Flight Safety Information October 8, 2014 - No. 205 In This Issue Airtanker Pilot Killed in Crash Fighting Yosemite Park Wildfire MH370 Ocean Floor Search Moves South on Satellite Study Reports: Delta regional jet bumped by wide-body at JFK US Regulator FAA To Grant Safety Approval To Airbus A350 Jet By End-Oct India's air safety standards get a relook from US, EU inspectors Aviation experts want better tracking of planes in wake of Malaysian plane tragedy PRISM TO HELP PREPARE FOR E-IOSA Virgin logs 54th test flight of SpaceShipTwo U.S. Aircraft Insurance Rates Appear Unaffected by Foreign Airliner Losses Health Officials Promise Extra Airport Screening for Ebola Rotorcraft "Moral Courage Safety Award Optimal Strategix Group Inc. SURVEY Graduate Survey Research Request Upcoming Events Airtanker Pilot Killed in Crash Fighting Yosemite Park Wildfire The pilot of a single-person airtanker was killed Tuesday afternoon when his plane crashed while fighting a rapidly spreading northern California wildfire, state fire officials said. Crews found the plane after it disappeared while flying over the Dog Rock Fire near the Arch Rock in Yosemite National Park. Fire officials were not releasing the pilot's name until all immediate family members could be notified. "This crash underscores just how inherently dangerous wildland firefighting is, and the job is further compounded this year by extreme fire conditions," said CalFire Director Ken Pimlott. "We have secured the crash site and will be cooperating with the NTSB on their investigation." The S-2T tanker went down about 4:26 p.m. (7:26 p.m. ET), less than two hours after the fire started. It rapidly grew to 130 acres in just a couple of hours, forcing the evacuation of about 60 homes in the nearby community of Foresta, CalFire said. El Portal Road, also known as State Highway 140, was closed and wasn't expected to reopen any time soon, CalFire said. http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/western-wildfires/airtanker-pilot-killed-crash-fighting-yosemite-park- wildfire-n220711 ************** Date: 07-OCT-2014 Time: 16:30 Type: Marsh S-2F3AT Turbo Tracker Owner/operator: California Dept of Forestry and Fire Protection Registration: N449DF C/n / msn: 152838 Fatalities: Fatalities: 1 / Occupants: 1 Other fatalities: 0 Airplane damage: Written off (damaged beyond repair) Location: Near Foresta, Yosemite National Forest, CA - United States of America Phase: Manoeuvring (airshow, firefighting, ag.ops.) Nature: Fire fighting Departure airport: Destination airport: Narrative: The aircraft (Tanker 81 based at the Hollister Air Attack Base) impacted a forested hillside during a fire suppression operation near Foresta, in Yosemite National Forest, California. There was a post crash fire. The pilot was found dead at the scene. www.aviation-safety.net Back to Top MH370 Ocean Floor Search Moves South on Satellite Study A deep-sea search for the missing Flight 370 will move as much as about 800 kilometers (500 miles) further south after new analysis of satellite data showed the plane may have turned earlier than previously thought. The Malaysia Airlines (MAS) plane, which disappeared March 8 with 239 people on board, may have altered its course as early as 6:28 p.m. Greenwich Mean Time, as much as 12 minutes earlier than previous analysis suggested, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau wrote in an update published today. The aircraft probably spiraled anti-clockwise into the sea after its right and then its left engines ran out of fuel, according to the investigators' simulation. "Recent refinement to the analysis has given greater certainty about when the aircraft turned," the Bureau wrote in a website statement today. "The underwater search should be prioritized further south." http://www.businessweek.com/news/2014-10-08/mh370-ocean-floor-search-moves-south-on-latest- satellite-study Back to Top Reports: Delta regional jet bumped by wide-body at JFK A Delta Connection regional jet apparently was clipped by a Royal Jordanian Airlines' Airbus A330 wide- body aircraft Sunday night at New York's JFK Airport. Officials from the Port Authority that operates the airport described it as a "minor incident," according to New York's Newsday newspaper. The incident occurred just after 7 p.m. ET Sunday. The Associated Press reports that a Delta Connection Embraer regional jet was waiting to taxi to a gate when it was bumped from behind by the nose of the Royal Jordanian aircraft. AP cites a spokesman for Republic Airways, the parent company of Chautauqua Airlines that was operating the Delta Connection flight. No injuries were reported. There were 159 passengers on the Royal Jordanian aircraft and 44 on the Delta Connection regional jet, Port Authority spokeswoman Erica Dumas tells Newsday. Peter Knudson, a spokesman for the National Transportation Safety Board, tells Newsday the agency was awaiting an "assessment" of the planes' damage to determine if it was "substantial enough" to require an investigation. Knudson says a decision was likely to come on Monday, according to Newsday. Port Authority officials declined to give additional details on the incident. http://www.usatoday.com/story/todayinthesky/2014/10/06/reports-delta-regional-jet-bumped-by-wide- body-at-jfk/16797509/ Back to Top US Regulator FAA To Grant Safety Approval To Airbus A350 Jet By End-Oct Airbus won European safety approval last week for the A350. The Federal Aviation Administration expects to issue safety approval for the newest jetliner from Europe's Airbus Group, the A350, by the end of this month, a spokesman said on Tuesday. "The FAA anticipates being able to issue the A350 type certificate during the latter part of October," the spokesman said by email in response to a Reuters query. Airbus won European safety approval last week for the A350, clearing the main regulatory hurdle before its most technically advanced jet can fly passengers, but approval from the U.S. regulator is seen as another critical milestone. http://gulfbusiness.com/2014/10/us-regulator-faa-grant-safety-approval-airbus-a350-jet-end- oct/#.VDUX9_nF98E Back to Top India's air safety standards get a relook from US, EU inspectors AVIATION authorities from the EU and US will re-examine India's air safety standards in November and December respectively. The US' Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) will begin a review in the second week of December, having downgraded India's safety rating to Category 2 earlier in January. This effectively barred Indian carriers from expanding routes into the US, where Air India and Jet Airways already operate to. Since then, India's Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has tightened flight safety standards and engaged The Wicks Group under a bilateral assistance programme funded by the US Trade and Development Agency to win back Category 1 status. The FAA was unable to say how long it will take to reach an outcome for the review. Ahead of that, the EU will also review air safety in India in November and is seeking details on the DGCA's new measures. http://www.ttgasia.com/article.php?article_id=23926 Back to Top Aviation experts want better tracking of planes in wake of Malaysian plane tragedy A map of the Indian Ocean floor off western Australia, where the search for the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 resumed Monday. (Australian Joint Agency Coordination Center/European Pressphoto Agency)A Seven months after the disappearance of a jetliner with 239 people on board, international aviation experts gathered in Washington on Tuesday to mull advances to better track planes in flight and locate them when they crash. The conference called by the National Transportation Safety Board took place as a trio of ships resumed the search this week for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 in a remote region of the Indian Ocean west of Australia. The flight took off from Kuala Lumpur bound for Beijing on March 8. Something went wrong off the coast of Malaysia, with the plane's transponder signal and radio going silent. If, as some suspect, someone in the cockpit turned off those electronics, the solutions proposed Tuesday may be susceptible to the same flick of a switch. Piecing together satellite data, investigators were able to determine the plane radically changed direction and flew for more than eight hours before apparently running out of fuel over the ocean. When a flight cannot be located, an incredulous public asks: How can they possibly lose a plane? NTSB's acting chairman Christopher Hart said in opening the conference. Commercial aircraft that go down over remote land masses are quickly located by activating emergency transmitters. But when planes crash into the ocean - and data gathered by Boeing shows that has happened about once a year since 1980 - finding the plane can be more challenging. There have been two high-profile disappearances in recent years: the Malaysian Airlines plane in March and an Air France flight that crashed in the Atlantic in 2009. It took two years to find the black box from the French aircraft on the ocean bottom. The potential solutions to tracking and finding airplanes presented Tuesday - some of which are being implemented and others on the horizon - addressed the challenges investigators faced in both of those crashes. For example, the Malaysian aircraft was fitted with advanced equipment commonly known as ADS-B (automatic dependent surveillance - broadcast). It allowed the plane's movement to be tracked by land- based radio towers. But the intention is that the system soon will allow tracking by satellite as well, expanding coverage into remote areas such as the Indian Ocean. ADS-B is one of several satellite-driven options that would advance real-time tracking. The systems allow streaming of multiple types of messages, including information about fuel levels and engine status. Before the Air France plane plunged into the ocean off the coast of Brazil five years ago, it sent 29 transmissions warning of a problem. Boeing's Mark Smith said a simple fix could imprint a plane's location on messages sent from the cockpit. Another option being considered would stream data currently being stored on the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder from the plane during the flight. Another proposed advance would extend the duration of a cockpit voice recording to 20 hours. Currently the devices retain either one or two hours of cockpit conversation. There are concerns that if the MH370 recorder ever is recovered there will be no voice record of what happened at the time the flight went off course. There also were several proposals to make recovery of the black box more viable when a plane crashes into the ocean. One would increase to 90 days the 30-day battery life of the pinger that begins to sound when a black box hits water. Another available option is using a type of black box carried on some military aircraft. Those boxes separate from the plane when it his the water, floating on the surface and transmitting an emergency signal. "This system could be deployed today," said Richard Hayden, whose company builds the devices. Searchers resuming the hunt for the Malaysia Airlines plane spent four months mapping the ocean floor. The search area is about 23,000 square miles of ocean about 1,100 milesoff the Australian coast. http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/aviation-experts-want-better-tracking-of- planes/2014/10/07/77969b84-4e48-11e4-babe-e91da079cb8a_story.html Back to Top Back to Top Virgin logs 54th test flight of SpaceShipTwo SpaceShip Two lands after her 54th test flight. Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo, the futuristic rocket plane expected to carry hundreds of tourists to suborbital space, completed an unpowered test flight at Mojave Air and Space Port Tuesday. It was the spaceship's 54th test flight, and it came just three days after Virgin's billionaire founder, Sir Richard Branson, spent Saturday in Mojave celebrating the 10th anniversary of SpaceShipOne's historic flights to suborbital space. But at that celebration, Branson appeared frustrated -- or chagrined -- that a decade after SS1 captured the $10 million Ansari X Prize, his second-generation spaceship has still not begun commercial operations. "It has taken longer than we thought, " he told the crowd of about 300. In January, SS2 completed its third powered test flight. But it hasn't come close to the boundary of space. Branson has repeatedly been forced to push back target dates for the first commercial flight. Most recently on the Late Show with David Letterman, Branson, for the first time, said the $250,000 thrill rides would not begin until next year. Virgin has been tight-lipped about the reason for the delays, but Brian Binnie, who piloted the X Prize-- winning flight in 2004, told Popular Mechanics SpaceShipTwo's rocket motor is the problem. "The delay in SpaceShipTwo has not been the development of either of the vehicles. But the rocket motor has just been problematic from the get-go," Binnie is quoted as saying in the magazine's Oct. 6 issue. Rumors about problems with the motor have been circulating for months. Binnie, who worked until February at Scaled Composites, the builder of SpaceShipTwo, appears to have confirmed those rumors in his Popular Mechanics interview. Other problems, he told the magazine, included the ship's synthetic-rubber solid fuel mixture and the fuel tank itself, a version of which exploded during a ground test in 2007, killing three Scaled employees. Binnie, who has written a book about his time at Scaled, was hawking it pretty hard at Saturday's event in Mojave. It seemed his departure from Scaled, which was founded by aerospace engineer Burt Rutan, allowed him the freedom to speak out. "I knew I could never do anything with this thing, because if I did I was going to get fired. I don't quite have that worry anymore," he said Saturday as Rutan and Branson looked on. Following Tuesday's test flight, Virgin tweeted that the "flight brings spaceflight closer." That may be true, but Branson said Saturday he's done making predictions. http://www.bakersfieldcalifornian.com/local/x782597230/Virgin-logs-54th-test-flight-of-SpaceShipTwo Back to Top U.S. Aircraft Insurance Rates Appear Unaffected by Foreign Airliner Losses Despite an estimated $535 million overage in aviation insurance claims this year stemming from a recent spate of foreign airline losses-including two fatal crashes involving Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777s and a rebel attack at Libya's Tripoli International Airport that damaged 20 airplanes-Corporate Aviation Insurance Group president Matt Drummelsmith doesn't expect any effect on insurance premiums for U.S.- based aircraft operators. "Typically speaking, insurance carriers will raise their rates across the board to make up for significant losses, which could mean passing on rate increases to those who have impeccable safety records and no claims," he said. "However, there are two key points to consider. Of the two major airline accidents, one has already been determined to be an act of terrorism. Therefore, its claim payment comes from a separate fund, which doesn't necessarily affect the insurance carriers directly. "Second, both airline accidents happened outside the U.S. to non-U.S. policyholders, which drastically reduces, if not completely eliminates, any U.S. insurance carrier's liability." The Libyan airport attack is also being considered an act of terrorism, so payments for these losses, too, will come from the same separate fund as those for Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, which was downed in eastern Ukraine after "impacts from a large number of high-energy objects from outside the aircraft," widely believed to be a surface-to- air missile, according to a preliminary accident report the Dutch Safety Board released last month. Drummelsmith said U.S. aircraft operators and the majority of their reinsurers "have dodged major bullets" in terms of any effect on U.S. policyholders. "Although the aviation insurance marketplace has suffered a sizable blow in claims paid, it won't directly affect the U.S. market, thus keeping your rates in line with expectation," he concluded. http://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/aviation-international-news/2014-10-07/us-aircraft-insurance- rates-appear-unaffected-foreign-airliner-losses Back to Top Health Officials Promise Extra Airport Screening for Ebola Passengers moving through a screening area after arriving at Newark Liberty International Airport from Brussels. Credit Viorel Florescu/Northjersey.com, via Associated Press Faced with growing concern over the spread of the Ebola virus, public health officials on Tuesday promised extra measures to screen airline passengers arriving into the United States. But they remained opposed to more draconian travel restrictions that they say would cause more problems than they would solve. Among the measures under consideration by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, temperatures of at-risk passengers would be checked, or they might be subject to detailed questioning upon their arrival in the United States. Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, the agency's director, provided no specific details, a reminder of how easily the disease can travel and how difficult it is to detect. So far, only one case of Ebola has been diagnosed in the United States, but pressure is coming from some members of Congress and from elsewhere for the administration to adopt a more forceful posture. Dr. Frieden said new measures would be announced in coming days but cautioned against measures that could backfire or prove ineffective in the long run. "We recognize that whatever we do, until the disease is controlled in Africa, we can't get the risk to zero here," Dr. Frieden said. "We may be able to reduce it and we'll look at every opportunity to do that." He added: "In medicine, one of our cardinal rules is above all do no harm. If we do something that impedes our ability to stop the outbreak in West Africa, it could spread further there, we could have more countries like Liberia, and the challenge would be much greater and go on for a longer time." A travel ban to the hardest-hit countries - Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone - would make things worse since it would restrict the movement of international aid workers who are struggling to contain Ebola, and would further cripple countries that are already having a difficult time coping, said Dr. Barry R. Bloom, a specialist in infectious diseases and public health professor at Harvard University. "Given the fragmented and broken health care systems in these countries, controlling the disease means getting people from the outside to fly in and to come out again," Dr. Bloom said. "A travel ban on those countries would probably be counterproductive. It would take away the expertise that is needed." The C.D.C. has helped set up protocols in those three countries to screen passengers upon departure. In the last two months, Dr. Frieden said, local officials have screened more than 36,000 passengers. Of those, Dr. Frieden said, about 77 registered a fever or other symptoms and were not allowed to travel. At this point, he said, none of them were known to have been infected by Ebola. The last time that health officials tried to screen passengers, they met with mixed results, Dr. Bloom said. Confronted with the SARS epidemic in 2003, some countries sought to screen passengers, but in the experience of Australia, Canada and Singapore, these screenings failed to turn up a single SARS case. At least 14 Ebola cases have been treated outside West Africa in the current outbreak. Most of those involve health and aid workers who contracted the disease in West Africa and were flown back to their home countries for medical treatment. The virus has started to raise concerns among those who work on airlines. On Tuesday, union representatives of flight attendants and airport ground workers called for tougher screening. In addition, the United States Coast Guard says it is planning to increase screening procedures for passengers aboard cargo ships coming into American ports from West Africa. Two people outside West Africa have been found to have the virus. One is a Liberian man who began showing symptoms four days after arriving in Dallas and the other a Spanish nurse who became ill after treating a missionary in a hospital in Madrid. But screening passengers at their point of departure has flaws since it relies on them to tell the truth. In the one known Ebola case in the United States, the man infected with the virus had lied about not having any contact with an Ebola patient, the authorities said. European countries face the same dilemma. The health authorities in Spain have quarantined three people and are monitoring dozens of others who came into contact with the nurse, the first known case of the disease in Europe. In Britain, the health authorities have said there is a real risk that the virus will be imported but have acknowledged that they have no plan to screen visitors entering the country for Ebola. More than 7,400 people in Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, Senegal and Sierra Leone have contracted Ebola since March, according to the World Health Organization, making this the biggest outbreak on record. More than 3,400 have died so far. While public officials try to contain the outbreak, they also must deal with a public confidence crisis. Increasing controls at the border may not be entirely effective in preventing Ebola from spreading, but it might calm public fears about the disease. "Putting another screening filter on our soil makes a certain amount of sense in building public confidence - and public fear and confidence is the major driver of this," said J. Stephen Morrison, director of the Global Health Policy Center at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Still, he added: "There is no foolproof solution. They are not going to eliminate the risk." Mr. Morrison said the administration could tighten visa requirements from some countries, something that has not been addressed publicly yet. "We have to assume that in the next several months there will be a mushrooming of cases and that will increase pressure on Europe and the United States since the exportation of cases will be linked to the mushrooming of the epidemic itself," Mr. Morrison said. "We are only at the front end of dealing with this." www.nyt.com Back to Top BacktoTop Want to make a quick 100 bucks??? Complete this 15 min online survey... Optimal Strategix Group Inc. invites you to complete a 15 minute survey offering feedback on 3 product concepts targeted at protecting you from harmful chemicals and solvents while working on your tasks. Complete this survey before September 30,2014 and earn a cool $100. If you are interested, please click on the below link - http://survey.confirmit.com/wix/p3070608493.aspx BackToTop Graduate Survey Research Request My name is Peter Evonuk and I am a graduate student at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University - Prescott. As part of my graduate research project, I am studying fatigue related to the use of night vision goggles (NVGs). I would greatly appreciate your support by completing the survey and offering your perceptions on fatigue from NVG operations. The target audience for the survey is pilots with NVG experience. The survey is completely anonymous. The survey should only take between 5 and 10 minutes of your time. Every response is greatly appreciated. The link to the survey is: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/NVGfatigue If you have any questions, you can contact me directly at evonukp@my.erau.edu . I greatly appreciate your support. Thanks, Peter Evonuk 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 ERAU SMS Seminars Daytona Beach, FL Nov. 17-18 & 19-21, 2014 www.erau.edu/sms 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 Air Charter Safety Foundation (ACSF) NTSB Training Center, Ashburn, VA March 10-11, 2015 www.acsf.aero/symposium FAA Helicopter Safety Effort three-day safety forum April 21-23, 2015 Hurst, Texas eugene.trainor@faa.gov www.faahelisafety.org Curt Lewis