Flight Safety Information August 22, 2016 - No. 164 In This Issue Search for missing AN-32 aircraft continues Boeing 787 Engine-Failure Investigations Underway GE orders gear change to prevent 787 engine shutdown Indian aviation faces second safety audit in two years 3 IndiGo pilots grounded for mid-air selfies Sri Lankan Airlines pilot shows up for work drunk, and expects to fly Mid-air collision averted after SpiceJet comes in path of Emirates Typhoon Mindulle Shuts Tokyo's Narita Airport Control Tower Man arrested for staging bomb hoax at Hong Kong International Airport to stop girlfriend's flight Why Cockpit Hypoxia Is The Number One Safety Issue for Naval Aviation Fuel exhaustion led to Beech King Air forced landing in a field near Montreal, Canada Lufthansa A321 near Pristina on Aug 20th 2016, cracked windshield Thai Airways Tries to Plot Path to Growth With New Aircraft India highest growing aviation market, says Minister The inside story of how billionaires are racing to take you to outer space PHOTO OF THE DAY GRADUATE RESEARCH SURVEY (1) GRADUATE RESEARCH SURVEY (2) GRADUATE RESEARCH SURVEY (2) ISASI 2016, Reykjavik, Iceland...17 to 20 October, 2016 (ISASI) DFW Regional Chapter (DFRC) Summer Meeting, September 8, 2016 Search for missing AN-32 aircraft continues The plane with 29 persons on board went missing shortly after taking off from Chennai for Port Blair on July 22. Reuters file photo A month since it went off radar en route Port Blair, the search for the missing AN-32 aircraft of Indian Air Force continues without any concrete evidence about the fate of the aircraft. Meanwhile, as Geological Survey of India ship Samudra Ratnakar found some leads at a depth of around 3,000 meters, officials said it was not clear if it was the debris of the aircraft. "The ship has tracked some echoes from the seabed but it will be a long process to verify if there is any debris belonging to the AN-32," IAF spokesperson Wing Commander Anupam Banerjee told IANS. According to the Geological Survey of India, the Samudra Ratnakar, which was part of the search operation, had detected some linear pieces. A GSI official said the objects, around 200 to 300 nautical miles from Chennai, could even be rocks on the sea bed. Indian Navy Spokesperson Captain D.K. Sharma said: "The search for AN-32 is in progress in right earnest." Sharma added that there were no concrete leads. A month on, the search is being carried on with two Indian Navy and one Coast Guard ship for scanning the surface of the sea. National Institute of Ocean Technology's vessel, Sagar Nidhi, and Samudra Ratnakar are carrying on the sub-surface search, while aerial survey is being carried out by surveillance aircraft P8I, transport aircraft C130J Super Hercules and Coast Guard's Dorniers. The plane with 29 people on board went missing shortly after taking off from Chennai for Port Blair on July 22. The recorded transcript of air traffic radar showed the last pick up of the aircraft was 151 nautical miles east of Chennai when it took a left turn with rapid loss of height from 23,000 feet. A flotilla of Naval and Coast Guard ships and aircraft were deployed on the search operations hours after the aircraft went off radar. Data from Indian satellites was scanned and help was also sought from other countries to locate the missing aircraft. Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar, in a detailed statement made in parliament, also clarified that the aircraft, an upgraded version of IAF's workhorse, had "adequate lifetime" and had undergone just one overhaul. - IANS http://www.tribuneindia.com/news/nation/search-for-missing-an-32-aircraft-continues/283822.html Back to Top Boeing 787 Engine-Failure Investigations Underway LOS ANGELES-Boeing, General Electric and Rolls-Royce are investigating two different engine issues that struck Boeing 787s in the Asia-Pacific region on Aug 14. GE is tearing down and inspecting a GEnx-1B which the crew of a Jetstar Airways 787-8 shut down inflight, enroute from Tokyo to Coolangatta, Australia. The aircraft, with 320 passengers on board, diverted to Guam after an oil-pressure warning. GE said it is premature to speculate whether the problem was related to issues with the transfer gearbox, which is currently subject to inspection and replacement under a fleetwide service bulletin. "More investigative work has to occur," the engine maker said. "More than half of the 600 GEnx engines with the specific gearbox experiencing issues have received new modified versions, and progress is moving fast. By the end of the year, we expect the entire fleet of 600 engines to be retrofitted," GE added. The gearbox issue has been traced to wear on the pinion gear within the gearbox. The wear, in turn, was found to cause excessive vibration and, ultimately, a shutdown. The pinion gear has been redesigned to correct the problem, according to GE. Rolls-Royce, meanwhile, is working with Boeing and All Nippon Airways to investigate the cause of a Trent 1000 failure which forced a Shanghai-bound 787-8 to abort take-off from Tokyo Narita Airport. The incident, which affected the left (No. 1) engine, occurred about 10 sec. into the take-off run, and was accompanied by a loud bang and the emission of flame from the primary exhaust nozzle and bypass duct. www.aviationweek.com Back to Top GE orders gear change to prevent 787 engine shutdown About 600 Boeing 787 engines will be modified by the end of the year to correct a transfer gearbox problem suspected in several in-flight shutdowns. About half of the affected engines have been upgraded with a redesigned pinion gear within the transfer gearbox, GE Aviation says. Wear on the pinion gear has led to excessive vibration, ultimately causing shutdowns of the engine. GE adds that investigators have not determined the cause of an in-flight shutdown on 7 August by a GEnx- 1B-powered Jetstar 787-8. The 787-8, registered VH-VKK, diverted to Guam, according to the Australian Transport Safety Board. The aircraft entered service on 16 July 2015, according to the Flight Fleet Analyzer database. The redesign of the pinion is the second on-going service bulletin on the GEnx-1B engine. Earlier this year, the US Federal Aviation Administration also directed airlines to modify the tip clearances for the fan blades. Otherwise, the blades can rub against the case in some cases due to ice shedding. About 80% of the installed GEnx-1B fleet has completed the tip clearance modification, GE says. www.flightglobal.com Back to Top Indian aviation faces second safety audit in two years The move raises concerns whether the country's aviation safety standards are in line with global norms India's air safety is under scrutiny yet again with the International Civil Aviation Organisation planning an audit next summer. This will be its second audit of India within two years and the move raises concerns whether the country's aviation safety standards are in line with global norms. BS Bhullar, spokesperson for the civil aviation ministry, said an earlier audit in November 2015 had not covered areas like operations and airworthiness, which could be taken up in next year's audit, expected in April or May. Officials added the audit was not linked to any safety issues. Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju had in May informed Parliament that in 2015 India's compliance with quality control, the regulatory framework, and in-flight passenger and cargo security were assessed to be 99.25 per cent against a world average of 66 per cent. "The number of safety violations is rising and it indicates training standards and safety oversight are not adequate," said Amit Singh, aviation expert and fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society. In 15 months till March there were 35 near-misses in Indian skies. There were eight aviation accidents in 2015, up from six in 2013. These included four helicopter crashes and an Air India technician being sucked into aircraft engine in Mumbai last December. ICAO President Olumuyiwa Benard Aliu, observed the country had made significant progress in all the fields of aviation but work was required in personnel training, airports, accident investigation, and regulatory oversight of air navigation services. "The Directorate General of Civil Aviation and the ministry of civil aviation will need to show clear cut steps and plans for capacity building and performance improvement. Air navigation operations improvement and lowering congestion are expected to be major audit findings while the ability to maintain effective safety oversight was missed out in the civil aviation policy," said aviation expert Mark Martin. The ICAO had in its 2012 audit raised concerns over licensing of charter operators and airworthiness of aircraft modified abroad. The DGCA took steps to address the deficiencies and the issues were resolved in 2013. Indian aviation faces second safety audit in two years The US Federal Aviation Administration in 2014 downgraded India's safety ranking after finding deficiencies in regulatory oversight. The country was restored to Category I after 14 months in April 2015. The downgrade meant Indian airlines could not add new flights to the US and American carriers could not code-share with their Indian counterparts. This affected the expansion plans of Air India and Jet Airways. The FAA audit had expressed concerns over the lack of full-time flight operations inspectors in the DGCA. The government subsequently appointed 55 pilots as full-time flight operation inspectors. Among other steps taken by the DGCA were training aircraft airworthiness officers, issuing procedures for technical evaluation of new types of planes, and documentation of training. http://www.business-standard.com/article/companies/indian-aviation-faces-second-safety-audit-in-two- years-116081900313_1.html Back to Top 3 IndiGo pilots grounded for mid-air selfies * DGCA has grounded three IndiGo pilots for taking selfies in a cockpit while airborne * The incident took place about 1.5 years ago * DGCA may soon issue some guidelines prohibiting mid-air selfies NEW DELHI: India's aviation safety regulator has grounded three IndiGo pilots for a week for taking selfies in a cockpit while airborne, a rising phenomenon which distracts pilots and may endanger lives. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) officially warned some pilots of Indian carriers, and may soon issue guidelines prohibiting mid-air selfies in cockpits, sources said. An IndiGo spokesperson said that the pilots have been de-rostered for seven days for selfies taken about 1.5 years ago. "This is not the only such case. Facebook and other social media profiles are full of pilots beaming in their seats while flying aircraft," said a source. The American air safety regulator, Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), has already banned commercial airline crews from using personal electronic devices (PEDs) for personal work by cockpit crews. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/3-IndiGo-pilots-grounded-for-mid-air- selfies/articleshow/53778867.cms Back to Top Sri Lankan Airlines pilot shows up for work drunk, and expects to fly Hundreds of passengers in Frankfurt were forced to stay overnight until a replacement pilot could be found. The airline issued an apology to the inconvenienced passengers, and announced the pilot has been suspended. A man in silhouette prays with the tail of a Sri Lankan Airline Airbus A320 in the background A drunk SriLankan Airlines pilot arrived at the Frankfurt airport to fly a plane with more than 270 passengers to Colombo, but he was blocked by other members of the cabin crew, it was reported Sunday. The pilot arrived at the airport already drunk on Friday but intending to pilot an Airbus A330 to the Sri Lankan capital with 274 people on board. The flight was delayed more than 15 hours, until a replacement pilot was found the next day. The airline apologized for the incident on its website. "Due to unavailability of a flight crew member, the aircraft was unable to leave Frankfurt as scheduled last afternoon," the airline said in the statement over the weekend. The cash-strapped airline is expected to discontinue service to several of its destinations in Europe come October, including to Frankfurt. The pilot has been suspended. It is the second time in just over a month that an airline pilot attempted to fly a commercial jet while under the influence of alcohol. http://www.dw.com/en/sri-lankan-airlines-pilot-shows-up-for-work-drunk-and-expects-to-fly/a-19491134 Back to Top Mid-air collision averted after SpiceJet comes in path of Emirates A mid-air collision was averted after a Spice Jet aircraft came in close proximity of an Emirates plane on August 11. Aviation regulator, DGCA, said that the air proximity incident was reported within Indian airspace. While the Emirates flight was coming from Brisbane in Australia, Spicejet had originated from Chennai. According to officials, the SpiceJet flight (SG 511) was cleared to fly at 34,000 feet. Reportedly, the plane climbed above the permitted level and was then asked to maintain 35,000 feet but it ended overshooting by a 1,000 feet, reaching a level that the Emirates flight (EK 433) was maintaining. This forced the Emirates flight to climb further to avoid collision. "At no time were passengers in any danger - the safety of our passengers and crew as always is our top priority," the Emirates spokesperson said. Earlier this month, a mid-air collision between two IndiGo planes was averted after the pi lot of one of the flights steered away his aircraft to a safe distance when they came close to each other. The incident resulted in four passengers and two crew members complaining of giddiness and required medical attention. The two incidents in August add to 25 such incidents reported in 2015 and 31in 2014. Probe reports of most of these incidents are yet to be tabled. In both the cases, the Traffic Collision Avoidance System (TCAS) kicked in. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/Mid-air-collision-averted-after-SpiceJet-comes-in-path-of- Emirates/articleshow/53803181.cms Back to Top Typhoon Mindulle Shuts Tokyo's Narita Airport Control Tower Strong winds from a typhoon forced air traffic controllers to temporarily abandon the control tower at Narita International Airport on Monday, shutting down one of Tokyo's two main airports for about an hour. Hundreds of domestic flights were canceled at the city's other major airport. Narita was closed at 2:20 p.m. after the controllers left the tower when wind speeds reached 126 kilometers (78 miles) per hour, said a Transport Ministry official at the airport who would give only his surname, Matsumoto. The airport reopened around an hour later. It was the first time the tower had been closed because of a typhoon. It closed once before, because of shaking during the magnitude-9.0 earthquake that triggered a massive tsunami in March 2011. Typhoon Mindulle, which made landfall south of Tokyo early Monday afternoon, brought heavy rain and strong winds to Tokyo and surrounding areas. Eleven people were injured, three seriously, said Japan's Fire and Disaster Management Agency. South of Tokyo in Kanagawa prefecture, a woman was unconscious after being washed away on a flooded road, and another woman, in her 80s, was blown over by strong winds and seriously injured. Further southwest on the Izu Peninsula, a man in his 30s was knocked over by winds and broke a rib bone. Narita, which is located outside of Tokyo, said that 88 international and 34 domestic departures and arrivals had been canceled. More than 400 domestic flights were canceled to and from Tokyo's other major airport, Haneda. Mindulle had sustained winds of 108 kilometers per hour Monday evening, down from 126 kph when it made landfall, and gusts of up to 162 kph (100 mph). It was forecast to move north over the Tohoku region and reach Japan's northernmost main island of Hokkaido on Tuesday. Japanese television showed scattered damage around the region. One house had lost much of its roof. A train on a small commuter line in western Tokyo had to be evacuated after the earth under the tracks gave way, leaving the tracks, train and overhead lines tilted, Japanese broadcaster NHK reported. No one was injured. Heavy rains have swollen rivers, and authorities warned of the possibility of flooding and landslides. http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/typhoon-mindulle-disrupts-flights-trains-japan-41563872 Back to Top Man arrested for staging bomb hoax at Hong Kong International Airport to stop girlfriend's flight Suspect allegedly made three calls to police: from mobile phone, shop in airport, and public phone in airport A man has been arrested for allegedly making false claims that there were bombs at Hong Kong International Airport in an attempt to stop his girlfriend's departing flight. The 41-year-old man, reportedly a film extra, was said to have made three calls to police, with the first bogus bomb claim being made at 4pm on Saturday. The second was made 40 minutes later, and the third 10 minutes after that. No location was specified in all three calls. Police searches did not turn up any suspicious objects, and airport operations were not interrupted. Investigators later found that the calls from a mobile phone, a phone in a shop inside the airport and a public phone at the airport. The suspect was finally located at a restaurant at Terminal One. The man told police he had been trying to stop a departing flight his 27-year-old girlfriend, with whom he had had a dispute, was taking. At about 3am on Sunday, the suspect was escorted to his home in Hanley Villa on Yau Lai Road in Sham Tseng. He was detained, and a mobile phone, some clothes and slippers were seized. Local media reported that the suspect was an extra in action-comedy sequel From Vegas to Macau III , co- directed by Wong Jing and starring Chow Yun-fat and Andy Lau Tak-wah. In February, a retiree who drunkenly tried to stop his wife going to South Africa by calling police and telling them there was a bomb on the plane was given 120 hours of community service. http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/law-crime/article/2007215/man-arrested-staging-bomb-hoax- hong-kong-international Back to Top Why Cockpit Hypoxia Is The Number One Safety Issue for Naval Aviation The US Navy has yet to solve a pattern of hypoxia-like symptoms in the cockpit among pilots of F/A-18 Hornet and EA-18G Growler. The U.S. Navy has yet to solve a troubling pattern of hypoxia-like symptoms in the cockpit among pilots of F/A-18 Hornet variants and EA-18G Growler aircraft, and the head of naval aviation said this week that resolving the dangerous problem is his top safety priority. Vice Adm. Mike Shoemaker, the commander of Naval Air Forces, told an audience at the Center for Strategic and International Studies this week that Marine Corps and Navy aviation leaders were pushing forward with a multi-pronged approach that included better training for pilots and a close analysis of apparent problems with the onboard oxygen generation system. "Where cabin pressurization has issues, we've adjusted the warnings we get in the cockpit and adjusted the emergency procedures for how we respond to various scenarios," Shoemaker said. "We've been out to the fleet to talk about how to test, how the maintainers work and maintain those systems." Incidents of reported oxygen loss, cockpit depressurization and air contamination among Navy and Marine Corps pilots have steeply risen in recent years. Navy Times reported in May that 2015 had seen the highest number of these kind of reports in at least six years, with 103 reported Navy incidents and 12 reported Marine Corps incidents. Since 2009, the paper reported, there have been 424 hypoxia-related incidents reported by Navy pilots and 47 by Marine Corps pilots. Shoemaker suggested that the bump in reporting could actually be a function of heightened awareness, rather that more incidents occurring. "So guys are going back and saying, 'Look, there's nothing wrong with reporting this.' We need to make sure we understand all the failure modes. So I think we're doing a good job of that," he said. In the fleet, he said, pilots in training now spend time in aircraft simulators in which oxygen levels are gradually degraded so they can learn to identify the symptoms associated with hypoxia. Navy leaders have also spoken with pilots to draw attention to the problem and encourage them to make reports, he said. On the engineering side, NAVAIR personnel are working to better understand the onboard oxygen generation system and potential problems. "There are some contaminants in the system that we're still struggling with a little bit, but the engineers are figuring out ways to filter and identify that," Shoemaker said. Shoemaker said the Navy expected to introduce a new technology to the fleet soon that would "scrub" the air delivered to the cockpit and remove these kinds of contaminants. And to address cabin pressurization problems, he said, engineers have adjusted cockpit warnings and emergency response procedures to alert pilots to issues sooner and give them more time to respond. In July, executives with Cobham Plc., the maker of the Super Hornet's onboard oxygen generation system, told Military.com the company is also developing a system with input from the Air Force and Navy that would monitor pilots' breathing and other physical indicators to alert them to potential cockpit oxygen issues sooner. "We're putting a full court press on this," Shoemaker said of efforts to address the cockpit problems. "It is our number one safety issue. [But] with awareness across the fleet and the importance of just understanding emergency procedures and complying with those, I think it's manageable." This article originally appeared on Military.com. http://taskandpurpose.com/cockpit-hypoxia-number-one-safety-issue-naval-aviation/ Back to Top Fuel exhaustion led to Beech King Air forced landing in a field near Montreal, Canada Flight path of C-GJSU until the moment of impact (Source: GoogleEarth, with TSB annotations) Fuel exhaustion led to the forced landing of a Beechcraft 100 King Air in a field near the St-Mathieu-de- Beloeil Airport, Quebec, in June 2013, according to a report released by the Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) The TSB also identified deficiencies in the pilot's performance and the company's supervision of flights, as well as weaknesses in Transport Canada's (TC) process for approving operators' appointments of operations management personnel and in the regulatory oversight of flight operations. On 10 June 2013 at 17:00 Eastern Daylight Time, a Beechcraft 100 King Air operated by Aviation Flycie Inc. took off from the Montréal/St-Hubert Airport (CYHU), Quebec, Canada, with one pilot and three passengers on board for a test flight. While on its way back to the airport, 24 minutes after take-off, the aircraft ran out of fuel. The pilot decided to divert to the St-Mathieu-de-Beloeil Airport. When the pilot realized that the aircraft would not reach the runway, the pilot attempted a forced landing in a field near the airport. The forced landing ended in an aerodynamic stall and the aircraft struck the ground 30 feet short of the selected field. The aircraft was extensively damaged, and the four occupants sustained minor injuries. While preparing for the flight, the pilot relied exclusively on the fuel gauges, misread them, and assumed that the aircraft had enough fuel on board for the flight. During the flight, the pilot did not monitor the fuel gauges and, when returning to the airport, decided to extend the flight to practise a simulated instrument landing approach, without noticing there was insufficient fuel to complete it. The investigation found the pilot had a history of performance that did not meet expected standards to act as pilot-in-command for that aircraft type. Despite a marginal performance during the check flight, the pilot had successfully passed a pilot proficiency check, and TC had approved the individual's appointment to the position of chief pilot. Meanwhile, the company's operations manager, who had no previous experience in commercial air carrier operations, was unable to fully appreciate the significance of the chief pilot's marginal performance or to detect deviations from regulations in the commercial flights performed over the company's first three months of operations, which preceded the accident. TC had also approved the appointment of the operations manager. In addition, the investigation revealed that the person responsible for maintenance (PRM), a new co-pilot on the company's BE10, had no previous experience in maintenance or in air taxi flight operations. TC had also approved the appointment of the PRM. The TSB determined that TC's appointment approval process was not effective and that, once the appointments had been approved, the management team's inability to perform the duties and responsibilities was not grounds for TC to revoke them. The TSB has identified safety management and oversight as a Watchlist issue. As this occurrence demonstrates, some transportation companies are not effectively managing their safety risks. The Board has been calling on TC to implement regulations requiring all operators in the aviation industry to have formal safety management processes, and for TC to oversee these companies' safety management processes. Official accident investigation report investigating agency: Transportation Safety Board (TSB) - Canada report status: Final report number: A13Q0098 report released: 17 August 2016 duration of investigation: 3 years and 2 months download report: A13Q0098 http://news.aviation-safety.net/2016/08/18/fuel-exhaustion-led-to-beech-king-air-forced-landing-in-a- field-near-montreal-canada/ Back to Top Lufthansa A321 near Pristina on Aug 20th 2016, cracked windshield A Lufthansa Airbus A321-200, registration D-AISV performing flight LH-1290 from Frankfurt/Main (Germany) to Bodrum (Turkey), was enroute at FL330 about 20nm north of Pristina (Kosovo) when the crew decided to turn around and divert to Munich (Germany) after the captain's windshield cracked. The aircraft climbed to FL340 for the return and landed safely in Munich about 90 minutes after turning around. The passengers were taken to hotels. A replacement Airbus A321-200 registration D-AIDT departed the following morning and reached Bodrum with a delay of 18 hours. http://avherald.com/h?article=49ce855f&opt=0 Back to Top Thai Airways Tries to Plot Path to Growth With New Aircraft A Thai Airways A380. The carrier is looking to add new aircraft to its fleet. lkarasawa / Flickr Even as airlines work to streamline the airport journey, provide more personalized offers, and deliver memorable in-flight experiences, there's still room for major improvement on the most important part of the airline customer experience - getting passengers to their destination on time. Airlines with older fleets face two big problems: ageing jets aren't as attractive to customers and they are less fuel efficient. Thai Airways' plans to bring in newer aircraft should go some way to helping the business grow again. - Patrick Whyte After a five-year austerity drive, Thai Airways International Pcl is ready to expand again. The carrier plans to add routes and buy new, more fuel-efficient aircraft to replace aging jets, President Charamporn Jotikasthira said in an interview in Bangkok on Aug. 17. The airline, which last ordered planes in 2011, is drawing up a 10-year plan through 2027 that will include the aircraft purchases to help boost passenger growth, he said. The company is playing catch-up to full-service operators in Southeast Asia including Singapore Airlines Ltd. and low-cost carriers such as AirAsia Bhd. that bought billions of dollars of aircraft as Thai Airways shrank its fleet. Adding new planes that use less fuel will help the Thai flag carrier control costs as it increases flights and more aggressively competes on ticket pricing, Charamporn said. "Its high costs, old fleet and inefficiency had been the big problem to compete with other full-service and budget airlines," said Narongsak Plodmechai, Bangkok-based chief investment officer at SCB Asset Management Co., which manages assets of about $38 billion including Thai Air shares. "Since the implementation of the restructuring program, costs have come down significantly, while fares are much more competitive." Charamporn's cost cuts and a decline in oil prices helped Thai Airways return to profit in the first half and have fueled a 191 percent surge in the company's shares this year, compared with an 11 percent drop for the Bloomberg Asia Pacific Airlines Index. The stock slumped 37 percent in 2015. The earnings rebound has also enabled the carrier to repay debt of about 11 billion baht ($318 million) so far this year, Chief Financial Officer Narongchai Wongthanavimok said in the same interview. The state- controlled airline's total loans and bonds including plane financing totaled 179 billion baht as of June 30, falling from 192 billion baht on Dec. 31, its financial statements show. Thai Airways faces competition from budget airlines that have sprung up in the last few years as well as Middle Eastern rivals that are targeting premium passengers with frills like butlers and ensuite showers. The carrier cut routes and plans to sell land and other assets to further bolster its balance sheet after posting losses in four of the past five years. Military Appointment Charamporn was thrust into the top job at the national carrier in November 2014 by the military government that seized power in a coup six months earlier, becoming the company's third president since 2009. "Thai Airways has the capacity to compete with other leading carriers again," said Charamporn, who will step down in February when he turns 60, the mandatory retirement age for heads of state-controlled Thai companies. "The carrier will be much more responsive to survive in the very tough airline industry." Among new destinations, the carrier is considering routes to the U.S., though it won't fly to Los Angeles, a route it scrapped last year, Charamporn said. Thai Airways still has 14 new aircraft due to be delivered through 2018 from the 37 announced in 2011. The carrier has 94 planes in operation and has grounded 13 - the four-engine Airbus Group SE A340 and Boeing Co. 747 - which it hasn't been able to sell because of their relative fuel inefficiency and age, the executive said. Last week, Thai Airways began using a new management system for airfares and routes that will bolster its competitiveness for ticket pricing, Charamporn said. The system can access rivals' prices in real time, allowing the company to adjust rates within hours, compared with at least a month in the past, he said. "The worst is over for Thai Airways," Charamporn said. https://skift.com/2016/08/19/thai-airways-tries-to-plot-path-to-growth-with-new-aircraft/#1 Back to Top Chinese Airlines Are Offering Pilots $318,000 to Fly Their Planes You'll wonder why you didn't become a pilot after learning that Chinese airlines are looking to pay people $318,000 a year to fly their planes. China needs pilots to captain their planes and they are flashing a lot of money to lure people in. Sichuan Airline, which has routes to Canada and Australia, is offering $302,000 while Qingdao Airlines, a regional carrier, is enticing pilots with a $318,000 salary. Both companies are also offering to take care of China's income tax bill for those who are willing to relocate. According to Bloomberg, Chinese airlines will need to hire approximately 100 pilots a week, every week until 2036 to meet the country's travel demand. Airbus Group SE reported that air traffic over China is predicted to quadruple over the next 20 years. Recruiters are seeking to fill chairs for a handful of mainland carriers that include Chengdu Airlines, Qingdao Airlines and Ruili Airlines. Even obscure startup carriers are offering 50 percent more than what some senior captains make at Delta Air Lines. The financial packages are extremely attractive to pilots who are only getting paid a fraction of that amount for well-known companies. According to KitDarby.com Aviation Consulting, the average annual salary for senior pilots at major U.S. airlines is $209,000. Dave Ross, the president of Las-Vegas based recruiting company Wasinc International, is in charge of recruiting pilots to fill these positions. After seeing the monthly paycheck of one of his recruits, Ross said: "I looked at that and thought, 'Man, I'm in the wrong line of business. They can live like a king.'" http://nextshark.com/airplanes-china-300-grand/ Back to Top India highest growing aviation market, says Minister Aviation growth in India has gone up to 20 per cent as opposed to China's nine per cent, making it the highest aviation growth market in the world, Union Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju said here on Sunday. He was speaking to journalists after visiting the memorials of freedom fighters as part of the Centre's 'Freedom 70' initiative. Mr. Raju said that as the country was rapidly growing in the aviation sector, the Central government was keen on sustaining this pace and progress further. To improve connectivity, the Union government had recently come up with the regional connectivity plan which envisaged viability gap funding, he said. The plan was to connect airports. For this, the State government's participation was necessary. The Centre, he said, had planned to convert 31 "inactive" airports across the country with no flight operations into performing assets besides setting up new airports. In the next two to three years, the Centre might set up around 50 new "no frills" airports to connect the geographically unconnected areas. However, the Centre had not chosen the places for the new airports as yet. Although the traffic and existing infrastructure in the aviation sector was matching, in specific places there was either congestion or facilities remained unutilised. The Minister said the Civil Aviation Ministry had requested a consultant to look scientifically at all airports and advise as to what type of action was needed to strike a balance on aspects including infrastructure, passenger and cargo movement. To a query, Mr. Raju said he had written to all Chief Ministers requesting them to become "aviation friendly" and bring down the tax on Aviation Turbine Fuel to reasonable levels. http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Tiruchirapalli/india-highest-growing-aviation-market-says- minister/article9016155.ece Back to Top The inside story of how billionaires are racing to take you to outer space With SpaceX, Elon Musk aspires to send an uncrewed spacecraft to Mars as soon as 2018 and hopes that people could arrive by 2025. (Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images) Later this year, tech entrepreneur turned space pioneer Elon Musk is planning the blastoff of a new rocket, the Falcon Heavy, that would be twice as powerful as any other in use and one of the biggest since the Apollo era's mighty Saturn V. The stage for the rocket's debut: the Kennedy Space Center's Launch Complex 39A, where Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin took off for the moon in 1969. SpaceX's use of 39A is the ultimate symbol that the government's monopoly on space travel is over. To Musk, it also is proof of an additional triumph - over his fellow billionaire and rival Jeffrey P. Bezos, who had fought to secure the launchpad for himself. Nearly five decades after the United States beat the Soviet Union to the moon, another space race is emerging, this time among a class of hugely wealthy entrepreneurs who have grown frustrated that space travel is in many ways still as difficult, and as expensive, as ever. Driven by ego, outsize ambition and opportunity, they are investing hundreds of millions of dollars of their own money in an attempt to open up space to the masses and push human space travel far past where governments have gone. Musk, who made his first fortune on Zip2 and PayPal, and Bezos, who founded Amazon and owns The Washington Post, are the most prominent of a quartet of billionaires aspiring to open the frontier of space the way the public-private partnerships of the 19th century pushed west at the dawn of the railroad age. The two others are Paul Allen, a Microsoft founder, and Virgin Group founder Richard Branson. All have upended industries, including retail, automobiles and credit cards, and are now embarking on the greatest disruption of all - making space travel routine - in a business long dominated by commercial-space contractors such as Boeing and Lockheed Martin. While their efforts have reignited interest in space, they also have raised moral complexities and regulatory challenges in pursuing an endeavor that is inherently dangerous. Congress has opted to regulate the industry only loosely, granting it an extended "learning period" that would allow companies to grow and to practice space travel. Already, one pilot has died in the quest to make commercial space travel a reality. But his sacrifice came in the service of a company, Scaled Composites, that was operating a spacecraft for Virgin Galactic, not a government acting in the national interest. Some critics, such as Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Tex.), said that safeguards should not be overlooked. "When the inevitable accident with significant loss of life occurs - whether it's a year from now or five years from now," she said, "the American public will look back at what we are doing today and ask how we could be so shortsighted?" Space is not orbit Since late last year, when Musk and Bezos traded what were interpreted as barbs on Twitter over who pulled off the most daring feat in space, they have apparently entered a detente, with peace offerings, even words of encouragement. But there is something about the exchanges that still bothers Musk, who in a recent interview wanted to make it clear: Space is not orbit. That's what he meant when he lit up Twitter after Bezos's Blue Origin flew a rocket to the edge of space and landed it at its West Texas test range, a feat that NASA has never achieved. Bezos declared the reusable rocket "the rarest of beasts." Not quite 'rarest, Musk shot back, pointing out that SpaceX has previously launched rockets in test flights and landed them after relatively short trips. In a series of tweets, he vowed something even more spectacular, and difficult - landing a much larger and more powerful rocket capable of traveling many times the speed of sound, which is required for going into orbit. Months later, Musk still was fixated on it. Bezos's Blue Origin may have crossed the boundary into "space," a somewhat arbitrary barrier generally agreed as starting at 62 miles above Earth's surface. But Musk's SpaceX spacecraft don't just go up; they go up and out, following an arc and moving so fast - about five miles per second - that they stay aloft and can circle the Earth in less time than it takes to watch "Star Wars." Reaching the threshold of space is a somewhat simple up-and-down endeavor - "like shooting a cannonball up and then the cannonball falls down for four minutes of free fall," Musk said. Orbit and space "are different leagues," Musk said. The tension began appearing in legal briefs in 2014. SpaceX challenged a patent held by Blue Origin that gave it the right to land rockets on floating barges at sea - a feat SpaceX has now pulled off multiple times. The point of landing the rockets, though, is to reuse them, which then would dramatically lower the cost of space flight. SpaceX has yet to refly any of its rockets, although it says it plans to this year. Blue Origin, by contrast, has flown the same booster four times in test flights, showing that recovering the rocket is not the same as reusing it. And there was Launch Complex 39A. Musk won the lease in 2013, but Blue Origin filed a legal protest, arguing that the criteria NASA used to come to its decision were flawed. Musk derided the protest as a "phony blocking tactic and an obvious one at that." Blue Origin had not yet sent a rocket to space, which Musk eagerly pointed out, and did not have one qualified to carry people. "If they do somehow show up in the next 5 years with a vehicle qualified to NASA's human rating standards that can dock with the Space Station, which is what 39A is meant to do, we will gladly accommodate their needs," Musk wrote in an email published at SpaceNews.com. Then, in a taunt that shot across the Internet, he added: "Frankly, I think we are more likely to discover unicorns dancing in the flame duct." At the time, Blue Origin was tight-lipped about the remarks. But years later, it responded by announcing that Bezos had secured a spot of his own at Cape Canaveral: Launch Complex 36, just down the road from 39A, so he and Musk will be neighbors. Virgin Galactic's Richard Branson's goal is to create the first commercial spaceline. More than 700 people have bought tickets - at $250,000 each - to ride on his spacecraft. (Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post) Paul Allen teamed with aerospace engineer Burt Rutan to develop SpaceShipOne, which was the first commercial vehicle to reach space in 2004. Now he's building Stratolaunch, the world's largest airplane. (Vulcan) Dreams are born It was supposed to have happened by now: space tourism. Bases on the moon. Humans to Mars and beyond. The next giant leap. And the next. Bezos was 5 years old during the Apollo 11 moon landing and remembers watching it on his living-room television with his parents and grandparents. "It was a seminal moment for me," he has said. In 2013, he embarked on a three-week quest to recover from the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean the F-1 engines used in the Apollo-era Saturn V rockets. Using deep-water rovers, his team found its quarry: castaway engine parts, more than three miles down, deeper than the wreck of the Titanic. Where others might have seen piles of rusted debris fit for a junkyard, Bezos saw art. "A magic sculpture garden," he called it. After Musk sold his first company, Zip2, to Compaq, for more than $300 million, he started thinking more seriously about space exploration and wondered when NASA was planning on getting to Mars. He searched the space agency's website for its Mars plan but could not find one. "Because, of course, there had to be a schedule," he said in a 2012 speech. "And I couldn't find it. I thought the problem was me. Because, of course, it must be here somewhere on this website, but just well-hidden. And it turned out it wasn't on the website at all, which was shocking." Musk, who also runs Tesla Motors, plans to send an uncrewed spacecraft to Mars as soon as 2018, and hopes that people could arrive by 2025. While that seemingly impossible goal remains aspirational, SpaceX continues to build bigger and more powerful rockets, and has disrupted the existing commercial and military launch markets by offering affordable and transparent prices. Last year, however, a unmanned Falcon 9 rocket carrying cargo to the International Space Station blew up, forcing the company to delay all launches for six months. But it now has a backlog of more than 70 missions representing more than $10 billion in revenue. "We're sort of checking the various boxes that are needed to do this," Musk said, "while providing useful services to NASA and commercial companies." As a child, Allen, the co-founder of Microsoft, knew the names of the Mercury 7 astronauts, as if they were the star players of his favorite baseball team. "Like countless other boys, I planned to become an astronaut when I grew up," he wrote in his memoir. "For sheer adventure, you couldn't beat outer space." In 2004, Allen teamed up with legendary aerospace engineer Burt Rutan to develop SpaceShipOne, which won the Ansari X Prize, a $10 million contest, and became the first commercial vehicle to reach space. Allen licensed the rights to the technology behind the spacecraft to Branson and concentrated on other interests. But now he's back. He is building Stratolaunch, that would become the world's largest airplane with a wingspan wider than a football field, end zones included. It is designed to carry a rocket tethered to its belly to an altitude of about 35,000 feet. The rocket would drop away from the plane, fire its engines and "air-launch" into orbit. Branson's goal is to create the first commercial spaceline. And he is proud that more than 700 people - more than the approximately 550 people who have actually been to space - have bought tickets to ride on his spacecraft, some paying as much as $250,000. "Perhaps it is in our culture, perhaps it is in our DNA, or perhaps it is a bit of each of those, but we humans seem hard-wired to explore," Branson's Virgin Galactic says on its website. "But because government space agencies are not asked to help ordinary citizens to become astronauts, most of our planet's seven billion people have had no opportunity to experience space and all of its possibilities for themselves." Landed SpaceX rockets sit in Launch Complex 39 at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla. SpaceX continues to build bigger and more powerful rockets, and has disrupted the existing commercial and military launch markets by offering affordable and transparent prices. (NASA via Getty Images) Commercial milestone The last time the United States was not able to launch its own astronauts to space, the hiatus lasted 2,098 days, from the last of the Apollo-era missions in 1975 to the first space shuttle flight in 1981. Today, NASA is again in a hiatus, this one beginning when the shuttles were retired in 2011. But now there is a painful twist: The United States has to rely on Russia, the country it bested in the Cold War race to the moon, to ferry U.S. astronauts to and from the International Space Station. That is expected to end by late 2017, or early 2018, when a cadre of carefully chosen NASA astronauts would board a spacecraft on the Florida Space Coast and launch from U.S. soil. That historic moment would feature a rocket that for the first time would be owned and operated by a commercial company, not NASA. Today, SpaceX and Boeing, the companies that NASA is entrusting with the lives of its astronauts, are vying to see which will fly first. The victor would become the company that restores U.S. human spaceflight in what would be one of the most tense and dramatic launches in decades. Then could come the birth of regular commercial space-tourism trips. Wealthy ticketed passengers, fresh off days of space training camp, could board a private spacecraft, buckle into luxurious window seats and shoot just past the edge of space, where they would float weightless, joining the ranks of the world's first space tourists in a flight that would last several minutes. Virgin Galactic had said its first flight would be as early as 2009, but that has been delayed again and again, most recently when an aircraft came apart during a test flight, killing the co-pilot. Since then, the company has rebounded, unveiling its new spacecraft earlier this year. While Virgin Galactic no longer gives a timeline, Bezos has said he believes Blue Origin could start taking tourists by 2018. Branson and Bezos, both known to prize customer service, are honing their sales pitches, one promising a concierge to the cosmos and the other promoting windows the size of doors for a better view. But while the companies say they are not in a race to see who flies customers first, some corporate jockeying is underway. Branson has said he thinks people would prefer the comforts of SpaceShipTwo, a space plane that would land on a runway, over a rocket launch that would propel a thimble-like capsule into space and then land under parachutes. "We believe going into space in a spaceship and coming back in that spaceship, on wheels, will be a customer experience that people would prefer than perhaps one or two other options that are being considered," he said in an interview late last year. "And we'd love to see whether we're correct about that." Amazon CEO Jeffrey P. Bezos, left, unveils a Blue Origin rocket. Bezos has talked about building "the highway to lower orbit" so that the next generation "will be able to use that heavy infrastructure" for "a huge dynamic entrepreneurial explosion in space." (Phelan M. Ebenhack/AP) Innovation revolution To these space barons, the dawn of this new Space Age is similar to the advent of the personal computer and the Internet. Regular access to space is a new catalyst for innovation, one that as Allen recently said, "holds similar revolutionary potential." He, Musk and Branson have plans to launch constellations of small satellites. These satellites could more affordably beam the Internet to the billions who are not now connected, provide better communication and allow companies and governments to continuously monitor events on the ground - including phenomena as diverse as wars and agriculture. "When such access to space is routine, innovation will accelerate in ways beyond what we can currently imagine," Allen said. "That's the thing about new platforms: When they become easily available, convenient and affordable, they attract and enable other visionaries and entrepreneurs to realize more new concepts." For years, many have been waiting for the commercial space industry to become a real market, one where companies actually make money and prosper. William Gerstenmaier, the head of NASA's human spaceflight division, said he thinks that the industry "is on the crest of another wave." "There's a lot of hype," he said at a Federal Aviation Administration space conference this year, citing other times when industry felt it was on the cusp of revolutionary change. Bezos, Branson and others are betting that there will be enough demand - especially if they're successful in getting to space quickly and easily, like flying a plane. Bezos has talked about building "the highway to lower orbit" so that the next generation "will be able to use that heavy infrastructure that I put in place so there can be a huge dynamic entrepreneurial explosion in space." His goal is eventually to establish such a transportation link that all heavy industry could be moved off Earth into space, where companies could mine asteroids for their precious metals. Earth, then, could be preserved as if it were exclusively zoned "residential and light industrial," he said. Musk is focused on Mars. "It's fundamentally about transport. Without transport, you can't get there. You need to build the Union Pacific," he said. "Once there's a transportation link established to Mars, it'll open up incredible entrepreneurial opportunities for anyone that wants to go there and establish everything from the first iron foundry to the first pizza joint to things we don't even conceive of on Earth that are just new on Mars." That effort will be exceedingly difficult, and probably even fatal, he said. The timeline Musk has laid out is incredibly ambitious, with the first unmanned flight coming as soon as 2018. Of the 43 robotic missions to Mars, including fly-bys, attempted by four countries, only 18 have been total successes. No private company has ever dared try it before, and SpaceX has yet to fly the Falcon Heavy, which has been delayed repeatedly because of technical challenges. In the past, such bold, "because it is hard" pronouncements were made by presidents, not billionaires. But Musk and Bezos are now cast in a sort of Cold War reenactment, performing the roles once held exclusively by nations and their heroes. Bezos's rocket is named after the first American astronaut, Alan Shepard, who reached the edge of space in a 15-minute ride in 1961. But unlike his Soviet counterpart, Yuri Gagarin, Shepard did not reach orbit. That would not happen for the Americans until the next year, when John Glenn rode a more powerful rocket. Bezos, too, is preparing his next giant leap: producing by the end of the decade a rocket that can reach orbit. By then, though, Musk could be shooting for Mars. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/the-billionaire-space-barons-and-the-next-giant- leap/2016/08/19/795a4012-6307-11e6-8b27-bb8ba39497a2_story.html Back to Top PHOTO OF THE DAY Tu-144 Back to Top GRADUATE RESEARCH SURVEY (1) Dear Colleagues, I am a university student completing my master degree at the University of South Wales in the UK and I'm conducting a research for my dissertation on aircraft maintenance cost reduction. I would appreciate it if you could complete my survey below: survey link http://www.smartsurvey.co.uk/s/837F5/ Thank you, Ali khlifa Abushhiwa Back to Top GRADUATE RESEARCH SURVEY (2) Dear Colleagues, My name is Hamed Aljahwari, and I am a student from City University London. I would like to take few minutes of your time to answer the following questions. The survey is addressing helicopter Engineers and helicopter Operators in the Middle East. This survey is approved by the Ethics Committee of City University London and is only intended to support my research. Please follow the link below to complete the survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/72GN8RM The impacts of operating helicopters in harsh environment Survey www.surveymonkey.com Thank you, Hamed Aljahwari Back to Top GRADUATE RESEARCH SURVEY (3) Manual Flying Skills Online Survey Dear fellow Aviators, I kindly ask you to take part in a short online survey concerning the topics of automation and manual flying skills. Besides flying Boeing 737s in Europe, I am enrolled in the MSc Air Safety Management part-time programme at City University London. At the moment, I am working on my thesis - topic: 'Manual Flying Skills - Airline Procedures and their Effect on Pilot Proficiency' - required for the award of the MSc degree next year. By means of this thesis, I intend to investigate the effects different policies or procedures regarding automation (and the resulting manual flying opportunities) can have on pilots' manual flying skills. Recent incidents and accidents involving manual flying deficiencies have brought this issue to wider attention, especially regarding loss of control in-flight (LOC-I) accidents. The survey displays a core element of my work as I would like to combine pilots' subjective views and experiences with current literature and scientific research. It addresses all pilots flying in a commercial environment world-wide and can be found at: https://de.surveymonkey.com/r/manualflyingskills It would be great if you could spare roughly 8-10 minutes of your valued time for this survey. Moreover, it would help me considerably if you could share the survey with friends flying around the world - in order to represent a wide range of different procedural environments in my research. Thank you very much in advance, highly appreciated! Moritz Hanusch Back to Top The International Society of Air Safety Investigators (ISASI) will hold their 47th annual seminar at the Grand Hotel Reykjavik, Iceland, from October 17- 20, 2016 Up to date program details, links to the registration program and the hotel can be found at www.esasi.eu/isasi-2016 or www.isasi.org Dates to Remember Cut off date for the seminar rate at the hotel is September 10, 2016. Reservations made after that date will not be guaranteed the seminar rate. Cut off date for the early registration fee is September 25, 2016. We look forward to seeing you in Iceland Back to Top RSVP by contacting Erin Carroll, DFRC President by September 1 Email: erin.carroll@wnco.com or Telephone: (214) 792-5089 Curt Lewis