's second busiest airport by international passenger traffic, and the new Al Maktoum International Airport at Dubai World Central (DWC). "We're now working on a master plan which will see how we can produce the right amount of capacity for Dubai's aviation growth up to 2045, so we are thinking a long way ahead here and there are plenty of options," Griffiths said. "I think the sky's the limit, really, as far as the possibilities are concerned." The first carriers at DWC are expected to begin operations on October 27 and Griffiths anticipates a major airline will transfer to the new hub, south of Jebel Ali, by summer 2014. The new airport is expected to become the largest in the world by the time it is finished, with a capacity of 160m passengers. Dubai International also is undergoing a major expansion to help accommodate the emirate's rapid air traffic growth while DWC is built. The world's only dedicated A380 terminal opened in January and works to increase capacity at Terminal 2, the hub for Dubai's low cost carrier FlyDubai, by 50 percent was completed earlier this month. Concourse D at Terminal 1 is expected to be completed by the end of 2016, importantly creating additional capacity for foreign airlines. "That will be added to our portfolio by the end of 2016 and will give us probably another 20m passenger increase," Griffiths said. "So by 2018 we're looking at a capacity at Dubai International of about 90m and possibly pushing that a bit over the following decade to about 100m by 2020." Griffiths said a decision on the future of Dubai International once DWC was fully operational would be unlikely to be made within the next decade. "Fortunately we don't need to make that decision for quite some time," he said. "We're talking about an extremely long timeframe here because the current design capacity of the new airport is about 160m and the question on our lips at the moment is how can we construct it in such a way to make the transition between the two airports complete. "Options that we're currently studying include keeping the existing airport running in some shape or form, [while] other options are potentially closing it and transferring everything across to DWC." Tight air traffic space could make it infeasible to run the airports in parallel, particularly with airports in Abu Dhabi and Sharjah also in close proximity, Griffiths said. "But the convenience of the location of Dubai International plus the advance logistics and the huge capacity we'll have at DWC will clearly both be factors in that decision, but we probably don't have to make that decision for at least another 10 years," he said. An extension of the existing Dubai metro red line from Jebel Ali to DWC and a rapid heavy rail system to help cope with the huge number of visitors also were needed, he said. http://www.arabianbusiness.com/dubai-reveals-new-aviation-vision-2045--502809.html Back to Top Third European Flight Data Monitoring Conference (EOFDM), January 2014 Call for Presenters The European Operators Flight Data Monitoring (EOFDM) forum is a voluntary safety initiative dedicated to the promotion of Flight Data Monitoring (FDM) or FOQA programm. Under the aegis of ECAST (European Commercial Aviation Safety Team), the EOFDM forum objective is to facilitate the implementation of Flight Data Monitoring (FDM) tools and programmes by operators and to help operators in drawing the maximum safety benefits from it. Despite its name, the EOFDM welcomes non-European operators, as well as aircraft manufacturers, regulators, research institutions, flight crew associations, etc. The 3rd EOFDM conference is looking again for volunteers to share their experience and enthusiasm with FDM. Presentations should be related to FDM programm and of general interest. Examples of presentations at past EOFDM conferences and more detailed information are provided at http://easa.europa.eu/essi/ecast/main-page-2/eofdm/ (click on "Annual EOFDM Conference"). Proposals should be addressed to guillaume.aigoin@easa.europa.eu and philippe.pilloud@easyJet.com . Curt Lewis