Flight Safety Information October 10, 2013 - No. 209 In This Issue One dies in MASWings' Twin Otter aircraft crash in Kudat 1 dead, two injured after helicopter crashes off rig in Gulf of Mexico Safety system not working in Qantas A330 close call near Adelaide Nigeria aviation minister calls air crash 'act of God' Remote aircraft pilot fights $10,000 FAA fine, could change drone rules Passenger Aircraft with 154 People Emergency Lands in Moscow ANA Scraps 787 Dreamliner Flight as Engine Fails to Start Dreamliner Flight to Japan Diverted Back to San Diego Airport New Zealand airline enlists Betty White for 'old-school' safety video IFA Forum in Hong Kong 26-27 Nov 2013 Next GFSC Meeting 06 November 2013, Abu Dhabi ISASI NERC Meeting (19OCT2013) Think ARGUS PROS One dies in MASWings' Twin Otter aircraft crash in Kudat KOTA KINABALU: One died while five other were injured after a Twin Otter aircraft belonging to MASWings, crashed while attempting to land at 2.5opm from Kudat Airport, about 150km from here. Kudat police chief deputy superintendent confirmed one passengers died in MASWings aircraft crash. He said the man, in his 90s, died at the Kudat Hospital. Two others are believed to be in critical condition. The aircraft which was carrying 16 people on a flight from Kota Kinabalu, overshot the runway while trying to land and ploughed into a house in the nearby Kampung Sin-San. A woman and her 11-year old son who were in the living room at the time escaped unhurt when the aircraft crashed into the bedroom, dining hall and porch. According to MASwing schedule, flight MH3002 was slated to arrive from KK to Kudat at 2.45pm and depart from Kudat at 3pm to Sandakan. A Sabah health department spokesperson said six out of the 16 victims from the plane crash this afternoon were treated at Kudat Hospital's accident and emergency department. "Three of them are treated in red zone, while others are in yellow zone," he told the New Straits Times. Red zone is a cubicle meant to treat life-threatening condition, while yellow zone is for semi critical. He said the was a possibility that those who were severely injured would be transferred to hospitals in Kota Kinabalu as there might be a need for better medical facility and experts here. The department has set up an operations room at Kudat hospital to handle the situation. Sabah Fire and Rescue Department public relations officer Mohd Affendy Ramin said 10 other passengers received outpatient treatment. He said they received a distress call at 2.54pm and deployed 10 firefighters who helped to rescue the people onboard. Malaysia Airlines in a Press statement confirmed that it was their aircraft - DHC6 9M- MDM MH3002 operating from Kota Kinabalu to Kudat which was involved in the 2.50pm incident. "The aircraft landed short of the runway in Kudat." "No reported fatalities as of now. Focus of the airline is on the rescue of the passengers and crew." "We will continue to monitor the situation at the crash site and update the situation," it said. Meanwhile, Tanjung Kapor Assemblyman Datuk Teo Chee Kang said the aircraft crashed after it failed to take off. "I was told that the aircraft crashed after it failed to take off. My officers are on the ground and I am urging the authority to get to the root of it," said Teo, who is the State Special Tasks Minister when contacted. http://www.nst.com.my/latest/update-one-dies-in-maswings-twin-otter-aircraft-crash- in-kudat-1.372766 Back to Top 1 dead, two injured after helicopter crashes off rig in Gulf of Mexico Inflatables keep a helicopter upright following a crash in the Gulf of Mexico, Oct. 9, 2013. A Coast Guard Air Station New Orleans MH-65 helicopter and crew assisted in the rescue and transport of one person. A Scotland-based energy company said a contract pilot was killed and two of three passengers were airlifted to a New Orleans hospital with injuries Wednesday morning after a helicopter crashed near Venice. The pilot was flying a chopper owned by Panther Helicopters in Belle Chasse. He succumbed to his injuries, and two of three Wood Group PSN employees who were aboard were airlifted to LSU Medical Center, company spokeswoman Bobbie Ireland said. Their injuries weren't immediately know. The fourth passenger escaped unharmed. The helicopter carrying the four men crashed immediately after taking off from an oil rig with the three men whose shifts had just ended, Ireland said. The crash was reported 30 miles away from Venice at approximately 7:24 a.m. near the Main Pass Block 108, according to the Coast Guard. Coast Guard Air Station New Orleans launched an MH-65 Dolphin helicopter rescue crew and transferred the four passengers to an oil rig before they were airlifted to the hospital. The parent company John Wood Group PLC is based in Aberdeen, Scotland. The American headquarters of Wood Group PSN are located in Houston, Texas. Panther Helicopters did not immediately respond to a phone call requesting comment on Wednesday. The cause of the crash is under investigation. http://www.nola.com/traffic/index.ssf/2013/10/1_dead_three_hospitalized_afte.html Back to Top Safety system not working in Qantas A330 close call near Adelaide AIR Safety investigators have revealed that the traffic collision avoidance system in one of two Qantas Airbus A330s which came too close to each other near Adelaide last month was not working. An Australian Transport safety Bureau report confirmed, as revealed in The Australian, that the aircraft were not in danger of colliding when the traffic collision avoidance system of one aircraft issued an alert, called a resolution advisory, which gives pilots instructions they are required to follow. Aircraft VH-EBO was travelling from Sydney to Perth at 38,000ft on September 20 and the VH-EBS was travelling from Perth to Sydney at 39,000ft when the crew of EBO was cleared by an air traffic controller to climb to 40,000ft. "Soon after, the controller cancelled the clearance and the aircraft descended back to FL 380 (38,000ft)," the report said. "The flight crew of EBS received a resolution advisory alert from their aircraft's traffic collision avoidance system. However, EBO's flight crew advised that they did not receive any indications on their traffic collision avoidance system of the presence of EBS. "A full system test conducted on EBO's traffic collision avoidance system after the incident confirmed it was not functioning." Investigators said recorded data from the two aircraft showed that the minimum vertical separation was 650ft when the two aircraft were 4.1 nautical miles (8 km) apart laterally. The lateral separation got as low as 1.6 nm (3 km) when the aircraft were 870ft apart vertically but by then they were moving away from each other and the correct separation of 1000ft vertically and 5nm horizontally was established shortly afterwards. The ATSB investigation will continue to analyse the recorded data, the context in which the air traffic controller made his decision as well as examine the traffic collision avoidance system and its reliability. Qantas said the ATSB's report demonstrated its pilots acted appropriately and that the planes were on diverging one-way routes that were never going to intersect. ''The incident demonstrates the effectiveness of multiple layers of protection and redundancy built into aviation safety in Australia through safety regulations, air traffic control, aircraft systems, and the training of pilots,'' a spokesman said. ''While the TCAS system on one aircraft was working intermittently it was working when the aircraft departed this wasn't a contributing factor to the incident.'' http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/aviation/safety-system-not-working-in- qantas-a330-close-call-near-adelaide/story-e6frg95x-1226736693704 Back to Top Nigeria aviation minister calls air crash 'act of God' (Reuters) - Nigeria's aviation minister has caused outrage by calling air crashes inevitable acts of God, as she sought to deflect criticism of her record after the country's second deadly accident in 15 months. Stella Oduah was speaking to journalists at the presidential villa on Monday, three days after sixteen people were killed in a small passenger plane that crashed shortly after take-off outside Lagos airport's domestic terminal. In June last year, a Dana Air flight crashed into a Lagos apartment block, killing 163 people in the country's worst airline disaster in two decades. An investigation has yet to reveal the cause. "We do not pray for accidents but it is inevitable... We do everything to ensure that we do not have accidents, but it is an act of God," she said. "We do not speculate on the cause of accidents." Oduah later qualified her comment, saying that everyone from baggage handlers to regulators, airlines and management shared responsibility for passenger safety and that a preliminary report into the latest crash should be out in a couple of weeks. But Nigerian newspapers and Twitter exploded with angry responses. Former Aviation Minister Femi Fani-Kayode was quoted in Vanguard local daily as calling for her resignation. The Punch newspaper quoted popular blogger Japheth Omojuwa as saying: "If God is in charge of safety in the aviation sector, we are then duplicating roles by paying a salary (to the minister)... When you start passing the buck to God, then the time has arrived to pass on your resignation letter." Oduah's spokesman was not immediately available for comment. The belief that fatal accidents are acts of God, or of malevolent spirits, is common in Nigeria and many other African countries. Air crashes are relatively frequent in Africa's second biggest economy, where a sophisticated financial sector and large professional class depend on flights, although safety improved a lot in the years just before the Dana crash. http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/09/us-tpf-nigeria-crash- idUSBRE9980JU20131009 Back to Top Remote aircraft pilot fights $10,000 FAA fine, could change drone rules "Stunt Sheep Don t try this at home" - [ReUpload] [HD] [nastycop420] Earlier this year, the Federal Aviation Administration sought to penalize a commercial drone operator with a massive fine. It ordered Raphael Pirker to pay $10,000 for an October 17th, 2011 incident during which it says Pirker operated his aircraft - in this case a 4.5-pound Ritewing Zephyr-powered glider - "in a careless or reckless manner" that put nearby lives and private property in danger. He had been hired to obtain aerial photos and video of the University of Virginia campus for a company called Lewis Communications, and the FAA found numerous faults with Pirker's attempts to capture that footage. Known as "Trappy" within flyer circles, Pirker has captured similar video of New York City, San Francisco, and other cities in the past. Obviously he was operating without a pilot's certificate, but the problems extend beyond that. The FAA says Pirker operated the styrofoam "drone" at extremely low altitudes. He flew it through a tunnel with moving cars below. He came too close to a UVA statue, railway tracks, and civilians. At one point, Pirker's flying even caused a nearby individual "to take immediate evasive maneuvers so as to avoid being struck" by the model plane. (Pirker maintains this was his spotter on the commercial project.) THE FAA INSISTS PIRKER PUT PEOPLE (AND PROPERTY) AT SERIOUS RISK Faced with such a significant punishment, Pirker is now taking the FAA head on. First, he's asserting that there are no federal regulations that govern the operation of model planes. But more than that, his appeal before the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) could ultimately result in the agency's 2007 ban on commercial drones being invalidated. His lawyer says this is a reasonable path because the FAA failed to hold any notice-and-comment rulemaking period before issuing the ban - a necessity when its rules may significantly impact the public. Since that never happened, the massive fine can't be enforced, Pirker's attorney maintains. "There is no enforceable federal regulation concerning the operation of a model airplane," says attorney Brendan Schulman, speaking to Wired. Pirker also takes issue with the FAA's reasoning behind the 2007 guidelines. The ban, along with the FAA's other drone guidelines was established with safety as the chief concern. Yet hobbyists - who may well be using the same aircraft - aren't subject to the ban. Asks Pirker, "How come the flight is less dangerous if you're not receiving any compensation for it?" The FAA eventually hopes to have a concrete set of new guidelines covering the commercial drone industry (which supporters say could prove enormously profitable), but Wired says those aren't expected until sometime in 2015 at the earliest. Civilian drone operators must adhere to some policies, however. An unknown New York pilot likely violated those earlier this month when a drone crash landed on the streets of Manhattan. http://www.theverge.com/2013/10/9/4821094/remote-aircraft-pilot-fights-faa-fine- could-change-drone-rules Back to Top Passenger Aircraft with 154 People Emergency Lands in Moscow MOSCOW, October 10 (RIA Novosti) - A passenger aircraft with 154 people on board made an emergency landing at the Domodedovo airport in Moscow late on Wednesday night, the Interior Ministry's transportation department said in a statement. According to the statement, the aircraft en route from Moscow to Tokyo requested an emergency landing shortly after the take off from the Russian capital. "The aircraft carrying 10 crew members and 144 passengers landed at 10:38 p.m. [6:38 GMT]," the statement said adding that no one was hurt. The statement cited "a problem with electronics" as one of the possible reasons for the emergency landing. http://en.ria.ru/russia/20131010/184043571/Passenger-Aircraft-with-154-People- Emergency-Lands-in-Moscow.html Back to Top ANA Scraps 787 Dreamliner Flight as Engine Fails to Start Japan Airlines Co. (9201), the world's second-largest operator of Boeing Co. (BA) Dreamliners, diverted two of the 787 jets back to their departure airports today after separate problems with the aircraft. A 787 bound for Tokyo returned to Moscow after electrical issues with the toilet and galley that were unrelated to the battery, said Norihisa Hanyu, a spokesman at the airline. Another Dreamliner headed back to San Diego airport after an indicator showed problems with an engine de-icing system, said Takuya Shimoguchi, another company spokesman. Problems with lithium-ion batteries led Japan Airlines and ANA Holdings Inc. (9202), operator of the largest fleet of the aircraft, to ground their Dreamliners for more than four months this year. Within two weeks after 787 operations resumed in June, Japan Airlines canceled a Dreamliner flight because of an issue with the engine anti-icing system. Boeing is aware of the problems and has been working with JAL to fix them, Rob Henderson, a spokesman in Tokyo for the company, said by telephone today. The flight from San Diego, bound for Tokyo, was able to take off again after maintenance, Shimoguchi said. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-10-10/ana-scraps-787-dreamliner-flight-as- engine-fails-to-start.html Back to Top Dreamliner Flight to Japan Diverted Back to San Diego Airport JAL Flight 65 took off from Lindbergh Field at 1:35 p.m. but returned to the airport a short time later A Boeing 787 Dreamliner headed from San Diego to Tokyo was diverted back to the San Diego International Airport Wednesday due to a problem with the airplane's anti/de-icing system. According to San Diego Airport Authority officials, Japan Airlines Flight 65 took off from Lindbergh Field at 1:35 p.m. with no issues. A short time later, the flight turned around and returned to San Diego, landing at Terminal 2 by 3:10 p.m. Representatives from Japan Airlines told NBC 7 San Diego that the pilot of the flight had received an "error" message regarding the operation of the anti/de-icing system. The pilot made the call to turn around and return to San Diego so repairs could be made to the system. As of 5:15 p.m., airline officials said the repairs were expected to take a few hours. NBC 7 spoke with one passenger who decided to deplane rather than wait out the repairs process. The passenger said about 10 people got off the plane, but the rest of the passengers waited on board. San Diego Airport officials did say the plan was to have the flight take off again sometime Wednesday evening. The JAL flight is a weekly flight to Tokyo's Narita Airport from San Diego. NBC 7 reached out to the FAA regarding the incident, but officials have not yet commented. The FAA's primary public information officer is currently out of the office due to the government shutdown. The 787 Dreamliner, Boeing's newest and most technologically-advanced jet has been plagued by a series of problems since its launch, including a battery fire and fuel leaks. Japan Airlines and Japan's ANA are major customers for the jet, and among the first to fly it. Back in January, the airlines grounded their Boeing 787 aircraft for safety checks after one was forced to make an emergency landing when a cockpit message showed battery problems and a burning smell was detected on board. In March, a Boeing 787 with a redesigned battery system made a test flight, and the company said the event went well and "according to plan." In late August, a Boeing 787 Dreamliner on its way to San Diego from Tokyo had to turn around and return to Japan due to maintenance issues stemming from a problem with the slat system. That particular incident caused some delays at Lindbergh Field. http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/Japan-Airlines-Flight65-to-Narita-Diverted- Back-to-San-Diego-Airport-227142481.html#ixzz2hJlxvsQp Back to Top New Zealand airline enlists Betty White for 'old-school' safety video Air New Zealand, which has been known to use a lighter approach to its' safety instructions, released a new video on Wednesday with a golden touch - specifically, Golden Girls star and Internet darling Betty White. Set at a retirement resort, the extended skit has White convincing her fellow residents to help the airline get passengers ready for any emergencies, arguing, "If you want to know about survival, talk to us." The video also features Love Boat star Gavin Macleod, who gets his own zinger in when White asks him about the box he is (properly) storing under a seat in front of him. Safety Old School Style #airnzsafetyvideo "This is a priceless antique," Macleod explains. "Your sense of humor." In November 2012, the airline joined in on the buzz surrounding Peter Jackson's Hobbit trilogy by releasing a Middle-Earth themed safety video. It has also enlisted celebrities Richard Simmons and Bear Grylls for similar projects. Watch White guide her friends through the rules of the air, as posted by Air New Zealand on Wednesday, below. http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/10/09/new-zealand-airline-enlists-betty-white-for- old-school-safety-video/ Back to Top Back to Top Subject: NOTICE - Next GFSC Meeting 06 November 2013 To: "GFSC Membership" Dear GFSC Members, The GFSC Executive Committee is please to announce the details of the next Gulf Flight Safety Council meeting. The details are as follows: Date: Wednesday 06 November 2013 Venue: Gulf Centre for Aviation Studies, Al Bateen Airport, Abu Dhabi Time: 0830 - 1600 We would like to once again thank GCAS for their generous support in sponsoring the venue for this meeting. Thanks and kind regards, Mark Captain Mark Trotter Secretary - Gulf Flight Safety Council membership@gfsc.aero www.gfsc.aero Mobile: +971 50 120 9503 Curt Lewis