Flight Safety Information January 14, 2015 - No. 010 In This Issue How AirAsia Team Will Use Black Box to Find Crash Clues Ship finds crashed AirAsia jet's fuselage at bottom of Java Sea Ammonia leak prompts evacuation of U.S. part of International Space Station Surging Jet-Stream Winds Hinder U.S.-Bound Flights From Europe A Delta Airlines Jet Made An Emergency Landing In Los Angeles PROS 2015 TRAINING United Studies Outsourcing Up to 2,000 Airport Jobs Air Safety Institute Releases Forced-landing Survival Guide Global pilot shortage prompts Daytona Beach summit. Research Survey Request Najeeb E. Halaby Graduate Student Fellowship ERAU NextGen 101 Seminar - Washington, D.C. Upcoming Events How AirAsia Team Will Use Black Box to Find Crash Clues Listening to a recording of ValuJet Flight 592's last moments before it crashed, investigator J.F. Joseph kept hearing sounds the pilots hadn't talked about. "You could hear this noise clicking on and off like a pinball machine," he said by phone from San Marcos, Texas. "That told us a lot about what was actually transpiring." The sound was electrical switches on the McDonnell Douglas DC-9 opening and closing as the crew tried to restore their controls, Joseph said. They'd stopped working because a fire in the cargo hold had burned through the wiring -- a fact that became clear within seconds when the cockpit voice recorder picked up women in the cabin shouting "Fire, fire!". Three minutes later, the plane plunged into the Florida Everglades; the May, 1996 crash killed all 110 people on board. Almost 20 years later, those kinds of details will be part of the focus for officials probing the Dec. 28 crash of an AirAsia Bhd. (AIRA) jet carrying 162 people. Why Flight QZ8501 slammed into the sea off the Indonesian coast of Borneo island without a distress signal remains largely a mystery, with an experienced pilot at the controls of a tried and tested plane of an airline that had never had a fatal accident. Photographer: Adek Berry/AFP/Getty Images Indonesian officers move the FDR (Flight Data Recorder), center, of the AirAsia flight... Read More Flight recorders have "become the cornerstone of the investigation process, because the information provided is so rich," said Geoff Dell, an associate professor specializing in air accidents at Central Queensland University in Bundaberg, Australia. "You can very quickly get a very accurate reconstruction of what the aircraft was doing." Question Raised Flying at 32,000 feet (9,800 meters), the AirAsia pilot had asked to climb, citing clouds, Indonesian officials have said. By the time air traffic controllers responded about two minutes later, there was no reply. There were storms along the flight path, yet other planes safely traversed the area at around the same time. Researchers working for Indonesia's National Transportation Safety Committee have already identified one question they need answers to, according to Santoso Sayogo, a member of the investigation team. "The tail was upside down" when the wreckage of the Airbus Group NV A320 was found on the sea floor, Sayogo said in an interview. It's not clear whether that's because of ocean currents or because the jet flipped as it tumbled into the water. If it's the latter, it should show up in data tracking the plane's angle as it fell. Investigators will pore over each piece of debris and split into two teams for the "very labor-intensive" job of analyzing the flight data and as much as two hours of audio, Sayogo said. Those studying the flight data will start by focusing on 10 to 20 of the more than 300 information streams picked up by the device, he said. Identifying Noises "If a voice says, 'Watch out!' then we will write it down, and if there's a click sound we have to identify the click," Sayogo said. "If the pilot or co-pilot changed an instrument in the cockpit, we will try to identify it." That could involve sitting in an A320 cockpit and flicking controls until they produce a noise matching the recording, or trawling through the captured flight data -- which was downloaded successfully late Tuesday -- to find the record of an action at the same time. The recorders contain several dozen memory chips and are built to withstand immense shock and extended periods under water. Investigators were able to retrieve information from the black boxes from Air France Flight 447, which crashed in June 2009, even after two years of exposure to salt water and intense pressure at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. Comparing the voice recording with the flight data showed the pilots seemed to be oblivious to the fact that the Airbus A330 had stalled. Recorder History Flight-data recording has advanced dramatically since 1954, when an Australian engineer, David Warren, developed the first such system in an attempt to understand a series of crashes involving the de Havilland Comet, an early commercial jet. Until the 1990s even commercial aircraft would often measure just five types of information on their data recorders, using a needle scratching indentations into an aluminum-foil tape, according to Dell, the Australian professor. Investigators had little to go on beyond the plane's altitude, heading, speed, acceleration, and whether the crew had switched on microphones. Voice recorders helped flesh out this scanty information with pilots' conversations and background noises. Engine Hum That detail has often proved crucial. In the 1982 crash of an Air Florida plane at Washington Reagan Airport, investigators with the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board analyzed an engine hum in the background of the recording. The abnormal frequency helped them conclude that ice was causing the aircraft to lose thrust, ultimately sending it into the Potomac River, killing 74 of the 79 people on board. Voice recordings arguably have become less important with digital upgrades to data recorders, enabling some models to log more than 1,000 streams of information such as fuel levels, instrument-warning lights and the position of cockpit controls. If the flight data recorder is undamaged, it's "almost no more difficult than shoving a USB in the side of your laptop," Dell said by phone. "Within about an hour you would have a really, really good impression of what the airplane was doing." Investigators generally prepare a full transcript of the voice recordings, synchronizing every pilot comment or cockpit sound with the flight data, plotted separately as dozens of distinct graphs on a common time axis. Reading them is akin to following an orchestral score. Inconsistent information in these graphs can be crucial, said Peter Marosszeky, a former air-crash investigator who lectures at the University of New South Wales in Australia. In the report into the Air France crash, for example, faulty airspeed readings that led to the disaster show up clearly in diverging green and yellow lines in the printout from the data recorder. With such a wealth of information at hand, theories about the crash can be constructed and tested to narrow in on the cause, Marosszeky said. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2015-01-14/how-airasia-team-will-use-black-box-to-crack-plane-crash- mystery.html Back to Top Ship finds crashed AirAsia jet's fuselage at bottom of Java Sea An Indonesian official looks at the cockpit voice recorder of AirAsia QZ8501 during news conference at the National Transportation Safety Committee office in Jakarta January 13, 2015. (Reuters) - A military vessel on Wednesday located the fuselage of the AirAsia passenger jet that crashed more than two weeks ago off the coast of Indonesia, raising hopes that more bodies will be found. The fuselage, the part of the plane that holds pilots and passengers, was discovered around 3 kilometers from where the tail of the aircraft was retrieved last weekend at the bottom of the Java Sea, Indonesian officials said. "A marker was placed on the engine. Beside the engine is the fuselage, the wing and a lot of debris," Ony Soeryo Wibowo, an investigator with the National Transportation Safety Committee, told Reuters. Indonesia AirAsia Flight QZ8501 lost contact with air traffic control in bad weather on Dec. 28, less than halfway into a two-hour flight from the city of Surabaya to Singapore. All 162 people on board were killed. So far 50 bodies have been plucked from the Java Sea, with most brought to Surabaya for identification. Searchers believe more bodies will be found in the plane's fuselage. Divers will check the wreckage for bodies on Thursday, said Fransiskus Bambang Soelistyo, head of the National Search and Rescue Agency. Indonesian investigators started examining on Wednesday the black box flight recorders recovered from the Airbus A320-200, and hope to unlock initial clues to the cause of the disaster within days. Divers retrieved the flight data and cockpit voice recorders this week from the plane's sunken wreckage. The recorders were lifted from the bottom of the Java Sea and sent to the capital, Jakarta, for analysis. Both were found to be in relatively good condition. "In one week, I think we will be getting a reading," Mardjono Siswosuwarno, head investigator for the National Transportation Safety Committee (NTSC), told Reuters. The so-called black boxes - which are actually orange - contain a wealth of data that will be crucial for investigators piecing together the sequence of events that led to the plane plunging into the sea. The flight data recorder took only 15 minutes to download, but investigators will now need to analyze up to 25 hours of data and several thousand flight parameters covering things such as flying speed, altitude, fuel consumption, air pressure changes and inputs to the aircrafts controls. "We are feeling relieved but there is still a lot of work ahead of us to analyze it," said Siswosuwarno. Investigators were also expected on Wednesday to begin downloading data from the cockpit voice recorder, which retains the last two hours of conversations on the flight deck and between the pilots and air traffic controllers. As is standard procedure, the NTSC will file a preliminary report, which will be made public, to the International Civil Aviation Organization within 30 days. A final report on the crash is not expected to be published for at least a year, Siswosuwarno said. After the recovery of the two black boxes, Indonesia is expected to scale back search and rescue operations in the Java Sea. But government officials sought to reassure victims' families that efforts to retrieve the remains of their loved ones would continue. "We understand if the search becomes smaller ... but the bodies have to be found," said Frangky Chandry, whose younger brother was on the plane. "We want to bury our family. That's what we want." http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/14/us-indonesia-airplane-idUSKBN0KN0BI20150114 Back to Top Ammonia leak prompts evacuation of U.S. part of International Space Station A toxic substance, apparently ammonia, has leaked into the U.S.-made section of the International Space Station, according to Russian media reports. The astronauts - three Russians, two Americans, and one Italian - are safe and have taken refuge in the Russian section of the space station. "The safety of the crew has been secured by prompt joint action by the U.S. and Russian crewmembers, as well as by mission control staff in Moscow and Houston," Maksim Matyushin, the head of the Russian Mission Control Center, said in a statement to RT. Russian and U.S. space officials are working on a plan to decontaminate the isolated section of the ISS. Peter Weber http://www.theweek.com/speedreads/533431/ammonia-leak-prompts-evacuation-part-international- space-station Back to Top Surging Jet-Stream Winds Hinder U.S.-Bound Flights From Europe Winter weather is putting a kink in air travel plans as the North Atlantic jet stream hits peak intensity. Stronger westerly headwinds for U.S.-bound flights are stretching out travel times, forcing some planes to stop for refueling. Trips such as London to New York, a busy business route, are running almost eight hours -- 45 minutes longer than voyages in September. Two Philadelphia-bound American Airlines flights, one from Brussels and the other from Amsterdam, had to touch down on Jan. 11 to refuel in Bangor, Maine, said Scott Ramsay, the carrier's managing director of its integrated operations center. The journey from Brussels took 9 hours and 16 minutes, about an hour more than three months earlier, according to industry data tracker FlightAware. "You know you're going to be in trouble on the way back," Ramsay said. "You try to pick out ways that you can get around the headwind." If you're headed in the opposite direction, you might catch one of the shortest flights on that route yet. A British Airways flight from New York to London earlier this week approached the speed of sound, buoyed by the jet stream, and the Boeing Co. 777-200 made the journey in just over 5 hours, according to FlightAware. The headwinds caused by the winter jet stream, which is at its most intense during this season when the differences in temperature between the equator and the North Pole are the greatest, have been ratcheting up in recent years. Higher Costs Flights across the Atlantic to eastern U.S. cities in December 2013 averaged 19 minutes later than a year earlier, according to industry data tracker MasFlight.com. Travel times in December 2014 were similar to those in 2013, MasFlight's data from more than 1,300 flights a year showed. With the threat of increasingly strong headwinds every winter, airlines face higher costs on those westbound flights with the use of extra fuel and the crew's time. "When you were planning to fly non-stop, stopping for fuel costs money," said George Hamlin, president of Hamlin Transportation Consulting, who has more than 40 years of experience in commercial aviation and aerospace. The jet stream is a river of winds that circles the earth from 30,000 to 40,000 feet (9,000 to 12,000 meters) above the surface and can reach speeds of 200 miles per hour or more, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Difficult Proposition Westbound flights over the Atlantic have to either fly north or south of the jet stream or else cruise at a lower altitude to avoid headwinds of about 200 miles (321 kilometers) per hour. Both options burn more fuel, forcing carriers to pre-plan fuel stops for some U.S.-bound flights. "It's going to become a more difficult proposition over time for airlines to plan for the days in which there's simply no altitude and no routing that is going to get them from point A to point B, east to west, with the normal fuel loads that they would carry," according to John Nance, a former commercial and military pilot who is now a Seattle-based consultant. The delays also put pressure on passengers racing to make connecting flights, causing some airlines like American Airlines to adjust block times in the winter for passenger connections, according to spokeswoman Andrea Huguely. Since November, a strong low-pressure system over the polar regions and high pressure in the tropical Atlantic has created "a funneling effect" which is intensifying the jet stream, said Alex Sosnowski, a meteorologist at AccuWeather, Inc. in State College, Pennsylvania. It isn't unusual to see these patterns set up over the course of the year, he said. There are indications that the forces that are enhancing the winds now may relax later this month. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2015-01-13/surging-jet-stream-winds-hinder-u-s-bound-flights-from- europe.html Back to Top A Delta Airlines Jet Made An Emergency Landing In Los Angeles Delta Boeing 757 LAX Delta Airlines flight 2116 made an emergency landing at Los Angeles International Airport after a midair mechanical scare forced the flight to turn around. The Boeing 757-200 - registration N757AT- was headed to Minneapolis when pilots reported a "mechanical emergency," reports KTLA. According to the Los Angeles Times, the flight took off from LAX Tuesday morning at about 8:30 local time with 146 passengers and six crew on board. The 30-year-old Boeing jet soon reported a mechanical problem and was forced to turn back. The aircraft spent about an hour circling over the Pacific Ocean southwest of Los Angeles before touching down successfully. Delta released the following statement: The crew of Delta flight 2116 from Los Angeles to Minneapolis/St. Paul followed procedures to return to Los Angeles International after a potential systems issue was observed. The aircraft landed safely without incident and taxied to the gate under its own power. Delta is currently working to accommodate customers while technicians examine the aircraft. Safety is always Delta's top priority and apologizes to customers for the inconvenience. http://www.businessinsider.com/a-delta-airlines-jet-just-made-an-emergency-landing-at-lax-2015- 1#ixzz3OngqiDo0 Back to Top Back to Top United Studies Outsourcing Up to 2,000 Airport Jobs Carrier's Jobs at 28 U.S. Airports Potentially Affected United Continental Holdings Inc. on Monday said it may outsource up to 2,000 jobs at 28 U.S. airports, including Atlanta, Miami, St. Louis and West Palm Beach, Fla., to vendors who would perform the duties at lower cost. The jobs employ workers in areas including check-in, baggage-handling and customer service, and all of the personnel are represented by the International Association of Machinists union. In 2013, United, trying to lower its costs, turned to vendors at six U.S. airports and three in Canada, affecting nearly 500 jobs. Last fall, it outsourced about 635 jobs at 12 additional U.S. airports. But some 200 workers at three small airports in Hawaii voted to accept concessions to keep their jobs. Now, in its latest salvo, United is potentially targeting a far large number of workers and locations. The Chicago-based company, the nation's No. 2 carrier by traffic, said it provided official notice to the employees and the IAM on Monday. But United said it is in discussions with the union about how it could keep some of those jobs within the airline. Rich Delaney, president of the IAM district that represents United workers, said the union was aware that a lot of the smaller airports' employees were at risk of having their jobs contracted out. He said the union plans to meet with United on Tuesday to begin the process of finding out if there are ways of saving money at the various airports so United would agree to keep the jobs in-house. At the very least, he said, any workers who might be displaced would have the right to take jobs elsewhere in the airline, depending on their seniority, and United would have to pay for their moves. READ MORE United Reaches Tentative Labor Deal with 330 Dispatchers United Continental, Flight Attendants Reach Buyout Agreement United to Outsource Jobs at 12 U.S. Airports As part of its 2013 labor agreement with the union, United agreed to protect jobs at 30 of its busiest airports, where 92% of the IAM-represented agents and ramp workers are employed. United also agreed that if smaller airports were targeted for outsourcing, the union and company would negotiate to see if changes in wages and benefits could be negotiated at the local level to let the work be retained. The 12 airports where United outsourced jobs last fall, in locations including Buffalo, N.Y., Detroit and Charlotte, N.C., also participated in negotiations. But the union said the cost reductions potential vendors provided United "were insurmountable." Advertisement Mr. Delaney said the differential between the pay and benefits in the IAM contract and what vendors will work for is big, and has gotten bigger since the United employees have received a wage increase since the new contract was signed in late 2013. To bridge that gap, the airport workers may need to agree to local concessions. He said he wants the talks to proceed quickly because his members don't want to deal with prolonged uncertainty. Many domestic airports served by United, American Airlines Group Inc., and Delta Air Lines Inc., already use outsourced labor for baggage-handling and customer-service jobs. But American and Delta own their own divisions that bid on such work, while United has no such unit. The latest 28 cities would represent the final tranche of potential outsourcing that United earlier identified. Other airports on the list include: Anchorage, Alaska; Hartford, Conn,; Billings, Mont.; Nashville, Tenn.; Boise, Idaho; Indianapolis; Jacksonville and Fort Myers, Fla; San Antonio and McAllen, Texas; Ontario, San Jose and Sacramento, Calif.; Kansas City; Oklahoma City; Tulsa; Providence; Richmond and Norfolk; Va.; Omaha; Raleigh-Durham, N.C.; and Greensboro, S.C. http://www.wsj.com/articles/united-mulls-outsourcing-up-to-2-000-airport-jobs-ual-1421082212 Back to Top Air Safety Institute Releases Forced-landing Survival Guide AOPA's Air Safety Institute (ASI) released a new video and 16-page guide to help aircraft pilots and passengers survive the conditions following a forced landing. The program, "Survive: Beyond the Forced Landing," was developed in conjunction with the Canadian Owners and Pilots Association, which was concerned that pilots in that country are not carrying adequate survival kits. The guide covers best practices for general aviation flights that result in off-airport landings. The program also reviews survival communications, lists suggested gear and offers advice for detection by rescuers. The video discusses communication techniques with ATC and other authorities, appropriate medical care and the use of basic survival equipment, such as emergency locators, strobes and space blankets. According to the guide, pilots should pack clothing that is appropriate for the weather along the planned flight path, not just for the final destination. Pilots should also ensure their passengers know how to use emergency equipment in the event they are incapacitated, ASI said. http://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/general-aviation/2015-01-13/air-safety-institute-releases- forced-landing-survival-guide Back to Top Global pilot shortage prompts Daytona Beach summit Airline executives met in Daytona Beach to discuss ways to deal with a global pilot shortage that will worsen in the coming years. Thousands of pilots are expected to retire in the next two to three years. DAYTONA BEACH -- A global shortage of pilots prompted a summit in Volusia County featuring airline executives and experts in the industry. The Pilot Supply summit is being held at Embry Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach. The executives said the shortage is real and happening right now. "The shortage is already occurred. It's been going on for about a year, year and a half now. And we expect this to happen at least for the next 20 years," said Darrin Greubel with Express Jet Airlines. This is not something people who were getting ready to board a plane at the Daytona Beach International Airport were expecting to hear. "I can think less people will be flying. And I really don't like driving," said Kylie Sandlin who is flying to Illinois. Experts said thousands of pilots will be retiring in the next two or three years, and aviation schools and the military are not producing enough pilots to fill those slots. That's bad news for airline customers. It's also good news for students like 19-year-old Ryan Hoffman who want to become pilots. "Now the hiring is increasing so in a few years I'll be able to get my own job that I want," said Hoffman. Experts admit starting pay also contributes to the pilot shortage. Like other pilots, Hoffman will have to start at a regional airline with starting pay hovering around $25,000. It's an issue executives want to address as well during the summit. http://www.baynews9.com/content/news/baynews9/news/ Back to Top Research Survey Request Limited Job Task Analysis Validation Survey The Center for Aviation Safety Research at Saint Louis University (USA) invites active and recently retired pilots, check airmen and instructors to validate a Limited Job Task Analysis for professional pilots. This task analysis focuses on a select set of phases of flight and seeks your opinion regarding the criticality of the underpinning knowledge requirements. This task analysis was developed with the help of an international panel of subject matter experts and practicing professional pilots. We are requesting you to kindly take this 45-minute online survey (https://slu.az1.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_0GuI969wyJB4snP ) to validate our draft of the task analysis. Please note that we need to have all survey responses by January 15, 2015. And, if you have friends who are qualified to support this research, we respectfully ask that you forward this invitation to them, as well. If you have any trouble accessing the survey, please feel free to contact Dr. Manoj Patankar, Executive Director of the Center for Aviation Safety, at patankar@slu.edu or 314-977-8725. 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 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: 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