Flight Safety Information September 10, 2013 - No. 187 In This Issue FAA faces air controller shortages: report Jet hits car at Detroit Metro Airport Avianca Colombia pilots refuse overtime amid labor dispute Sierra Nevada to flight test synthetic vision to help helicopter pilots land in zero visibility Airline in Norway Says It Briefly Grounded Dreamliners Attempt to salvage THAI aircraft Indonesia's Lion Air Is Seeking International Partners for Its Training Centers Former Flight Attendant, Crash Survivor Leads 24 Year Battle To Change Flying Rules For Young Children Think ARGUS PROS PhD Graduate Survey SpaceX's Grasshopper, the future of cheap spaceflight FAA faces air controller shortages: report The Federal Aviation Administration faces ongoing challenges in staffing the nation's air traffic control towers, the transportation department's chief watchdog said, following a tumultuous few years of several high-profile examples of controllers falling asleep on the job and budget cuts that forced the agency to furlough thousands of workers. After several air traffic controllers fell asleep on the job - some in the D.C. area - the FAA increased the amount of rest the controllers got between shifts and started requiring a second person to be on duty during overnight shifts. The second person requirement is costing the agency an extra $1.9 million annually, but the Transportation Department Inspector General said that could be offset by cutting overnight workers at 72 facilities that don't get enough traffic to justify the after-hours shifts. Plus, new software has been added that can alert managers if employees try to clock in during their mandatory rest period. The IG estimated that only about 1 percent of all shifts include controllers who have not gotten a minimum of eight or nine hours of rest, but said it remains concerned about the issue. "Ensuring a well-rested, alert controller workforce is essential to the safe and efficient operation of the [national airspace system]," the IG said. Still, studies into fatigue are ongoing, investigators said, and the FAA might need to change its policies again as the effects of lack of sleep become better understood. The nation's aviation agency is also planning on hiring 11,700 new air traffic controllers by 2021 to replace those lost to budget cuts and retirement. But investigators are concerned the hiring process is starting to take too long to train new workers. "The average training time for new controllers rose by 41 percent, from 1.9 years in fiscal year 2009 to an average of 2.68 years in fiscal year 2012," the IG said. Two years ago, the FAA started 20 different projects to reduce the training time for air traffic controllers, but investigators said none of the initiatives have been finished. Part of the problem, the IG said, is a constant turnover at the FAA office that oversees training. In four years, there have been three major reorganizations of the department. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/sep/6/faa-faces-air-controller-shortages- report/#ixzz2eUGXZVIR Back to Top Jet hits car at Detroit Metro Airport A regional jet operated by a Delta Air Lines affiliate struck a parked car on the tarmac at Detroit Metro Airport as the airplane was backing away from the terminal Monday afternoon. No one was hurt during the incident about 4 p.m. that involved a CRJ 700 operated by ExpressJet. Delta Connection Flight 5365 was bound for Tulsa and passengers were scheduled to make the flight on another aircraft, a Delta spokesperson said. Mike Conway, a spokesman for the airport, said the plane hit a car operated by Sky Chef, which provides food to the airlines. Passengers took photos of the car, which appeared to hit the right wing of the small jet. There was no estimate on the damage. A passenger told WDIV-TV (Channel 4) that the plane was backing up when the wing struck the vehicle and got stuck. http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20130909/METRO01/309090102#ixzz2eU8ihaAv Back to Top Avianca Colombia pilots refuse overtime amid labor dispute BOGOTA (Reuters) - Pilots at airline Avianca are refusing to work overtime hours amid a labor dispute, their unions said on Monday, a decision only affecting pilots employed through the company's Colombian operations. The company controlled by Avianca Holdings, which also controls El Salvador's Taca, said in a statement that it has offered to raise pilots' salaries and offered other benefits. However, it said the employees have refused to discuss it and have still to present their demands to the company. Avianca said it has taken measures necessary to minimize the impact of the dispute on its operations. Avianca pilots refused to work overtime on at least one previous occasion to pressure the company to respond to its demands, causing delays to its flights. Back to Top Sierra Nevada to flight test synthetic vision to help helicopter pilots land in zero visibility FORT EUSTIS, Va.-U.S. Army helicopter avionics experts say they plan to ask Sierra Nevada Corp. in Sparks, Nev., to integrate and test a prototype synthetic-vision system on a Sikorsky UH-60 helicopter that is designed to help helicopter pilots land safely in zero- visibility conditions. Officials of the Aviation Applied Technology Directorate of the Army Research, Development, and Engineering Command at Fort Eustis, Va., have announced their intention to award a contract worth between $2 million and $8 million to Sierra Nevada to integrate and test the company's Helicopter Autonomous Landing System (HALS) aboard an Army UH-60A/L helicopter. Sierra Nevada Corp Sierra Nevada Corp. will flight-test a synthetic vision system to help helicopter pilots land in thick dust. Sierra Nevada HALS avionics use a 3D image-rendering 94 GHz pulsed radar, global positioning system (GPS), inertial sensors, and cockpit displays to help helicopter pilots view geographic features outside the aircraft during brownouts and whiteouts from dust, snow, or other visual impairments. Landing a helicopter in choking dust or whiteout snow can be particularly difficult because pilots can become disoriented easily near the ground as they lose view of the horizon and other visual cues. HALS uses radar data translated to color graphic representations on cockpit displays to help helicopter pilots control the aircraft's roll, pitch, and yaw based on radar-generated graphic representations of the ground and nearby geographic features in zero-visibility conditions. Sierra Nevada Corp. has been developing a 94-GHz imaging radar system for synthetic- vision helicopter landing aids since 2005. Army officials say Sierra Nevada is uniquely qualified to integrate and test the HALS prototype on an Army helicopter, and so plan to award this contract sole-source. Sierra Nevada experts will develop HALS software and sensors in support of the Army Aviation and Missile Research Development and Engineering Center's Degraded Visual Environment (DVE) mitigation effort, Army officials say. Sierra Nevada will integrate government-furnished radome, two cockpit displays, and radar system electrical harness interface aboard the test UH-60 helicopter. The company also will perform software updates, imagery system enhancements, and engineering support for ground and flight testing. HALS avionics enable helicopter pilots to take off, land, and fly in all degraded visual conditions, provides visual situational awareness to enable pilots to see and avoid wires, cables, and terrain, and well as follow landmarks in poor visibility. The system also includes Brownout Symbology Software (BOSS), precise guidance to landing in zero visibility, and safe transition from visual to instrument flying conditions. http://www.militaryaerospace.com/articles/print/volume-24/issue-9/eo-watch/sierra- nevada-to-flight-test-synthetic-vision-to-help-helicopter-pilots-land-in-zero-visibility.html Back to Top Airline in Norway Says It Briefly Grounded Dreamliners PARIS - Norwegian Air Shuttle, a budget airline, confirmed Monday that it had briefly grounded both of its new Boeing 787 jets over the past week after the aircraft experienced technical problems. Since its introduction in late 2011, the innovative plane, which Boeing calls the Dreamliner, has had a string of problems, many related to electrical systems. Norwegian Air said it was forced to cancel a 787 flight from Oslo to Bangkok on Saturday after the ground crew tried for several hours to power up the plane while it was parked at Oslo Airport Gardermoen and connected to an external electrical supply unit. "The aircraft did not want to receive any power from the ground," Lasse Sandaker-Nielsen, a Norwegian spokesman, said by telephone from Oslo. Maintenance workers replaced a part on the plane late Sunday and the 787 was returned to service on Monday afternoon, Mr. Sandaker-Nielsen said. He could not identify the component. Boeing had delivered the plane to the airline in late June. Norwegian Air Shuttle had grounded its other 787 on Sept. 2 after a cockpit display indicated a problem with the plane's brakes. The plane had been scheduled to fly from Stockholm to Bangkok and then on to New York. Maintenance crews inspected the aircraft at the Stockholm airport over the course of three days, Mr. Sandaker-Nielsen said, but found no problems. That plane, which has been delivered in mid-August, went back into service on Friday. "We are very happy with the way the aircraft is performing," Mr. Sandaker-Nielsen said. More than a dozen other airlines are operating Dreamliners, and all have expressed confidence in the aircraft, despite the spate of problems. "You have to expect that brand-new airplanes will have some teething problems," Mr. Sandaker-Nielsen said. Nonetheless, the hiccups have marred the introduction of the Dreamliner, which Norwegian Air has made a key part of its planned expansion into Asia and the United States. In July, a fire erupted on board an empty Ethiopian Airlines 787 while it was parked at Heathrow Airport near London. British investigators linked the blaze to a pinched electrical wire serving the plane's emergency locator transmitter. That incident came after safety regulators cleared the Dreamliner to resume flights in mid- April after dangerous overheating of the lightweight lithium-ion batteries on two planes in January led to the grounding of all 787 jets worldwide. Investigators still have not determined the root cause of the two incidents, but Boeing has modified the battery system in an attempt to resolve the issue. The Dreamliner, which makes extensive use of lightweight composite materials that help reduce fuel costs by 20 percent, is crucial to Boeing's future. The Chicago-based company has delivered more than 70 of the planes so far and hopes to sell thousands more over the next two decades as it seeks to recoup an estimated $32 billion in development costs. Charlie Miller, a Boeing spokesman in Chicago, declined to make any immediate comment on whether the problems with Norwegian's Dreamliners had been experienced by other customers. "We have worked with Norwegian Air Shuttle, resolved the issue, and the airplane is now serviceable," Mr. Miller said. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/10/business/global/airline-in-norway-says-it-briefly- grounded-dreamliners.html?_r=0 Back to Top Attempt to salvage THAI aircraft Backhoes are brought in to Suvarnabhumi Airport on Tuesday, as part of the attempt to salvage the Thai Airways International aircraft. The backhoes are now digging the land around the wheel, to pave way for the lifting of the Airbus A330-300 aircraft. The salvage is scheduled to finish within 48 hours, so that the Suvarnabhumi Airport's East runway can reopen on September 11 as planned. The aircraft skidded off the runway on September 8. THAI also faces a criticism when its technicians re-painted the logo after the accident. The airline today issued a statement clarifying that the de-identification of the aircraft in the TG679 incident has long been a practice at the national airline. It also clarifies that it is not a Star Alliance policy or procedure to de-identify aircraft. http://www.nationmultimedia.com/business/Attempt-to-salvage-THAI-aircraft- 30214565.html Back to Top Indonesia's Lion Air Is Seeking International Partners for Its Training Centers Regulator Urged Improvements After One of Its Planes Landed Just Short of Bali Indonesia's Lion Air, seeking to upgrade its pilot-training facilities after its safety record came under criticism, has put out a call for international partners. Lion was asked by the Indonesian air-safety regulator to make improvements after one of its planes crashed into the sea moments before it was to land at Bali earlier this year. There were no fatalities. Along with most Indonesian carriers, Lion-which ordered 234 single-aisle jets from Airbus in March and placed a similar giant order with Boeing Co. BA +1.06% last year-is under a European Union safety ban. In its preliminary report on a Lion Air 737's nonfatal crash off Bali last April, Indonesia's air- safety regulator recommended the carrier address safety issues in pilot training The EU placed Indonesia and its carriers on its unsafe-for-flying list in 2007, after a spate of accidents, though it later lifted the ban on some, including flag carrier Garuda Indonesia GIAA.JK +2.04% and local associates of Tiger Airways Holdings J7X.SG +0.93% and AirAsia Bhd. 5099.KU +2.79% Lion is seeking partners with European Safety Agency or U.S. Federal Aviation Administration certification for its training facilities: Wings Flying School, which trains rookie pilots to get their licenses, and the Lion Training Centre, which provides advanced training on passenger aircraft such as the Boeing 737. Lion's pilot training and procedures were questioned by Indonesia's National Transportation Safety Committee in a preliminary investigation report on the April 13 Bali crash-the fourth incident involving Lion Air aircraft in less than two years. All 108 passengers and crew escaped, some with injuries, after a brand new Boeing 737-800 jet crashed into the sea short of landing. Lion Air must "ensure the pilots are properly trained during the initial and recurrent training program with regard to changeover of control at critical altitudes and or critical time," according to the report submitted in May. It noted that the flight's 24-year old copilot handed control to the captain moments before the crash, saying he couldn't see the runway due to rain. While Lion Air and other airlines have big plans for Indonesia, a spate of deadly accidents over the past decade has raised international concern about the country's air-safety standards and regulatory system. Lion is seeking to be excepted from the EU ban. A spokesman for the airline explained that while Lion doesn't fly to Europe, it does lose business because many European travel agents are barred from booking tickets on Lion. "We believe we should not be in the ban as the standards we set are higher than the standards required by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (of Indonesia)," he said, adding that the airline's safety standards meet the required global norms. For the Wings Flying School, Lion recently for 20 trainer aircraft made by Cessna, a unit of Textron Inc. It also has options for 20 more of the Cessna 172s, and plans to turn the options into firm orders as the delivery slots draw near, according to the company statement. The Wings Flying School aims to graduate 60 to 70 pilots this year and about 150 next year, it added. Lion wants these training joint ventures to serve the needs of the Lion Group-which includes Wings Air and Batik Air as well as Lion Air-and other airline customers, it said. Lion Air is Indonesia's largest domestic airline and mostly operates Boeing 737-900ERs and 737-800s. Wings Air is the country's largest turboprop operator, with a fleet of ATR 72-500s and ATR 72-600s. Batik Air a full-service carrier, with a fleet of 737-900ERs. In addition, Lion Group owns 49% of Malaysian carrier Malindo Air, which operates 737-900ERs and ATR 72-600s. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324823804579016150022966992.html Back to Top Former Flight Attendant, Crash Survivor Leads 24 Year Battle To Change Flying Rules For Young Children By: John Goglia Jan Lohr-Brown's crusade to change air safety rules for young passengers began in a wreckage-strewn cornfield in Iowa on a warm July day in 1989. Having just survived the horrific plane crash that took the lives of 112 passengers, Ms. Lohr-Brown, the senior flight attendant on the ill-fated United Airlines Flight 232, faced an even more difficult situation: a confrontation with the distraught mother of a 22-month old child who had perished in the crash. The mother blamed Ms. Lohr-Brown for the child's death. As the plane prepared for an emergency landing at Sioux City's airport - after shrapnel from an uncontained engine failure on the DC-10 aircraft had severed all three hydraulic lines and basically left the aircraft without flight controls - flight attendants prepared passengers for a crash landing. Parents of lap children were told to wrap them in blankets, place them on the floor and hold them with their hands and feet. Unfortunately, despite heroic efforts by the crew and an off-duty DC-10 instructor pilot, the aircraft's touchdown on the runway was marred when the wing hit the ground, causing the aircraft to catapult into the cornfield adjacent to the airport. No parent's hands or legs were strong enough to withstand the G-forces of that catapulting aircraft. No parents' limbs could be. One lap child somehow landed inside an overhead luggage bin and was rescued. One child, the one who still haunts Ms. Lohr-Brown, did not survive. His name was Evan Tsao. Since his mother and everyone around him survived, chances are his fate would have been very different if FAA regulations had required him to be properly restrained in his own seat. They did not and to this day, FAA rules do not require children under the age of two to be properly restrained in their own seat. Properly restrained child under the age of two. Ms. Lohr-Brown's campaign for the last 24 years has been to change those rules so that children under the age of two have the same chances of surviving a crash or even rough air as older passengers. While garnering the support of many safety advocates - and even getting the FAA to publish on its website that children under the age of two are safe flying only when properly restrained in their seats - the rule change she has long lobbied for has not been enacted. But Ms. Lohr-Brown does not give up easily. She's taken the battle directly to the White House with a petition drive to "end lap children on planes". According to the petition, created on September 5, it seeks to require the FAA to "end the practice of lap children on all commercial aviation flights by mandating children under the age of two years old be required to purchase a seat" and be properly restrained. The petition seeks to gather 100,000 signatures by October 5, 2013. I have known Ms. Lohr-Brown for more than a decade. We first met when I was an NTSB Member and she came to lobby me on lap children. Little did she know then that I was already committed to the same cause through personal experience. My own commitment to changing the lap child rule came as a result of the 1994 crash of a USAir aircraft on approach to Charlotte. I was the lead accident investigator for the IAM, USAir's mechanic's union. An image indelibly seared in my mind is a firefighter holding the remains of a dead lap child. The mother survived. Her arms were not strong enough to withstand the G-forces of the hurtling aircraft after it was hit by a microburst and crashed on landing. http://www.forbes.com/sites/johngoglia/2013/09/09/former-flight-attendant-crash- survivor-leads-24-year-battle-to-change-flying-rules-for-young-children/ Back to Top Back to Top PhD Graduate Survey Dear Colleagues: I am a PHD student at Northcentral University. I would like to invite you to participate in a research study. The name of this study is titled Examining Principle Core Competencies for Aviation Safety Professionals. This study is in the area of Safety Management Systems and aviation technologies. Your feedback will help evaluate core aviation safety competencies. If you would like to participate, please check the Informed Consent Agreement Box at the survey site. The Survey is located at: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/CLCompetencySurveyStudy If you have any questions, please let me know. Thank you for your help in this research. Respectfully, Curt Lewis ___________ Curtis L. Lewis Doctoral Candidate - Northcentral University 1802 Briarcrest Lane Arlington, TX 76012 Cell: 817-845-3983 Home: 817-303-9096 E-mail: curt@curt-lewis.com Dr. Dalijit Singh Dissertation Committee Chair E-Mail: dsingh@ncu.edu Back to Top SpaceX's Grasshopper, the future of cheap spaceflight, performs perfect test flight SpaceX has released a spectacular new video of its vertical-takeoff-and-landing (VTVL) reusable launch vehicle (RLV) Grasshopper. In the video, Grasshopper uses its single rocket engine to shoot up to an altitude of 250 meters (820 feet), perform a 100-meter (330-ft) lateral maneuver, and then slowly return to the exact same spot that it took off from... while simultaneously scaring a herd of cows. Grasshopper is the first stage of SpaceX's efforts to create a reusable space launch system that, by virtue of not wastefully dropping everything into the ocean, will massively reduce the cost of spaceflight - like, to the point where you and I could visit outer space for less than a few months' salary. Grasshopper is a simple, single-stage 32-meter (108-ft) tall VTVL RLV powered by a single Merlin-1D rocket, and four steel legs that act as landing gear. In many ways it's very similar to the first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket, which has been successfully launching spacecraft (such as the Dragon capsule, which resupplies the International Space Station) for the past year. The similarity is intentional, as Grasshopper is a tech demo that will later be used to build reusable versions of the Falcon 9. Grasshopper Divert | Single Cam (Grasshopper vs. Cows) The main difference between Grasshopper and the first stage of normal launch systems is that the Grasshopper gracefully lands back on the ground. Basically, while most rockets blow all of their fuel to get as far away from the launch site as possible, Grasshopper uses some of its fuel to gracefully return to the launch pad. This is fairly complex, as slow-moving and non-rotating rockets aren't the most stable of creatures. Grasshopper maneuvers by way of its Merlin-1D engine being gimbaled, where the rocket's nozzle can be angled to alter the thrust vectoring (see image below). It lands by way of four legs, which look a lot like the legs on Apollo's Lunar Lander (which also had to launch and land on the same surface). Gimbaled thrust in a rocket Up until this point, every orbital space launch system has been expendable, with most of the rockets and the fuel tanks tumbling into the ocean. The Space Shuttle itself was somewhat reusable, but its main fuel tank was expendable and each Shuttle still had to undergo months of rejuvenation to prepare it for the next mission. SpaceX's plan for a reusable launch system would eventually see first- and second-stage rockets that are reusable within "single-digit hours" after returning to the launch pad. This could eventually lead reasonably priced space travel. The next version of Grasshopper, version 1.1, will be outfitted with nine Merlin engines - just like the Falcon 9 rocket. It is hoped that Grasshopper 1.1 will begin testing sometime between now and the beginning of 2014, and will slowly work its way up to an altitude of 91,000 meters (300,000 ft). By mid-2014, SpaceX may start bringing actual Falcon 9 launch vehicles back to the launchpad. SpaceX isn't the only company looking at reusable space flight, of course. The Skylon spaceplane, based on the British-designed and highly novel SABRE engine, is a normal plane that flies to an altitude of around 25 kilometers (15.5 miles) - and then effectively turns into a rocket, shooting up into outer space. http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/166014-spacexs-grasshopper-the-future-of-cheap- spaceflight-performs-perfect-test-flight Curt Lewis