Flight Safety Information March 11, 2014 - No. 051 In This Issue Malaysian air force confirms signal of MH370 turning back on Saturday No Terror Link Seen Between Stolen Passports, Missing Malaysian Jet Malaysia to lead crash case unless it defers After Recent Ruling, America's Commercial Drone Pilots Come Out of the Shadows Nigerian Air Safety Under Scrutiny NBAA Lists Top Business Aviation Safety Priorities PRISM SMS Allianz is insurance leader for missing aircraft ERAU Research Survey Malaysian air force confirms signal of MH370 turning back on Saturday The Royal Malaysian Air Force (RMAF) base in Butterworth received a signal that the missing Malaysia Airlines (MAS) flight MH370 turned back in South China Sea airspace on Saturday. Malay-language daily Berita Harian reported that RMAF chief General Tan Sri Rodzali Daud as confirming that the Butterworth base had received the plane's signal. It quoted Rodzali as saying that the signal received indicated that the plane followed its original route before it entered the airspace above the northern east coast of Peninsular Malaysia. "The last time the plane could be traced by an air control tower was near Pulau Perak, which is on the Straits of Malacca at 2.40am. "After that, the signal from the plane was lost," he said. It was also reported that a Singaporean air traffic surveillance and control unit also picked up the signal that MH370 "made a turn back before it was reported to have climbed 1,000 metres from its original altitude at 10,000 metres". The plane, which was carrying 239 passengers of 14 nationalities and an all-Malaysian cabin crew, left the Kuala Lumpur International Airport for Beijing at 12.40am on Saturday. It was widely reported that the plane, a Boeing 777-200ER aircraft, went missing at around 1.30am while flying above the South China Sea between the Malaysian east coast and the southern coast of Vietnam. The plane reported went off radar and its last known location was 065515 North (longitude) and 1033443 East (latitude). This is also supported with police reports made by some east coast residents, who claimed that they have seen huge lights and a plane flying at some 1000 metres above sea level off Kota Baru, Kelantan. However, search and rescue (SAR) authorities have failed to find any sign of the plane in the waters of the South China Sea. Indications that MH370 might have turned back have since led the SAR operations to be expanded to the Straits of Malacca and the Andaman Sea. The operations to find the missing plane involve armed forces and authorities from Australia, China, Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore, Vietnam, the Philippines and the United States, apart from Malaysia. The SAR operations are in its fourth day. MAS has ruled out technical issues as the cause of MH370's mysterious disappearance. The 11-year-old plane was last serviced 10 days before the incident on Saturday. MAS group chief executive officer Ahmad Jauhari Yahya reportedly said that the plane was in good condition and like other MAS aircrafts, was equipped with the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System, which sends out data automatically. However, the plane did not send out any distress signals before it went off radar, he said. - March 11, 2014. http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/malaysian-air-force-confirms-signal-of-mh370- turning-back-on-saturday Back to Top No Terror Link Seen Between Stolen Passports, Missing Malaysian Jet In Kuala Lumpur, people continue to offer prayers for the 239 people missing after the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. There's still no sign of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 - the Boeing 777 with 239 people aboard that disappeared early Saturday while on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. Tuesday's news about the flight and the search for clues to its disappearance includes: - Stolen Passports. There's word that Malaysian authorities believe the two passengers on board who had stolen passports "were Iranians who authorities believe were trying to migrate to Europe," as the Los Angeles Times writes. One of the men, NPR's Frank Langfitt reports from Shanghai, has been identified as 19-year-old Pouria Nour Mohammad Mehrdad. Frank tells our Newscast Desk that the young man was apparently "flying from Kuala Lumpur, through Beijing and Amsterdam, to Frankfurt; where his mother was waiting for him." Malaysia's inspector general of police, Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar, said Tuesday that "we believe he is not likely to be a member of any terrorist group and we believe he [was] trying to migrate to Germany." "The other man traveling on a stolen passport was not named," the Times adds, but authorities believe he too was an Iranian trying to to immigrate to Europe. The news that at least two people on board had stolen passports led to speculation about the possibility they were connected to a terrorist organization. But as NPR's Brian Naylor reported on Morning Edition, stolen passports and other fraudulent travel papers are a growing problem around the world and are used for a wide variety of reasons. - Expanded Search. Malaysian authorities, as well as "search teams from Australia, China, Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore, Vietnam, Philippines, New Zealand and the United States of America" are now looking for signs of the jet on "both sides" of the Malay peninsula, Malaysian civil aviation chief Azharuddin Abdul Rahman said Tuesday. The airline said Tuesday that searchers are also looking "on land in between" - that is, on the Malay peninsula between the South China Sea and the Malacca Strait. According to the airline, "the authorities are looking at a possibility of an attempt made by MH370 to turn back to Subang," an airport on the peninsula. - Four Focuses. It likely won't be until the plane is found that investigators can start to figure out exactly what happened and whether some sort of catastrophic mechanical failure was responsible for its disappearance. But as the investigation continues, police in Malaysia are also concerned about four possibilities, the inspector general said Tuesday: "hijacking, sabotage, personal problems among the crew and passengers and psychological problems among the crew and passengers." - No Missing Passengers. Also Tuesday, Malaysia Airlines sought to correct earlier reports about five passengers who allegedly checked in, had bags put on the flight, but then did not board the plane. Those earlier reports indicated that the bags supposedly put on board were removed before the plane took off. But the airline now says that "there were four (4) passengers who had valid booking to travel on flight MH370, 8 March 2014, but did not show up to check-in for the flight." Since they had not checked in, those four did not have any baggage that needed to be removed from the jet, the airline says. http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/03/11/288911719/no-terror-link-seen-between-stolen- passports-missing-malaysian-jet Back to Top Malaysia to lead crash case unless it defers Although 10 countries are frantically searching for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, Malaysia will likely lead the investigation unless it defers to another country, such as the United States, according to crash investigators and lawyers. The International Civil Aviation Organization, a part of the United Nations based in Montreal, has an agreement that dictates who leads and participates in the investigation such as this: which involves a state-owned airline; another country, China, with most of the passengers on board; and the United States, a third country that is home to the Boeing 777 manufacturer. Under ICAO, the location of the mishap dictates who leads the investigation. This is why the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board is leading for the Asiana Airlines crash in San Francisco in July. But if the crash occurred in international waters such as the Gulf of Thailand, where the search is focused, international law dictates that the plane's country of registry - Malaysia - will lead the investigation. "It's actually pretty specific in terms of how the investigation gets structured," said Mark Dombroff, who practices aviation law in the Washington office of McKenna Long & Aldridge. Other countries with an interest in the incident can participate. The NTSB, which has already sent a team to Malaysia, would be invited to participate as an accredited representative because the U.S. is home to the manufacturer, while Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration would also contribute their expertise. The open question is whether Malaysia would ask another country such as the U.S. to lead the investigation. One reason would be cost. This investigation could cost $50 million or more, after it cost 20 million euros just to find the black boxes in the Air France flight 447 crash in the Atlantic in June 2009, according to crash experts. The investigation of the TWA 800 crash off Long Island in July 1996 forced Congress to appropriate an extra $29 million to NTSB in 1997, amid several years of higher budgets for the agency. William Waldock, a professor in safety science at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Arizona, said Malaysia doesn't have a large investigative authority, so he expects them to ask NTSB to lead the case. "That's exactly what I think they're going to do," Waldock said. After the October 1999 crash of EgyptAir flight 990 off Massachusetts, which killed 217 people aboard, Egypt asked the NTSB to investigate for lack of resources. But the request can backfire. Egypt wasn't satisfied with the NTSB's conclusions that the relief first officer nosed the plane downward into the ocean, and fought them for years in court. "There is a mechanism to start, but no real mechanism to turn it off," Waldock said. Even the most sophisticated investigators can disagree about their conclusions, such as when Turkish Airlines flight 1951 crashed near Amsterdam in February 2009, killing nine and injuring 117. The Dutch Safety Board blamed the crash on a faulty altimeter that automatically slowed down the plane before it stalled and hit the ground. But NTSB investigators said pilots could have recovered if the crew detected and responded to the low decreasing airspeed. The Malaysia investigation can begin informally even before wreckage is found. Documentation of luggage and cargo loaded on the plane can be reviewed for possible hazards. Passenger and crew records, and maintenance and flight records, will also be scrutinized. "That is something that not only the airline wants to look at, but certainly something the investigation is going to look at," said Dombroff, the lawyer. "You immediately start to gather not only the maintenance records for the aircraft, but all the training records for the crew." Despite the cost and complexity of the search and investigation, participants want to determine what went wrong to prevent it from happening again. "If if turns out there was something wrong with the airplane, some sort of major malfunction with the flight-control system, you need to know it because it might be an issue with other airplanes," Waldock said. "To lose that many people in one fell swoop, they want to account for everything. They want to put it to rest." http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/03/10/malaysia-crash-investigation-icao-ntsb-faa- boeing/6265253/ Back to Top After Recent Ruling, America's Commercial Drone Pilots Come Out of the Shadows Low aerial video highlights of a large field of sunflowers near Waxahachie, Texas, shot last year by Hawkeye Media of Texas. It's blue skies for U.S. drone entrepreneurs! For the last two years, the FAA has been sending nastygrams to anyone caught flying model planes or other unmanned arial vehicles over U.S. airspace for "commercial purposes" - like professional photography, journalism or farmland surveying. But last week, a judge clipped the FAA's wings, ruling that the agency doesn't have the authority to regulate small unmanned drones. As you'd expect, the ruling is being welcomed by the recipients of the FAA warnings, who've been using drones for a variety of purposes - and can now do so without fear of a $10,000 fine. Matt Gunn, an independent drone pilot in Cleveland, says last week's court ruling against the FAA mounts to "mud being flung in their face." Gunn is among more than a dozen small-scale drone operators whom the FAA ordered to cease-and-desist their commercial work with unmanned vehicles. The operator of Gunn Photography in Ohio says he never stopped performing commercial services such as agricultural mapping and real-estate filming despite the cease-and-desist letter. "There wasn't any sort of validity to it in my opinion," he says. How true that is. An administrative law judge of the National Transportation Safety Board on Thursday agreed with Gunn's assessment. The agency was reviewing a $10,000 fine levied against renowned drone operator Raphel Pirker. He got dinged for "recklessly" doing a commercial shoot of the University of Virginia with a 4.5-pound Ritewing Zephyr-powered glider . He challenged the citation, contending the FAA had no authority to regulate model-aircraft drones because the public wasn't given a chance to comment on the agency's rules . Pirker's legal battle spotlighted a commercial drone scene in the United States operating in a grey area. the FAA's cease-and-desist letters to operators of commercial model aircraft have forced some companies to shut down. Others, however, continued their aerial filming and crop and real estate surveying businesses underground - or sometimes right in the open. Jack Quirk, the operator of KJ Productions in Oklahoma, applauds the ruling. (.pdf) He had gotten a cease and desist letter, too. "I continued operating, but carefully," he says. He specializes in filming car dealerships and oil fields. "I didn't directly charge for the aircraft. I would charge for the production and include the aircraft for it," he says. "It's kind of embarrassing. Your customers come to you. You have to do this shady deal to be able to use it. This decision will help me to go back to where I was. I can market openly and not be too worried about it." The case turned on an argument made by Pirker's attorney, Brendan Schulman, who maintained that the FAA could not simply declare a regulation without having a public notice-and-comment period. His argument went like this: Congress has delegated to its bureaucracy the authority to make rules, but when new regulations have a substantial impact on the general public, the government must have hearings and take comments. Schulman won that argument Thursday. "I think the decision is also important because it establishes that before the federal government imposes reasonable restrictions on new technologies, the government must consult with its citizens and obtain comments on how those restrictions will affect people," he says. "That's a very important part of our legal system." Pirker lives in Hong Kong, so the decision won't immediate affect him, other than nullifying his five-figure fine. But don't expect the Amazons of the world to begin immediately delivering packages via drones. The FAA is still under orders by Congress to adopt rules governing drone use for commercial purposes. The agency has begun the process of formally enacting rules that might better survive a legal challenge. The rules won't likely be open for public debate until year's end. Phil Jackson, the IT director of commercial real estate firm Price-Edwards in Oklahoma, had used drones to survey the properties he was offering until he received a cease-and-desist letter from the FAA more than a year ago. "We haven't flown a drone in a long time," he says. However, Jackson said Price-Edwards isn't going to immediately let loose the Phantom quad-copter they were employing. "We're willing to comply with whatever rules are set forth," he says. The term drone - appropriated from the military's unmanned aerial vehicles - is relatively new. But model air-planing has a long history. Just 20 years after the Wright brothers' first flight, the nation's first National Aeromodeling Championships were held in 1923. The American Academy of Model Aeronautics, of Muncie, Indiana, boasts some 170,000 members today. The 2007 Federal Register describes what an unmanned vehicle is: "They range in size from a wingspan of 6 inches to 246 feet; and can weigh from approximately 4 ounces to over 25,600 pounds." For Mark La Boyteaux, the operator of Hawkeye Media in Texas, he immediately dismissed a cease-and- desist letter he got 17 months ago from the FAA. He continued shooting commercials for the City of Dallas, and filming local banks, commercial real estate and farmland. "My own personal opinion was it was not illegal," he says. "I never stopped. I just ignored it." http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2014/03/drone-pilots-flying-high/ Back to Top Nigerian Air Safety Under Scrutiny An FAA evaluation team will travel to Nigeria on March 31 to conduct an international air safety assessment (IASA) to determine if that country will maintain its category-one safety certification. The recertification is an important part of Nigeria's aviation strategy because it allows direct access to U.S. airspace by carriers from that country. The enhanced safety rating also directly affects the insurance premiums Nigerian airlines pay, considered to be one of the greatest operating costs for those carriers. Capt. Fola Akinkuotu, new director general for the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, said he is confident the country's aviation system will again win its three-year recertification. India lost its category-one safety rating last month when a similar FAA IASA audit downgraded the country to category two. http://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/ainsafety/2014-03-10/nigerian-air-safety-under-scrutiny Back to Top NBAA Lists Top Business Aviation Safety Priorities Last week the NBAA's safety committee published its annual list of top business aviation safety priorities designed to promote safety-focused discussion and advocacy within the business aviation community. The list this year includes the need to establish a positive safety culture, single-pilot safety, crewmember fitness for duty, airport safety, airmanship skills, distraction management, public policy, managing the talent pipeline and technology management. On the issue of a pilot's fitness for duty, for example, the committee believes that today's physically and mentally demanding environment requires a clear mind and a healthy body for the safe operation, maintenance and management of any business aircraft. Because accident rates are higher for single-pilot aircraft, the committee also believes that arming pilots flying alone with the tools to manage that environment safely has become more important then ever. Distraction management is new to this year's list and encompasses not only task saturation and situational awareness, but also distractions created by pressures away from the cockpit. The committee developed the list with input from many of NBAA's other standing committees, as well as from the FAA, the National Transportation Safety Board, the Flight Safety Foundation's Business Advisory Committee and regional business aviation groups. http://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/ainsafety/2014-03-10/nbaa-lists-top-business-aviation-safety- priorities Back to Top Back to Top Allianz is insurance leader for missing aircraft Willis Group Holdings PLC confirmed yesterday that they brokered the hull and liability coverage for the Malaysia Airlines which is assumed to have crashed into the sea on Saturday. A spokesman for Willis said: "I can confirm that Willis is the broker on the hull and liability but I can not comment on any dollar figures reported in the media. "We are working closely with authorities and the airline at this time. Beyond that, we have no further comment." In the meantime, the online publication Business Insurance is reporting that German re/insurer Munich-based Allianz SE is the insurance leader for the missing jet. In Bermuda, Allianz Risk Transfer (Bermuda) Ltd, is located at Overbay on Pitts Bay Road. Business Insurance is reporting that, according to its sources, Malaysia Airlines has more than $100 million in hull and liability coverage led by Munich-based Allianz SE. The passenger jet went missing Saturday, has not been found, and the cause of the incident is unknown. Search and rescue efforts are continuing. The Boeing 777 aircraft carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew members went missing 40 minutes into a flight from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Beijing on Saturday. Requests for comment from Allianz went unreturned yesterday. http://www.royalgazette.com/article/20140311/BUSINESS04/140319958 Back to Top ERAU Research Survey Researchers with Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University-Worldwide are requesting that Aircraft Maintenance Technicians and Airframe and Powerplant Mechanics participate in their research study titled "Prevention of Back Injuries in Technicians and Mechanics". The purpose of the study is to identify protective factors and risk factors associated with back pain and back injury. The ultimate goal is to identify factors that are protective so that they can be implemented within organizations to curtail back pain and back injuries and to identify factors that can be improved to enhance safety for aircraft maintenance technicians and airframe and powerplant mechanics. Participation in the study is strictly voluntary. You will briefly answer questions about your work activities, perceptions of your workplace and your health. This questionnaire takes approximately 10 minutes to complete. All responses are anonymous as no personally identifiable information is collected. To participate in this important study please access the following link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/CT8G2LH Thank you, Todd. D. Smith, PhD, CSP, ARM Principal Researcher Program Chair - Master of Science in Occupational Safety Management Program todd.smith2@erau.edu Back to Top Upcoming Events: Tucson Jet Rally lands in Marana next week The Tucson Jet Rally next week featuring radio-controlled, turbine-powered electric jets is expected to attract aeronautics aficionados from across the country. The three-day rally March 13-15 will feature planes that measure up to 6 feet and can cost $15,000 to $20,000. Many are scale models of military aircraft. Spectators can sign up for a behind-the-scenes tour. The rally runs from about 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. all three days at Tucson International Modelplex Park, 3250 N. Reservation Road, west of the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum in Marana. Cost is $5 per vehicle for spectators. There's a $40 registration fee to fly. Go to www.timpa.org for more information about the rally and directions to the Modelplex Park http://azstarnet.com/news/local/tucson-jet-rally-lands-in-marana-next-week/article_8e638856-555f-5ea2-90b7- 07951177f7e9.html Middle East Air Cargo and Logistics Exhibition & Conference 2014 April 9-10, 2014 Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre (ADNEC) http://cargomiddleeast.com Airport Show Dubai May 11-13, 2014 Dubai International Convention and Exhibition Centre (DICEC) www.theairportshow.com/portal/home.aspx Curt Lewis