Flight Safety Information December 16, 2013 - No. 256 In This Issue Aviation Medical Examiners Oppose FAA Apnea Policy EU Air Safety officials losing patience with Libya Pilots, flight attendants, say 'no' to cellphone chitchat Paratrooper's close shave with Virgin Australia jet blamed on lack of procedure (Australia) FAA REPORT ON DGCA IN A MONTH (India) Pakistan pilot's sandwich demand delays flight by over 2 hours SFFD to send top SFO firefighters to airport training Think ARGUS PROS Lockheed sees F-16 fighter jet production continuing through 2020 A.I.G. Sells Aircraft Leasing Unit for $5.4 Billion Air Algerie to purchase 16 new aircraft SDSU Aviation Program receives FAA authorization Aviation Medical Examiners Oppose FAA Apnea Policy The Civil Aviation Medical Association (CAMA), a group that represents aviation medical examiners (AMEs) in the U.S., is opposing the FAA's newly proposed policy "that would task AMEs to determine body mass index (BMI) on all pilot applicants." A BMI exceeding a set value-initially 40-would require evaluation by a board- certified sleep specialist to determine if the pilot applicant has obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). In a letter sent to FAA Administrator Michael Huerta, CAMA said it objects to the proposal for several reasons. "The FAA is not tasked to provide long-term prognoses, but rather to determine the likelihood of pilot incapacitation for the duration of the medical certificate," it noted. "No scientific body of evidence has demonstrated that undiagnosed obesity or OSA has compromised aviation safety." CAMA suggests that this issue would be addressed more effectively through educational efforts, rather than regulatory measures that "would greatly burden a critically taxed medical certification system already suffering from very significant processing delays." It also cited the lack of accredited sleep centers and the high cost burden for pilots to undergo sleep studies. http://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/ainalerts/2013-12-12/aviation-medical-examiners-oppose-faa- apnea-policy Back to Top EU Air Safety officials losing patience with Libya Libyan Airlines received Wednesday the second of its Airbus A330-200 in as many months Libya carriers still banned from EU airspace Tripoli, 15 December 2013: The EU Air Safety Committee appears to be losing patience with the Libyan Civil Aviation Authority (LYCAA) which has imposed a voluntary ban on Libyan carriers flying to the EU while it reorganises its local certification processes. Sources suggest that the continued failure of the LYCAA to meet international requirements could result in an outright ban by the EU itself. The Libya Herald has also been told that it could take at least three years for the LYCCA to set its house in order. The key issue, said the EU committee, is for Libya to prove it has completed work to reform its civil aviation safety system and in particular ensure "that the safety oversight of all air carriers certified in Libya is in compliance with international safety standards" It is clear from the documents just published by the EU Safety Committee that it has been pushing Libya to make progress. On 7 October, it asked for an update on the re-certification of Libyan carriers. A month later representatives from the LYCAA, as well as Libyan Airlines and Afriqiyah Airways arrived in Brussels. According to the EU committee, the Libyan team said "that in its view they had now completed the five-stage re-certification process for Libyan Airlines, and that this airline should be allowed to operate within the Union. Documentation of the activities undertaken by the LYCAA in the re-certification process was handed to the Commission at the meeting". This newspaper understands that the documentation that Libya provided was considered to be generally inadequate. Officially however, the EU has since noted: "The documents submitted supporting the re- certification of Libyan Airlines as presented to the Committee could not be sufficiently evaluated in time for the meeting of the Committee". It went on to assert that in its view, it appeared that the number of LYCAA inspectors was insufficient for the work that the body had to do. Perhaps just as seriously, the EU said that commercial ambulance flights made by Libyan operators had not been sufficiently restricted within EU airspace. This, it said, was in contravention of the voluntary ban that the LYCAA had agreed to impose. The problem was compounded by the fact that some of these ambulance flights to the EU had been subject to "ramp inspections" on arrival "and on a number of occasions significant deficiencies were found". The EU warned that from now on, before the LYCAA considers authorising Libyan carriers to fly to the EU, it should demonstrate to the EU Safety Committee's satisfaction, "that the recertification process has been effectively completed and that there is sustainable continued oversight in accordance with ICAO [International Civil Aviation Organisation] standards. "Should this not be demonstrated to the satisfaction of the Commission and the Air Safety Committee, the Commission would be obliged to take immediate measures to prevent air carriers from operating within the Union". In other words, the EU would impose a ban. In July, the Director General of the LYCAA, Captain Nasereddin Shaebelain, told the Libya Herald that the main challenge had been the re-certification of Libyan pilots. This has been taking longer than expected. At the time, Shaebelain said he hoped the process would be completed by the end of the year but added that the LYCAA was keen to take its time and ensure that all the correct standards were met. http://www.libyaherald.com/2013/12/15/eu-air-safety-officials-losing-patience-with-libya/#ixzz2nddUnaXO Back to Top Pilots, flight attendants, say 'no' to cellphone chitchat While the Federal Communications Commission thought letting people chitchat on cellphones was a swell idea, and the U.S. Department of Transportation felt otherwise, there was no mistaking during Thursday's back and forth what people who fly the planes think. Bad idea. Pilots like everybody to be happy back there as passengers squeeze into seats and have others recline into their personal space. Pilots do not need anything else - like somebody shouting into the phone so hard-of- hearing Aunt Shirley can get every word - to rile people. If approved, the new rules would mean consumers could use their data plans to surf the Web or send e-mails and texts once a plane reaches 10,000 feet. But flights would remain free of the cacophony of people jabbering into their phones. Perhaps the most vocal opponents of such chitchat were the flight attendants who work cabins filled with 200- 400 potential cellphone callers. "This would make them mediators between passengers," said Corey Caldwell of the Association of Flight Attendants. "Flight attendants' first responsibility is safety. They're there to ensure that the cabin is maintained as a secure, calm environment." Caldwell, spokeswoman for a group that represents 60,000 flight attendants, called approving phone conversations "a very bad idea." "The FCC is only looking at this from a technology point of view," she said. "The DOT had to evaluate the rest of the issues. It causes an extreme nuisance for passengers." She also pointed to studies that questioned the effects of low-level radiation emanating from cellphones. "What's the effect of that in an enclosed tube flying at 30,000 feet?" she said. "There are still a lot of issues that need to be fleshed out on this." At the Coalition of Airline Pilots Associations, executive vice president Larry Rooney called the two federal decisions "new news" that his group would evaluate before taking a position. "CAPA believes that any new guidelines should be implemented on a case-by-case basis so we can see what the effect would be on the status quo," Rooney said. "We've always encouraged our passengers to comply with crew members' instructions." His diplomatic response aside, other veteran pilots conjured up scenarios where crew members would have to break up fistfights between the passenger who wanted to sleep and the passenger who hoped to use the flight to touch base with long-lost friends and family. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/dr-gridlock/wp/2013/12/13/pilots-flight-attendants-say-no-to- cellphone-chitchat/ Back to Top Paratrooper's close shave with Virgin Australia jet blamed on lack of procedure (Australia) Close call: A C212 aircraft. It is a scenario that would send shivers down the spine of any parachutist. Seconds after jumping from a military plane near Richmond Airport in Sydney, a paratrooper saw a Virgin Australia passenger jet flying at the same altitude to him just two kilometres away. The paratrooper's account of the incident is contained in a report by air-safety investigators into a so-called "loss of separation" between an Army C212 plane and the Virgin Boeing 737 in November 2011. Illustration of the loss of separation. A loss of separation occurs when two aircraft fly within 305 metres vertically and 9.26 kilometres on a horizontal axis of each other, raising the risk of collision. At the time, the military turbo-prop aircraft had been carrying out two drops of paratroopers in controlled air space above a designated zone at the RAAF's airport at Richmond. Shortly before the close shave, air-traffic controllers had cleared the Virgin passenger jet to fly under the C212 near Richmond on its way to Cairns. The loss of separation occurred between the declared parachute operations area and the 737. The standard separation buffer around a declared parachute operations area is about 1.85 kilometres. About 2.30pm on the day of the incident, an air-traffic controller cancelled the military plane's clearance to carry out parachute operations and told its pilots to maintain an altitude of 12,000 feet. The controller told the pilots that a 737 was flying over Richmond at 10,000 feet, but was quickly told by the Army pilots several times that the paratroopers were "off the ramp" - they had already jumped out of the back. Immediately afterwards, the controller issued a traffic alert to the pilots of the Virgin 737, telling them that "chutes [were] in the air". Shortly afterwards, the Virgin pilots said they had the military plane in their sights and were turning right immediately. The Army pilots also told air-traffic control that they had sighted the Virgin jet and that it was well clear of the paratroopers. One paratrooper reported seeing the Virgin jet pass an estimated 1000 feet below and 2000 metres towards the right rear of the military plane. The last paratrooper to jump from the plane told investigators that, while in free fall, and about 10 seconds after exiting the C212, he was at the same altitude as the 737 and about two kilometres away. In the report released today, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau found that Airservices Australia had "no standard, documented procedure" to ensure planes that had taken off from Sydney Airport did not fly too close to aircraft carrying out parachute drops near Richmond. The country's civilian air-traffic control agency also did not have a "documented means" for controllers to display in their computer system when a parachute-drop clearance had been issued. The air-safety investigators found that two controllers involved in directing the planes at the time of the incident had not received training in "compromised separation recovery techniques". Airservices has since made changes to ensure co-ordination when parachute operations are being carried out at Richmond. http://www.smh.com.au/travel/travel-incidents/paratroopers-close-shave-with-virgin-australia-jet-blamed- on-lack-of-procedure-20131216-2zgij.html#ixzz2ndacpsmT Back to Top FAA REPORT ON DGCA IN A MONTH (India) New Delhi: The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) completed a compliance audit of India's aviation regulator on Thursday and will submit its final report within a month-maintaining or downgrading the country's air safety rankings. A three-member team of the FAA completed its two-day audit on Thursday (Dec. 12, 2013) "The issue is whether it will be a downgrade or a maintain," said a top government official who asked not to be identified. "That decision will be made in Washington. They are very impressed with the work done in the last two months. Of the 33 issues (raised by the FAA in an earlier audit), 26 findings were closed; only seven are now outstanding and are work-in-progress. These will take time." The FAA's September audit had highlighted these issues. The issues that remain to be addressed include the hiring of flight inspectors and specialized training of airworthiness officers on charter and business jets. These require changes in government rules and time and the FAA has been told so, the same official said. "The chances of a downgrade appear low. They seem very satisfied with the outcome," said a second government official who also asked not to be identified. The FAA's September audit was prompted by United Nations body International Civil Aviation Organization's earlier audit that found problems with the way India's Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) works. ] India will get to know the result of its discussions with the FAA within the next three-four weeks, the first official said, adding the visiting team is not authorized to brief the DGCA on the outcome immediately. If the agency downgrades India, airlines based in the country won't be able to increase the number of flights to the US and additional checks will be imposed on existing flights of Air India Ltd and Jet Airways (India) Ltd. The FAA downgraded the safety ranking of Mexico in 2010 and Israel in 2008. http://www.livemint.com/Politics/NPvt5WpoooJ5Se3QqZJUwL/FAA-report-on-DGCA-in-a-month.html Back to Top Pakistan pilot's sandwich demand delays flight by over 2 hours LAHORE: A foodie pilot delayed a New York-bound Pakistan International Airlines' flight by two and a half hours because he wanted to take sandwiches, which weren't in approved menu, aboard the plane. PIA flight Pk-711, scheduled for New York via Manchester, was ready for departure on Saturday from Allama Iqbal International Airport in Lahore at 6.45am (local time). The catering department served the approved menu, including lunch, peanuts, chips and biscuits but flight captain Noushad asked them to serve him sandwiches, The Nation daily reported. The catering staff expressed their inability to serve anything beyond the approved menu and also informed him of the sensitivity of the flight's departure time. The staff told him that sandwiches could only be arranged by placing an order to a five-star hotel in the city, which would take more than two hours. The captain remained adamant and said no matter what he needed his sandwiches , it said. The catering department then contacted the PIA head office in Karachi and brought the matter to their notice. Surprisingly, the management then directed the catering department to meet the pilot's demand. Finally, the sandwiches were arranged from the five-star hotel concerned and the flight could depart to its destination at 9.15 am (local time) after a delay of two and a half hours, the report added. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/mad-mad-world/Pakistan-pilots-sandwich-demand-delays-flight-by- over-2-hours/articleshow/27444670.cms Back to Top SFFD to send top SFO firefighters to airport training The San Francisco Fire Department is sending airport-based commanders to special training and has put all its airport firefighters through a 40-hour basic course on dealing with plane disasters in the aftermath of its Asiana Airlines crash response that left a survivor dead. After the teenage passenger was run over by two fire rigs battling a fire on the Boeing 777 at San Francisco International Airport, The Chronicle learned that the three commanders in charge of the crash response had never taken disaster training that federal rules require of all rank-and-file firefighters stationed at U.S. airports. Under a change that a high-ranking fire official disclosed this week, the Fire Department now will send top firefighters at the airport - those with the rank of lieutenant, captain or battalion chief - to a 40- to 80-hour course specially designed for those who may be in command at a plane crash site. "There are many lessons to be learned here," Assistant Deputy Chief Dale Carnes, who oversees the Fire Department's airport operation, told a National Transportation Safety Board hearing this week that heard testimony on the July 6 crash. One of the lessons concerns firefighter training, he said. Texas training Under the changes announced by Carnes, airport-based command officers will enroll next year at the Fire Training Research Center at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. Mike Foster, an assistant fire chief at the Texas airport who runs the school, said command training is a "missing link" in the nation's aircraft rescue and firefighting structure. "We are one of the very few that have advanced training past the firefighting level," he said. "We teach command and control tactics and strategies, applying the same tactics used on large structural fires to an aircraft incident." In addition to commanders' training, Carnes announced a change in how the Fire Department provides basic instruction on aircraft disasters to rank-and-file firefighters. Federal airport regulations require that firefighters who may have to respond to crash scenes undergo basic training, covering everything from a live-fire disaster drill to briefings on the characteristics of various commercial aircraft. In-house effort Up until the crash, the San Francisco Fire Department had its own in-house training program. Many departments in other cities, however, send their firefighters to the Dallas-Fort Worth center or similar programs where the training is provided by specialized instructors. That will now be San Francisco's approach, Carnes told investigators. After the crash, the department sent 80 firefighters and paramedics assigned to the airport to a basic training course, he told safety board investigators. The Texas instructors came to San Francisco to teach it in September and October. Questions about firefighters' training emerged after the 16-year-old Asiana crash survivor, Ye Meng Yuan of China, was killed by one of two Fire Department rigs that ran over her as she lay in the fetal position near the plane. The basic training course includes instructions on navigating the large, specialized foam-spraying rigs around crash scenes without damaging evidence. Before the crash, it had apparently been years since the Fire Department sent any firefighters to out-of-town basic training. The department stopped the practice sometime after an incident in which firefighters returning from training in Utah smuggled a bottle of wine onto a plane and got into a dispute with a flight attendant, Fire Commission records show. Four firefighters, including a lieutenant, were suspended in 2001 because of the incident, the records show. Defending firefighters Among the few firefighters at the Asiana crash scene who had undergone the 40-hour course was Lt. Christine Emmons, a 24-year department veteran who has been at the airport for a decade. However, Emmons was also one of the three firefighters who saw Ye on the runway and concluded she was dead without checking her vital signs, according to federal safety board interviews with firefighters. The two rigs then ran over the teenager after she became obscured by foam. They acted correctly Reached by phone Friday, Carnes declined to comment. In his interview with safety board investigators, however, Carnes indicated that Emmons and the others had acted correctly. "He said that the personnel who saw her (Ye) described her using terms like unconscious, unresponsive, apneic (not breathing), lifeless, etc.," according to a safety board summary of Carnes' interview. "In their professional opinions as firefighters, EMTs and paramedics, she appeared to them to be dead. There were known victims in the airplane, and they were in rescue mode and needing to get those people off as quickly as possible." According to investigators, Carnes added that "firefighters were trained to try to maintain anything that was a potential crime scene and to disturb things as little as possible, including obviously deceased victims. He thought that came into play in this accident as to why his personnel did not move the deceased victim." Regrets the 'insult' In his testimony this week, Carnes hinted that Fire Department officials still believe Ye was dead before she was run over, saying, "We definitely regret the additional insult to the deceased." San Mateo County Coroner Robert Foucrault, however, concluded that Ye was killed not by the crash, but by a fire rig. He said in an interview that his office's autopsy had found "overwhelming scientific evidence to prove that she was alive when she was struck." Asked during Wednesday's safety board hearing what lessons the Fire Department had drawn from the incident, Carnes said officials were working on improving the system to track "nonambulatory" disaster victims. "We are developing strategies to lessen the potential for firefighting vehicles impacting accident victims," he said, without being specific. http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/SFFD-to-send-top-SFO-firefighters-to-airport-5063397.php#page-1 Back to Top Back to Top Lockheed sees F-16 fighter jet production continuing through 2020 Dec 13 (Reuters) - Lockheed Martin Corp has enough orders to keep its F-16 fighter jet production line humming through the third quarter of 2017, and hopes to land additional orders that would keep the line running through 2020, company executives say. Around that time, the cost of Lockheed's new F-35 stealth fighter will have dropped so far that potential customers will likely opt for the newer jet, Bill McHenry, Lockheed's head of F-16 business development, told Reuters in a recent interview. But for now, the company is continuing to pursue potential F-16 sales and upgrades in the Middle East, South America and other markets, he said. "We wake up every day and go out and do what we can," he said. "But there's a crossover point out there ... sometime in the 2020 timeframe, where it'll make more sense to procure F-35s than F-16s." Lockheed on Friday marked completion of its 100th F-35 fighter. Lockheed has produced over 4,500 F-16s since the program began in 1975, making the F-16 the best-selling fighter jet in history. The jets are flown by 26 countries, including 15 that have placed follow-on orders, McHenry said. The United Arab Emirates is weighing new F-16 orders and possible upgrades, but failed to announce an order at the Dubai air show as some experts had expected. Lockheed has dramatically scaled back production of the F-16 at its sprawling facility in Fort Worth, Texas, to about one plane a month now - from a peak production rate of 30 planes a month in June 1987, said spokesman Mark Johnson. At the moment, the company is completing work on the last one of 20 F-16s it built for Egypt. That jet and seven others are being stored at the Fort Worth plant after the United States announced it would withhold most military aid due to concerns about democracy and human rights. It is also working on 12 F-16s for Oman, several of which are in varying states of completion at the slimmed- down F-16 production line in Building 8, also known as the "Falcon's Nest," plus a total of 36 jets ordered by Iraq. One of the 145 jets being upgraded for Taiwan is also in the factory, its nose cone already open for insertion of the new Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar. McHenry said Lockheed saw additional opportunities to upgrade existing F-16s to the new F-16V configuration, which includes the AESA radar, embedded global positioning, updated electronic warfare equipment and avionics systems. He acknowledged that other companies, including Britain's BAE Systems, were trying to capture some of that upgrade work, but said Lockheed offered lower costs and greater economies of scale given the breadth of its existing work with the 26 countries that already operate the jet. The Pentagon last month approved a deal under which BAE will upgrade 134 older F-16 fighter jets for South Korea, a move that could pressure Lockheed to compete more aggressively in the hunt for upgrade deals. http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/12/14/lockheed-f-idUSL2N0JT03T20131214 Back to Top A.I.G. Sells Aircraft Leasing Unit for $5.4 Billion Prince Feisal Al Hussein of Jordan in the cockpit of an Airbus A319. Royal Jordanian airline leased the plane through International Lease Finance Corporation. The American International Group has agreed to sell its big aircraft leasing unit to a competing business, AerCap Holdings of the Netherlands, for about $5.4 billion in stock and cash. The deal, which had been nearing completion over the last few days, was announced Monday morning. The business has long been regarded as one of the crown jewels in its empire. But since the insurer's taxpayer-financed bailout in 2008, the financial firm has sought to sell off nonessential operations to raise money. I.L.F.C., as the aircraft lessor is known, was long considered an attractive asset to sell, given both its size - it owned 913 planes as of Sept. 30 - and the capital requirements needed to support the business. "As we have said all along, the aircraft leasing business is not core to our insurance operations. Upon completion, the transaction will have a positive impact on A.I.G.'s liquidity and credit profile and will enable us to continue to focus on our core insurance businesses," Robert H. Benmosche, president and chief executive, said in a statement on Monday. Under the terms of the deal, AerCap will pay about $3 billion in cash and issue roughly 97.5 million new shares. At Friday's closing price, the stock component would be worth approximately $2.4 billion. That would give A.I.G. a roughly 45 percent stake in AerCap, which the seller is expected to reduce over time. The big stock component is likely necessary given that the prospective buyer is smaller than I.L.F.C. In recent months, A.I.G. turned to AerCap, a 18-year-old player in the business of leasing aircraft to airlines. A.I.G. first agreed to sell I.L.F.C. to a group of Chinese investors last December. But the consortium has struggled to put together the necessary financing, missing a mandatory payment this spring. While A.I.G. gave the group more time, the Chinese bidders lost exclusive bargaining rights for the aircraft leasing operation. this summer, freeing the insurer to pursue other potential buyers. A.I.G. said it terminated that agreement before entering into the AerCap deal. http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/12/15/a-i-g-said-near-deal-to-sell-aircraft-leasing-unit/?_r=0 Back to Top Air Algerie to purchase 16 new aircraft ALGIERS, Dec. 14 -- Algeria's state-run airline Air Algerie said Saturday that the government had earmarked 1 billion U.S. dollars for it to buy 16 new aircraft by 2017, official APS news agency reported. Chief Executive Officer of the airline Mohammed Saleh Boultif told a press conference that the purchase of the aircraft is part of the company's development plan. Boultif specified that Air Algerie, which controls Algeria's air transport sector, plans to purchase three aircraft with 250 seats, eight aircraft with 150 seats, and two aircraft with 70 seats for domestic flights. He further indicated the delivery of the aircraft will start by the end of 2014 and finish by 2017, adding the purchase will bring the company's fleet to 56 aircraft, improving its services. http://english.eastday.com/e/131215/u1a7830377.html Back to Top SDSU Aviation Program receives FAA authorization BROOKINGS - The South Dakota State University Aviation Program received authorization Wednesday from the Federal Aviation Administration to certify graduates to be eligible for a Restricted-Airline Transport Pilot certificate. With a restricted ATP certificate, SDSU graduates will be eligible to be hired by an airline with fewer flight hours (1,250 vs. 1,500 hours) than the unrestricted version of the certificate. In the FAA Nov. 20 listing, only 20 schools in the nation were able to have graduates qualify for the restricted ATP. http://www.brookingsregister.com/v2_news_articles.php?heading=0&page=76&story_id=19454 Curt Lewis