Flight Safety Information July 6, 2016 - No. 131 In This Issue Pilots tried to fight fire on doomed EgyptAir jet, probe finds EgyptAir cockpit recording reveals pilots tried to extinguish flames before crash Air Zimbabwe will host Annual General Assembly of the African Airline Association Canadian Transport Safety Board publishes report on Bombardier CSeries aircraft fire during tests Air Malta passes IATA Operational Safety Audit Airbus Certifies New SwiftBroadband-Safety for A320s, A330s Boeing's all-new 757 replacement a matter of 'when,' not 'if' Planes Need Something Better Than the Black Box Pilots tried to fight fire on doomed EgyptAir jet, probe finds CAIRO - Pilots tried to extinguish a fire on board the EgyptAir flight that crashed into the Mediterranean Sea in May, Egyptian investigators said Tuesday after analyzing a recovered cockpit voice recorder. The recordings were consistent with data previously recovered from the plane's wreckage that showed heat, fire, and smoke around a bathroom and the avionics area, they said, speaking on condition of anonymity because an official press statement has yet to be released. The crash of the flight from Paris to Cairo killed all 66 people on board. The pilots made no distress call, and no militant group has claimed to have brought the aircraft down, deepening the mystery surrounding its fate. The Egyptian investigators say no theories - including terrorism - are being ruled out, especially since it is rare for such a catastrophic fire to break out so suddenly. EgyptAir Flight 804 disappeared from radar about 2:45 a.m. local time on May 19 between the Greek island of Crete and the Egyptian coast. Radar data showed the aircraft had been cruising normally in clear skies before it turned 90 degrees left, then a full 360 degrees to the right as it plummeted from 38,000 feet (11,582 meters) to 15,000 feet (4,572 meters). It disappeared when it was at an altitude of about 10,000 feet (3,048 meters). Deep ocean search teams have been recovering human remains and bringing them to Egypt's port city of Alexandria. French authorities opened a manslaughter inquiry late last month, but said there is no evidence so far to link the crash to terrorism. http://www.cbsnews.com/news/pilots-tried-to-fight-fire-on-doomed-egyptair-jet-probe-finds/ Back to Top EgyptAir cockpit recording reveals pilots tried to extinguish flames before crash Sources from the committee investigating EgyptAir Flight 804's disappearance revealed Tuesday that newly analyzed audio from the cockpit voice recorder indicates pilots attempted to put out a fire on-board before the plane crashed into the Mediterranean Sea. Authorities say the recordings, which captured pilot conversations and cockpit alarms, are in line with the evidence of fire damage found in the plane's wreckage. However, the new evidence isn't helping investigators zero in on any one theory of what caused the aircraft's demise, "especially since it is rare for such a catastrophic fire to break out so suddenly," The Associated Press reports. Flight 804 crashed on May 19 en route from Paris to Cairo, killing all 66 people on board. http://theweek.com/5things/634089/egyptair-cockpit-recording-reveals-pilots-tried-extinguish-flames- before-crash Back to Top Air Zimbabwe will host Annual General Assembly of the African Airline Association It is now just four months to go until Air Zimbabwe will host the Annual General Assembly of the African Airline Association, in short AFRAA. The meeting will take place at the resort town of Victoria Falls and the venue is the Elephant Hills Resort and Conference Centre, located close to the falls. This will be Africa's largest gathering of airlines and related service providers, like Civil Aviation Authorities, airports, ground handlers, catering firms but also manufacturers, insurers and in fact any form of businesses related to aviation. After the annual Aviation Stakeholder Convention is the AGA the place to be to network and to discuss hot topics related to the industry on the African continent. The motto of the 2016 AGA is 'Managing the Survival and Market Recovery of African airlines', highly relevant in today's aviation world and in light of the recent onslaught by non African carriers taking as much as 80 percent of the traffic share from airlines at home on the continent. While this has no doubt improved connectivity for people is the ongoing failure to implement the Yamoussoukro Declaration a constant thorn in the side of Africa's aviation industry, which finds it often more challenging to obtain landing and traffic rights than when they apply to European authorities and where foreign carriers seem to get landing rights almost automatically upon application while African airlines' applications are often delayed, deferred or simply turned down. http://www.eturbonews.com/72629/air-zimbabwe-will-host-annual-general-assembly-african-airline-a Back to Top Canadian Transport Safety Board publishes report on Bombardier CSeries aircraft fire during tests A journalist takes pictures before a media flight in the first CS 100 to be delivered by Bombardier in Montreal on Wednesday June 29, 2016. The Canadian Transportation Safety Board has shed light on the causes of a fire that broke out aboard a passenger plane of the Bombardier CSeries during ground testing two years ago. The independent federal agency said Tuesday that the failure of a seal lubrication tube on the engine caused a turbine rotor failure and, subsequently, caused a fire aboard the CS100 being tested at the Montreal-Mirabel International Airport on May 29, 2014. The fire, which caused no casualties, was extinguished by Bombardier ground staff. Bombardier CS100 aircraft were grounded for more than three months after the incident, until the causes of the fire were determined. The engine manufacturer, Pratt & Whitney, proposed a revised cooling procedure and other measures to monitor the temperatures of the engine and prevent overheating that caused the failure of the joint. The CSeries program of Bombardier has been running behind two and a half years and has had its cost overrun more than $2 billion. Last week Bombardier delivered its first CSeries aircraft. Swiss International Air Lines took possession of the CS100 unit on June 29 and it should be in regular service as of July 15th. http://montrealgazette.com/business/canadian-transport-safety-board-publishes-report-on-bombardier- cseries-aircraft-fire-during-tests Back to Top Air Malta passes IATA Operational Safety Audit Air Malta has successfully renewed its IATA Operational Safety Audit (IOSA) registration, following a comprehensive audit, carried out by a foreign IATA-accredited Audit Organisation. Commenting on this achievement Air Malta's Chief Executive Philip Micallef said, "This is a true attestation of the dedication and professionalism shown by all staff throughout the organisation. This result confirms that we are conforming to the operational safety standards, considered to be amongst the best within our industry". "Throughout the organization we have in place a Safety Management System which helps us to proactively handle airline safety related matters. I thank all the staff for their unrelenting efforts, which clearly manifested itself during this year's renewal audit, " added Mr Micallef. IOSA is an internationally recognised evaluation system designed to assess the operational management and control systems of an airline. The audit, which covers over 900 standards across all the organisation, verified the airline's operational departments including: Organisation and Management System, Flight Operations, Operational Control and Flight Dispatch, Aircraft Engineering and Maintenance, Cabin Operations, Ground Handling Operations, Cargo Operations and Security Management. Each department is audited for the required documented policy and procedures, as well as the correct implementation. IOSA is consequently the benchmark for global safety management in airlines. All IATA members are registered and must remain registered in order to maintain IATA membership. http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2016-07-05/company-news/Air-Malta-passes-IATA-Operational- Safety-Audit-6736160534 Back to Top Airbus Certifies New SwiftBroadband-Safety for A320s, A330s SwiftBroadband-Safety will support future air traffic management applications, according to satcom provider Inmarsat. Satellite communications provider Inmarsat has achieved Airbus certification of its SwiftBroadband-Safety (SB-S) service for flight deck communications, culminating seven years of system development and certification. The broadband, Internet Protocol (IP)-based system represents a paradigm shift in satcom safety and efficiency, Inmarsat declared. "We're moving from the current, saturated VHF and over-ocean solutions of our prior generation services into the next generation, secure IP cockpit communications," said Leo Mondale, president of Inmarsat's aviation business unit. "The gestation period for these solutions is long because of the checks and balances to being a certified safety solution. We're excited now to be finally bringing it to the market." Hosted on Cobham Aviator S series satcom terminals, SB-S will be offered as a line-fit option on A320 and A330 airliners starting in 2018, under Cobham's contract with Airbus. Inmarsat's IP-based SwiftBroadband satcom service is already used on widebody airliners that typically operate over oceans as well as on some narrowbodies; the new safety version complies with the latest requirements of civil aviation authorities and air navigation service providers. The so-called "light cockpit" system is "a separate secure IP pipe onto and off of the airplane so there are no security issues" with broadband equipment for cabin communications, Mondale said. Certification of SB-S on the A320 means the advanced safety system will become commonplace on narrowbody airliners that primarily operate over land and within radar and radio range. "We've been a complementary solution, but SwiftBroadband Safety brings better performance, better economics and the same kind of security we've been providing for years now; it makes it an option for over-land safety operation services and [eventually] for air traffic management" applications, Mondale said. SB-S uses Inmarsat's L-band satellite network and represents an enhanced version of the older Inmarsat Classic Aero service, accommodating Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (Acars) communications by airlines with their aircraft as well as automatic dependent surveillance-contract position reports and data communications with air navigation service providers. Rival satcom provider Iridium boasts coverage over polar regions that Inmarsat's service cannot reach, but Iridium competes against Acars-based systems whereas SB-S represents the next generation of communications, Mondale contends. "There are many systems that have cleverly found a way to use that Acars secure technology to do things it was never designed for, but in fact it's poorly suited to modern digital communications. It's like doing business by Telex today," Mondale said. "What SwiftBroadband Safety represents is an upgrade to a secure digital line that has sufficient capacity to do large file transfers and things of that sort...It has virtually 100-percent global coverage except for the extreme latitudes of the poles and bullet-proof availability that is important for the cockpit and less important for the cabin." In June 2015, Inmarsat announced that Hawaiian Airlines was the first carrier to fly with SB-S after receiving a supplemental type certificate for the Boeing 767-300. Inmarsat is actively discussing the use of the service with other Boeing operators, Mondale said. "It's on the same track," he affirmed. "We expect [SB-S] to be available as a catalog line-fit item on every single Boeing airframe." http://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/air-transport/2016-07-05/airbus-certifies-new-swiftbroadband- safety-a320s-a330s Back to Top Boeing's all-new 757 replacement a matter of 'when,' not 'if' Boeing says the potential market for its first all-new passenger jet since the 787 Dreamliner is coming into sharp focus - and it could be huge. The U.S. plane-maker is honing designs for midrange planes to whisk travelers from New York to London, Sydney to Shanghai or Dubai to Oslo. The aircraft would fill the gap in its product line between the largest single-aisle 737 and smallest widebody 787, a relatively untapped market where Airbus Group is starting to extend its reach. Boeing estimates that sales could reach between 4,000 and 5,000 middle-of-market jetliners as airlines find new routes for the planes. The U.S. manufacturer would be poised to capitalize, provided it can keep production costs in check and prices reasonable, said Mike Delaney, general manager of airplane development. He used the term "when," not "if," while discussing the prospects for the new aircraft family, which would begin commercial flights next decade. Recent discussions with 36 airline customers have given Delaney confidence that Boeing is on the verge of a breakthrough after years spent seeking a replacement for its out-of-production 757. http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-boeing-757-replacement-20160705-story.html Back to Top Planes Need Something Better Than the Black Box Last week, the flight data recorders ("black boxes") extracted from the wreckage of EgyptAir Flight 804 yielded clear evidence of a fire aboard the doomed plane, officials said. Today investigators say they've recovered some of the voice recordings. Even with this news, though, the May 19 crash remains unsolved and could be for some time. But if airlines had instituted a more high-tech way of getting at that flight data-technology that exists today-it's possible we'd have those answers already. Flight data streaming technology could track a plane and learn its condition within minutes of an emergency, getting some, if not all, of the crucial information stored in the black boxes immediately rather than launching time-consuming and expensive missions to find them at the bottom of the sea (or not find them, in the case of the still-missing MH370.) Recent high-profile disasters would argue for a cutting-edge solution: beyond the unsolved disappearance of MH370, consider the 2009 crash of Air France 447 in which it took two years and $40 million for searchers to find the wreckage. Yet some aviation officials are questioning whether such a move is really imminent, or even necessary. And the initial findings in the case of EgyptAir 804 could bolster the argument against change. At first glance this seems surprising. In an era when we can track a cell phone anywhere in the world, shouldn't we know the whereabouts and status of every commercial airliner in more or less real time? There are two big reasons the industry is dragging its feet: Cost, and the idea that things are basically good enough. In the case of EgyptAir 804, the current system, outmoded as it may be, appears to be working. The traditional technology to find a wrecked plane-an emergency locator transmitter and a beacon attached to the data recorders-worked fast enough to get results. Investigators found the black boxes before the one- month lifespan of the pingers expired. Experts says last week's news confirming smoke detectors went off in both the lavatory and the avionics bay under the flight deck confirms what they had already suspected from the automated messages sent from the plane as it went down. That said, the black boxes and messages haven't answered every question, including why no distress signal was sent from the plane, which was carrying 66 people on a flight from Paris to Cairo when it disappeared off radar screens at 37,000 feet. And, if it was a sudden explosion like a bomb, then why hasn't any group taken responsibility? Streaming data might have shed some more light on these questions. But given the rarity of these aviation disasters and the fact that the world's accident rate is at an historic low, some airlines might want to hold back on the enormous investment that moving to universal flight tracking would require. "They are not jumping up and down at the opportunity" to get onboard, says former National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) member John Goglia. He says the cost to the industry could exceed $6 billion. "That's only for the hardware," Goglia says, which he estimates at about $100,000 per plane. "It's brutally expensive. You have to pay for satellite time and the people who own the satellites are going to get a premium for that." Furthermore, the flight data recorders have "thousands of parameters on them," he says, so another big question is how much data should be streamed, and what type. "OUR FEELING IS THAT THIS IS INEVITABLE." The NTSB is fully behind the idea that airliners should be equipped with more modern equipment for transmitting data, according to a spokesman. After all, black boxes have been around for more than a half-century. While they're built to withstand crash impacts and intense heat, in a few cases they've been so badly damaged that crucial information couldn't be retrieved. In the case of the Germanwings crash in the French Alps by a suicidal pilot, for example, the flight data recorder was missing a critical memory card. "Our feeling is that this is inevitable," the spokesman says, given the wired world we live in. "It's widely accepted notion that the technology is here, and we should have faster access to data." The question is when. The NTSB came out with a position paper earlier this year on the subject, and the International Civil Aviation Organization, a U.N. affiliate, in March endorsed the goal of having equipment on all airliners that would immediately transmit flight data in the case of a crash or other emergency. But ICAO didn't say how airlines should meet the proposed standards. It's possible that rather than streaming data over the airwaves, airlines could comply by using flight data recorders that would eject upon impact and could float on water. This type of recorder is common on military aircraft. ICAO's mandate wouldn't take effect until 2021, and even then it wouldn't make much of a tangible difference because it would apply only to new models. Aircraft already in service wouldn't have to be retrofitted to meet the new standards. "IT'S BRUTALLY EXPENSIVE." The bottom line, said several sources close to the issue, is that the aviation industry will inevitably resist expensive new regulations unless it can be shown that they'd prevent crashes and improve safety for all. There are interim solutions that would be less costly. Airlines that already equip their planes with Wi-Fi could use that technology to stream at least some flight data. And some airlines aren't waiting until they're up against the deadline; Qatar Airways, for example, last year said it aims to be the first airline in the world to stream flight data from black boxes to operations centers on the ground in real-time. It is testing such a system now to deploy on its entire fleet. Inmarsat, whose SwiftBroadband service supports inflight Wi-Fi on many aircraft, is coming out with what's being dubbed a "black box in the cloud," in which flight data recorder and possibly some cockpit voice information could be streamed off a plane in specified trigger events, such as a course deviation, or, of course, when a plane disappears off radar screens. Perhaps the next time a plane vanishes, we won't have to wait weeks or months with little to do but wonder. http://www.popularmechanics.com/flight/a21661/black-box-real-time-flight-data-egyptair-804/ Curt Lewis