Flight Safety Information April 1, 2014 - No. 067 In This Issue Australia says search for MH370 can 'drag on' Computer Models Crucial To Finding Malaysia Airlines 777 Crash Site Asiana says jet partly to blame for SFO crash FAA 'Strongly Encouraged' Autothrottle Change FBI: Laser flashed at Delta cockpit injured pilot landing airplane at New York's LaGuardia Airport California man who lasered two helicopters to face 14 years behind bars Lithium cargo facing outright industry ban PRISM SMS IATA pushes for safer aviation industry Exxon to Wal-Mart Flying G650 Turn Jet Into Status Symbol American Eagle to shrink after pilots reject contract Upcoming Events Australia says search for MH370 can 'drag on' PERTH, Australia (AP) - Investigators are conducting a forensic examination of the final recorded conversation between ground control and the cockpit of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 before it went missing three weeks ago, the Malaysian government said Tuesday. Meanwhile Australia, which is coordinating the search for the Boeing 777, cautioned that it "could drag on for a long time" and would be an arduous one. The forensic examination could shed light on who was in control of the cockpit and will also seek to determine if there was any stress or tension in the voice of whoever was communicating with ground control - crucial factors in an air disaster investigation. Responding to repeated media requests, the Malaysian government also released a transcript of the conversation, which showed normal exchanges from the cockpit as it requested clearance for takeoff, reported it had reached cruising altitude and left Malaysian air space. "Good Night Malaysian three-seven-zero," were the final words received by ground controllers at Kuala Lumpur's international airport at 1:19 a.m. on March 8. On Monday, the government changed its account of the final voice transmission which it had earlier transcribed as "All right, good night." The three-week hunt for Flight 370 has turned up no sign of the jetliner, which vanished March 8 with 239 people on board bound for Beijing from Kuala Lumpur. The search zone area has shifted as experts analyzed the plane's limited radar and satellite data, moving from the seas off Vietnam to the waters west of Malaysia and Indonesia, and then to several areas west of Australia. The current search zone is a remote 254,000 square kilometer (98,000 square mile) that is a roughly 2 ½-hour flight from Perth. On Tuesday, Australia said it had deployed an airborne traffic controller over the Indian Ocean to prevent a mid-air collision among the many aircraft searching for the jetliner. An Australian air force E-7A Wedgetail equipped with advanced radar "is on its first operational" task in the search area in the middle of the Indian Ocean, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority said in a tweet. Earlier, Angus Houston, who heads the joint agency coordinating the multinational search effort, said the modified Boeing 737 will monitor the increasingly crowded skies over the remote search zone. On Tuesday, 11 planes and nine ships were focusing on less than half of the search zone, some 120,000 square kilometers (46,000 square miles) of ocean west of Perth, with poor weather and low visibility forecast, according to the new Joint Agency Coordination Center. A map from the center showed that the search area was about 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles) west of Perth. Some of the aircraft have been dropping as low as 200 feet (60 meters) above the water - and occasionally dipping even lower for brief periods - raising concerns of collisions with ships that are crisscrossing the zone. Under normal circumstances, ground-based air traffic controllers use radar and other equipment to keep track of all aircraft in their area of reach, and act as traffic policemen to keep planes at different altitudes and distances from each other. This enforced separation - vertical and horizontal - prevents mid-air collision. But the planes searching for Flight 370 are operating over a remote patch of ocean that is hundreds of kilometers (miles) from any air traffic controller. The arrival of the E-7A "will assist us with de-conflicting the airspace in the search area," Houston told reporters in Perth. The plane can maintain surveillance over a surface area of 400,000 square kilometers (156,000 square miles) at any given time, according to the air force's website. Houston, a former Australian defense chief, called the search effort the most challenging one he has ever seen. The starting point for any search is the last known position of the vehicle or aircraft, he said. "In this particular case, the last known position was a long, long way from where the aircraft appears to have gone," he said. "It's very complex, it's very demanding." "What we really need now is to find debris, wreckage from the aircraft," he said. "This could drag on for a long time." Malaysia has been criticized for its handling of the search, particularly its communications to the media and families of the passengers. In its latest misstep, the government on Monday changed its account of the final voice transmission from the cockpit. In Tuesday's statement, the government said that police and forensic examinations were trying to confirm if the voice belonged to the co-pilot as was earlier believed. "There is no indication of anything abnormal in the transcript," Malaysia's acting Transport Minister Hishamuddin Hussein said in the statement. Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott has said that although the search for the aircraft has been slow, difficult and frustrating - it will continue indefinitely. In fact, he said the intensity and magnitude of operations "is increasing, not decreasing." "If this mystery is solvable, we will solve it," Abbott said. Items recovered so far were discovered to be flotsam unrelated to the Malaysian plane. Several orange-colored objects spotted by plane Sunday turned out to be fishing equipment. http://www.businessweek.com/ap/2014-04-01/australia-to-deploy-flying-air-traffic- controller Back to Top Computer Models Crucial To Finding Malaysia Airlines 777 Crash Site Solving the mystery that is MH370 ultimately hinges on finding the Boeing black box flight data recorders. But finding the black boxes will likely only happen when searchers positively identify at least a portion of the downed plane's actual surface debris. From there, the searchers will use oceanographic computer "drift modeling" to track the debris' surface movements back as close to the actual crash site as possible. That should, in turn, lead them to the black boxes and the flight's seafloor wreckage. Three weeks and counting from the flight's disappearance, however, detecting the black boxes' pinger beacons before their 30- to 40-day nominal battery life expires still remains a crapshoot. Even so, the U.S. Navy has deployed its Towed Array Pinger Locator (TPL-25) as well as its Bluefin-21 autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) aboard Australian Defence Vessel Ocean Shield which left port on Monday (local time). "Our TPL-25 is what we use to locate the black box signals," said Chris Johnson, a spokesman for U.S. Naval Sea Systems Command. "It has a towed hydrophone [linked] to a ship-based suite of processors that are able to detect a signal from a distance of around one mile." If we can detect the signal before the batteries run out on the black box pingers, says Johnson, then the search team will use the Bluefin-21s sonar or still camera to help locate their exact position. Because the Navy can only search some 150 sq mi daily, Johnson says the search area still needs to be significantly narrowed. The 777 debris would have already drifted anywhere from 100 to 200 km (62 to 124 mi), says Charitha Pattiaratchi, an oceanographer at the University of Western Australia in Crawley. The goal, he says, would be to use the drift models to lead back to a more precise search area of only a couple of hundred square km. "When we actually find debris that confirms the plane has gone down in this region, we can start to work backwards," said Pattiaratchi. "We track turtles in these subtropical gyres for years. But the longer the debris is on the water, the less accurate our [backtracking] becomes." After numerous promising debris reports, time and again over the last week, hopes have been subsequently dashed. The Lockheed P-3 Orion - one of this search mission's primary workhorse aircraft in spotting such debris, was initially designed in the late 1950s as a low-flying, over-water anti-submarine and maritime patrol aircraft. Its main "sensor" is the human eye, with help from surface radar and a sophisticated camera system, says Marco P.J. Borst, a historian with The Netherlands-based P-3 Orion Research Group. He notes the aircraft usually flies squares around the center of a grid; gradually progressing outward from the search area's center. Although the P-3s typically fly at a patrol altitude of some 1500 ft., Borst says, weather permitting, the aircraft can go as low as 100 ft. above the sea-surface. On such missions, Borst says hours of tedium are often only punctuated by a few moments of excitement when they actually see something. If an object does catch an observer's eye, Borst says the P-3s will usually try to make several passes over the "contacts" of interest; using an electro-optical camera system mounted in a retractable turret just below the nose. "The operator can then zoom in on the surface contact and transmit images (or video) back to land, or other aircraft and ships in the search area," said Borst. Buoys mark the spot until surface ships can retrieve the debris for verification. While searchers logging long hours on and over the southern Indian Ocean's roiling surface are still patiently waiting on that first real break, drift modeling will ultimately give searchers the edge when they do make a positive debris identification. In addition to aiding sea-based search and rescue efforts, oceanographers routinely use drift models to track shifts in oil spills; coral larvae; seaweed; even plastic pollutants. "Off Australia's west coast, our [normal] debris estimates run along the lines of 15,000 pieces per square km," said Andreas Schiller at CSIRO (Australia's national science agency) in Tasmania, and the lead oceanographer assisting the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) in the search. "But traveling from point A to point B aboard a seagoing vessel, one does not typically observe much in the way of [open ocean] debris." For non-oceanographers, the fact that this part of the Indian Ocean appears to be so polluted has been an education in itself. And while it's made this present search all the more frustrating, Johnson remains hopeful. "[Even] if we don't detect the black box signal, we can use the Bluefin to search the sea floor," said Johnson. "But we do need to have a good idea of where to begin searching and, typically, that means identifying surface debris." http://www.forbes.com/sites/brucedorminey/2014/04/01/drift-models-crucial-to-finding- malaysia-airlines-777-crash-site/ Back to Top Asiana says jet partly to blame for SFO crash The destroyed fuselage of Asiana Airlines Flight 214 is visible on the runway at San Francisco International Airport after it crashed on landing and burned on Saturday, July 6, 2013. Asiana Airlines conceded Monday that its pilots were flying a Boeing 777 too slowly in the seconds before the plane crashed last year at San Francisco International Airport, but said the aircraft's navigation equipment was partly to blame. The South Korean airline said in a filing with the National Transportation Safety Board that the causes of the July 6 crash were "complex and interrelated." But it said the plane's navigation instruments had "led the crew to believe" the jet was maintaining enough speed for the aircraft to land safely. Instead, the plane was flying too slowly as it came in for a landing and slammed into a seawall short of the runway. The crash left three young Chinese passengers dead, including one who apparently survived being ejected but was run over by two San Francisco fire rigs. Boeing told federal investigators in a filing Monday that the plane's navigation equipment had been functioning normally and had not contributed to the crash. Boeing's chief engineer for air safety investigations, Michelle Bernson, blamed the crash on the "crew's failure to monitor and control airspeed, thrust level and glide path." The federal safety board is investigating the cause of the crash and may issue safety recommendations. It hopes to complete its report before the crash's one-year anniversary. In its filing, Asiana told investigators that something happened to the autopilot device when the plane was at 1,600 feet and headed to a safe landing. "For an unknown reason," the autopilot issued an order that commanded the plane to climb to 3,000 feet, the airline said. Two of the three pilots in the cockpit said they did not remember pressing a button that would prompt the navigation computer to change the plane's approach, Asiana said. In its filing with the safety board, Boeing said the third pilot in the cockpit said it was possible he had pushed the button. Boeing contends that the cockpit's voice recorder captured the sound of the button being pressed as the plane reached the 1,600-foot level. Three seconds after the button was activated, the pilot flying the plane, Lee Kang Kuk, shut off the autopilot and told the crew he was going to land manually. He reduced the plane's speed to counteract the autopilot's commands to raise the plane's altitude, Asiana said. When Lee shut off the autopilot, he expected the jet's auto-throttle device to maintain a safe speed, Asiana said. But the auto throttle "surprisingly" shut down in the process, and no alarm sounded right away in the cockpit, the airline said. With its speed dropping, the aircraft descended too quickly and came up short of the runway. The warning alarm eventually went off, 11 seconds before impact, but that was too late for the pilots to pull the plane out of its descent, Asiana said. The Federal Aviation Administration urged Boeing in 2010 to install software on its auto- throttle devices that would cause them to reactivate automatically in the event of a sudden loss of speed, but the manufacturer has not done so, Asiana said. The agency made the recommendation after an incident on a newer model Boeing 787 in which a pilot discovered problems similar to those on the flight that crashed at SFO, Asiana's report said. Boeing responded that the Asiana crew had ignored many obvious warning signs well before the cockpit alarm went off and should have been able to avoid a crash. http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Asiana-says-jet-partly-to-blame-for-SFO-crash- 5365281.php Back to Top FAA 'Strongly Encouraged' Autothrottle Change The FAA in 2011 had "strongly encouraged" Boeing to make changes to the 787 flight management computer system to provide autothrottle "wake up" capability in all modes. The request is detailed for the first time in a new submission to the U.S. NTSB by Asiana Airlines' on the July 6, 2013 crash in San Francisco of Flight 214, a Boeing 777-200ER with the same flight management computer system (FMCS) and hence the same authothrottle modes. Two of the autothrottle modes - flight level change (FLCH) and vertical navigation (VNAV) speed mode - allow the system under certain conditions to enter into a "hold" mode that prevents the throttles from activating to preserve either a selected airspeed or a minimum flying speed. The recommendation to Boeing calls into question previous testimony from both the FAA and Boeing that there were no residual concerns with the 787's autothrottle modes, issues that would directly affect the same designs on the 747, 767 and 777. Boeing did make some changes to documentation for both aircraft, but the autothrottle modes have not changed. Flight 214 crashed into the seawall at San Francisco International Airport on a visual approach to Runway 28L. The pilots were using the FLCH mode for the final portion of the approach, and have told investigators they expected the autothrottle to maintain a preset speed of 137 kt. However, the autothrottles, as designed, entered a hold mode when the captain disconnected the autopilot and retarded the throttles to hand-fly the final portion of a "high energy" (high and fast to meet air traffic control needs) approach into San Francisco. When the system transitions to hold, a green "Hold" indication is shown on the primary flight displays, but no alarms sound. The aircraft ultimately flew too low and slow - down to 103 kt. - as the captain attempted to climb to the correct glide path with the engines remaining at flight idle. The pilots attempted a full-thrust go- around seconds before the 777's tail hit the seawall. "You're in a situation where the autothrottle does not wake up to the set airspeed and it does not wake up as you get near stall," says Thomas Haueter, a technical consultant to Asiana. "There should be more warnings on that." Haueter spent nearly three decades at the NTSB, finishing his career as director of the Board's Office of Aviation Safety. He says the accident ingredients were not unique to Asiana. "How many pilots have gotten into the same situation, but somehow salvaged the landing and we never heard about it?" While Asiana does not dispute that the ultimate cause of the crash was the crew's failure to monitor and maintain minimum safe airspeed, it details extenuating circumstances and offers 11 recommendations to improve safety, six of which are related to FLCH and what it claims to be insufficient low-speed protection and alerting. Among other changes, Asiana is asking the NTSB to require the FAA to direct Boeing to modify the 777's autothrottle to re-engage in a speed or thrust mode when the aircraft's speed gets too low. The FAA during a December public hearing on the crash did not reveal a request for Boeing to make changes to the autothrottle design. Officials recounted a concern its test pilots discovered during 787 certification flights in 2010 but said it was not a safety or regulatory compliance issue. "Given those two critical factors, at that point, [the FAA test pilot] believed it was an area where there still could be improvement and he worked with Boeing to include additional information in the flight manual to explain that the autothrottle on the 787 would not wake up from the autothrottle hold," said Stephen Boyd, manager of the FAA's airplane and flight crew interface branch, at the hearing. Boeing's former chief test pilot, John Cashman, called the issue a "misunderstanding" of when the autothrottle would wake up and when it would command speed. "In the end when [the FAA pilot] understood that this design has 210 million flight hours, he felt it was not as critical of an issue," said Cashman during the December hearing. Asiana had asked for the original FAA flight test response item (RI) report from the NTSB, but it was not provided. The carrier then petitioned the FAA through the Freedom of Information Act for the report, which was provided to the airline on March 17, the same day that submissions from parties to the investigation were due to the NTSB. The RI shows that the FAA pilots were performing certification stalls with artificial ice contours on the airframe when the concern arose. "When in a descent such as FLCH with autothrottle in (hold) mode, and the descent has to be manually interrupted for something such as a traffic alert, the autothrottle will stay in (hold) mode and will not wake up [as] it does when you capture the original altitude," the September 2010 RI reads. "The speed will decrease well past maneuvering speed." The item was flagged as a "certification issue," and similar concerns voiced by European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) pilots were noted. "Although the certification team accepts that this 'autothrottle wake-up' feature is not required per certification requirements, these two exceptions (FLCH and VNAV speed mode) look from a pilot's perspective as an inconsistency in the automation behavior of the airplane," EASA said in the RI. "Inconsistency in automation behavior has been in the past a strong contributor to aviation accidents." Boeing, in a response in the RI, says the autothrottle operation "is unchanged in the 747, 767 and 777 baselines" and a similar or the same operation "would be witnessed" on those programs. "In FLCH mode the speed is controlled by the elevator. The autothrottle will remain in that mode until either the intended altitude is acquired and autothrottle and autopilot transitions out of FLCH to (speed) and (altitude hold) or the crew selects another pitch mode. If the maneuver were interrupted by the flight crew, it is expected they would select a different pitch hold mode from the current flight level change mode, perhaps selecting Altitude Hold." The three-page RI contains several iterations for recommended language for the 787 airplane flight manual to explain the nuances of the FLCH and VNAV speed modes, but concludes with the RI being "closed," albeit with a caveat. "The FAA strongly encourages Boeing to implement an FMCS system enhance in some future FMCS software release that would allow autothrottle to wake up during large excursions from target speed." http://www.aviationweek.com/Article.aspx?id=/article-xml/awx_03_31_2014_p0- 676155.xml&p=2 Back to Top FBI: Laser flashed at Delta cockpit injured pilot landing airplane at New York's LaGuardia Airport NEW YORK - The FBI is searching for someone who flashed a green laser at least twice into the cockpit of a Delta plane landing at New York's LaGuardia Airport, injuring the pilot. New York Assistant Director George Venizelos says Friday a $10,000 reward is available for information leading to the arrest of whoever shined the laser beam into Delta Flight 1102 just before 8 p.m. Tuesday. Venizelos says the laser caused flash blindness and severely disrupted the vision of one of the plane's two pilots. He says agents believe the laser originated from somewhere along Queens Boulevard in the Elmhurst neighborhood of Queens. The plane, traveling from Atlanta, Ga., landed safely. http://www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/2014/03/fbi_laser_flashed_at_delta_coc.html Back to Top California man who lasered two helicopters to face 14 years behind bars 26-year-old man from Fresno receives harshest sentence yet, prosecutors say. Earlier this month, a Fresno man received what is believed to be the strongest sentence issued anywhere in the United States for firing a laser pointer at an aircraft-14 years in prison. His girlfriend was also convicted on similar charges, but she will not be sentenced until May 2014. "To our knowledge, it is the largest sentence imposed in this type of case," Karen Escobar, the assistant US attorney for the Eastern District of California, told Ars. According to the criminal complaint, on a warm summer evening in late August 2012, Sergio Rodriguez took his green laser pointer and fired it at a passing helicopter from outside of his apartment. His apartment complex sat just about a half mile north of the west end of the Fresno Yosemite International Airport in one of the Central Valley's largest cities. Unknowingly, the then-24-year-old struck not just any helicopter, but "Air George," an emergency transport ambulance helicopter of Children's Hospital of Central California. The helicopter was flying from Bakersfield to Fresno with a young patient, two crew members, and a pilot on board. The pilot informed the airport's air traffic control, which then relayed it to a nearby police helicopter that was on routine patrol. As the helicopter, called Air-1, moved to the reported location north of the airport, it was struck seven times as it circled overhead. Air-1 next radioed down to the neighboring town of Clovis, which sent patrol cars to an apartment complex. Using Air-1's spotlight, Fresno's pilots guided Clovis officers to the north side of the apartment complex so they would not be observed. One Clovis cop, Officer Peters, jumped over a wall and began walking around the area. Peters was quickly informed by a fellow resident that the person "in Apartment #117 is doing it, I saw him." Peters recognized Rodriguez from his prior encounters with local law enforcement (including a domestic disturbance) and knew that he was out on probation-and he saw a "dark cylindrical object in his right hand." Rodriguez turned and ran toward his apartment, but Peters caught up to him. After searching him, Peters found the green laser pointer. Meanwhile, another Clovis cop, Officer Cleaver, arrived and began to arrest Rodriguez. Rodriguez' girlfriend, Jennifer Coleman, then interrupted and said that she was the one that fired the laser. However, Coleman denied intentionally firing at the helicopter. Both of the two were booked at Fresno County Jail and later released. After being interviewed by an FBI agent about a month later, Coleman said that she even let her young children play with the laser but required that they only aim it at the sky and not at anyone's home. She said she didn't think that the laser would reach the helicopter; then Coleman apologized and admitted it was a "stupid thing to do." The following day in a second FBI interview, Rodriguez admitted that he struck the helicopter four times and gave it to Coleman so she could try as well. Federal criminal charges were brought against both of them in March 2013, with a three- day trial concluding in December 2013. Earlier this month, Rodriguez appealed his case to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. "You have a history of being untruthful with law enforcement" Rodriguez' unusually harsh sentence appears to have been influenced by a litany of previous incidents, including a prior arrest in April 2011 for trying to open a box of tokens to play video games, possibly while intoxicated. The following year he was convicted of burglary and a DUI. In a March 2013 custody hearing before the judge, Rodriguez' lawyer described the laser as merely a $7.99 device, powered by AAA batteries. It can be acquired at Wal-Mart. "The laser in this case was really a curiosity piece or a plaything for children," Dale Blickenstaff told Judge Sheila Oberto during the hearing. "Now, we may not agree with that knowing what we know now about pointing it at eyes, but this family wasn't really aware of the dangerous capability of this thing. In fact, on the night in question, as a family, it went outside with them, and each of them took a turn pointing it at various objects, including the sky. "There was not a malicious intent here to do anything like that," he continued. "It may have been a stupid, stupid thing to do, but it wasn't with the intent of knocking down a helicopter or injuring anybody else." Judge Oberto wasn't buying it, as outlined in a declaration directed at Rodriguez. "You have a history of being untruthful with law enforcement," she said. "Officer Cleaver's January 2, 2012 report indicates that you were untruthful with the officer about your identity and that you admitted to lying to the officer because you knew you had active warrants and did not want to go to jail. And that's a direct quote from Officer Cleaver's report. "You have a history of poor performance on probation, as evidenced by new arrests and convictions. You have a significant prior criminal record that dates back to 2002 when you were only 13 years old and includes two obstruction of public officer convictions. You have a history relating to alcohol abuse as evidenced by your four DUI convictions beginning in 2007 and most recently in 2012, and you don't have significant financial resources for a bond." An epidemic on the rise Amongst California's 34 non-coastal counties ranging from the Oregon border to Kern County (adjacent to Los Angeles County), federal investigators recorded 100 laser strikes against aircraft. The highest frequency occurred at Fresno's Yosemite International Airport and Bakersfield Municipal Airport. That total reached 26 in 2013, a doubling since 2010. Fresno Police Officer Ken Schneider, who was hit in the incident involving Rodriguez and Coleman, told the Fresno Bee he's been hit with lasers about a dozen times when flying for Fresno police over the past three years. He likened the experience to shining a flashlight right in someone's face in a very dark room. "That's what we're experiencing up in the air," Schneider said. "You lose visual reference. You can get disoriented, lose focus of gauges, lose ground reference or your emergency landing zone, any sort of reference that you look for as a pilot." In February 2014, federal authorities began a new $10,000 reward program that leads to the arrest of someone who shoots a laser at an aircraft. "We in federal law enforcement understand the dangers posed by laser strikes on aircraft," US Attorney Benjamin Wagner stated in a late March 2014 statement. "This is not a game. It is dangerous, and it is a felony. Those who aim lasers at aircraft should know that we will seek to convict them, and we will seek to send them to prison. The safety of aircraft and the people in them demands no less." http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/03/california-man-who-lasered-two- helicopters-to-face-14-years-behind-bars/ Back to Top Lithium cargo facing outright industry ban A worldwide cargo ban on transporting highly combustible lithium metal batteries on passenger aircraft could be imposed on airlines as early as next week, writes Aimée Turner. An expert group was established earlier this year by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) to determine just how dangerous transporting lithium metal batteries in both passenger and cargo holds really is. Lithium metal - or non-rechargeable - batteries are used to power a whole range of personal gadgets and they are routinely carried in the cargo holds of passenger aircraft. If a lithium metal battery overheats it can lead to thermal runaway and reach temperatures exceeding 760 degrees Celsius. Just one battery could generate enough heat to cause nearby batteries to go into thermal runaway resulting in propagation from cell to cell and package to package. The Halon 1301 fire suppressant carried on board passenger aircraft, worryingly, has no effect on lithium metal battery fires. Next week in Montreal ICAO's Dangerous Goods Panel working group on lithium batteries will review tests carried out in February at the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Technical Center in the United States. These were attended by experts from ICAO, the FAA, and their safety counterparts from the European Aviation Safety Agency, together with the aircraft and battery manufacturing industries. Scenarios There was comprehensive testing of all the various chemistries and sizes in a series of simulated cargo fire scenarios using shipping cartons placed in a test Boeing 727 airframe - either through overheating or through directly heating the battery up to 190 degrees Celsius. Test showed that smoke caused by the fire quickly engulfed the flight deck within eight or nine minutes of detection. In one test, after that test had finished with halon levels nearing zero and oxygen levels increasing, a single battery in thermal runway led to a flash fire, causing an explosion that ripped through the test airframe and blew the flight deck door off its hinges. Tests in the hold of a freighter aircraft showed that smoke started to pour into the flight deck within five minutes and became so severe that it soon became fully obscured by smoke. ICAO flight operations chiefs already believe that on the basis of accepted safety review processes, the transport of lithium metal batteries on passenger aircraft poses an unacceptable risk because - even though the chances of one occurring are remote, the severity of an onboard fire would be catastrophic. They insist that because so little data exists on the size of global shipments of lithium batteries worldwide, the worst case scenario has to be assumed. The working group will also have to decide next week whether to treat all aircraft - passenger and cargo - in the same way. While freighters do not have to carry any fire suppression mechanism under current rules, the aircraft manufacturing industry points out that modern aircraft are certified only to carry general cargo - and not the 'unique hazards' of carry dangerous goods such as lithium batteries. Following the February testing, next week's meeting will be asked to consider restrictions up to and including an outright ban on lithium metal battery cargo to be implemented as soon as possible. There may be the possibility of compromise position which would involve restrictions chiefly on carrying certain types of battery, restricting their quantity and improving packaging. Under existing rules, there are no limits to the number of packages containing dangerous goods that can be transported on any single aircraft. Concerns Concern over the dangers of carrying lithium metal battery is nothing new. The United States and several airlines including Cathay Pacific have already had passenger aircraft bans in place for a number of years. ICAO shares their concerns too. ICAO's air navigation bureau chief Nancy Graham even went so far as voicing the Secretariat's growing concern with lithium battery cargo safety last November. Those against a ban claim it is non-compliant shipments and counterfeit batteries that are the source of the problem and that these would simply go underground resulting in far more dangerous shipments finding their way on board passenger aircraft. While many support better enforcement, experts still worry however that even perfectly manufactured and prepared shipments could be damaged - and therefore liable to become dangerous. The international pilots professional organisation IFALPA insists there should be a total ban on cargo aircraft as well as passenger, arguing there is currently no safe way to transport lithium metal batteries with even rapid depressurisation of the aircraft ineffective. With industry estimates of the number of lithium metal batteries being shipped in their billions each year, most agree that the status quo cannot be maintained. As ICAO notes: 'Concern was expressed that at some point a catastrophic fire would occur on an aircraft and that action had to be taken' and that, 'Some members believed that without further action, a catastrophic event was inevitable and that an immediate change to the requirements was necessary'. http://www.airtrafficmanagement.net/2014/04/lithium-cargo-facing-outright-ban/ Back to Top Back to Top IATA pushes for safer aviation industry Despite low record of accidents - at one for every 2.4 million flights, Malaysia Airlines' MH370 serves as a reminder that the aviation industry should further make flying even safer. in a keynote address at the opening of the IATA OPS Conference, in Kuala Lumpur today, International Air Transport Association (IATA) Director General and CEO, Tony Tyler, has called on governments and industry to focus on partnerships, data analysis and runway safety in the ongoing quest to make flying even safer. Speaking amid the ongoing search for MH370, Tyler also committed IATA to facilitate a unified industry position on global tracking of aircraft and called on governments to make more effective use of passenger data. "In 2013, there were over 29 million flights operated on Western-built jet aircraft, with 12 hull losses. That is one accident for every 2.4 million flights and a 14.6 per cent improvement on the five-year industry average. Accidents are rare, but the current search for MH370 is a reminder that we can never be complacent on safety. It may well a long time before we know exactly what happened on that flight. But it is already clear that we must never let another aircraft go missing in this way. And it is equally clear that governments must make better use of the passenger data that they mandate airlines to provide," said Tyler. He added that speculation will not make flying any safer. "We should not jump to any conclusions on probable cause before the investigation into MH370 closes. There are, however, at least two areas of process - aircraft tracking and passenger data - where there are clearly challenges that need to be overcome," said Tyler. MH370 has highlighted the need to improve our tracking of aircraft in flight. "In a world where our every move seems to be tracked, there is disbelief both that an aircraft could simply disappear and that the flight data and cockpit voice recorders are so difficult to recover. Air France 447 brought similar issues to light a few years ago and some progress was made. But that must be accelerated. We cannot let another aircraft simply vanish," said Tyler. He also urged all to follow the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) process to move this forward. "Industry must - and will - play a role in supporting ICAO in this effort with a united position. IATA will convene an expert task force that will include ICAO participation to ensure that the work is well coordinated. This group will examine all of the options available for tracking commercial aircraft against the parameters of implementation, investment, time and complexity to achieve the desired coverage. This group will report its conclusions by December 2014, reflecting the need for urgent action and careful analysis," said Tyler. He also called on governments to: harmonise passenger data collected by airlines on the ICAO standard elements and eliminate all other non-standard requirements; eliminate the collection of passenger and cargo data using paper forms; and create a single harmonised window through which airlines can submit electronic data to governments. According to Tyler, about 100,000 flights are operated safely each day. Every flight that takes off involves thousands of coordinated actions across multiple businesses and organisations. "To keep flying safe, we need not only to understand and work with each other every day. We must also compare notes, collaborate and work together to build the future with a common vision," said Tyler. "No matter how hard we may compete within an industry sector or how differently we may see the world when it comes to thorny commercial issues, we are an industry that is absolutely unified in its dedication to global standards and safety," said Tyler. "That has allowed us to evolve a tradition of transparently sharing information, experiences and best practices to make flying ever safer." Aside from partnerships, he also stressed the importance of effective data analysis. IATA has established the Global Aviation Data Management (GADM) project. GADM includes data from over 600 sources, making it the most comprehensive collection of industry information, including the STEADES database, audit data from the IATA Safety Audit for Ground Operations and the IATA Operational Safety Audit. There are also contributions from many others, including the European Aviation Safety Authority, the US Federal Aviation Administration, and the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO). "Together, industry and regulators are on the cusp of a great step forward in how we manage safety. We have talked about GADM for years. Now it is becoming a reality. We need as many stakeholders as possible to contribute their data. An increase in the number of users of the data will transform GADM from insight to real safety improvements," said Tyler. He also stressed on runway safety, which requires a perspective that includes air traffic management as well as the airport and airline. "About a quarter of all accidents over the last five years were runway excursions. But when we take a broader look at the issue, about half of all accidents in the same five- year period are actually in the runway environment. Therefore, it makes sense to understand not only what happened when the aircraft landed, together with data from the air navigation service provider for the conditions of the landing, but also the airport data for the conditions around that runway" said Tyler. The latest version of the runway risk reduction toolkit was launched in late 2013 featuring this broader perspective. Representing some 240 airlines comprising 84 per cent of global air traffic, IATA announced that in 2013, there were 210 fatalities from commercial aviation accidents, reduced from 414 in 2012. 2013 Safety by the numbers: More than 3 billion people flew safely on 36.4 million flights (29.5 million by jet, 6.9 million by turboprop) 81 accidents (all aircraft types, Eastern and Western built), up from 75 in 2012, but below the five-year average of 86 per year 16 fatal accidents (all aircraft types) versus 15 in 2012 and the five-year average of 19 20% of all accidents were fatal, unchanged from 2012 and below the five-year average of 22% 12 hull loss accidents involving Western-built jets compared to six in 2012 and the five- year average of 13 Six fatal hull loss accidents involving Western-built jets, raised from three in 2012, unchanged from the five-year average 210 fatalities compared to 414 in 2012 and the five-year average of 517 http://www.nationmultimedia.com/business/IATA-pushes-for-safer-aviation-industry- 30230588.html Back to Top Exxon to Wal-Mart Flying G650 Turn Jet Into Status Symbol Ed Dahlberg got 40 calls in one day when he put a Gulfstream G650 up for sale in February. That's unusual for a private jet -- especially when the asking price tops the $64.5 million on the sticker. "We believe this plane's going to bring north of $75 million," said Dahlberg, president of Manassas, Virginia-based Emerald Aviation Inc. and part-owner of the G650. Barely 15 months after its debut, the world's biggest and fastest business jet is a corporate status symbol, with owners as high profile as Exxon Mobil Corp., Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Qualcomm Inc. The waiting list is almost four years long for a factory- fresh model, whetting appetites among tycoons and chief executive officers when a used G650 hits the market. "It's the must-have airplane if you're in the top end of the spectrum," said Steve Varsano, founder of London-based Jet Business, who's sold two pre-owned G650s since November for more than $70 million each to buyers he wouldn't identify. G650s are also must-have for Gulfstream parent General Dynamics Corp., the tank and submarine maker squeezed by shrinking U.S. defense budgets. The jets helped boost 2013 aerospace revenue 17 percent to $8.12 billion, while combat systems unit revenue fell 23 percent to $6.12 billion. "The G650 is doing exceptionally well," said Peter Arment, a Sterne, Agee & Leach Inc. analyst who has a buy rating on Falls Church, Virginia-based General Dynamics. "The demand for this plane is going to remain very strong." Transoceanic Routes Large, luxury aircraft are the bright spot in a $21 billion private-jet market recovering unevenly from the 2008-09 financial crisis. While orders remain weak for small, personal models like the Mustang from Textron Inc.'s Cessna, corporate fleet managers and billionaires are shopping again for big planes able to make transoceanic routes. Qualcomm's G650 flew round trip between California and Barcelona before February's Mobile World Congress in the Spanish city, where then-CEO Paul Jacobs collected an industry award. That jaunt, as chronicled by airline-data tracker FlightAware, was well within the jet's advertised range of 7,000 nautical miles (12,964 kilometers), enough to reach Beijing from New York without refueling. Propelled by Rolls-Royce engines tucked on either side of the rear of the fuselage, the G650 can reach 627 miles an hour at 30,000 feet (9,100 meters), about 93 percent of the speed of sound. It seats as many as 18 people. To ease jet lag, the cabin air pressure is kept higher than on typical airplanes. Engine Whisper On a recent flight from Phoenix on a G650 owned by Honeywell International Inc., takeoff thrust pressed passengers into soft leather seats as the engines whispered. Wood-veneer tables popped out at the touch of a button. Entertainment options included watching satellite television from a seat-belted sofa or gazing out the windows -- billed as the largest on a business jet and fitted with powered shades -- at the red sandstone cliffs of Sedona, Arizona. "It's just unbelievably capable and unbelievably reliable," Honeywell pilot Andy Eldringhoff said as he guided the plane above the Arizona desert at 16,500 feet. CEO Dave Cote is among the users of the jet, which has Honeywell avionics in the cockpit. With more than 50 delivered so far, the G650 has reset the market for business aircraft designed for maximum speed, comfort and distance. There won't be a competitor in the G650's class until 2016, when Bombardier Inc.'s Global 7000 is due for its initial handover. Exclusive Aura Gulfstream enhances the aura of exclusivity by refusing to let buyers leapfrog by swapping or buying delivery slots, as occurs with commercial jets. The Savannah, Georgia-based company wrote a clause that strictly prohibits contract holders from selling their spots, said Steve Cass, a spokesman. "There is no cutting in line," Cass said. "Everyone that we deal with is pretty important folks. Once you go down that, it's a pretty slippery slope. You just don't want to go there." Gulfstream started taking G650 orders in March 2008 -- six months before the Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. bankruptcy triggered a global credit freeze -- and customers stampeded to put down about $3 million and sign purchase contracts, said Jet Business's Varsano. While Cass said the G650 order book held up during the economic crisis, flight trials were marred by a 2011 crash in New Mexico that killed four Gulfstream employees. U.S. safety officials concluded in 2012 that company pressure to speed up testing caused the accident. Gulfstream President Larry Flynn responded that any failings by the planemaker were inadvertent. Most Profitable? The G650 may become Gulfstream's most profitable aircraft ever, General Dynamics CEO Phebe Novakovic told investors on Feb. 20 at a Barclays Plc conference. The jet uses 50 percent fewer parts than the smaller G550 and G450 and is assembled at a plant designed for the G650, according to Gulfstream. "We don't know internally how good we can get, but we know we can get a whole lot better," Novakovic said of the plane's profitability. General Dynamics soared 54 percent to $108.92 in the 12 months ended yesterday, topping the 19 percent gain for the Standard & Poor's 500 Index. Montreal-based Bombardier rose 2 percent in the same period. Buyers' silence about the G650 contrasts with the demand. Corporate touchiness about jet ownership only intensified after U.S. automaker CEOs drew criticism for flying company aircraft to Washington in 2008 to beg Congress for an industry bailout. Owners' Silence Brooke Buchanan, a Wal-Mart spokeswoman, confirmed that the Bentonville, Arkansas- based retailer has a G650 while declining to discuss details. Emily Kilpatrick, a spokeswoman for San Diego-based Qualcomm, and Scott Silvestri, a spokesman for Irving, Texas-based Exxon, declined to comment when asked about the G650s registered to the companies at the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration. A G650 registered to Dick's Sporting Goods Inc. was sold in February, according to FAA records that didn't list the buyer or the terms. The Coraopolis, Pennsylvania-based company didn't respond to messages requesting comment on the transaction. Gulfstream is famous for secrecy about what's on the drawing board, and General Dynamics' Novakovic said the next jets won't be unveiled until they're ready to roll out on the tarmac under their own power. Jefferies LLC analyst Howard Rubel said a redo of the G550, the previous flagship, may be under consideration. Jet Business's Varsano said buyers want other the Gulfstream models to get cabins like the G650's. Dahlberg, the Virginia broker, said the G650 itself could be modified to extend its range. "Gulfstream really hit a home run with the product," said Josh Mesinger, vice president of Mesinger Jet Sales in Boulder, Colorado. "There is no other product in the world in service that will fly 7,000 miles." Mesinger was the broker that offered the G650 registered to Dick's, with an asking price of $73.5 million, according to an online posting. It sold the day the ad appeared. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-04-01/exxon-to-wal-mart-flying-g650-turn-jet- into-status-symbol.html Back to Top American Eagle to shrink after pilots reject contract In case you missed this news from Friday, American Eagle - the long-time regional affiliate of American Airlines - appears poised to shrink after its pilots rejected a contract proposal. The contract would have put American Eagle pilots into larger regional jets on order, but it also would have frozen pay scales at American Eagle and eliminated profit-sharing, among other items, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. The paper adds pay for first officers "would have been capped at $38,000 per year after four years of service." About 70% of the American Eagle pilots who voted on the proposed contract voted to reject it, even though American's management indicated such a vote would mean a reduction in the size of the unit in the coming years. "The Eagle pilots made a clear choice today, and it was not an easy one," Bill Sprague, chairman of the Air Line Pilots Association's master executive council at American Eagle, told The Dallas Morning News after the voting tally came in. "Despite threats from (American Airlines Group) management that they would seek other express carriers to conduct our flying, today's vote demonstrates that the demands for contract concessions were not acceptable. Today's vote clearly shows that pilots can, and will, vote against any agreement that is not in their best interests," Sprague adds to the Morning News. American Eagle currently has about 2,700 pilots. American responded to the "no" vote by saying it intends to hire other regional airlines to handle the contract flying for 60 new mid-sized jets it has on order. When coupled with AA's plans to retire many of American Eagle's smaller and less-efficient planes, that will cause the unit to shrink. The Associated Press notes that "regional airlines are a training ground for larger, so- called mainline carriers. At Eagle, pilots hope to someday move up to American Airlines, although that career path has been clogged by slow growth - or none at all - at the big airlines since 2001." Sprague tells AP that American Eagle's pilots concluded they would be better off trying to get jobs at American, JetBlue, Spirit and other airlines that are hiring instead of accepting a long-term contract that they view as concessionary. American will rename the American Eagle as Envoy later this year and will extend the American Eagle name to all of the flights operated by American's regional affiliates. AP adds background, writing regional carriers "operate smaller planes that often fly on secondary routes and connect passengers to big hub airports that are served by so- called mainline airlines such as American, United and Delta. Regional airlines are complaining about a shortage of pilots. Unions say the airlines need to raise pay to attract more pilots." http://www.usatoday.com/story/todayinthesky/2014/04/01/american-eagle-to-shrink- after-pilots-reject-contract/7137095/ Back to Top Upcoming Events: North Texas Business Aviation Safety Show-Down is set for April 3rd http://www.aviationpros.com/press_release/11327425/north-texas-business-aviation- safety-show-down-is-set-for-april-3rd Middle East Air Cargo and Logistics Exhibition & Conference 2014 April 9-10, 2014 Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre (ADNEC) http://cargomiddleeast.com Flight Safety Foundation Business Aviation Safety Summit 2014 April 16-17, 2014 San Diego, CA http://flightsafety.org/files/doc/2014FSF_Prospectus.pdf Airport Show Dubai May 11-13, 2014 Dubai International Convention and Exhibition Centre (DICEC) www.theairportshow.com/portal/home.aspx National Safety Council Aviation Safety Committee Annual Conference Savanah, GA - May 14-15, 2014 Contact: tammy.washington@nsc.org http://cwp.marriott.com/savdt/artexmeeting/ Asia Pacific Aviation Safety Seminar 21-22 May 2014, Bangkok, Thailand http://bit.ly/APASS2014 Curt Lewis