Flight Safety Information February 27, 2014 - No. 042 In This Issue UAE military plane crashes, pilots dead 3 dead, 2 injured in Hawaii plane crash Unmanned aircraft taking to Texas skies for FAA testing Qantas To Cut 5,000 Jobs, Shed Aircraft After Loss Delta flight evacuates at Oakland Airport due to smoke Another fault on Chinese MA-60 aircraft Pilots may use flexible flaps to control their planes in the future PRISM SMS Plans for Florida Express Jet grounded Bell 505 Jet Ranger X Unveiled at Heli-Expo UAE military plane crashes, pilots dead The General Command of the UAE Armed Forces today announced that two of its air- crew had died in the crash of a military training aircraft related to the UAE Air Force and Air Defence. The accident occurred during a routine training mission and resulted in the death of the pilot and co-pilot. Competent authorities are examining the crash scene to determine the causes behind it. http://www.emirates247.com/news/emirates/uae-military-plane-crashes-pilots-dead- 2014-02-27-1.539797 ************* Back to Top 3 dead, 2 injured in Hawaii plane crash WAILUKU, Hawaii (AP) - Authorities say three people are dead and three are injured following a plane crash on Hawaii's Lanai Island. Maui County spokesman Rod Antone says the crash occurred around 9:30 p.m. Wednesday (11:30 p.m. PST) near the island's airport. He says details are still sketchy but the plane was taking off or had just taken off when it went down. Antone says three are dead and two are critically injured. Fire Services Chief Lee Mainaga says a third occupant was hospitalized with serious injuries. Mainaga says crews located the aircraft about 1 mile southwest of the airport. Authorities say they don't know how many people were aboard, the size of the aircraft or details about the crash. http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/02/27/hawaii-lanai-plane- crash/5857269/ Back to Top Unmanned aircraft taking to Texas skies for FAA testing BRAZOS COUNTY, TX (KLTV) - Increasing numbers of aircraft are taking to the Texas skies unmanned. Texas was selected as one of six states to participate in testing and research for the Federal Aviation Administration's plan to integrate rules and regulations for drones, or unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), by 2015. The state has one of the largest test sites ranging from West Texas to the Gulf Coast to the Brazos Valley. Some corporations, like Amazon, have already shown an interest in using drones as delivery drivers. With the increasing numbers of unregulated UAS taking to the skies, it has many concerned with not only safety, but privacy, as well. The UAS crafts generally only weigh a few pounds, and while most stay near their owner or operator, others can go miles away from home. "People see [drones] and they think it's an alien; it's just too different," said drone owner Robert Dodd. "But it really is nothing more than a remote controlled airplane. That's all it is." Drone usage has existed for years, starting with mainly military use. The Department of Homeland Security uses drones along the Texas border with Mexico. The Federal Aviation Administration is expecting thousands of drone aircraft to be introduced to the skies over the next several years, and they want universities to help them develop the roadmap. Texas A&M Corpus Christi, along with several other campuses across the state, is testing and helping with that roadmap for future use. "The reason Texas is one of the six selected is because of geographic diversity," Dr. John Valasek, Texas A&M Center for Autonomous Vehicles And Sensor Systems (CANVASS), said. "Texas has mountains, prairies, deserts, forests and seashore, and that's a unique combination." Texas A&M is using a former U.S. Army Airfield near Bryan to test crafts' control and certification. Researchers will also be looking into easing the public's fears regarding the unmanned craft. "What we're really trying to do is to establish trust in autonomous systems with the public and with people," Valasek said. "Because autonomous systems, no matter what kind they are, are going to be interacting with us on a daily basis." Students at Texas A&M University designed and built the fleet that will be used for FAA testing at the Texas A&M Riverside Campus. They said their testing has been close to home, so far, but expect future flights to go out for several miles. "A lot of our operations have been manual flying so we'll have a pilot on the ground manually controlling them with radio, and that makes it so we have to fly within visual range of them," graduate student researcher Jim Henrickson said. The Texas Legislature took steps in the 2013 session to make sure they are staying with the advancing technology. "The main concerns are about privacy and private property and that sort of thing," said State Rep. Bryan Hughes, R-Mineola. Hughes was one of several co-sponsors of a bill authored by Terrell Representative Lance Gooden that defines proper drone usage. The law includes several exemptions for education and research and defines how law enforcement can use drones properly. "We tried to put in all the exceptions to allow law enforcement to do what they do," Hughes said. "We want to give them the tools they need. At the same time,we recognize that when our founders passed the Fourth Amendment, they were limiting what government and law enforcement can do." Violations of the law carry with them a misdemeanor penalty. Taking an image in violation of the law would be a class C misdemeanor with a fine of up to $500. Distributing or using that image for commercial use would be a class B misdemeanor punishable by a fine of up to $2,000 and/or confinement in jail of up to 180 days. Texas is one of just nine states with laws on the books for drone aircraft, according to the American Civil Liberties Union. Lawmakers say with the technology still changing, the legislature will have to keep checking to see if changes need to be made. "Technology is moving fast, which is great," Rep. Hughes said. "We just have to make sure that the law is keeping up." The FAA UAS testing ongoing in Texas is expected to have an $8 billion impact on the state's economy. The UAS industry is expected to create around 1,200 jobs. http://www.kltv.com/story/24834984/texas-home-to-faa-drone-test-sites-and-drone- legislation Back to Top Qantas To Cut 5,000 Jobs, Shed Aircraft After Loss Australian carrier Qantas plans to cut 15 percent of its workforce, sell older aircraft and reduce capital spending after reporting a first-half loss amid growing competition in both international and domestic operations. The deep cuts are part of Qantas's plans to reduce costs by AUD$2 billion (USD$1.8 billion) over the next three years - a bid by the airline to convince the Australian government and investors it is worthy of the state assistance it says it needs. Qantas, known as the 'Flying Kangaroo', is seeking a government debt guarantee to give it access to cheaper capital. Battered by high fuel costs and a strong Australian dollar, its credit rating was relegated to junk status last year amid a price war with Virgin Australia. Shares in Qantas, down a quarter over the past year, fell 7 percent after the Sydney stock market opened. "For us the composition [of the loss] is worse than expected, the leakage out of the international business is really surprising and we think that Qantas will find it very hard to articulate how it plans to stop this," said Peter Esho, chief market analyst at Invast Financial Services. The underlying loss before tax of AUD$252 million (USD$226 million) was in line with the AUD$250 million to AUD$300 million loss the airline warned last month it would report for the six months ended December 31. In the same period a year earlier, Qantas made a profit of AUD$220 million. "It's clear that the market Qantas operates in has changed, with structural economic shifts exacerbated by an uneven playing field in Australian aviation policy," chief executive Alan Joyce said in a statement. Qantas claims Virgin's access to foreign funding, via its major shareholders Etihad, Singapore Airlines and Air New Zealand, has put Virgin at an advantage. Of the 5,000 jobs to go, 1,500 were management and non-operational roles, the airline said. Joyce said Qantas would defer receipt of the final three Boeing 787 Dreamliners it ordered for budget arm Jetstar, as well as the eight remaining Airbus A380s it has on order. The moves are part of a plan to either defer or sell a total of 50 aircraft. The airline also said it has agreed to sell a lease it owns at Brisbane Airport, raising AUD$112 million in cash. Prime Minister Tony Abbott said earlier this week it was in Australia's interests for Qantas to "survive and to flourish" as a major employer for the country. "This government will do what it can to give it a level playing field," Abbott said in parliament, adding that the airline needed "to put its own house in order". The government is drafting changes to the Qantas Sale Act to lift the current 49 percent foreign ownership limit as well as alter restrictions on smaller shareholdings for foreign airlines. http://news.airwise.com/story/view/1393467750.html Back to Top Delta flight evacuates at Oakland Airport due to smoke OAKLAND, Calif. (KGO) -- Wednesday night at the Oakland International Airport, a flight had to make an emergency evacuation at the gate after it safely landed because of smoke in the plane. The video was shot by Linton Johnson, a passenger onboard the Delta connection Flight 4454, which was operated by SkyWest. Johnson said on his Facebook page that the plane's cabin filled with smoke and that the flight attendants yelled at passengers to exit the plane. The video shows a chaotic scene. The Oakland Fire Department told ABC7 News they responded to the gate for a red alert. The flight was flying from LA to Oakland and landed at 9:17 p.m. The emergency chutes were not deployed and the passengers exited through the main cabin door. As passengers exited the plane they were wondering exactly what happened. The passengers were told to quickly evacuate the plane at the gate. There were 75 passengers were on board and there were four crew members. No one was injured. A SkyWest spokesperson tells ABC7 News the source of the smoke came from an air conditioning pack and was not electrical. Crews will inspect the plane overnight. http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/local/east_bay&id=9446918 Back to Top Another fault on Chinese MA-60 aircraft Okay Airways flight delays landing due to "faulty instrument" Another fault has been experienced onboard the Chinese-made MA-60 aircraft, Xinhua reports. The turboprop belonging to Okay Airways was forced to delay its landing at Shenyang, in northwest China's Liaoning province, on Tuesday, due to what has been reported as a "faulty instrument". The MA-60, which was carrying 38 passengers from Tianjin to Shenyang, eventually touched down more than two and half hours late. While the exact nature of the fault has not been revealed, Xinhua reported that passengers were "in tears" when the plane landed. "Some passengers got quite emotional despite the cabin crew's efforts to calm us down," one person aboard the flight was quoted saying. The aircraft's subsequent flight from Shenyang to Yanji, Jilin province, was cancelled. The incident comes just weeks after the landing gear of an MA-60 operated by China's Joy Air collapsed after the aircraft landed at Zhengzhou airport. The plane, which is manufactured by China's Xi'an Aircraft Industry Co., has been cited in numerous safety incidents in the past five years, including the 2011 crash of a Merpati Airlines flight in Indonesia, which killed 21 people. http://www.traveldailymedia.com/204246/another-fault-on-chinese-ma-60-aircraft/ Back to Top Pilots may use flexible flaps to control their planes in the future if research pans out NASA Dryden's G-III Aerodynamic Research Test Bed retracts its landing gear after takeoff from Edwards Air Force Base on a baseline data-collection flight prior to undergoing modifications for the Adaptive Compliant Trailing Edge flight research project. A flexible fluted structure that bridges the gap between the wing root and the shape-changing wing flap that will undergo flight tests on NASA's G-III Aerodynamic Research Test Bed is shown during preliminary tests at FlexSys, Inc. DRYDEN RESEARCH CENTER, California - Imagine airplane flaps that flex instead of simply raise and lower. Could they control aircraft better? NASA is about to do an experiment to find out. FlexSys Inc. of Ann Arbor, Mich., has delivered two "revolutionary" flaps to NASA for the experiment, the space agency says. They will be attached to NASA's Gulfstream G-III Aerodynamics Research Test Bed aircraft after a process to make sure they don't damage the plane's systems. The 19-foot long test flaps - the same length as the G-III's current flaps - are "continuous bendable surfaces" made of advanced materials, NASA says. Will they work? Do a bird's wings flex? Stay tuned to see how it all works out. http://www.al.com/business/index.ssf/2014/02/pilots_may_have_flexible_flaps.html Back to Top Back to Top Plans for Florida Express Jet grounded; no new airline for Tallahassee Regional Airport. Ft. Lauderdale-based Florida Express Jet Travel will begin offering air service between Tallahassee and Ft. Lauderdale and Orlando starting March 20, 2014. TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) -- Plans for a new start-up airline to begin air service next month in Tallahassee appear to have now been grounded. Ft. Lauderdale-based Florida Express Jet Travel announced earlier this month that they would begin offering air service between Tallahassee and Ft. Lauderdale and Orlando starting March 20, 2014. Chris Curry, Director of the Tallahassee Regional Airport, told WTXL ABC27 Tuesday morning that he was notified by Florida Express Jet that new air service would not be coming to the capital city. Curry says he was notified by email that the airline had hit several roadblocks, including obtaining start-up capital needed and was unable to secure a gate at Fort Lauderdale- Hollywood Airport which the company had planned on basing their operations from. Tuesday morning, the company's social media went dark - their Facebook account appearing to have been deleted. Their website drawing guests to a generic front page with few details. By Tuesday afternoon, attempts to reach Florida Express Jet remain unsuccessful. In their initial announcement, company leaders said they would be offering eight daily flights between the cities of Tallahassee, Orlando, and Fort Lauderdale. It's unclear where the company stands operationally, and whether any flights will continue. Curry says he was told by email that all fares purchased have been refunded. http://www.wtxl.com/news/plans-for-florida-express-jet-grounded-no-new-airline- for/article_20038cf2-9e61-11e3-b079-0017a43b2370.html Back to Top Bell 505 Jet Ranger X Unveiled at Heli-Expo In a dramatic ceremony shortly after the Helicopter Association International opened the doors of Heli-Expo, which is currently in progress at the Anaheim Convention Center, Bell Helicopter unveiled three versions of a new helicopter, the Bell 505 Jet Ranger X, developed for the short light single (SLS) class. The three 505s now on display at Bell's booth are appropriately colored red, white and blue. The light helicopter is designed to accommodate five forward-facing occupants and will feature a flat floor for mission flexibility. Bell's president and CEO John Garrison said the 505 targets a very price sensitive market and the price point for the new helicopter is around $1 million. But despite the low-cost target, Bell is incorporating a lot of advanced but proven technologies into the 505, including Garmin's integrated G1000 glass-panel avionics and a Turbomeca Arrius 2R engine with dual-channel FADEC. Targeted performance numbers include speeds greater than 125 knots, a range greater than 360 nautical miles, a max gross weight of more than 1,500 pounds and hover capabilities beyond 11,000 feet. First flight of the 505 is expected later this year. Bell has also initiated simulator flight testing of the 525 Relentless, allowing for evaluation of the fly-by-wire system ahead of the first flight of the test platform, which is also expected later this year. http://www.flyingmag.com/aircraft/helicopters/bell-505-jet-ranger-x-unveiled-heli- expo#oTczvBOXkVdtTxGR.99 Curt Lewis