Flight Safety Information December 31, 2014 - No. 263 In This Issue AirAsia Flight QZ8501: Missing jet believed located by sonar Bad weather hobbles Indonesia jet recovery; 7 bodies found AirAsia Passenger Jet Overshoots Runway in Philippine City of Kalibo Incredibly cool solar-powered jet to fly around the world Crowded skies in Southeast Asia put pressure on pilots, air traffic control What Black Box Data Will Tell Us About the AirAsia Crash Air safety -Pressing on PRISM TO HELP PREPARE FOR E-IOSA Why We Still Can't Track an Airplane Emergency landing after 'smoke' alarm scare in aircraft ERAU NextGen 101 Seminar - Washington, D.C. Upcoming Events AirAsia Flight QZ8501: Missing jet believed located by sonar A body recovered on Wednesday from the crashed AirAsia plane was wearing a life-jacket, an official with Indonesia's search and rescue agency said, raising questions about how the disaster unfolded. Rescuers believe they have found the plane on the ocean floor off Borneo, after sonar detected a large, dark object beneath waters near where debris and bodies were found on the surface. What we know about the missing plane VIDEO I How families learned of the fate of QZ8501 passengers Ships and planes had been scouring the Java Sea for Flight QZ8501 since Sunday, when it lost contact during bad weather about 40 minutes into its flight from the Indonesian city of Surabaya to Singapore. INDONESIA-AIRPLANE Search and rescue team members run as carry the body of a passenger from AirAsia flight QZ8501 at Iskandar airbase in Pangkalan Bun, Indonesia on Wednesday. (Beawiharta/Reuters) Seven bodies have been recovered from the sea, some fully clothed, which could indicate the Airbus A320-200 was intact when it hit the water. That would support a theory that it suffered an aerodynamic stall. Two bodies, in coffins bedecked with flowers and marked 001 and 002, arrived by an air force plane in Surabaya, TV pictures showed. The fact that one person put on a life jacket would appear to indicate those on board had at least some time before the aircraft hit the water, or after it hit the water and before it sank. And yet the pilots did not issue a distress signal. The plane disappeared after it failed to get permission to fly higher to avoid bad weather because of heavy air traffic. "This morning, we recovered a total of four bodies and one of them was wearing a life jacket," Tatang Zaenudin, an official with the search and rescue agency, told Reuters. INDONESIA-AIRPLANE/ Indonesian Navy ship KRI Yos Sudarso takes part in the search operation for missing AirAsia Flight QZ8501, as seen from an Indonesian Hercules aircraft, south of Pangkalan Bun, central Kalimantan on Tuesday, in this photo taken by Antara Foto. (Andika Wahyu/Antara Foto/Reuters) He declined to speculate on what the find might mean. AirAsia Chief Executive Tony Fernandes told reporters there had been no confirmation yet of the sonar image, nor of the discovery of the body wearing a life jacket. A pilot who works for a Gulf carrier said the life jacket indicated the cause of the crash was not "catastrophic failure". Instead, the plane could have stalled and then come down, possibly because its instruments iced up and gave the pilots inaccurate readings. "There was time. It means the thing didn't just fall out of the sky," said the pilot, who declined to be identified. He said it could take a minute for a plane to come down from 30,000 feet and the pilots could have experienced "tunnel vision ... too overloaded" to send a distress call. Most of those on board were Indonesians. No survivors have been found. Hernanto, head of the search and rescue agency in Surabaya, said rescuers believed they had found the plane on the sea bed with a sonar scan in water about 30 to 50 metres deep. The black box flight data and cockpit voice recorder has yet to be found. Authorities in Surabaya were making preparations to receive and identify bodies, including arranging 130 ambulances to take victims to a police hospital and collecting DNA from relatives. "We are praying it is the plane so the evacuation can be done quickly," Hernanto said. Strong winds and waves hampered the search and with visibility at less than a kilometres, the air operation was called off in the afternoon. "We are all standing by," Dwi Putranto, heading the air force search effort in Pangkalan Bun on Borneo, told Reuters. "If we want to evacuate bodies from the water, it's too difficult. The waves are huge and it's raining." Indonesian President Joko Widodo said his priority was retrieving the bodies. Relatives, many of whom collapsed in grief when they saw the first grim television pictures confirming their fears on Tuesday, held prayers at a crisis centre at Surabaya airport. Delay in requesting permission to climb The plane was travelling at 9,753 metres and had asked to fly at 11,580 metres. When air traffic controllers granted permission for a rise to 10,365 metres a few minutes later, they received no response. Online discussion among pilots has centred on unconfirmed secondary radar data from Malaysia that suggested the aircraft was climbing at a speed of 353 knots, about 100 knots too slow, and that it might have stalled. Relatives of passengers of AirAsia Flight QZ8501 react to the news on Tuesday about the discovery of wreckage and bodies near the site where the jetliner disappeared. Flight 8501 vanished Sunday in airspace thick with storm clouds on its way from Surabaya, Indonesia, to Singapore. Relatives of passengers of AirAsia Flight QZ8501 react to the news on Tuesday about the discovery of wreckage and bodies near the site where the jetliner disappeared. Flight 8501 vanished Sunday in airspace thick with storm clouds on its way from Surabaya, Indonesia, to Singapore. (Trisnadi/AP) 1 of 15 Investigators are focusing initially on whether the crew took too long to request permission to climb, or could have ascended on their own initiative earlier, said a source close to the inquiry, adding that poor weather could have played a part as well. The Indonesian captain, a former air force fighter pilot, had 6,100 flying hours under his belt and the plane last underwent maintenance in mid-November, said the airline, which is 49 per cent owned by Malaysia-based budget carrier AirAsia . Three airline disasters involving Malaysian-affiliated carriers in less than a year have dented confidence in the country's aviation industry and spooked travellers. Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 went missing in March on a trip from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 passengers and crew and has not been found. On July 17, the same airline's Flight MH17 was shot down over Ukraine, killing all 298 people on board. On board Flight QZ8501 were 155 Indonesians, three South Koreans, and one person each from Singapore, Malaysia and Britain. The co-pilot was French. The AirAsia group, including affiliates in Thailand, the Philippines and India, had not suffered a crash since its Malaysian budget operations began in 2002. http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/airasia-flight-qz8501-missing-jet-believed-located-by-sonar- 1.2887068 Back to Top Bad weather hobbles Indonesia jet recovery; 7 bodies found Indonesian soldiers carry a coffin containing a victim of AirAsia Flight 8501 upon arrival at Indonesian Military Air Force base in Surabaya, Indonesia, Wednesday, Dec. 31, 2014. A massive hunt for the victims of the jet resumed in the Java Sea on Wednesday, but wind, strong currents and high surf hampered recovery efforts as distraught family members anxiously waited to identify their loved ones. (AP Photo/Firdia Lisnawati) PANGKALAN BUN, Indonesia - Bad weather hindered efforts to recover victims of AirAsia Flight 8501 on Wednesday, and sent wreckage drifting far from the crash site, as grieving relatives prayed for strength to endure their losses. "Help us, God, to move forward, even though we are surrounded by darkness," the Rev. Philip Mantofa, whose church lost about 40 members in the disaster, told families gathered in a waiting room at the Surabaya airport. The massive hunt for 162 people who vanished Sunday aboard the Airbus A320 from Surabaya, Indonesia to Singapore, was severely limited due to heavy rain, wind and thick clouds. Seven bodies, including a flight attendant in her red AirAsia uniform, have been recovered, said Indonesia's Search and Rescue Agency chief Henry Bambang Soelistyo. Sonar images also identified what appeared to be large parts of the plane, but strong currents were moving the debris. Conditions prevented divers from entering the choppy Java Sea, and helicopters were largely grounded. But 18 ships continued to scour the narrowed search area, and four of the seven corpses were recovered Wednesday. Indonesia's Meteorology and Geophysics Agency predicted conditions would worsen, with more intense rains, through Friday. "It seems all the wreckage found has drifted more than 50 kilometers from yesterday's location," said Vice Air Marshal Sunarbowo Sandi, search and rescue coordinator in Pangkalan Bun on Borneo island, the closest town to the site. "We are expecting those bodies will end up on beaches." The airliner's disappearance halfway through the two-hour flight triggered an international search involving dozens of planes, ships and helicopters from numerous countries. It is still unclear what brought the plane down. Its last communication indicated the pilots were worried about bad weather. They sought permission to climb above threatening clouds but were denied because of heavy air traffic. Four minutes later, the jet disappeared from the radar without issuing a distress signal. The aircraft's cockpit voice and flight data recorders, or black boxes, must be recovered before officials can start determining what caused the crash. Items recovered so far include a life jacket, an emergency exit window, children's shoes, a blue suitcase and backpacks filled with food. Malaysia-based AirAsia's loss comes on top of the still-unsolved disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 in March with 239 people aboard, and the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in July over Ukraine, which killed all 298 passengers and crew. Simple wooden coffins - numbered 001 and 002 - with purple flowers on top contained the first two bodies, which were sent from Pangkalan Bun to Surabaya. The two victims were a woman wearing blue jeans and a boy 4˝-feet-tall (140 centimeters). The other five bodies - three male and two female - will remain on a warship until the weather clears. Nearly all the passengers were Indonesian, and a large portion of them were Christians of Chinese descent. The country is predominantly Muslim, but sizeable pockets of people from other faiths are found throughout the sprawling archipelago. Around 10 percent of those in Surabaya, the nation's second-largest city, are Christian. On Wednesday, around 100 relatives gathered for the airport prayer service where Mantofa urged them to hold onto their faith, despite their pain. About 40 members of his Manwar Sharon Church died in the crash. "Some things do not make sense to us, but God is bigger than all this," he said. "Our God is not evil." Before breaking up, those gathered stood together and sang with their hands reaching upward: "I surrender all. I surrender all," they repeated. "I surrender all to God our savior. I surrender all." Many family members had planned to travel to Pangkalan Bun, 160 kilometers (100 miles) from the area where bodies were first spotted, to start identifying their loved ones. However, Surabaya airport general manager Trikora Hardjo later said the trip was canceled after authorities suggested their presence could slow down the operation. Instead, some relatives gave blood for DNA tests in Surabaya, where the bodies will be transported, and submitted photos of their loved ones along with identifying information such as tattoos or birthmarks that could help make the process easier. Nearly all the passengers from Indonesia were frequent visitors to Singapore, particularly on holidays. It was 13-year-old Adrian Fernando's first trip to the city-state and was supposed to be a fun vacation with his aunt, uncle and cousin before school started back up. "He is my only son," said emotional mother Linca Gonimasela, 39, who could not accompany him because she had to work. "At first, he didn't want to go, but later on he was persuaded to join them for the New Year holiday." A number of Indonesian cities, including Surabaya, have opted to cancel or tone down their planned New Year's Eve celebrations. However, a giant street bash was still in the works for the capital, Jakarta. "We are in mourning over the AirAsia disaster that claimed the lives of many Indonesians," said Minister of Home Affairs Tjahjo Kumolo, who called on civil servants nationwide to pray for the victims' families instead of holding public New Year's events. "We need to show our sense of sympathy by restraining from holding excessive partying." http://www.bostonherald.com/news_opinion/international/asia/ Back to Top AirAsia Passenger Jet Overshoots Runway in Philippine City of Kalibo LONDON - A second AirAsia jet ran into trouble after it overshot a runway while landing in the Philippines on Tuesday, forcing those aboard to disembark by emergency slides, a passenger on the plane told NBC News. There were not believed to be any injuries from the hard landing of the AirAsia plane in Kalibo, on the Philippine island of Panay. "There was some turbulence but we didn't expect that landing," Jakata-based journalist Jet Damazo Santos, who was on board the flight, told NBC News. "I didn't even realize we overshot the runway until we saw grass outside the window." There were 159 passengers and crew aboard flight Z2272, Philippine officials told The Associated Press. The incident came hours after debris and bodies found in the Java Sea were confirmed to have come from AirAsia Flight QZ8501, which disappeared from radar on Sunday while flying from Indonesia to Singapore. http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/airasia-plane-crash/airasia-passenger-jet-overshoots- runway-philippine-city-kalibo-n276646 Back to Top Incredibly cool solar-powered jet to fly around the world Now this is an event to keep tabs on. Two men are determined to fly the first completely solar-powered jet around the world. The duo, pilot Bertrand Piccard (no relation to Capt. Jean-Luc Picard of Star Trek fame, as far as we can tell) and co-pilot/lead engineer André Borschberg, have built the Solar Impulse 2, a solar-powered jet that requires no fuel. They've already taken it for a successful spin: a solo- piloted, 24-hour excursion over Europe, Africa and the United States. And now they want to conquer the world. They are planning a 12-leg, multi-week flight that is scheduled to take off in March. The SI2 jet has a 236-foot wingspan, which is "longer than a Boeing 747's, but the craft weighs only about 5,000 pounds-a flyspeck compared to the jetliner's 500,000-pound bulk," according to Wired. In addition to looking incredibly cool, the mission and inspiration behind the SI2 is fun and inspiring. We're hoping for a pit stop in Seattle to check out this amazing flying machine. Construction of Solar Impulse 2, the Round-The-World Solar Airplane Watch these videos: the first is about their mission, and the second is a collection of GoPro shots from the plane. Solar Impulse 2 Airplane Exclusive Shots, Only Shot with GoPro http://www.geekwire.com/2014/incredibly-cool-solar-powered-jet-fly-around-world/ Back to Top Crowded skies in Southeast Asia put pressure on pilots, air traffic control (Reuters) - The sheer volume of flights in the skies over Southeast Asia is putting pressure on outdated air traffic control and on pilots to take risky unilateral action in crises such as that possibly faced by AirAsia Flight QZ8501. Pilots who have flown the Indonesia to Singapore route say it's not unusual for delays to requests to increase altitude to avoid bad weather - and for requests to eventually be rejected due to the number of other planes in the area. That leaves pilots flying in a region of volatile weather conditions facing a high-risk challenge: when to take matters into their own hands and declare an emergency, allowing them to take action without getting permission from air traffic control. Most consider that step - which requires them to broadcast a wideband call to other aircraft in the area and which will later be closely scrutinized by regulators - a last resort. "As a professional pilot, you are obligated to think quickly," a Qantas Airways pilot with 25 years experience in the region told Reuters. "If you've signed for the plane, as we put it, you've signed for potentially 300 passengers and millions of dollars worth of aircraft; that's a multibillion dollar liability. Part of the job is to balance the risk and make a snap decision." Weighing those risks has become increasingly difficult in Southeast Asia, an area that has seen explosive growth in budget air travel in recent years. The number of passengers carried annually across Asia-Pacific has jumped by two-thirds in the past five years to more than 1 billion, according to the Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation. Budget airlines, which only took to the skies around a dozen years ago, today make up about 60 percent of Southeast Asia's seat capacity. AirAsia and Indonesia's Lion Air have placed record orders with the main plane makers. Boeing predicts the region's airlines will need about 13,000 new planes over the next two decades, and Airbus expects Asia-Pacific to drive demand over that period. LOGISTICAL NIGHTMARE "There are certain flight corridors that are over-stressed due to traffic," said a former Singapore Airlines (SIA) pilot with a decade's flying experience at the carrier. "One certainly would be the Indonesia/Singapore flights which are flown by many different companies and aircraft types at a variety of altitudes and speeds." Pilots say that causes a logistical nightmare for the region's air traffic control (ATC), particularly outside high-tech hubs such as Singapore. "As the airways become more crowded, it takes ATC longer to coordinate and give clearances such as higher altitudes and weather deviations," the former SIA pilot said. This can be critical in a region where weather conditions can change very quickly, with strong winds and tropical thunderstorms posing time-critical challenges for pilots. The circumstances around the AirAsia crash are not yet known, but investigators and the airline's chief Tony Fernandes have pointed to changeable weather being a significant factor. The Association of Asia Pacific Airlines said last month that while airlines were investing heavily in fuel-efficient planes to meet rising demand, there was growing concern about the need to also invest in related infrastructure, such as airport terminals, runways and air navigation services. OUTDATED EQUIPMENT To keep aircraft traveling in a flight corridor at a safe distance from each other, air traffic controllers in Indonesia employ procedural separation - where they use pilots' radio reports to calculate their position relative to other traffic. That takes longer than the more sophisticated radar separation used in Singapore and elsewhere in the world, which allows a controller to more quickly take stock of radar returns from all aircraft in the area. A lack of up-to-date equipment and volatile weather conditions were cited by pilots and aviation experts in the 2013 crash of a Lion Air Boeing 737, when the pilot reported the plane being "dragged down" by wind into the sea just short of the runway. That was considered a classic example of wind shear - the sudden change in wind speed and direction. Airports in the region's popular island resorts, including Bali, Koh Samui, Langkawi and Cebu, don't have on-ground wind shear detection equipment to help pilots land and take off. [reut.rs/1D4SLcj] Pilots said critical decisions often come down to experience. "In my opinion, if I don't get permission (to change course) and there's weather ahead, I'll just deviate and deal with the authorities later," said another former SIA pilot who is now with a Gulf carrier. http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/12/31/us-indonesia-airplane-trafficcontrol- idUSKBN0K90CL20141231 Back to Top What Black Box Data Will Tell Us About the AirAsia Crash Map of area where AirAsia flight crashed Flight 8501 crash on its way from Surabaya, Indonesia, to Singapore on Sunday (Dec. 28). As of this afternoon, three bodies (two female and one male) had been recovered. Pieces of an AirAsia jet and the bodies of some of its 162 passengers were recovered today (Dec. 30) off the coast of Borneo, snuffing out hopes that the missing plane had somehow made a miracle landing and that survivors might be found. Life vests, aircraft debris and a small blue suitcase were among the items that the search and rescue team found floating in the Java Sea. But Indonesian authorities are still working to recover a key piece of the plane that should reveal what caused the mysterious crash: the black box. "Recovering victims is [the] highest priority, but they'll have enough search and rescue team members to simultaneously search for the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder," Bob Francis, a board member of the Flight Safety Foundation, told Live Science. "They send out signals that last for two weeks and they should be pretty easy to pick up." AirAsia Flight 8501 lost contact with air traffic controllers Sunday (Dec. 28), about 40 minutes into a two-hour flight from Surabaya, Indonesia, to Singapore. Experts say that it is unlikely that bad weather alone brought the plane down, but they won't know for sure what caused the crash until the plane's data recorders are recovered. [5 Real Hazards of Air Travel] Two data recorders make up the plane's black box (which is actually bright orange), and the data can later be used to determine what went wrong in the case of a plane crash, like that of Flight 8501. One recorder, the flight data recorder, keeps track of hundreds of measurements, including engine temperature and vertical and horizontal speed. The cockpit recorder logs conversations between the pilots and any noises coming from the cockpit. "Those two boxes tell you an awful lot about what went on," Francis said. The debris and recovered bodies have given search and rescue team members an idea of the plane's likely location. Responders can't rely on GPS technology to lead them to a crashed plane, however. Once a plane starts dropping out of the sky, the conditions are too extreme for GPS signals to be broadcast. Instead, recovery teams have to rely on low-tech methods like helicopter flyovers, with spotters peering down at the choppy, fog-covered water and eye- witness accounts from fishermen who saw the plane go down. Once a rough location is pinned down, it's easier to home in on the "pings" that the plane's black box sends out after a crash. But the lack of reliable plane-tracking systems, Francis said, is the "ultimate soft spot" in commercial flight. "There's no real requirement to equip aircraft with the capability of being interrogated or reporting its position every 15 minutes or so," Francis said. "The previous, still-lost aircraft (Malaysian Airlines Flight 370) is the worst case. The industry is not being very responsive." Francis said airline companies have whined a lot about the potential costs of outfitting each plane with an updated GPS system. But that amount "pales in significance to the amount of money being spent to find the previous aircraft went down in [the] southern Indian Ocean," Francis said. It's still somewhat unclear if GPS technology would actually save lives, and for now it seems that investing more money into making planes safer should be airline companies' top priority, TIME.com reported. http://www.livescience.com/49294-black-box-data-airasia-crash.html Back to Top Air safety - Pressing on A spate of accidents will not put Asians off air travel ON DECEMBER 30th Indonesian officials said they had discovered debris and bodies from AirAsia flight QZ8501, which had vanished two days previously, floating in shallow seas near the south-west coast of Borneo. The airliner lost contact with air-traffic controllers while passing through rough weather on a short journey between the Indonesian city of Surabaya and Changi airport in Singapore. The plane was carrying 162 people, most of them Indonesians. As The Economist went to press, no survivors had been found. The crash, most probably an accident, comes at the end of a particularly tragic year in South- East Asia's aviation history. Search parties have not yet found the remains of Malaysia Airlines' flight MH370, which plunged into the Indian Ocean nine months ago killing all 239 people on board. In September pro-Russian rebels shot down another Malaysia Airlines plane, MH17, over Ukraine, killing another 298. Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 These earlier calamities nibbled at South-East Asia's popularity among tourists, especially among sightseers from China. But they have done little to dampen booming demand for air travel among South-East Asians themselves. The region is one of the world's fastest-growing aviation markets. Its 50-odd carriers are awaiting delivery of 1,600 new planes, about the same number as are in their fleets today. Boeing, an American planemaker, thinks regional airlines will need to order more than 3,000 new aircraft over the next 20 years. This growth partly reflects the rapid rise of South-East Asia's middle classes, who are eager to shell out for more convenient ways to navigate the continent's archipelagoes. It has been nudged along by the region's governments, who have promised to liberalise aviation as part of plans for greater economic co-operation. Yet it also reflects growing confidence in airline safety, despite recent disasters. In much of the region rutted roads and fickle seas are a far bigger worry. A recent study of 160 ferry accidents since 2000, costing nearly 17,000 lives, showed that Indonesia and the Philippines were among the most lethal places to board a boat (only Bangladeshi vessels were more deadly). Images of grieving families in Singapore and Surabaya have horrified Indonesians, and the world. But journeys are still safer in the skies. http://www.economist.com/news/asia/21637439-spate-accidents-will-not-put-asians-air- travel-pressing Back to Top Back to Top Why We Still Can't Track an Airplane An Indonesian Air Force C-130 crew member scans the horizon during a search operation for the missing AirAsia Flight 8501 over the waters of Karimata Strait on Dec. 29. The disappearance of a Malaysia Airlines jumbo jet last March shocked many people unaware that such a thing could happen. That event, combined with Sunday's loss of a second commercial aircraft over the Java Sea (debris from the plane is now being recovered), is spurring calls for more precise, "persistent" tracking of commercial airline flights. For airlines, the real question is how to balance the costs of a locator system that's almost never needed against the hard fact that Airbus A320s and Boeing 777s cannot be allowed to vanish without a trace. The overarching problem with tracking planes is the vast expanse of earth devoid of radar coverage: Most of the oceans, polar regions, and areas of Africa, Asia, and South Africa-as much as 80 percent of the world-are "a blind spot to surveillance," the director of Nav Canada, the company that runs the country's air traffic control system, told the National Post last week. That means ubiquitous flight tracking via satellite is likely inevitable across the industry, and not just among major airlines with flights across the world. A month after the Malaysian flight to China disappeared from radar on March 8, the airlines' global trade group, the International Air Transport Association (IATA), convened a task force to assess technologies applicable to tracking and recommend a system of global tracking to prevent a recurrence of MH370. And in May, aviation regulators scrambled into action with a safety conference on aircraft tracking at the United Nations' International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). The task force recommended that any tracking protocol provide an airplane's "4D position"- latitude, longitude, altitude, and time-to within one nautical mile at least every 15 minutes. Any system should also be able to increase its reporting rate if certain triggers are detected during a flight, such as a dramatic change in speed or altitude. The task force also said airlines should upgrade their systems to track aircraft within the next year-a schedule that almost certainly won't be met. And the task force noted that the aviation industry operates without a "consolidated contact list of worldwide aircraft operators, air traffic service units and rescue coordination centers" and that building one could speed communication in an emergency. The IATA-led task force "recognizes that public trust and confidence in aviation is at risk when a large and modern aircraft cannot be located and that, in the absence of confirmed facts, speculation defines the incident," according to the report, compiled by representatives of 13 groups, including U.S. carriers, pilots, and the four major aircraft manufacturers. The task force sent its conclusions to the UN agency, which is expected to issue more formal guidelines on tracking this winter. But precise tracking involves a greater expense for airlines, and most are unlikely to respond quickly. The task force recommendations are not mandatory for continued membership in the group. Naturally, airlines aren't keen to assume the costs for tracking systems that are almost never needed-the industry stresses repeatedly that some 100,000 daily flights occur without incident. "Our members took a very serious look at the recommendations," IATA's chief executive, Tony Tyler, told Bloomberg News at a media briefing this month. "While they're committed to improving, they could not fully endorse what would be practically unachievable for some." The carriers also want to ensure that whatever systems are selected are worth the investment. Barring a regulatory mandate, that means persistent satellite tracking won't occur "until after the commercial case is made to provide 'pay-per-view' entertainment via satellite in the cabin," said Robert Mann, an aviation consultant on Long Island and a former American Airlines executive. "Once airlines facilitate e-mail, Facebook and Twitter feeds, and streaming Downton Abbey re-runs via satellite broadband for a fee ... GPS position data cost is below noise level in the overall expense of providing the satellite entertainment facility," Mann wrote in March after the MH370 disappearance. It's worth noting that the known facts of the mysterious Malaysia Airlines disappearance differ markedly from those of AirAsia Flight QZ8501. Severe weather is considered a factor and the sea where the aircraft crashed is far more shallow than in the March incident. In many ways, the airline industry is struggling to match the precedent set by the maritime industry. In 1992, the International Maritime Organization mandated the tracking of ships worldwide. The IMO says its satellite-based global maritime distress and safety system "should ensure that no ship in distress can disappear without trace, and that more lives can be saved at sea." http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-12-30/robust-airplane-tracking-technology-still- isnt-widely-used Back to Top Emergency landing after 'smoke' alarm scare in aircraft A Flybe plane For the second time in a fortnight emergency landing procedures have been called on at a Belfast airport. Yesterday's drama began when a cockpit alarm, on board a Flybe flight from Southampton to Belfast City, indicated smoke in the rear baggage hold. Ambulances and fire engines were deployed when the pilot notified airport staff of the potential problem. A spokeswoman for Flybe said the 69 passengers and four crew on board the Bombardier Q400 plane were able to disembark in the normal fashion and that "there was no sign of smoke when the aircraft had landed". She said: "The crew took the necessary action and the aircraft landed safely. "Passengers evacuated the aircraft immediately by both front and rear stairs as normal and were bussed to the terminal." The spokeswoman added: "As is standard practice under such circumstances, the airport placed its emergency vehicles on standby." On December 16, a Flybe flight from Glasgow to Belfast City was diverted to Belfast International when flames were noticed coming from one of its two engines shortly after take- off. On that occasion, the fire was extinguished using the plane's own safety systems and it landed safely with the emergency services on stand-by. Flybe have said both incidents are being fully investigated. Last night the airline said: "The safety of its passengers and crew is the airline's number one priority and Flybe regrets any inconvenience experienced." Alliance MLA Chris Lyttle has praised all those involved in the emergency for their quick actions. Speaking last night, the East Belfast representative said: "It is with great relief that the incident which closed the City Airport earlier today has ended without any casualties. "I want to praise the swift action taken by the authorities to ensure this incident was dealt with quickly and safely, minimising disruption during a busy few days." Flybe have said both incidents are being fully investigated. Last night the airline said: "The safety of its passengers and crew is the airline's number one priority and Flybe regrets any inconvenience experienced." Alliance MLA Chris Lyttle has praised all those involved in the emergency for their quick actions. Speaking last night, the East Belfast representative said: "It is with great relief that the incident which closed the City Airport earlier today has ended without any casualties. "I want to praise the swift action taken by the authorities to ensure this incident was dealt with quickly and safely, minimising disruption during a busy few days." http://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/emergency-landing-after-smoke-alarm-scare-in-aircraft-1- 6497219 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 Upcoming Events: IS-BAO Workshop Information and Registration 13 - 14 Jan. 2015 Baltimore, MD USA https://www.regonline.com/CalendarNET/EventCalendar.aspx?EventID=1592658&view=Month 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 ERAU NextGen 101 Seminar April 21-22, 2015. Washington D.C. http://proed.erau.edu/programs/specialized-industry-training/nextgen-101- seminar/index.html FAA Helicopter Safety Effort three-day safety forum April 21-23, 2015 Hurst, Texas eugene.trainor@faa.gov www.faahelisafety.org Curt Lewis