Flight Safety Information February 16, 2016 - No. 033 In This Issue Missing Malaysia Jet MH370 Weeks Away From Keeping Secrets Forever Plane makes emergency landing at Dulles after pilots smell smoke Airline pilots call for laser pointers to be criminalised after Virgin Atlantic plane 'laser strike' Airplane engine catches fire at Orlando International Airport. Ethiopian Airlines opens upgraded aviation academy American Airlines sues Gogo, may change in-flight Internet service Mitsubishi wins $940 million order to supply 20 of its regional jets Missing Malaysia Jet MH370 Weeks Away From Keeping Secrets Forever The man leading the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 is showing the strain after almost two years of fruitless toil. Martin Dolan, head of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, said he struggles to sleep at times, gnawed by thoughts that wreckage from the Boeing Co. 777 may have slipped through the sonar net scanning 120,000 square kilometers (46,330 square miles) of the southern Indian Ocean. MH370 is weeks away from becoming aviation's biggest unsolved mystery since Amelia Earhart disappeared in 1937. Of the 3 million components in the jet, only one has turned up -- a barnacle-encrusted wing flap -- on Reunion Island, thousands of miles from the search. There have been no traces of the 239 people on board, their luggage or even the life jackets that were supposed to float. "There's always this question: Have we missed something?" Dolan, 58, said at his office in Canberra. "That's the sort of thing that will occasionally keep me awake at night." Some of the world's most experienced search-and-rescue experts increasingly accept that the A$180 million ($130 million) search may fail. Without fresh clues, the hunt should end about June, when four ships are due to finish combing the seas off western Australia, Dolan said. Within a rectangle the size of North Korea, vessels have scoured most of the patch believed to be the likely impact point -- and come up empty. Workers look for debris of the MH370 on the coast of Saint Andre, Reunion Island in August 2015. Failure Possible Nor are investigators any closer to ascertaining what happened inside the plane after it took off from Kuala Lumpur on March 8, 2014, for Beijing. "We were ready for most things, but MH370 has been unpredictable all the way through," Dolan said. "It's a possibility we will not succeed." In the aftermath, the International Civil Aviation Organization is pushing for commercial aircraft to report their positions every 15 minutes. And the underwater locator beacons inside their black boxes will have to last for 90 days instead of the current 30, under European Union proposals. But neither rule takes full effect before 2018. Asia's aviation industry, meantime, is expanding at a breakneck pace with 100 million new passengers taking to the skies every year, according to Boeing. In the next two decades, the world's fleet of 22,000 aircraft is set to double. Some time around June, Australian authorities will finish scouring a 120,000 square kilometer search area for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370. The plane disappeared in March 2014. Sources: Australian Transport Safety Bureau, Boeing, Bloomberg research Belgium-Sized Larry Stone, chief scientist at Reston, Virginia-based consultant Metron Inc., has tracked missing aircraft and ships for half a century. Stone mapped out the resting place of Air France Flight 447, which was found two years after plummeting into the Atlantic Ocean with 228 people aboard in 2009. The location, size and characteristics of the underwater search for MH370 make it the toughest he's ever seen. "I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't find it," Stone said. The waters in the search area are up to 6 kilometers (4 miles) deep and peppered with trenches and submerged peaks. Last month, a towed sonar vehicle collided with a volcano rising 2,200 meters (7,200 feet) from the seabed. The device was severed and sank to the bottom. Vessels still have to scan about 35,000 square kilometers -- an area bigger than Belgium. The newest reinforcement is a Chinese ship with high-definition sonar. The Dong Hai Jiu 101 will focus on areas of the ocean floor that are difficult to scan with conventional sonar when it arrives this month, Dolan said. Phoenix Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) Bluefin-21 is craned over the side of Australian Defence Vessel Ocean Shield in the search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH 370 in April 2014. Hot SpotsShips are rechecking about 100 locations, some of them inside an oval-shaped patch toward the southern end of the search area, Dolan said. This hot spot is most likely to contain the wreckage, according to Australia's Defence Science and Technology Group, a government agency normally devoted to national security.But even the most comprehensive search won't satisfy the victims' families if it fails."We are going to try as hard as we can to lobby for the search to continue beyond June," said Grace Subathirai Nathan, 28, whose mother was a passenger. "I need an answer."The disaster unfolded when air-traffic controllers lost contact with MH370 less than an hour after takeoff as it approached Vietnam. Military radar showed the plane took a left turn, looped back across Malaysia and headed northwest up the Strait of Malacca. Satellite Pings Radar contact then was lost, but an orbiting satellite picked up pings from the plane. Analysis of those hourly check-ins indicates MH370 cruised south over the Indian Ocean for about six hours. "They've done a remarkable job to get anything useful out of it at all," said Vaughan Clarkson, a specialist in radar and tracking at the University of Queensland, Australia who helped calculate the flight path. "You're trying to track a fast-moving aircraft with updates only about once an hour." The extent of human intervention in the silent disaster isn't known. The last recorded words from MH370's pilots, at 1:19 a.m. on March 8, were: "Good night Malaysian Three Seven Zero." In a world where a $100 smartphone can be tracked for free, the $250 million jet vanished. Malaysia Prime Minister Najib Razak has said the plane was deliberately steered off course, and the homes of the pilot and co-pilot were searched. The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation also analyzed the pilot's personal flight simulator to no avail. "All the evidence says classic autopilot flight," Dolan said, emphasizing that other authorities are trying to reconstruct events inside the cabin. Mathematical Probability The disaster was the beginning of the end for Malaysia Airlines as a listed entity. Four months after MH370 disappeared, Flight MH17 was shot down over Ukraine. A Malaysian government investment company bought out the airline the same year as passenger traffic slumped and losses widened. A failed search "would leave a bad impression on the industry as a whole, but particularly on Malaysia Airlines," Christoph Mueller, the chief executive officer, told Bloomberg Television on Monday. Back in Canberra, the ATSB is investigating about 130 incidents in total -- ranging from a freight train derailment in Queensland to a seaplane crash off northeast Australia. Yet Dolan says he's consumed by MH370. He speaks mostly in a soft, low tone, pausing often as he chooses his words. At a table in his office, he refers to a map of the search zone in front of him as he outlines the analysis of the plane's final moments: The right engine runs out of fuel first, and within 15 minutes so does the left. There's just enough fuel remaining for the satellite data unit to reboot and beam a final message. Then the plane probably banks left and spirals into the ocean. Based on that sequence, searchers are prioritizing an area within 20 nautical miles of the aircraft's last transmission. Last Chance Investigating the other possibility -- that someone was steering the plane and glided it without power until it hit the water -- would mean tripling the search area. That's a very unlikely scenario, and it risks overwhelming investigators, Dolan said. "Governments are just not willing to put the resources into that sort of potential extension," he said. Ships scanning the seafloor already collected about 20 petabytes of imaging data. That's enough to house the entire digital collection of the U.S. Library of Congress -- several times over. Even after acknowledging the difficulties of searching a massive, remote and deep area of the ocean, Dolan said he was confident the plane will be found. "Every morning I wake up and check what's going on, and I hope that today's going to be the day," he said. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2016-02-15/missing-malaysia-jet-mh370- weeks-away-from-keeping-secrets-forever Back to Top Plane makes emergency landing at Dulles after pilots smell smoke DULLES, Va. (WUSA9) -- A flight bound for Seattle had to make an emergency landing minutes after taking off from Reagan National Airport after the pilots smelled smoke in the flight deck. The Alaska Airlines pilots were taken to a local hospital after they landed the plane safely at Dulles International Airport, an airline spokesperson said. According to the spokesperson, Alaska Airlines flight #1 took off from Reagan National at around 10:22 a.m. with two pilots, four flight attendants and 161 passengers. Not long after taking off, the spokesperson said the pilots smelled smoke in the flight deck and decided to land at Dulles. After landing at 10:38 a.m., the pilots were checked out and taken to a hospital. The passengers and flight attendants declined medical assistance. The plane is still at Dulles, the spokesperson said. An airport official could not comment on what mechanical problem led to the forced landing. http://www.wusa9.com/story/travel/flights/2016/02/15/plane-makes-emergency-landing- dulles-after-pilots-smell-smoke/80424712/ Back to Top Airline pilots call for laser pointers to be criminalised after Virgin Atlantic plane 'laser strike' Heathrow incident involving Virgin jet prompts union to urge police to class gadgets as offensive weapons Many laser pointers bought online come from the Far East and can damage eyesight Corbis Powerful laser pointers should be classed as offensive weapons to help police to crack down on people using them against aircraft, the British Airline Pilots Association (Balpa) has said. The demand comes after a Virgin Atlantic passenger plane was forced to return to Heathrow airport when a co-pilot suffered ill-effects from a laser directed at the cockpit during take-off on on 14 February. "Following this incident the First Officer reported feeling unwell. The decision was taken by both pilots to return to Heathrow rather than continue the transatlantic crossing," said a message on the airline's flight status website. Bethany McHutchinson, one of the passengers on the plane, which had 252 people and 15 crew on board, said: "I think it's really scary, whether it was by accident or on purpose...it could have put everyone's lives on the plane in danger." In a statement, a Metropolitan Police spokesperson said: "Enquiries continue to establish where the offence took place. There have been no arrests." The incident is the latest example of a growing problem. In 2009, some 746 incidents involving lasers at airports across Britain were reported to the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA). The number reached 1,440 by 2014. And there were more than 400 incidents in the first half of 2015. "Shining a laser at an aircraft in flight could pose a serious safety risk and it is a criminal offence to do so. Anyone convicted of shining a laser at an aircraft could face a significant fine or even imprisonment should the safety of an aircraft be endangered," said a CAA spokesperson. More needs to be done, according to Jim McAuslan, general secretary, Balpa: "We repeat our call to the Government to classify lasers as offensive weapons which would give the police more power to arrest people for possessing them if they had no good reason to have them. This incident shows why this is becoming more and more urgent." And Zac Mader, police air services lead for the Police Federation of England and Wales said: "Laser attacks are now a huge problem and, as we have seen today in the Virgin incident, can potentially jeopardise the lives of hundreds of air passengers as well as flight crew." John Tyrer, professor of optical instrumentation at Loughborough University, commented: "If the laser is bought from reputable UK supply sources there are power density limits placed on these devices so that they can't cause any damage to the eye." He added: "However, there are people that buy these things off the internet which are shipped in typically from the Far East - which are very, very powerful." But banning laser devices would be counterproductive, he argued: "We've seen, in countries where they have done that, instantly overnight the attacks went up by a factor of a hundred." Professor Tyrer, who has designed safety equipment used by police officers as protection against lasers, said: "Our visor film could be attached to a pair of over-glasses that the pilot and their co-pilot can wear at take-off and landing, without limiting their vision or functionality. We are already exploring the film's use for helicopter pilots." And Ollie Dismore, director of operations for the National Police Air Service, said: "We are currently conducting a laser eyewear protection trial which we hope will better support us to protect our staff against this threat in future."rline-pilots-call-for-laser-pointers-to-be- criminalised-after-virgin-atlantic-plane-laser-strike-a6 http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/ai875821.html Back to Top Airplane engine catches fire at Orlando International Airport A small fire in an airplane engine canceled a flight bound to Tallahassee from Orlando International Airport on Monday night, officials said. Silver Airways Flight 70, a Saab 340 aircraft, was parked near gate 36 when someone noticed a possible fire coming from one of its engines around 8 p.m., said Carolyn Fennell, airport spokeswoman. It was quickly extinguished, she said. A spokeswoman said the crew "received indication of a possible mechanical issue" and evacuated the plane. Nine passengers and three crew members were evacuated, Fennell said. No one was injured. The flight was supposed to take off at 8:25 p.m. No other flights or operations were affected, Fennell said. Silver Airways operates in the Mid-Atlantic, Florida and the Bahamas. The airline will put passengers in a hotel and get them flights in the morning. http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/breaking-news/os-silver-airlines-fire-orlando- airport-20160215-story.html Back to Top Ethiopian Airlines opens upgraded aviation academy Ethiopian Airlines Group has invested $100 million in expanding and upgrading its aviation academy at Addis Ababa Bole International Airport. The Ethiopia flag carrier said this project is in line with its Vision 2025 strategic road map and is the largest aviation academy in Africa. It will be able to take 4,000 students a year at the end of 2025. As an Authorized Training Organization, the Ethiopian Aviation Academy offers Boeing 777, 787, 737, 767/757 and Bombardier Q400 full flight simulators. The carrier is also considering extending its training center to add an Airbus A350 simulator. "We have already started discussions with Airbus and CAE," Ethiopian Airlines Group CEO Tewolde Gebremariam told ATW recently. It offers also a full range of fleet cabin emergency, evacuation and door trainers, fitted with standard swimming pool for cabin crew ditching exercises and more than 20 pilot training aircraft. In other news, a new cargo terminal at Bole airport is expected to be operational toward the end of 2016. The facility will have an annual storage of 1.2 million tons with the capacity to handle eight Boeing 747-8Fs at one time. Construction of the first phase will cost $150 million. Ethiopian's rapidly growing fleet, which has an average age of five years, is structured around the Boeing 787, 777-300ER, 777-200LR, 777-200F and dual-class Q400s. It is also planning to take up to 25 A350s, with 14 already on order. http://atwonline.com/training/ethiopian-airlines-opens-upgraded-aviation-academy Back to Top American Airlines sues Gogo, may change in-flight Internet service Suit says competitor ViaSat has faster in-flight Internet American says it has notified Gogo per its contract to submit a competing offer Gogo says it plans to make a competing offer American Airlines may be switching Internet providers for its in-flight Internet. The Fort Worth-based company filed a lawsuit in district court in Tarrant County on Friday against Gogo, its current Internet provider for in-flight Wi-Fi, saying it has notified Gogo it has found a faster Internet service. In the suit, American says its contract with Gogo allows it to renegotiate or terminate its agreement if another company other than Gogo offers a better service. "After carefully evaluating the new technology and services in the marketplace, American has decided to exercise its rights under the Agreement and recently notified Gogo that ViaSat offers an in-flight connectivity system that materially improves on Gogo's air-to- ground system," the suit says. American says ViaSat offers a faster service that is currently installed on United Airlines, Jet Blue and Virgin America planes. American currently uses Gogo for its regional aircraft and on domestic flights, primarily Boeing 737s. "American continually evaluates in-flight connectivity service to determine what best meets our customers' needs and wants," American said in a statement on Monday. "We've notified Gogo of a competitor's offering, and we will evaluate all of our options." Gogo said American notified it earlier this month that a competitor's service is an improvement over Gogo's early generation air-to-ground service that is used on about 200 of American's aircraft. "We have no comment on the merits of this litigation, but we would like to note that American is a valued customer of ours and that we look forward to resolving the disagreement regarding contract interpretation that led to this declaratory judgment action," Gogo said in a statement late Monday night. According to its contract, Gogo is allowed to submit a competing proposal which Gogo said it intends to do related to its satellite technology, 2Ku. "We believe that 2Ku is the best performing technology in the market and look forward to discussing our offer with American," Gogo said. http://www.star-telegram.com/news/business/aviation/sky-talk- blog/article60577901.html#storylink=cpy Back to Top Mitsubishi wins $940 million order to supply 20 of its regional jets The Japanese firm has struggled with multiple delays in its effort to enter the regional jet market, currently dominated by Canada's Bombardier Inc and Brazil's Embraer SA . Mitsubishi said the letter of intent signed with Aerolease for the jets, worth about $940 million, would be converted into a definitive contract in the next month or so, lifting the total number of orders for the Mitsubishi Regional Jets (MRJ) to 427, including 233 firm orders and 170 options. The company said it had seen increased interest from potential customers after its first flight test concluded. "After the first flight, we feel the interest from potential customers is increasing," Hiromichi Morimoto, president of Mitsubishi Aircraft Corp, told reporters after announcing Aerolease's order at the Singapore Airshow. Morimoto added that some potential clients in Asia Pacific had sent in detailed enquiries. "Asia Pacific region is promising for us, for regional jets. We are right now working really hard on sales promotion in the Asia Pacific region," Morimoto said. Morimoto did not expect further delays in the delivery of its first MRJ, which is slated for middle of 2018, after announcing late last year that the delivery would be pushed back for a year. The $47 million, 100 seat MRJ, which made its maiden test flight in November, represents Japan's long-held ambition to re-establish a commercial aircraft industry. "We have much more confidence than before," said Yugo Fukuhara, vice president and general manager of sales and marketing. "Still, we still have a very big challenge, but I think we can overcome the challenge." http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/latestnews/2016/02/16/Mitsubishi-940-mln-regional-jet- deal-Aerolease Curt Lewis