Flight Safety Information September 22, 2014 - No. 194 In This Issue Two dead in Southeast Ohio plane crash 1 Killed in Small Plane Crash at Anza-Borrego Desert State Park Virginia plane crash kills construction company executive and his mother French govt ups pressure to end Air France pilots strike PRISM TO HELP PREPARE FOR E-IOSA Dynamiting of Peru's narco airstrips hardly discourages drug pilots from neighboring Bolivia 'Google 2.0' looking to build cities and airports in the future UN aviation body to mull space safety as space taxis ready for flight ICAEA-ANAC-CIPE Aviation English Workshop Graduate Survey Research Request AIRPORT WILDLIFE HAZARD MANAGEMENT WORKSHOP ISASI 2014 - Annual Seminar, October 13-16, 2014 - Early Bird Registration Deadline Upcoming Events Two dead in Southeast Ohio plane crash LIBERTY TOWNSHIP -- Two men died Saturday morning in a fiery plane crash that woke a sleepy, normally serene neighborhood in Liberty Township. The crash was first reported at about 8:55 a.m. Saturday near Sunrise View Circle. A two-seat aerobatic biplane clipped a home and slid sideways into a backyard in one of the single-family homes part of the Summerlin community. "It scared me out of bed. I thought a truck drove into my house. That's what I thought the noise was," said Debbie Valentino, a neighbor who lives two houses from the crash site. "But then I looked out back and saw a big ball of fire and hopped over the fence. My neighbor was already on the phone with the police. I just stood out there, watched and waited for the police and fire department to come." The plane was fully engulfed in flames when fire crews arrived on scene, said Butler County Chief Deputy Anthony Dwyer. The men were already dead inside. The identities of the victims have not been released. Officials believe the plane was housed at the Butler County Regional Airport and took off from there. It isn't immediately clear where the plane was headed. Officials from the airport did not immediately return requests for comment. Authorities do not yet know what caused the crash, Dwyer said. The Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board have been notified and will soon take over the investigation. A woman and her children, who were at home when the crash happened, were not hurt. Neighbor Kevin Romer said he heard engine revving up but then saw the plane teetering and eventually it plummeted to the ground. Flames from the burning airplane melted siding on one of the houses. Valentino recognized that the family, and everyone else in the neighborhood, was lucky. "I was very shaken up because the plane landed in the backyard. I can't believe how he avoided it," she said. "There are young children in all these houses." Hours after the fire was extinguished, a crowd remained gathered near the crash site, watching as investigators worked. Other neighbors went about their Saturday morning activities, homeowners mowing lawns while children played outside. Kevin Romer, who lives about a block from the plane crash scene, said he was working in his garden when the plane came down. "I heard a plane engine rev up. I turned to look and saw a plane teetering like he was trying to level off, then it fell out of the sky," he said. "A few seconds later I heard the crash." Officials from the Liberty Township Fire Department and Butler County Sheriff's Office remain on scene. Two small plane crashes have been reported in the Tri-State area this year, but neither were fatal. Both were caused by engine failures. The first occurred in Clermont County in April, when a single-engine plane closed the 17th hole at the Stillmeadow Country Club after it made a crash landing and came to rest on the green. Neither the pilot nor his passenger were injured in that incident. Last month, a 72-year-old Tate Township man crash-landed an airplane on his own property. He sustained serious injuries, but is expected to make a full recovery. http://www.wkyc.com/story/news/local/ohio/2014/09/20/two-dead-in-liberty-township- plane-crash/15957687/ Back to Top 1 Killed in Small Plane Crash at Anza-Borrego Desert State Park A man was killed Saturday morning after a small airplane crashed in a remote area of the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park east of San Diego County, officials confirmed. The San Diego County Medical Examiner has identified the pilot as 69-year-old Max John Mizejewski of Rancho Santa Margarita, California. Mizejewski rented a Cessna aircraft in Riverside County on Friday, according to the ME. According to the San Diego County Sheriff's Department, the two fixed-wing aircraft was later reported missing. At first light on Saturday, a ground search crew and aircraft crew from the Civil Air Patrol began scouring the Anza Borrego Desert for the missing plane. Officials said the crews discovered the wreckage of the aircraft lying upside down in a desolate area commonly known as the "Borrego Badlands." When searchers hiked into the crash site, they found a man dead near the wreckage. The victim's body was later recovered by sheriff's deputies. The ME has not released the exact cause of death. The sheriff's department said the crash site has been secured. Officials from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the National Transportation Safety Board are expected to visit the area Sunday to begin their investigation. The Anza-Borrego Desert State Park is located approximately 85 miles east of San Diego. http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/Small-Plane-Crash-1-Killed-Anza-Borrego- State-Park-275894431.html Back to Top Virginia plane crash kills construction company executive and his mother A Washington-area construction company executive and his mother, a physician, died Friday in the crash of a two-seat airplane at an auto and motorcycle raceway in southern Virginia. Jon Couch, 46, who was flying the T-28C, and his mother, Frances G. Couch, 78, his passenger, were killed in the crash shortly after 5 p.m. at the Virginia International Raceway in Alton, Va., state police said. The two lived in Annapolis, the police said. No cause for the crash could be immediately determined. The National Transportation Safety Board said witnesses reported seeing the single- engine propeller plane involved in lower-altitude flying "consistent with" a barrel roll, an aerobatic maneuver involving a rotation around the axis of its fuselage. Couch was president of Rand Construction Corp., described on its Web site as a national commercial construction company with annual sales of more than $300 million. A company statement called him a "strong, smart and bold" leader who "fostered a culture of excellence." His family said he was also a competitive motorcycle racer who organized and led a professional racing team. http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-plane-crash-kills-construction-company- executive-and-his-mother/2014/09/21/f83ccde4-41f0-11e4-b437- 1a7368204804_story.html Back to Top French govt ups pressure to end Air France pilots strike PARIS: The French government made a renewed appeal on Monday for a quick end to an Air France pilots strike which is costing the flag-carrier millions of euros a day, urging management to "clarify" its proposals. The strike over the airline's plans to establish low-cost activities is entering its second week and set to be the longest such industrial action in its history. The main SNPL union has extended strike action to Septmber 26 and a second union, SPAF, to September 24 with an option to extend further. "Service must resume right now, that's what the country wants and all those involved must understand that," Jean-Marie Le Guen, minister in charge of relations with parliament, said before new talks on Monday between unions and management. "Very quickly, the management must make a certain number of clarifications on their proposals," he added. The pilots are protesting over plans to expand the low-cost operations of its Transavia unit by setting up foreign bases as Air France seeks to fight back against fierce competition from budget carriers. The expansion of Transavia is part of a new plan unveiled this month aimed at boosting earnings. The proposals would see Transavia's fleet rise to 100 jets by 2017, from about 50 now, and the number of passengers more than double to 20 million. The SNPL is concerned Air France would abandon Transavia's development in France altogether, blaming it on pilot opposition, to focus on the unit's expansion elsewhere in Europe, thus moving jobs outside the country. Air France, part of Air France-KLM, expects 41 per cent of its flights to operate on Monday. SNPL said ahead of the new meeting that talks had reached "a complete impasse". The industrial action began on September 15, and Air France estimates it is costing the company 10 million to 15 million euros ($13-19 million) a day, implying the cost of the walkout could rise to as much as 180 million euros by September 26. Air France-KLM is currently expected to post 2014 earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) of 2.28 billion euros and pre-tax profit of 79 million, according to the average of analysts' estimates on Thomson Reuters Eikon. The StarMine SmartEstimate is for a full-year pretax loss of 19 million. The airline forecast 2014 EBITDA of 2.2-2.3 billion euros and has not given new forecasts since the strike began. Transavia posted a 64 million euro operating loss in the first six months of this year, 10 million more than a year earlier due mainly to the ramp-up of Transavia France. Passenger traffic rose 6.9 per cent year-on-year. Air France's share price shed about 3.0 per cent in early market trading on Monday. http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/world-news/french-govt-ups- pressure-to-end-air-france-pilots-strike/articleshow/43144817.cms Back to Top Back to Top Dynamiting of Peru's narco airstrips hardly discourages drug pilots from neighboring Bolivia PICHARI, Peru - The dynamiting of clandestine airstrips by Peruvian security forces in the world's No. 1 coca-growing valley cuts into profits but hardly discourages cocaine traffickers who net tens of thousands of dollars with each Bolivia-bound flight. As authorities wound up a 54-airstrip "cratering" mission, Peru's counternarcotics police chief Gen. Vicente Romero told reporters that traffickers pay local villagers up to $100 each to fill the holes blasted into the landing strips that dot the flood plain of the vast and verdant Apurimac and Ene river valley. Two of the landing strips targeted in the latest operation have each been repaired four times this year, Romero said on Friday. Sometimes, the 500-meter airstrips are fixed overnight. An average of about four or five small planes fly daily into Peru from Bolivia, picking up about 300 kilograms each of coca paste worth about a third of a million dollars in Bolivia, where it is further refined, authorities say. Romero says pilots earn from $10,000 to $25,000 per flight. The border has no radar coverage and the neighboring nations' air forces are limited so drug flights can only be intercepted on the ground. Romero said 14 planes have been seized this year. Last week, Peruvian and Bolivian officials agreed to share information in real time on cross-border drug flights. They did not, however, divulge details. Peru's anti-drug police, known as Dirandro, says the country produces 450 tons of cocaine a year, half of which leaves the country on small Bolivia-bound narco planes. Most Peruvian cocaine ends up in Brazil and Europe. The so-called air bridge between Peru and Bolivia has been especially active since 2011, the year before the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and the United Nations said Peru surpassed Colombia as the world's top cocaine producer. Peru halted shoot downs of suspected drug flights in 2001 after a Peruvian air force jet mistakenly fired on a plane carrying U.S. missionaries, killing a woman and her infant daughter. http://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/09/22/dynamiting-peru-narco-airstrips-hardly- discourages-drug-pilots-from-neighboring/ Back to Top 'Google 2.0' looking to build cities and airports in the future Google's self-driving cars could find themselves carrying passengers through cities custom-built by the same company, if the search giant's plans for the future ever come to pass. Not content with investing in state-of-the-art robots and pouring money into alternative energy, Google is reportedly drawing up plans to build model cities and airports, according to a new article in The Information. As Google plans for a future where its search engine doesn't compose the bulk of its revenue, the website reports that company co-founder Larry Page has established a team of workers to explore long-term projects for " Google 2.0," including ideas for how to build better cities and more efficient airports. "A little over a year ago, Google CEO Larry Page convened his direct reports, the company's dozen or so senior vice presidents, for a project that would take up two days a week for a couple of months," The Information reported. "About 100 other employees" are also taking part in this effort. Since these projects are considered to be even more far-off than the work being done by the Google X team - driverless cars, robotics - plans for city-building and the like will be handled by a separate division dubbed "Google Y." There are little to no details about what exactly Google wants to do or how it plans to go about these goals, but the UK-Based Independent reported that company executives are already constructing a private air terminal at San Jose International Airport for their own personal use. Page, meanwhile, has reportedly called into question Elon Musk's "hyperloop" concept, saying improving airport efficiency would make air travel more convenient. In addition to building up cities and airports, Google Y is also looking at switching out passwords with biometric sensors and enhancing location tracking. "None of these ambitions seem to be taking commercial considerations into account, at least not at their outset," noted The Verge, though that could change if and when they move closer to reality. Although Google's become famous for its search engine and mobile Android operating system, it has spent considerable amounts of money to establish itself in other fields, including artificial intelligence. NASA is already using Google smartphones on robots at the International Space Station, and the company purchased an artificial intelligence startup early this year specializing in deep learning, or the process of developing machines that can learn the same way as humans. Last year, Google also went on a seven-month spending spree during which it purchased more than half-a-dozen robotics companies, including Boston Dynamics - a notable supplier of robotics technology to the Pentagon and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. http://rt.com/news/189228-google-y-cities-airports/ Back to Top UN aviation body to mull space safety as space taxis ready for flight The United Nation's civil aviation body, currently wrestling with how to help airlines maintain safety over conflict zones, is taking first steps toward protection for commercial vessels in space. Commercial space travel took a big leap this week after the US space agency NASA awarded a combined $6.8 billion to Boeing and Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, to build commercially owned and operated "space taxis" to fly astronauts to the International Space Station. The NASA contract allows Boeing to sell rides to tourists; SpaceX already planned to offer trips to tourists, but did not say if it would fly tourists on its NASA missions . "We're starting to look at (suborbital space travel) more closely," said a representative on the International Civil Aviation Organization's (ICAO) governing council who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity. Montreal-based ICAO will hold its first conference on issues related to commercial space travel in early 2015 and will discuss whether it should expand its governance to include oversight of suborbital space travel. ICAO has come under criticism for not warning of the risks to commercial aircraft over conflict zones after a Malaysian airline was downed over eastern Ukraine in July, killing all 298 people aboard. The 191 member agency is not responsible for opening or closing airspace, a task left to individual states. Industry experts said ICAO, which promotes the development of global civil aviation including air transport standards, should play a role in planning for the retrieval of space debris, for instance, at a time when private enterprise is eyeing the final frontier. "People have just begun to think about it, but how it is to be instituted is not clear yet," said Prashant Sukul, India's representative on ICAO's governing council. "If it's not ICAO, then who is it going to be?" Sukul, one of a handful of representatives hoping to replace retiring secretary general Raymond Benjamin in 2015, said he is campaigning on a "space platform." Discussion aimed at broadening ICAO's mandate is in initial stages and could take years to apply. Sukul acknowledged the challenge space represents for an agency that can take years to tackle key issues on Earth. After a Korean airliner was shot down in 1983 by the Soviet Union, it took 15 years for an amendment to be added to ICAO's founding articles - the Chicago convention - that said states should not shoot down civilian airliners. http://www.dnaindia.com/scitech/report-un-aviation-body-to-mull-space-safety-as- space-taxis-ready-for-flight-2020065 Back to Top ICAEA-ANAC-CIPE Aviation English Workshop Buenos Aires, Argentina. International Civil Aviation English Association Workshop, hosted by Argentina ANAC and CIPE. "Skills and competencies needed in aviation communications: The Latin American Challenge." Open to anyone interested in aviation English. Nov. 20-21, 2014. www.icaea.aero Back to Top Graduate Survey Research Request Dear fellow pilots/Dear Colleagues: Apart from still very actively flying airplanes like all of us, in my case the Airbus, I'm also about to write a thesis with the University of Applied Sciences in Zurich, Switzerland, on the topic of culture and Crew Resource Management. Part of my research consists of a questionnaire for pilots, which takes about 10 minutes to fill in and is completely anonymous. Not even the IP-address is logged or traced, absolutely nothing. It would be great if you could take a few minutes to answer the survey which can be accessed using this link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/UNI-HWZ Every additional reply is of great help. So, please feel free to answer my questions. For any feedback, comment or expression of doubt, just drop me a line. Many thanks and very kind regards, Thomas Thomas Häderli Captain Hadlaubstrasse 39 8044 Zürich Switzerland Cell +41 79 638 48 38 tom.h@me.com skype: thaederli Back to Top Back to Top INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY OF AIR SAFETY INVESTIGATORS ISASI 2014 45TH ANNUAL SEMINAR "Investigations and Safety Management Systems" This year's seminar will take place at the Stamford Hotel in Glenelg, near Adelaide, Australia, from 13 -16 October, 2014. All current information regarding seminar registration, hotel reservations and speakers can be found on the official seminar website at www.asasi.org. Please note the deadline for Early Bird Registration and the discounted rate at the hotel is midnight September 4. Questions can be directed to: Mr. Lindsay Naylor ISASI 2014 Seminar Chair lindsaynaylor77@gmail.com or Ms.Barbara Dunn International Seminar Chair - ISASI avsafe@shaw.ca Back to Top Upcoming Events: ISASI 2014 - Annual Seminar October 13-16, 2014 Adelaide, Australia www.isasi.org IASS 2014 Abu Dhabi, UAE November 11-13, 2014 http://flightsafety.org/meeting/iass-2014 ICAEA-ANAC-CIPE Aviation English Workshop. Buenos Aires, Argentina. International Civil Aviation English Association Workshop, hosted by Argentina ANAC and CIPE. "Skills and competencies needed in aviation communications: The Latin American Challenge." Open to anyone interested in aviation English. Nov. 20-21, 2014. www.icaea.aero ERAU UAS FUNDAMENTALS COURSE December 9 - 11, 2014 ERAU Daytona Beach Campus, FL www.daytonabeach.erau.edu/uas FAA Helicopter Safety Effort three-day safety forum April 21-23, 2015 Hurst, Texas eugene.trainor@faa.gov www.faahelisafety.org Curt Lewis