Flight Safety Information December 12, 2014 - No. 251 In This Issue New Mexico Airlines abruptly grounds planes...FAA cites mechanical issues Boeing 747 jumbo jet lands at Heathrow after residents in flight path hear loud bang ONE OF WORLD'S BUSIEST AIRPORTS REVEALS RECENT DRONE NEAR-HIT INVOLVING PASSENGER JET Sri Lankan Air Force Plane Crash Kills 4, Injures One Black Hawk rotor fails more than a mile high; pilots land safely Zambia based airline achieves international safety standard PRISM TO HELP PREPARE FOR E-IOSA ERAU NextGen 101 Seminar - Washington, D.C. GRADUATE RESEARCH SURVEY Najeeb E. Halaby Graduate Student Fellowship Upcoming Events New Mexico Airlines abruptly grounds planes FAA cites mechanical issues ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -New Mexico Airlines has voluntarily grounded its planes and canceled its flights until further notice, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. New Mexico Airlines' destinations include Albuquerque, Los Alamos and Carlsbad. Its main hub is at the Albuquerque International Sunport. FAA spokesperson Lynn Lunsford said that New Mexico Airlines decided to ground their planes some days ago because of mechanical issues. The airline primarily flies smaller aircraft that seat up to nine passengers. The airlines' ticket counter and gates were nearly empty at the Sunport Thursday night. One passenger, Cari Jo Powers, was in the waiting area. Powers flew from Washington to the Sunport and was supposed to get on a connecting flight to Los Alamos with New Mexico Airlines. Days ago, she drove from New Mexico to Washington to help a friend move and was finally heading home, or so she thought. When Powers landed from Washington, she walked to her gate and saw that her flight was canceled. "My first thought was, 'How am I going to get home?'" she said. Powers said she was never notified by New Mexico Airlines about the cancellation. "They wouldn't even offer to pay for a rental car so I could drive back to Los Alamos," she said. Powers' husband ended up driving from Los Alamos to pick her up. She said New Mexico Airlines offered to reimburse her for her ticket, but she felt that offer should have been made long before she got on a plane for New Mexico. According to a restaurant manager at the Sunport, a different unidentified woman tried to turn New Mexico Airlines' misfortune into her profit. He said the woman was presenting herself as someone who was stranded in the airport because of New Mexico Airlines' cancellations and was soliciting money from travelers in the Sunport. He said she was later escorted out of the building. Mobile users: Tap for video New Mexico Airlines could not be reached for comment. The FAA encourages people to make contact with New Mexico Airlines if they've booked a flight with them for this week. http://www.koat.com/news/new-mexico-airlines-abruptly-grounds-planes/30189942 Back to Top Boeing 747 jumbo jet lands at Heathrow after residents in flight path hear loud bang The aircraft was circling above Kent at one point this afternoon A British Airways jumbo jet was forced to turn back to Heathrow today, after residents on the flight path said they heard a "loud bang". Residents in Sevenoaks, Kent, heard the noise, Kent Online reported, as well as people in Dunton Green and Biggin Hill. The Boeing 747 - BA107 bound for Dubai departed from Heathrow at around 1pm today. But at one point today was circling over Kent, as the crew decided to turn back to Heathrow. It is understood the crew had had a problem retracting the undercarriage of the passenger plane. Tony Southgate, who lives near Halstead, tweeted that the noise the aircraft made was "loud and long". "It was loud enough to cause my dog to panic and made me look outside," he added. An airliner comes in to land at Heathrow Airport An airliner comes in to land at Heathrow Airport One of the passengers, James Dempsey, tweeted: "Just had a lovely 1hr flight from Heathrow to Heathrow on board the new style BA 747-400 with fixed landing gear." He said that he had not heard the bang on board and there appeared to be "no issue other than gear wouldn't retract". A BA spokeswoman said: "The aircraft landed safely back at Heathrow after a technical problem. We're sorry for the delay to our customers' journey. They will soon be on another aircraft and on their way to Dubai." http://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/boeing-747-jumbo-jet-lands-in- heathrow-after-residents-in-flight-path-hear-loud-bang-9919410.html Back to Top ONE OF WORLD'S BUSIEST AIRPORTS REVEALS RECENT DRONE NEAR-HIT INVOLVING PASSENGER JET Quadcopters are all set to become one of the biggest sellers of this holiday season, with many recipients of the flying machines no doubt heading straight out the door as soon as the wrapping comes off to launch it skyward on its maiden flight. While most people will sensibly select an open space away from buildings and people, one or two may have the idea to fly it around their local airport, an idea as daft as it is dangerous. Dealing with drone flights close to airports is becoming an increasing problem for aviation bodies globally, a fact brought into sharp focus by news over the weekend of a recent near- collision incident at one of the world's busiest airports that saw an unmanned aerial vehicle fly within a short distance of a passenger plane that was coming in to land. The close call, which took place at London Heathrow in July, has just been confirmed by the UK's Civil Aviation Authority (CAA). The body gave the incident an 'A' rating - its highest - meaning there had been a "serious risk of collision." The incoming Airbus A320, which can carry up to 180 passengers, was making an afternoon approach at Heathrow when, with the plane at 700 feet, the pilot spotted what appeared to be a quadcopter close by. The CAA hasn't revealed how close the pair came to colliding, though the fact that it gave the incident an 'A' rating tells us all we need to know. According to reports, the drone didn't show up on air traffic controllers' radar screens and its operator is yet to be identified. Related: Ohio students to get $5 million drone arena for aviation studies News of the incident comes just a few weeks after the Federal Aviation Administration revealed that in the U.S. there have been 175 reports of drones spotted close to airports or in restricted airspace in the last six months alone, with 25 rated as near-collision incidents. While you might think a relatively small quadcopter would cause little trouble for an enormous great passenger plane heading its way, if one gets sucked into the aircraft's engines during take-off or landing, the consequences could actually be disastrous. Jim McAuslan, the general secretary of the British Airline Pilots Association, told the BBC that drones flown by amateur enthusiasts present "a real risk" to commercial aircraft and could lead to a repeat of the famous Hudson River incident in 2009 when a passenger jet was forced to make an emergency landing on water after birds were sucked into the plane's engines shortly after take-off. http://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/drones-near-collision-with-jet-at-uks-busiest-airport- raises-safety-fears/#ixzz3LgVshKG4 Back to Top Sri Lankan Air Force Plane Crash Kills 4, Injures One Sri Lankan Air Force planes fly over the national flag during Independence Day celebrations in Colombo February 4, 2009. Four people were killed and one person was injured in a plane crash in the outskirts of the capital city of Colombo early on Friday. Reuters/Buddhika Weerasinghe Four people were killed and one person was injured in a plane crash on the outskirts of the Sri Lankan capital city of Colombo early on Friday. The plane, which belonged to the country's air force, was reportedly flying in low-visibility conditions, according to local media reports. Gihan Seneviratne, a Sri Lankan air force spokesperson, reportedly said that the plane crashed at around 6:30 a.m. Friday (8 p.m. EST, Thursday) near the city of Authrugiriyam -- about 12 miles east of Colombo -- after the pilot reported difficulty in locating the landing strip due to dense fog. The injured person is being treated for severe burns at a hospital in the capital, according to local media reports. A spokesperson for the Sri Lankan police said that no one living near the crash site was injured. http://www.ibtimes.com/sri-lankan-air-force-plane-crash-kills-4-injures-one-1750554 ************ Date: 12-DEC-2014 Time: 06:20 Type: Antonov An-32 Owner/operator: Sri Lanka Air Force Registration: C/n / msn: Fatalities: Fatalities: 4 / Occupants: 5 Other fatalities: 0 Airplane damage: Written off (damaged beyond repair) Location: Hokandara, Athurugiriya, near Ratmalana - Sri Lanka Phase: Approach Nature: Unknown Departure airport: Bandaranaike Int'l (CMB/VCBI) Destination airport: Colombo Airport (RML/VCCC) Narrative: An Antonov AN-32 operated by the Sri Lankan Air Force impacted wooded terrain in Hokandara, Athurugiriya, while on approach to the Colombo (Ratmalana) Airport in Ratmalana. The aircraft was partially consumed by the post-impact fire and four of the five occupants onboard received fatal injuries. One occupant onboard the airplane was seriously injured. Weather may have been a factor in the accident. www.aviation-safety.net Back to Top Black Hawk rotor fails more than a mile high; pilots land safely Three South Carolina National Guard helicopter pilots walked away from a harrowing Dec. 3 emergency landing in which their UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter reportedly plummeted 6,000 feet in less than a minute after a main rotor failure. The two pilots (the third pilot was a passenger) managed to land the helicopter in a field not far from a water treatment plant, a school and residences near I-77 just a couple miles southeast of Columbia, South Carolina, not far from Fort Jackson. Four days later a CH-47 Chinook helicopter sling-loaded the downed aircraft to McEntire Joint National Guard Base in Eastover, South Carolina. An investigation into the cause of the malfunction is ongoing; because of that, Guard spokeswoman Maj. Cindi King said by policy the Guard could not name the three pilots or make them available for an interview. She said the investigation could take up to six months. Lt. Col. Andrew Batten, the state aviation officer for the Guard, said "we anticipate it was a mechanical issue" that caused the malfunction. He also said the pilots' training functioned when the rotor ceased to. "The nature of the emergency required them to take emergency action steps," Batten told Army Times. "In certain emergencies they are required to respond without hesitation. The steps are kind of beaten into us in our training, from flight school to advanced training on particular aircraft." After a loud bang during the instrumentation flight, a vibration began and quickly escalated; it turned out that the motor had died. The Black Hawk was transported under a South Carolina Army National Guard CH-47 Chinook from Detachment 1, B-Company, 2-238th General Support Aviation Battalion, Army Aviation Support Facility in Greenville, South Carolina.(Photo: Sgt. Brian R. Calhoun) Batten said the pilots assigned to Detachment 2, F Company, 1-171st General Support Aviation Battalion quickly responded with autorotation. That allows the blades to spin with their existing momentum from the then-failed motor, and conserve that momentum by angling them so air flows through them rather than directly against them. They targeted a cornfield as a landing site, and maneuvered to streamline the descent, then maximize air resistance, caused by remaining momentum of the blades, against the fall by pitching upward at the end. Batten said putting the aircraft down in the open landing space helped spare injury, collateral damage and more damage to the aircraft. So did the soft, saturated muddy ground at the time of the incident. The cause of the main rotor malfunction remains under investigation.(Photo: Staff Sgt. Roberto Digiovine) After the landing, the Guard set to gathering evidence from the scene and preparing the Black Hawk for transport. The rotor blades - some shown in photos to be badly damaged - were taken off and transported separately. Gas was removed from the tank, some of it sampled as evidence. The frame's structural integrity was tested to ensure it could make the trip dangling from the Chinook without falling apart. Eventually the helicopter was sling loaded under the Chinook, which was accompanied by a UH-72 Lakota flown in from the National Guard Army Aviation Support Facility in Greenville, South Carolina. King said traffic on the highway backed up for miles as people who had seen the crash stopped to see what was going on. http://www.armytimes.com/story/military/guard-reserve/2014/12/10/guard-pilot-blackhawk- crash/20160877/ Back to Top Zambia based airline achieves international safety standard LUSAKA, ZAMBIA - Proflight Zambia has recently achieved silver status under the internationally recognised Basic Aviation Risk Standard (BARS) audit system, confirming its status as a world-class airline. The award comes after the airline passed a series of rigorous international aviation safety audits, conducted over the past four years by BARS. Proflight is the only Zambian airline to have been awarded the silver Basic Risk Standard by the Flight Safety Foundation, which provides a global industry benchmark for airline safety. "Safety is the number one priority for Proflight Zambia, and continued recognition of this by international inspectors reinforces our position as Zambia's leading aviation company," said Proflight Company Secretary Chitalu Kabalika. "The standard is a measure of how seriously we take safety, and how much we are prepared to invest in order to ensure international safety standards are met. It also demonstrates that safety is part of Proflight's everyday activities and we do not cut corners," he added. Proflight undergoes on average five external safety audits every year, including two audits conducted by the Zambia Civil Aviation Authority and on average three by international safety organisations such as the Flight Safety Foundation. Proflight has now passed three Flight Safety Foundation audits. The Basic Risk Standard (BARS) was developed from an industry-identified need to establish a common global aviation safety audit protocol that can be applied to on-shore resource sector aviation support activities. It is a risk-based model framed against the actual threats posed to aviation operations, particularly those found in challenging and remote environments. It directly links these to associated controls, recovery and mitigation measures, as opposed to the outdated prescriptive format previously used within the industry. BARS is recognised within the aviation industry as the second highest aviation safety tier with the ultimate goal of achieving the International Air Transport Association (IATA) Operational Safety Audit (IOSA) widely considered as being the highest safety tier. The latest standard comes two years after the airline was awarded an Air Operators Certificate (AOC) by the then Department of Civil Aviation (DCA). The AOC was issued by the DCA under the oversight of the aviation industry's international regulator, the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), confirming that the airline meets strict international safety, airworthiness and security standards. http://www.eturbonews.com/53536/zambia-based-airline-achieves-international-safety- standard Back to Top Back to Top ERAU NextGen 101 Seminar - Washington, D.C. "The Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University-Worldwide Office of Professional Education is pleased to announce a two-day seminar entitled NextGen 101. The course is designed to identify the key concepts, attributes, and challenges of the Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen). Government and industry employees with an interest in NextGen, aviation stakeholders and members of the military transitioning to a career in civilian education should attend. The course will take place in Washington D.C. on April 21-22, 2015. Course fee is $750 per person or $675 per person with five or more people registering from the same group. For more information and to register, please visit us online at http://proed.erau.edu/programs/specialized-industry-training/nextgen-101- seminar/index.html" Back to Top GRADUATE RESEARCH SURVEY I am Daniel Siao, and I am a graduate student studying Aviation Safety and Security Management at Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU). I hold both A&P and pilot certificates. I am conducting this research to attempt to reveal the hindrances that prohibit the successful implementation of Safety Management Systems (SMS) in maintenance facilities. Your participation in this survey will be greatly appreciated if you work in any capacity as an aircraft mechanic (with or without an A&P certificate). This survey is completely anonymous and should take no more than 10 minutes to complete. Please contact me regarding any questions you may have. The survey can be accessed with the following link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/66PF7WG Thank you in advance, Daniel H. Siao dhs2j@mtmail.mtsu.edu Back to Top Najeeb E. Halaby Graduate Student Fellowship The Najeeb E. Halaby Graduate Student Fellowship was established by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) to shape the next generation of researchers in aviation weather, honoring the late Najeeb Elias Halaby, an eminent aviator and administrator, for his vision and more than five decades of extraordinary contributions to aviation (http://www.ral.ucar.edu/halabyfellowship.pdf). The Fellowship The recipient of a Najeeb E. Halaby Graduate Student Fellowship will spend three months (in 2015 or early 2016) in residence with NCAR's Aviation Weather Research Program, which Mr. Halaby was instrumental in establishing in the 1980s. As the nation's leader in addressing aviation weather research, NCAR plays a unique role in meeting user needs by transferring research results to operations through its Research Application Laboratory (http://www.ral.ucar.edu/). The Fellow will conduct research broadly aimed at improving the integration of weather into decision support tools for improved weather avoidance and air traffic management. The Fellowship will provide: * a monthly stipend for three months, including temporary living expenses * round-trip travel expenses to and from Boulder, CO * travel to a conference to present results * page charges for one publication of key results Eligibility and Application The Halaby Fellowship targets graduate students (late Masters or early PhD level) enrolled in an aviation-relevant department or program of a domestic or international university. Interested candidates should have advanced research skills, far-reaching vision, and dedication to get things accomplished. Consideration for this Fellowship will be given to candidates based on the following submitted material: * Curriculum vitae * Proposal (maximum five pages) presenting the research to be conducted at NCAR, the anticipated outcome of that, and how the proposed effort ties into the candidate's ongoing graduate research project(s) * Contact information for three references (one of which should be the student's primary advisor) NCAR will accept applications for the Halaby Fellowship each year. Email Applications by February 28, 2015 to halabyfellowship@ucar.edu Back to Top Upcoming Events: Event: "The Future of Regulation of SMS and QA" Symposium. Keynote: Mr. Martin Eley, Director General Transport Canada. Location: Coronado Resort Hotel @ Disney World, Orlando Florida. Date: Jan 4-6, 2015 info: http://www.dtiatlanta.com/symposium.html A3IR CON 2015 January 16-17, 2015 Phoenix, AZ http://commons.erau.edu/aircon/2015/ 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 IS-BAO Workshop Information and Registration 13 - 14 Jan. 2015 Baltimore, MD USA https://www.regonline.com/CalendarNET/EventCalendar.aspx?EventID=1592658&view=Month Curt Lewis