Flight Safety Information June 3, 2014 - No. 112 In This Issue Data recorders found in rubble of Hanscom crash. Tampa airport's welcome damages Japanese jet. Airlines Look For Ways To Adopt Aircraft Tracking Delta, Endeavor Try Fresh Approach to Attracting Pilots PRISM SMS Man cited after gun found in bag at Va. airport IJAAA Article Submissions Gulf Flight Safety Council to meet in Doha, Qatar..22nd of June 2014 ERAU Unmanned Aircraft Systems Short Course, Seattle Campus Upcoming Events Data recorders found in rubble of Hanscom crash Investigators hope devices yield clues; members of flight crew ID'd BEDFORD - Investigators on Monday recovered the flight-data and cockpit-voice recorders from the private jet that hurtled off the runway at Hanscom Field two nights earlier, critical pieces of evidence that could show why the Gulfstream IV failed to take off and shattered in a fiery crash that killed seven people. The discovery was announced by the National Transportation Safety Board shortly after 6 p.m., following a day in which more than a dozen investigators scoured the charred remains of the private jet in a steep, narrow gully about 600 yards beyond the runway. A crane had been brought to the site to help uncover the recorders. While the cause of the crash remained uncertain Monday, pieces of information about the flight's final seconds emerged. No hydraulic fluid was found on the runway, ruling out a leak of such fluid as a cause. And authorities said there was no evidence of a delay in takeoff. 6/01/2014 - Bedford, MA - Hanscom Air Force Base Civil Air terminal - Frank McGinn, cq right, with the Massachusetts State Police, and Gary Coffey, cq, left, with the FBI, were on site at Hanscom Air Force Base the morning after a fatal plane crash that killed 7 people, including the co-owner of the Philadelphia Enquirer. Members of the media waited on Sunday morning for updates regarding a fatal plane crash at Hanscom Air Force Base that took place on the night before on May 31, 2014. Dina Rudick/Globe Staff. Monday also brought identification of the doomed jet's flight crew. Luke Schiada, who is leading the NTSB inquiry, said investigators are gathering information about the crew's history, as well as reviewing weather information, maintenance records, witness interviews, and surveillance footage. Bedford police on Monday released transcripts of 911 calls reporting the 9:40 p.m. crash. "Something just exploded at the end of Fayette" Road in Bedford, a female caller told a Bedford emergency dispatcher. "Fire. There's fire. . . . It was a big boom. It shook the house." In another call, a male voice said: "I think there was an airplane crash. . . . There's a giant column of smoke and flames." The seven victims included Lewis Katz, the 72-year-old co-owner of The Philadelphia Inquirer, three acquaintances, and three crew members. Katz had flown to Massachusetts on Saturday to attend a fund- raiser at the Concord home of historian and author Doris Kearns Goodwin and her husband, former presidential adviser Richard Goodwin. The pilot and copilot, identified by the Middlesex district attorney's office, were veteran aviators. The pilot, James McDowell, 51, of Georgetown, Del., listed 18,500 hours of flying experience in his most recent application for a medical certificate from the Federal Aviation Administration, Schiada said. Copilot Bauke "Mike" De Vries, 45, of Marlton, N.J., had logged 11,200 hours in the air, Schiada said. The plane, built in 2000, had been airborne for 4,950 hours. FAA records show that McDowell was a certified pilot, flight instructor, ground instructor, and mechanic. Notes from a medical certification in February indicate that he needed glasses for near vision. Other victims included the flight attendant, Teresa Ann Benhoff, 48, of Easton, Md.; Anne Leeds, a retired preschool teacher from Longport, N.J.; Marcella Dalsey, executive director of the Drew A. Katz Foundation; and Susan K. Asbell, who served with Dalsey on the strategic planning committee of the Boys & Girls Club of Camden County, N.J. Schiada said he would not speculate on the cause of the crash at this early stage of the investigation. One of the items being looked at is the position of the plane's wing flaps, which were set at 10 degrees in the cockpit, Schiada said. He declined to say whether that was normal, and said investigators wanted to examine the wings to see what position the flaps were actually set in. The founder of a corporate-aircraft business in Seabrook, N.H., said the deep experience of the pilots, combined with lengthy skid marks at the scene, indicate that a catastrophic emergency, possibly a fire, prompted the crew to abort the flight to Atlantic City. "The fact that the plane got to that gully with its wings attached, and its engines attached, indicates that they tried to abort the flight right where those skids marks begin," said Greg Raiff, chief executive of Private Jet Services. "It had to be something critical. That airplane was moving at a very good clip when somebody tried to stop it." NTSB investigators brought reporters to the crash scene Monday. The jet's broken skeleton lay strewn across the sides and bottom of the gully, about 600 yards from the end of the runway. A strong smell of smoke and burned debris hung in the air as investigators from the NTSB, the FAA, Gulfstream, and Rolls- Royce, which manufactured the engines, pored over the scene. The nose of the plane was generally intact but had been sheared from the fuselage, which was smashed into a jumble of glinting metal. Cabin seats for passengers were blackened and scorched, the wings lay flattened near stagnant, brown water at the bottom of the ditch, and the jet's two engines were tilted upward near the lip of the gully. Ruts from the jet's landing gear, one from each wing and one from the nose, had dug deep into grass that extended 800 feet from the end of the runway pavement to the ditch. In the grass lay the nose gear and the left main landing gear, both of which had broken off. On Monday, a person who answered a phone listed for McDowell, the pilot, said the family did not want to comment. De Vries's family could not be reached, but neighbors described the copilot as an easygoing man who kept a meticulous garden. They often saw him sitting on his front porch or working in the yard with his wife. Haesook Lee, 65, said De Vries's wife knocked on her door Sunday to tell her of his death. Lee said she had seen De Vries probably two days before the crash and will miss him. Benhoff, the flight attendant, worked for SK Travel - the North Carolina corporation that owned the plane, according to FAA records - said her 29-year-old stepson, Matt Benhoff. She was close to the Katz family, he said, and Katz's wife had once attended Benhoff's birthday party. "I think she helped take care of the food and the travel and the car arrangements" for Katz's trips and often flew with the two pilots, Benhoff said. "It's absolutely been devastating," Benhoff said. "We're all just trying to take it one minute at a time." Katz and his acquaintances boarded the jet after a celebratory kickoff for the Concord River Institute, a multidisciplinary training program for teachers, administrators, and students founded by Michael Goodwin, the son of the hosts. Katz amassed a fortune from investments in parking lots and the cable network for the New York Yankees. In 2012, he was part of a group that purchased the media company that includes the Inquirer, the Philadelphia Daily News, and the news website Philly.com. Last week, Katz and H.F. "Gerry'' Lenfest bought out the other partners to take control of the company. Katz also had owned two professional sports teams, the New Jersey Nets of the National Basketball Association and the New Jersey Devils of the National Hockey League, and had been a longtime minority owner of the New York Yankees. A public memorial service for Katz is scheduled for 11 a.m. Wednesday at Temple University in Philadelphia, where Katz was an alumnus and trustee; he gave the university its largest single donation. http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2014/06/02/gulfstream-jet-that-crashed-hanscom-killing-landed- bottom-gully/5cw7TGRSroXfGWE6UR7t8J/story.html Back to Top Tampa airport's welcome damages Japanese jet A Japan Airlines jet was damaged over the weekend after the plane landed at Tampa International Airport. WTSP Tampa, Florida -- A Japan Airlines jet was damaged over the weekend after the plane landed at Tampa International Airport. It was slowly pulling up to the gate as a water cannon, typically used for special occasions, was launched. The Airport Fire Department's equipment was being operated by crews with the City of Tampa's Fire Department. They created a water salute to welcome the soccer team that was on board the plane. Airport officials were not sure of the team on board and airline officials didn't return our phone calls on Monday. If you watch the images unfold on a YouTube video you can see that a fire truck was parked too close to the right wing of the plane. A fire hose damages the tip of the wing breaking off a wing tip light. It was a chartered plane and no one was hurt. Airport officials say out of all the times they've done the water salute before something like this has never happened. Monday night after repairs were made the jet was scheduled to return to service. http://www.wtsp.com/story/news/local/hillsboroughcounty/2014/06/02/tampa-airport-welcome-damages- japanese-plane/9883635/ Back to Top Airlines Look For Ways To Adopt Aircraft Tracking Mystified by the loss of Malaysia Airline flight MH370, some airlines will not wait for an industry-wide solution to keeping track of their aircraft in real time, provided products are offered at the right price. The disappearance of MH370 almost three months ago has prompted calls for real-time tracking of planes and even continuous streaming of black box data. "It must not happen again," Tony Tyler, director general of IATA said at its annual meeting in Doha on Monday. IATA, which brings together over 200 airlines accounting for 84 percent of the world's air traffic, is planning to put aircraft tracking proposals to ICAO in September, which in turn says a standard could be in place in two to three years. However, individual airlines could move sooner than that, Tyler said. "It is the sort of issue where before regulations actually start to bite, airlines will already have made arrangements, they aren't going to wait," he told Reuters news agency. Qatar Airways, hosting the meeting, said the technology to track planes was available today, citing possible changes to the existing ACARS Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System as an example, which can deliver communication in short bursts. "Qatar is keen to explore this," chief executive Akbar al Baker told reporters. Industry-owned air transport communications company SITA also said on Monday it was developing a new tracking system that uses technology already installed in aircraft and SITA's despatch and operations systems. It said the system was currently being evaluated by several airlines and because it uses systems that are already installed, it won't mean extensive costs for airlines. Industry sources also said Malaysia Airlines was already looking at options that it will implement as soon as possible across its fleet. COST CONTROL For airlines though, a big issue will be ensuring costs for any technology do not spiral, given the industry's already tight profit margins. IATA said on Monday its airlines would collectively make a profit of USD$18 billion this year, cutting its forecast from a previous estimate of USD$18.7 billion in March. That would equate to a net profit margin of 2.4 percent, compared with 1.5 percent in 2013. "If it is prohibitively expensive we have to see where the cost benefit is," Andrew Herdman, director- general of the Association of Asia Pacific Airlines said. "It is not a question of affordability, that is the wrong way of thinking of it in terms of individual airlines. But if it makes sense, the cost is not the issue." Airline executives at the IATA meeting said that ultimately costs would be passed onto passengers, rather than governments. "If we ask governments, some countries, to do this, then there is the issue of national security and defense," Osamu Shinobe, chief executive of All Nippon Airways said. However, Willy Walsh, the chief executive of IAG, said that there were still "issues that need to be understood". "I have no problem with something mandatory if it is a sensible solution and we seek to maximize the use of existing technology," he added. Aircraft operated by IAG send out performance data through ACARS every 30 minutes and this includes their position, he added. Meanwhile Air France-KLM said in a statement that since 2009 Air France aircraft have transmitted their position every 10 minutes. That is reduced to one minute if there is an abnormal deviation. KLM has decided to follow suit, it added. "The measures we have already implemented in this field are efficient and easy to apply," said Alexandre de Junaic, chief executive of Air France-KLM. APPLYING EXISTING TECHNOLOGY SITA also said the enhanced tracking capability it was ready to introduce used existing technology that it provides and is already installed on aircraft. "The solution does not call for extensive additional cost or investment by the airlines," SITA added in a statement. Tyler said IATA's recommendations to be put to ICAO in September would focus only on the tracking of aircraft and not involve the continuous streaming of data, which would be more complicated to implement. "We must find a way of doing it that doesn't add significantly to cost. Margins are very thin in the business," he said. Asked why it had taken so long to make proposals on tracking, despite calls for action after the Air France 447 crash in 2009, ICAO's president Olumuyiwa Benard Aliu said it simply took time to find a global consensus. "We have set in motion a process now," he told said. http://news.airwise.com/story/view/1401753876.html Back to Top Delta, Endeavor Try Fresh Approach to Attracting Pilots Although new-hire pilots will not have to undergo another application process before moving on to Delta, pilots already flying Endeavor Bombardier CRJ900s will retain their seniority and priority hiring status. Delta Air Lines plans to establish a new pilot hiring protocol at wholly owned Minneapolis-based regional subsidiary Endeavor Air that effectively matches the standards at the mainline and guarantees every new Endeavor pilot a future hiring "commitment" at Delta without the need to go through another interview process, the airlines announced Monday. Scheduled to take effect June 15, the new Endeavor-to-Delta Pilot Hiring and Commitment Program (EtD Commitment) applies to all new-hire Endeavor pilots. Application screening under the new program has already begun. "No other regional airline is providing new pilots with this level of commitment for future employment with a mainline carrier," said Endeavor president Ryan Gumm. "Identifying a clear career path is vitally important to pilots, and we've designed this program to help position Endeavor as a natural first choice for the best pilots." Speaking with AIN on the day of the announcement, Gumm explained that under the Endeavor model, candidates answer to a three-person panel and undergo a single day of interviews and cognitive aptitude testing. The new protocol adopts Delta's model, which involves a two-day process in which applicants must undergo a battery of psychological testing as well as testing for leadership skills, job knowledge and cognition. Under the new protocol, the three-person interview panel will now include Delta representatives as well as Endeavor personnel. Now employing some 11,000 pilots, Delta anticipates a need to hire some 600 pilots a year to address attrition, much of which, explained Delta Connection senior vice president Don Bornhorst, will result from a spike in retirements due to the timing of the effects of the change in the FAA's mandatory retirement age from 60 to 65. "It's a pretty symbiotic relationship we're striking between Endeavor and Delta," Bornhorst told AIN. "We want to put pilots on a career continuum, so therefore if Delta has a big need for pilots, which it's anticipating it will for the next decade, this actually streamlines the process for Delta quite a bit." Meanwhile, as the major airlines draw pilots from the regional ranks to fill their vacancies, the new rule requiring first officers to carry an ATP certificate has already drained the pool of candidates for regional pilot jobs. Delta hopes the clearer path to employment at the mainline will entice more qualified pilots to apply at Endeavor. Today, it takes an average of about five years for a typical first-year Endeavor pilot to find a right-seat position at Delta, said Gumm. "The competitive landscape for the regionals has never been any tighter; that's for sure," Gumm told AIN. "We put this program in place so we can attract the best or brightest pilots out there. Whether there's ten of those or 10,000 we want to be able to get the best pilots in to fly the Delta brand." Endeavor pilots hired before the EtD program takes effect will continue to enjoy a "streamlined" application process at Delta and all seniority rankings will remain in place, meaning they will get an opportunity to apply at the mainline before any EtD program hiree finds a position there. If, for any reason, Delta doesn't hire the applicant, he or she may stay with Endeavor. http://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/2014-06-02/delta-endeavor-try-fresh-approach-attracting-pilots Back to Top Back to Top Man cited after gun found in bag at Va. airport NORFOLK, Va. (AP) - Police cited a Yorktown man after security officers found a loaded gun in a carry-on bag at Norfolk International Airport. The Transportation Security Administration tells media outlets that one of its officers discovered the 9mm handgun at an X-ray machine checkpoint. The agency says the gun was loaded with six rounds. Police confiscated the gun and cited the man. The incident occurred Sunday. http://www.wset.com/story/25677794/man-cited-after-gun-found-in-bag-at-va-airport Back to Top Back to Top Gulf Flight Safety Council to meet in Doha, Qatar 22nd of June 2014 The Gulf Flight Safety Council will have it's next meeting in Doha, Qatar on the 22nd of June 2014. Key Guest Speakers for the meeting are Captain John Cox and Captain John Ranson from Safety Operating Systems. They will be presenting two topics that are key concerns in aviation safety today - cause and effects of lithium battery dangers on aircraft and smoke evacuation. The meeting is an excellent opportunity for safety professionals from regional operators, military units, regulators and air service providers to network and share information. This meeting is also the AGM for the GFSC. If you are interested in attending please contact GFSC Secretary, Captain Mark Trotter on membership@gfsc.aero Back to Top View this email in a web page TWO-DAY CONTINUING EDUCATION UNIT (CEU) COURSE UAS Applications, Operations and Support: Key Topics of Industry This two-day, continuing education unit (CEU) course is specifically designed for professionals and specialists seeking to expand their understanding of the application, operation and support of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS). Discussions will focus on the considerations, regulations, policies, business opportunities and challenges of the industry. This course is developed and taught by Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University-Worldwide faculty with UAS operations and research experience. Who Should Attend: ? Business Developers ? Executive Leadership ? Small Business Owner/Entrepreneur ? Engineers (including aerospace, communications, electrical, GNC, hardware, logistics, software, systems, quality assurance and test) ? UAS Operators, Pilots, Sensor Operators ? Analysts (system, data management, manufacturing, operations, procurement, research and quality) ? Managers (account, contracts, program, project and operations) ? Training Developers/Coordinators ? Administrators (government, contracts, IT and property) ? Planners (mission, facilities, schedule and strategic) ? Technicians (avionics, electronics, manufacturing and radio frequency) ? Writers (technical, grant and proposal) Key Topics: ? Introduction and Impact of UAS ? UAS Designs ? Legislation, Certification and Regulation ? Industry Concerns ? Applications ? Operational Profiles ? Business Opportunities ? Future of UAS When: Where: Course Fee: Thursday, June 5 to Friday, June 6 Embry-Riddle Worldwide Seattle Campus 1000 Oakesdale Avenue SW Suite 110 Renton, WA 98057 USD $700 Time: 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. with an hour lunch For more information: Al Astbury, Office of Professional Programs Tel: (866) 574-9125 * email: training@erau.edu CLICK HERE FOR ADDITIONAL DETAILS AND REGISTRATION Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University 600 S Clyde Morris Boulevard Daytona Beach, FL 32114 USA If you wish to be removed from this group's mailing list, click here Upcoming Events: SMS & Risk Management Training Tampa, FL June 4-5, 2014 http://atcvantage.com ERAU Unmanned Aircraft Systems Short Course Seattle, WA June 5-6, 2014 http://proed.erau.edu/programs/specialized-industry-training/unmanned-aircraft-systems-workshop-nv/index.html Gulf Flight Safety Council Doha, Qatar 22nd of June 2014 membership@gfsc.aero 6th Annual Aviation Human Factors & SMS Seminar June 24th & 25th 2014 Dallas, TX www.regonline.com/builder/site/Default.aspx?EventID=1384474 21st Century Pilot Reliability Certification Workshop June 30th and July 1st, 2014 Hasbrouck Heights, NJ 07605 Please contact Kacy Schwartz kacy@convergentperformance.com 719-481-0530 International System Safety Society Annual Symposium 04-08AUG2014 - St. Louis, MO http://issc2014.system-safety.org Curt Lewis