Flight Safety Information August 1, 2017 - No. 153 In This Issue Incident: Volotea B712 at Venice on Jul 27th 2017, engine problem Incident: Moldova A320 at Chisinau on Jul 26th 2017, burst tyre on landing Incident: JetairFly B738 at Brussels on Jul 29th 2017, flaps problem Incident: Etihad A346 at Mumbai on Jul 31st 2017, burst tyre on landing Incident: ConocoPhillips B737 at Deadhorse on Jul 28th 2017, caribou strike Incident: SriLankan A332 near Colombo on Jul 30th 2017, LiOn battery pack catches fire in cabin Incident: Wizz A320 near Barcelona on Jul 29th 2017, smoke in cockpit EVAS - Cockpit Smoke Protection Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk - Hard Landing (Afghanistan) A United Airlines jet narrowly missed a drone just before landing at Newark Liberty International Airport Lightning struck BA aircraft takes off after a week Luggage screening intensified after Australia airplane plot FAA probes drone flying near Albany airport approach path Woman sues American Airlines over 2016 emergency evacuation at PBIA FAA Admin. Huerta speaks on aviation safety, efficiency at event in Wisconsin If You Love Your Flight Attendant, Do Not Order Diet Coke Aero Electric Intros Four-Seat Airplane USS Gerald R. Ford's First Fixed-Wing Aircraft Launch (Video) Pratt's Woes With Engines Spur Compensation to Biggest User Boeing Moves Into Jet Controls, Setting Up Supplier Showdown THE SPACE JUNK PROBLEM IS ABOUT TO GET A WHOLE LOT GNARLIER Get Ahead With AQS ISASI 2017, San Diego CA...August 22 - 24. 2017 Incident: Volotea B712 at Venice on Jul 27th 2017, engine problem A Volotea Boeing 717-200, registration EI-EXJ performing flight V7-1368 from Venice (Italy) to Preveza (Greece) with 95 people on board, was climbing through FL210 out of Venice when the crew reported a system's problem with the right hand engine (BR715) and consulted with dispatch. The crew subsequently stopped the climb at FL290 and returned to Venice for a safe landing about 40 minutes after departure. The aircraft remained on the ground for about one hour, then departed again as flight V7-1368D and reached Preveza with a delay of 3 hours. http://avherald.com/h?article=4ac5a354&opt=0 Back to Top Incident: Moldova A320 at Chisinau on Jul 26th 2017, burst tyre on landing An Air Moldova Airbus A320-200, registration ER-AXP performing flight 9U-756 from Antalya (Turkey) to Chisinau (Moldova), landed on Chisinau's runway 26 but burst a left main gear tyre at a flat spot and an x-shaped fracture. The aircraft taxied to the apron, a runway inspection revealed debris on the runway. The occurrence aircraft remained on the ground for about 4 hours then departed for its next flight. http://avherald.com/h?article=4ac5a17e&opt=0 Back to Top Incident: JetairFly B738 at Brussels on Jul 29th 2017, flaps problem A JetairFly Boeing 737-800, registration OO-JAY performing flight TB-6386 from Rabat (Morocco) to Brussels Charleroi (Belgium), was on final approach to Charleroi Airport's runway 25 when the crew went around from about 1500 feet AGL reporting a problem with the flaps. The aircraft climbed to 4000 feet, diverted to Brussel's Zaventem Airport for the longer runways and landed safely on Zaventem's runway 25L at a higher than normal speed (about 160 knots over ground) about 30 minutes after the go-around. The occurrence aircraft remained on the ground for about 19 hours then returned to service. http://avherald.com/h?article=4ac59f5d&opt=0 Back to Top Incident: Etihad A346 at Mumbai on Jul 31st 2017, burst tyre on landing An Etihad Airbus A340-600, registration A6-EHI performing flight EY-204 from Abu Dhabi (United Arab Emirates) to Mumbai (India) with 196 passengers and 13 crew, landed on Mumbai's runway 27 but burst a number of tyres during roll out. The aircraft came to a stop on the runway and was disabled. The airport reported they needed to move operations to the secondary runway while the A340 being stuck at about the mid point of the runway was being prepared for tow until it could be towed off the runway. The occurrence aircraft remained on the ground for about 5 hours, then departed for the return flight EY-203 with a delay of about 2 hours. http://avherald.com/h?article=4ac59e27&opt=0 Back to Top Incident: ConocoPhillips B737 at Deadhorse on Jul 28th 2017, caribou strike A ConocoPhillips Aviation Boeing 737-700, flight CON-271 from Anchorage,AK to Deadhorse,AK (USA), landed on Deadhorse's runway 05 but collided with a caribou on the runway. The FAA reported the aircraft sustained unknown damage when it struck a caribou on landing in Deadhorse. ConocoPhillips operates two Boeing 737-700s registration N660CP and N668CP. http://avherald.com/h?article=4ac58610&opt=0 Back to Top Incident: SriLankan A332 near Colombo on Jul 30th 2017, LiOn battery pack catches fire in cabin A SriLankan Airlines Airbus A330-200, registration 4R-ALB performing flight UL-166 from Kochi (India) to Colombo (Sri Lanka) with 202 people on board, was enroute nearing the top of descent into Colombo when smoke was observed emanating from an overhead locker. The flight crew declared emergency while cabin crew fetched fire extinguishers, opened the locker and found a bag was emitting the smoke. The fire extinguishers were discharged into the bag, the flight attendants suspected a battery pack having caught fire the bag and its contents were subsequently put into a water filled container to cool down the batteries. The aircraft continued to Colombo for a safe landing. The airline reported a Lithium Ion mobile battery pack and two mobile phones were found in the bag. The flight attendants had brought the situation under control, an emergency evacuation therefore was not necessary and emergency services awaiting the aircraft in Colombo did not need to intervene. The occurrence aircraft is still on the ground in Colombo 33 hours after landing. http://avherald.com/h?article=4ac57436&opt=0 Back to Top Incident: Wizz A320 near Barcelona on Jul 29th 2017, smoke in cockpit A Wizz Air Airbus A320-200, registration HA-LYL performing flight W6-1476 from Barcelona,SP (Spain) to Warsaw (Poland), was climbing out of Barcelona when the crew stopped the climb at FL300 reporting smoke in the cockpit and returnedto Barcelona for a safe landing on runway 25R about 35 minutes after departure. The occurrence aircraft remained on the ground for about 22 hours, then departed again for the flight and reached Warsaw with a delay of 23 hours. http://avherald.com/h?article=4ac57709&opt=0 Back to Top Back to Top Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk - Hard Landing (Afghanistan) Date: 01-AUG-2017 Time: Type: Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk Owner/operator: US Army Registration: C/n / msn: Fatalities: Fatalities: 0 / Occupants: 2 Other fatalities: 0 Airplane damage: Substantial Location: near Achin district, Nangarhar province - Afghanistan Phase: En route Nature: Military Departure airport: Destination airport: Narrative: The helicopter sustained a hard land as a result of a technical failure. Both crew members sustained minor injuries. https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/wiki.php?id=197071 Back to Top A United Airlines jet narrowly missed a drone just before landing at Newark Liberty International Airport A United Airlines Boeing 767 On Sunday, a drone got dangerously close to a United Airlines jet that was attempting to land at Newark Liberty International Airport. Flight 135, a Boeing 767-400, was notified of a drone in its vicinity by air traffic control. Fortunately, the United pilots were able to monitor the drone's position and aircraft landed without incident. "Upon descent into Newark, air traffic control alerted the flight deck aboard United flight 135 of a drone in the vicinity of the runway," United said in a statement to Business Insider. "Our crew monitored the drone and landed the aircraft safely." According to the Federal Aviation Administration, the flight crew report seeing the drone two miles southwest of the airport around 11:55 am on Sunday. "Preliminary information shows that United Flight 135, a Boeing 767, reported a near mid- air collision with a white unmanned aircraft approximately two miles southwest of Newark," a FAA spokesman told Business Insider in an email. "The FAA notified the New Jersey State Police." According to the same spokesman, the FAA has launched an investigation into the incident. http://www.businessinsider.com/united-airlines-jet-missed-drone-landing-newark-airport- 2017-7 Back to Top Lightning struck BA aircraft takes off after a week Flights suffering lightning strikes is not uncommon. It remained grounded since July 22 at the Chennai airport and was parked at the secondary runway A British Airways aircraft on a scheduled flight from London to Chennai on July 22/23 suffered a lightning strike which led to the plane being grounded at Chennai airport. The incident is said to be the first of its kind at Chennai airport in recent times. Flight BA35, operated with one of the airline's Boeing 787-8 (G-ZBJG), left London's Heathrow airport on July 22 a little after 2 p.m. local time. Sometime after take-off, the jet was struck by lightning. The crew decided to continue flying and the flight landed at Chennai at 4.17 a.m. against its scheduled arrival time of 3.30 a.m., covering the distance of 8,242 km in a little over nine hours, non-stop. Damage to the aircraft was discovered after engineering checks at Chennai. The return flight, BA36, scheduled at 5.30 a.m on July 23 was cancelled, which the airline attributed to "a technical issue." As the plane was grounded for seven days and parked off at the airport's secondary runway, it led to speculation among aviation enthusiasts here that the damage was significant. The airframe of this futuristic, wide body twin engine aircraft, popularly called the Dreamliner, makes extensive use of carbon fibre composite materials. Lightning strikes to flights are not uncommon and aviation data shows that a plane can be struck by lightning every 1,000 to 3,000 flight hours. Though aircraft in general are extensively engineered to handle lighting strikes, a U.S.- based aviation expert said such an event can at times affect an aircraft's structural integrity and even damage its avionics and other electrically operated mechanisms. The extent and type of damage can differ depending on factors such as the energy level and duration of the lightning strike. Given the less conductive nature of composites when compared to an all metal aircraft, lightning protection systems are crucial. Crew awareness of a strike having occurred is equally important. Damage to a jetliner can vary as burn marks, holes, material damage and other structural issues, the expert added. Minor damage Confirming the incident to The Hindu, Victoria Madden, Duty press officer, British Airways, London, said, "The aircraft in question was affected by some minor damage after a lightning strike and we sent our own highly qualified engineers out to India to inspect it before it returns to service." Declining to comment on the technical details of the incident or the engineering plan, she said "the aircraft was returning to London to eventually return to service." The aircraft left Chennai for London on July 29 as BA 9159, at 12.55 p.m. It was flown on July 30 as BA103 London-Calgary. http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/chennai/lightning-struck-ba-aircraft-takes-off- after-a-week/article19398434.ece Back to Top Luggage screening intensified after Australia airplane plot Security remained heightened in airports around Australia with more intense screening of luggage after law enforcement officials thwarted what a police chief described on Monday as a "credible attempt to attack an aircraft." Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Border Protection Minister Peter Dutton declined to comment on newspaper reports that Islamist extremists planned to kill the occupants of a plane with poison gas and that a homemade bomb was to be disguised as a kitchen mincer. "Police will allege they had the intent and were developing the capability," Turnbull told Australian Broadcasting Corp. Turnbull announced on Sunday that "a terrorist plot to bring down an airplane" had been disrupted, but revealed few details. Four men arrested in raids in Sydney late Saturday - two Lebanese-Australian fathers and their sons - had yet to be charged. Australian Federal Police Commissioner Andrew Colvin said a court ruled Monday that the four could be detained without charge for seven days from their arrest under counterterrorism laws. "We believe we have disrupted a legitimate and credible attempt to attack an aircraft," Colvin told reporters without elaborating. Colvin has repeatedly described the threat as a "device," without mentioning whether it was explosive. "The plot that we are investigating we believe was an attempt to put a device onto an aircraft, but beyond that the speculation is just that - speculation," he said, adding that police had "many working theories." Colvin and the government will not comment on media reports that the suspects were not previously known to Australian security officials and that their arrests followed a tip from a foreign intelligence agency. "Australians can be assured that we have very fine intelligence services and we moved extremely quickly on this one and, as you can see, with the right outcomes," Turnbull said. The Australian newspaper cited multiple anonymous sources saying that the plotters were constructing a "non-traditional" explosive device that could have emitted a toxic, sulfur- based gas to kill or immobilize everyone on the aircraft. Sydney's The Daily Telegraph newspaper reported that the plotters planned to make a bomb from wood shavings and explosive material inside a piece of kitchen equipment such as a mincing machine. Police raided five homes Saturday and removed a domestic grinder and a mincer used to make sausage, the newspaper said. The plot involved smuggling the device onto a flight from Sydney to the Middle East, possibly Dubai, as carry-on luggage, the newspaper said. Fairfax Media reported that the bomb was found in a home in the inner-city suburb of Surry Hills, a few doors from the local mosque. Turnbull declined to say whether the group was guided by someone overseas. "It'll be alleged that that this was an Islamist extremist, terrorist motivation," the prime minister said. Dutton, the border protection minister, urged travelers to arrive at Australian airports two hours before domestic flights and three hours before international flights to allow time for more screening. Luggage should be kept to a minimum and those accompanying travelers should not enter secured parts of terminals. He declined to detail the threat that the security staff were searching for. "There'll be lots of speculation around what the intent was ... but I don't want to add to that," Dutton told Nine Network television. "Our focus now really is making sure that people who are planning a terrorist attack are thwarted." Security has been increased at Sydney Airport since Thursday because of the plot and has since been increased in all major Australian international and domestic terminals. Turnbull would not speculate on how long airport security would remain elevated. "They will be required for as long as the threat is assessed as requiring them," he said. Australia's terrorist threat level remained unchanged at "probable." Australia is a staunch ally of the United States and partner in military campaigns in the Middle East. The Islamic State group has highlighted Australia as a Western target. The plot was the 13th disrupted by police since Australia's terrorist threat level was elevated in 2014. Five plots have been executed. http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/australia-airport-securitys-stay-heighted- terror-plot-48941175 Back to Top FAA probes drone flying near Albany airport approach path The main runway at Albany International Airport is seen in this photo provided by the airport authority. The crew of an American Airlines flight on its final approach to Albany International Airport on Saturday afternoon reported seeing a drone flying at the same altitude as the jet. The flight, a CRJ700 regional aircraft operated by American's PSA unit, was 1,000 feet above ground south of the airport when the crew reported the drone at about 4:30 p.m. Sheriff's deputies were sent to the area where the drone was seen, but found nothing. Two drones certified to be flying were in other parts of the Capital Region at the time, said airport spokesman Doug Myers. The drone also was reported by the pilot of a Cessna 172, according to the Federal Aviation Administration, which said it is investigating the incident. It's not clear how close the drone came to either aircraft. http://www.timesunion.com/business/article/FAA-probes-drone-flying-near-Albany- airport-11720957.php Back to Top Woman sues American Airlines over 2016 emergency evacuation at PBIA An American Airlines flight was stopped on the tarmac at Palm Beach International Airport and evacuated using emergency slides Thursday, July 21, 2016. (Bruce R. Bennett / The Palm Beach Post) WEST PALM BEACH A New Jersey woman is suing American Airlines for negligence, claiming she was injured when she was forced to evacuate a Philadelphia-bound plane at Palm Beach International Airport last year after passengers smelled a foul odor. In the lawsuit filed in Palm Beach County Circuit Court, Linda Fanelli claims she slipped and fell during the emergency evacuation because hydraulic fuel was on the wing of the aircraft. She had to climb over the wing as part of the "panicked, disorganized evacuation" ordered by pilot Kenneth Chapline, wrote West Palm Beach attorney Jason Guari, who is representing Fanelli. While Chapline's actions were applauded by an aviation expert, Fanelli is suing the pilot along with the airline for an unspecified amount in damages. Both Chapline and the airline were negligent for not properly inspecting the plane before allowing 130 passengers to board, Guari claims. Chapline ordered the evacuation after passengers complained of a strong odor as the aircraft was readying for takeoff. Palm Beach County Fire Rescue reported taking 23 passengers and a flight attendant to area hospitals for treatment of minor injuries. Fire safety officials traced the smell to a leak in the plane's hydraulic system. Contacted by The Palm Beach Post after the July 21, 2016 incident, an aviation expert said Chapline did the right thing. "There's nothing more terrifying to a pilot than potential for fire," said Edward Booth, a Jacksonville-based pilot and attorney who specializes in aviation issues. "A strong odor of fuel or hydraulic fluid would easily justify an emergency evacuation. You can't second- guess a captain." In an email, American officials said they were aware of the lawsuit. "American is committed to providing a positive and safe travel experience to all of our customers," it said in the statement. "We are looking into the concerns raised by Ms. Fanelli, and will respond via the legal process." http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/crime--law/woman-sues-american-airlines-over- 2016-emergency-evacuation-pbia/FqNXZhUV0uPfCkSjTYO9lN/ Back to Top FAA Admin. Huerta speaks on aviation safety, efficiency at event in Wisconsin At a recent meeting of the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Administrator Michael Huerta highlighted the importance of public-private partnerships in efforts to enhance the aviation industry's safety and efficacy in its daily operations. Huerta stated the FAA was working to become a "more efficient and nimble organization" and that the agency has shifted its approach to how it certifies aircraft and equipment, specifically by defining safety goals and giving the industry the freedom to come up with innovative solutions. "The FAA is streamlining its processes so you can benefit from upgraded equipment, lower costs, and higher levels of safety," Huerta said. He continued, stating that partnership wasn't a two-way street and that if the industry was going to succeed in securing its own future, all involved needed to step up. The administrator pointed to a January 1, 2020 deadline for pilots to equip their aircraft with automatic dependent surveillance - broadcast (ADS-B), a surveillance technology in which an aircraft's location can be determined through satellite navigation and periodically broadcast it so it can be accurately tracked. Huerta noted the FAA is currently offering a $500 incentive to assist eligible aircraft owners offset the cost of installing the ADS-B system on their own planes. However, he said, the January 2020 deadline will not change. Huerta also spoke on the the agency's recent change to its medical certification requirements for pilots. Now, pilots can receive an exam with their own doctors and take an online medical education course in order to be qualified through a process called BasicMed. Prior to the change, pilots were required to see a certified Aviation Medical Examiner and obtain a third-class medical certificate before receiving qualified status. "There's this misperception out there that dealing with our medical team is the first step toward losing your license. Nothing could be further from the truth," Huerta said. "In fact, we approve the majority of the requests we receive for special issuance medical certificates. We're not adversaries. We want you to be able to keep flying. We just want to work with you to figure out a way to do it safely." https://transportationtodaynews.com/news/4685-faa-admin-huerta-speaks-aviation- safety-efficiency-event-wisconsin/ Back to Top If You Love Your Flight Attendant, Do Not Order Diet Coke They pour it happily, but it requires extra effort. You may think all beverages are equally bad on a plane, but it turns out one type of drink is extra irksome to your cabin crew. Diet Coke is difficult to pour in the sky because it foams up more than non-diet drinks, according to a recent post on the flight attendant blog These Gold Wings. We checked with other flight attendants, who confirmed the struggle is real. Among them was Heather Poole, an American Airlines flight attendant who wrote about the phenomenon in a 2012 article for Mental Floss. "[Diet Coke is] the most annoying beverage a flight attendant can pour for a passenger in flight, because in the time it takes us to fill one cup, we could have served an entire row of passengers," Poole wrote. "I've actually had nightmares about frantically trying to finish a never ending Diet Coke beverage service before landing." Pouring the drink is such a struggle that These Gold Wings demonstrated a "smart way" to avoid all the fizz in a 2013 video: Many soda fans note Diet Coke is fizzier than regular Coke even on the ground, theorizing that its lack of sugar makes for a less viscous liquid, allowing bubbles to last longer before popping. A Coke spokeswoman declined to share scientific specifics with HuffPost, but hinted that Diet Coke's ingredients could be the cause of its extra bubbles. Pouring the drink over ice only increases fizziness. "The amount of bubbles across different sparkling beverages is related to the specific recipe versus the altitude in which they are poured," the spokesperson told HuffPost. "Generally, when sparkling beverages are poured at room temperature from a can and over ice, the fizz is increased." According to Southwest Airlines flight attendant Stephanie Mikel, the effect occurs in all diet drinks. "Any diet or zero calorie soda fizzes more than the regular kind," she told HuffPost. But "obviously, if it's something someone wants, I would never get upset over that. You learn quickly which [sodas] you need to pour from a high angle and slowly." Some airlines hand out entire cans of soda, Jay Robert of Fly Guy noted (and you might even score one on a non-can airline, if you ask nicely.) With luck, you'll be able to experience this phenomenon for yourself! http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/diet-soda-on- planes_us_59763b13e4b0a8a40e81303c Back to Top Aero Electric Intros Four-Seat Airplane Aero Electric Aircraft Corp. plans to build a four-seat version of its all-electric airplane, the company announced at EAA AirVenture this week. The Sun Flyer 4 will have a payload of 800 pounds for pilot and passengers, the company said. "The four-seat airplane will have operating costs five times lower than costs associated with similar combustion-engine aircraft," said George Bye, CEO of AEAC. "With four hours of flying time, the versatile Sun Flyer 4 will appeal to both flight schools and pilot-owners." Spartan College, which has placed 25 deposits for the two-seat Sun Flyer 2, also made the first deposit for a Sun Flyer 4. Spartan plans to develop a complete training system for the Sun Flyer aircraft, AEAC said, including a course for airframe and powerplant technicians that will feature specialized training for the all-electric system. AEAC has built a proof-of-concept prototype of its two-seat Sun Flyer, which was on display this week at Oshkosh. The company says they plan to certify the airplane under FAR Part 23. AEAC projects the energy cost for Sun Flyer 2 will be only about $1 of electricity for each hour of flight, compared to $25 to $65 per hour for leaded avgas. The two-seat Sun Flyer prototype will soon begin power-on tests at its home station at Centennial Airport near Denver, the company said this week. It began taxi tests last year. https://www.avweb.com/avwebflash/news/Aero-Electric-Intros-Four-Seat-Airplane- 229419-1.html Back to Top USS Gerald R. Ford's First Fixed-Wing Aircraft Launch (Video) Back to Top Pratt's Woes With Engines Spur Compensation to Biggest User * India's biggest airline IndiGo to buy planes instead of lease * IndiGo received 22 A320neos instead of promised 36 so far An undelivered IndiGo Airbus A320neo jet Photographer: Balint Porneczi/Bloomberg IndiGo, India's biggest airline, said it received compensation from Pratt & Whitney as the manufacturer struggles to fix glitches in engines that power Airbus SE's new A320neo jets. The nature of the compensation from Pratt & Whitney is confidential, the airline's Chief Financial Officer Rohit Philip said Monday after the airline reported first-quarter profits. The carrier is not happy with the engine issues and it may take one and a half years to sort out the issue, IndiGo President Aditya Ghosh said on a conference call Monday. "We continue to have a higher number of engine removals, and sufficient spare engines have not been available," he said. "The operational disruptions are quite challenging, and we are not happy with that situation." Pratt & Whitney declined to comment Monday, while referring back to comments last week by Akhil Johri, chief financial officer of parent company United Technologies Corp. Johri said the manufacturer is confident it's getting a handle on the problems and still expects to hit a 2017 delivery target of 350 to 400 engines. He said Pratt & Whitney is incorporating revised carbon seals to address a durability issue and should have a fix by October for a separate glitch with the combustor liner. The airline, operated by InterGlobe Aviation Ltd., was forced to ground as many nine new A320neo jets on some days, Ghosh said. It may be a year or so before Pratt & Whitney implements design changes to the geared turbofan, he said. The groundings, which emerged in recent months, are holding back IndiGo's push to add capacity to maintain its domestic market share of more than 40 percent amid a travel boom triggered by an emerging middle-class flying for the first time. The airline, India's biggest and the world's top customer for the A320neo, has said in the past it will consider a rival engine manufactured by CFM International, an alliance of General Electric Co. and Safran SA, if glitches persist with the Pratt & Whitney engines. Pratt Confidence While he acknowledged the issues are affecting customers, Johri said last week that "we feel GTF problems are understood and behind us to a large extent, from a production point of view." India has the largest fleet of A320neos and the country's aviation regulator earlier this year ordered two airline operators to inspect powerplants with over 1,000 hours of service. Pratt has been working to fix durability issues and production snags that have hampered the debut of the engine, which was selected to power new jets from Airbus, Bombardier Inc. and Embraer SA. Forced Leasing "A320neos have not been delivered as per the plan with Airbus," airline CFO Philip said, adding it is hurting the company's profitability. "To make up for the shortfall, we had to go to the aircraft-leasing market, and had to enter into short-term leases for used A320s." India is a crucial market for both Airbus and Pratt, with IndiGo having ordered 430 of the A320neo jets, of which 22 have been delivered. Go Airlines India Ltd. has five in operation and was awaiting deliveries of 139 more. State-run Air India Ltd. and Vistara, the local affiliate of Singapore Airlines Ltd., also fly A320neos, but they are powered by CFM engines. IndiGo, controlled by billionaire founders Rahul Bhatia and Rakesh Gangwal, will begin owning aircraft, purchasing them using cash in hand, in a move away from a sale-and- leaseback model it has followed so far, Philip said. New aircraft will be in service for more than the typical six years that the carrier now sees and will enable the airline to cut down on leased planes, the company said. "We are shifting our fleet acquisition policy to allow us to reduce our operating costs, which will result in higher profitability in the longer term," Philip said. IndiGo said it had total cash of 101.8 billion rupees ($1.6 billion) as of June. Profit for the quarter ended June 30 rose 37 percent to 8.1 billion rupees, the company said Monday. IndiGo has made money every year since at least the period starting April 2009, even as the Indian airline industry lost a combined $10 billion over a similar period. IndiGo shares rose 0.4 percent to close at 1,290 rupees in Mumbai. They have risen 57 percent this year, compared with a 22 percent advance in the benchmark S&P BSE Sensex index. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-31/pratt-pays-top-a320neo- customer-compensation-as-glitches-persist Back to Top Boeing Moves Into Jet Controls, Setting Up Supplier Showdown * New unit would potentially compete with Rockwell, Honeywell * CEO says greater 'vertical capability' will enhance offerings Boeing Co. is creating a new unit that develops avionics for its commercial and military aircraft, a move that potentially pits the planemaker against suppliers such as Rockwell Collins Inc. and Honeywell International Inc. Rockwell Collins posted the biggest decline in almost six years on the news that its second-largest customer is planning a rival product lineup. Boeing Avionics will focus on navigation, flight controls, information systems and other technology with a goal of bringing goods to market next decade, the Chicago-based company told employees Monday. The move is part of a strategic shift as Boeing tries to reap cash across the life span of a jetliner, even if it risks straining supplier ties. The manufacturer is bringing more work in- house as it studies whether to make or buy thousands of aircraft components. Boeing Global Services, a new division founded July 1, is expanding into higher-margin maintenance and spare-parts sales -- a traditional source of profit for its subcontractors. "Our new avionics organization continues our strategy to build targeted vertical capability so that we can further drive cost down and value up for our customers, in all phases of a product's life cycle," Boeing Chief Executive Officer Dennis Muilenburg said in the internal announcement Monday. The new business unit will grow to a workforce of about 600 by 2019 from the current 120. Rockwell Collins fell 6.3 percent to $106.53 at the close in New York, the most since August 2011. The Cedar Rapids, Iowa-based supplier of cabin equipment and avionics said it did "not anticipate any impact to our business in the foreseeable future" from Boeing's strategy. 'Collaborative Relationship' "We continue to enjoy a strong, collaborative relationship with Boeing on its current programs, and remain committed to working together to deliver innovation, quality and value to meet its customers' needs," Rockwell Collins said in a statement. Boeing advanced less than 1 percent to $242.46. Honeywell, another producer of avionics, fell 0.5 percent to $136.12. Honeywell didn't respond to a request for comment. "Is Boeing pushing too hard? Our current answer is 'no' but this is something to watch in the months and years ahead," Seth Seifman, an analyst at JPMorgan Chase & Co., said in a report Monday before Boeing's announcement. "The company is seeking more of the value available in the aerospace industry, in part through the aftermarket, and this has the potential to disrupt supplier business models." The new Boeing unit is led by Allan Brown, a 30-year veteran who most recently headed the company's missile-defense national team. He reports to Greg Hyslop, the chief technology officer and senior vice president for engineering test and technology. Dreamliner Delays Boeing has shifted away from the reliance on outsourcing that dominated its strategy for more than a decade after a 1997 merger with McDonnell Douglas Corp. Focused at the time on return on net assets, Boeing shed its previous internal avionics group and a major manufacturing hub in Wichita, Kansas. The strategy culminated in the global supplier network that designed and built much of the 787 Dreamliner, struggling to meet Boeing's standards and deadlines. After the carbon-composite plane fell more than three years behind schedule, the world's largest planemaker shifted course this decade to handle more factory work itself. Read more: Boeing's cash gush wins over 'late to the party' stock pickers The company spent more than $1 billion on a new center to build composite wings for its 777X, while ramping up work on propulsion engineering, actuators and other components once handled by suppliers. Boeing currently produces some avionics equipment, including vehicle-management systems, secure computing systems and signal intelligence for its commercial and government divisions, according to the announcement. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-31/boeing-pivots-into-jet-controls- setting-up-a-supplier-showdown Back to Top THE SPACE JUNK PROBLEM IS ABOUT TO GET A WHOLE LOT GNARLIER NASA/JSC/ORBITAL DEBRIS PROGRAM OFFICE FOR A FEW months in the fall of 1957, citizens of Earth could look up and see the first artificial star. It shone as bright as Spica, but moved across the sky at a much faster clip. Lots of people thought they were seeing Sputnik-Russia's antennaed, spherical satellite, and the first thing humans had flung into orbit. But it wasn't: It was the body of the rocket that bore Sputnik to space-and Earth's first piece of space junk. Space junk is the colloquial name for orbital bits that do nothing useful: spent rockets, fragments splayed by collisions and degradation, old satellites no one cares about anymore. In total, they amount to millions of pieces of debris, many of which are large enough to seriously ding satellites and the International Space Station. And then there's Kessler Syndrome: a space sickness in which low-Earth orbit is so overpopulated that collisions cascade into more collisions, which create more debris that causes more collisions that cascade into more collisions. It's all very bad for Sandra Bullock. And it's about to get worse: Thousands and thousands of satellites are set to launch to low-Earth orbit before 2025. This is not a new problem: Since Sputnik, Russians and non-Russians have already launched thousands of satellites: orbiters that send you Game of Thrones, track global climate, and even track you. Nation-states have developed systems to know where they are and where they're going, along with all their leftover launch paraphernalia. But it will get much more complicated when the Smallsat Revolution fully arrives. In the US, two governmental offices share that daunting task: a NASA group and the military's US Strategic Command-USSTRATCOM, if you feel like yelling an acronym that will automatically make you sound like a sergeant-keeps track of 24,000 objects, down to about 10 centimeters in size. Some 18,700 of these are publicly listed at Space Track (the rest are for the Department of Defense to know and you never to find out). Stratcom gets intel from its Space Surveillance Network-a murder of optical and radar instruments that senses space objects. All that data sluices into uber-bunker Cheyenne Mountain, which processes their streams. Those teams know even more data is coming, as the number of active satellites in orbit grows by at least tenfold by the mid 2020s. So they are working on new sensors, says the command's Brian Maguire. A radar system called the "S-Band Space Fence," located in the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands, will operate at high, microwave frequencies (the S-band part), allowing it to detect smaller objects. Microwaves for microsats (and micro trash), in other words. The US and Australia also recently spooled up a C-band (even higher-frequency) radar in March of this year, which sees space objects in even finer detail. The military plans to do more of that: share, team up with companies and other countries that run their own "space situational awareness" operations. And that's a good thing: Last year, the 18th Space Control Squadron had to deliver 3,995,874 pieces of potentially bad news: "conjunction data messages" that let satellite owners know some other sat or sizable junk was threatening theirs. NASA The Department of Defense lets NASA sweat the small stuff, though. The space agency formed its Orbital Debris Program Office in 1979, and that office is responsible for characterizing objects too small to be tracked by the Air Force but big enough to cause problems. NASA uses two radar systems operated by MIT's Lincoln Laboratory for about 1,000 hours a year to understand the population of millimeter-to-centimeter-sized objects in low-Earth orbit. That schedule that will likely get busier, along with the number of close encounters. Space Jam Just how much bigger will the problem get? SpaceX alone plans to send up nearly 12,000 small internet-beaming objects over time. OneWeb has designs on some 700 similar sats. Planet just launched around 100 that take pictures of the Earth's entire landmass every day. And those are just the heaviest hitters. Little orbiters-especially the smallest types, CubeSats and NanoSats-are within reach of research scientists, government agency experiments, smaller companies, and even individual humans. Take the private Breakthrough Starshot project, which eventually plans to send diminutive spacecraft to Alpha Centauri star system (really). It just launched six "Sprites": the world's smallest satellites, measuring 3.5 centimeters on a side. All of those satellite operators are in charge of making sure what they sent up comes back down, in a timely way. Bigsat operators can just use the last of their fuel to plunge their darlings toward the ocean. But many smallsats, especially the smallest kinds, don't have propulsion systems. To naturally "de-orbit" fast, they have to be in an orbit that naturally decays quickly-an ellipse in which atmospheric drag drags them back to Earth fast. Some smallsat operators are planning to put propulsion systems aboard. Great! But that poses another problem: explosions. If there's pressurized fuel, there's always the possibility for paroxysm. Which means more debris. And problematically, most members of a given smallsat constellation have the same exact specs-and so the same flaws. If one sat's propulsion system has critical personality defects, so too do its identical siblings. When that happens with cars, automakers recall them. When that happens in space, a bunch of satellites can explode. And that's not just true for their movement-making parts: It's also true of satellite batteries. Just ask Samsung. The international timeline for self-destruction, originally set by NASA's Orbital Debris Program Office, is that 25 years after the operational life of a satellite ends, it should burn up in the atmosphere. That's the goal for new launchers, to limit how much bigger they make the pile of space trash. NASA calls it "mitigation." But you can't admonish all those bolts and rocket cores and paint chips and, you know, junk that's already out there. And you can't guilt non-operational satellites into getting down from there (you can take them down, but more on that later). The idea, at this point, is just to make what's bad only as worse as necessary. On top of that, countries don't have to enforce the 25-year guideline. In 2015, 35 percent of satellites were out of compliance. Of all CubeSats, specifically, launched between 2003 and 2014, a fifth didn't meet the criteria. Know why? It's hard. It costs money. And, for the most part, no one makes them do it. There's good news, though, for at least the heftiest of the coming smallsat herds: "Both SpaceX and OneWeb have indicated at that end of the operation of their spacecraft, they plan to lower the orbits so the orbits will naturally decay in [less than] five years rather than 25 years," says the program's J.C. Liou. But that still leaves unregulated rogues up there, endlessly circling, dead and dangerous. Space and Space Nets to the Rescue Slacker satellites-ones that haven't prepared for mitigation-get a bit of a reprieve, thanks to some quirky orbital properties. "Like a river, like the atmosphere, space can clean itself," says Lisa Ruth Rand, a science historian writing a book about space junk. During solar maximum, which happens every 11 years, the thermosphere heats up and expands, pressing its particles against objects in near-space, where many small satellites operate. That creates extra friction. "It drags them back to the atmosphere," says Rand. But there's always gotta be equal-and-opposite bad news, right? Recent research suggests that human-added CO2 is cooling the thermosphere, and so contracting it. "This contraction, in turn, will reduce atmospheric drag on satellites and may have adverse consequences for the orbital debris environment that is already unstable," wrote the authors of a 2012 Nature Geoscience paper. Since Earth is having a harder time taking satellites down, governments and companies may instead opt for more "remediation": forcing satellites to fall. It's something experts from space agencies in the Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee have said will need to happen regardless of how well newsat makers behave. NASA did not want to talk about this option. But a 2006 study by Liou himself showed that if no one launched anything else, which Elon would never agree to, collisions would increase the number of debris pieces 10-centimeter and larger, even considering objects that de-orbit, starting around 2055. And that was using the satellite population 11 years ago. But remediation remains politically fraught, which is likely why NASA stayed mum. In 2007, for instance, China decided to de-orbit one of its defunct weather satellites ... by firing a missile at it. That certainly took the sat out of its path-but it also created a flume of debris that flung toward the Space Station in 2011. In February 2008, the US Navy launched its own projectile at a spy satellite toward its own satellite. The government claimed to worry that if it let the satellite fall back intact, its hydrazine fuel could release toxic vapors at breathing level. But some, at the time and still, interpret the action militarily. "That exchange right there was a 'Hey, look at us,'" says Rand. "China is saying, 'We can take down a satellite,' and the US is saying, 'We can do it, too.'" That, of course, is gun-flexing: It implies, "...and we can also take down yours." Not all remediation has to be so violent. Scientists have proposed focusing the sun's radiation onto small junk, and vaporizing it, in the adultspace version of the magnifying- glass-and-ant gig. The European Space Agency's e.Deorbit program would like to grab junk-with a net or robotic arm-and then send it to its fiery end in the atmosphere. One could also use a space harpoon. However the spacefarers of the world choose to bring down their satellites-naturally, or with lethal force-one thing is clear: You should keep an eye out for the synthetic meteor showers of the future, as the CubeSats and paint chips of near-space rain back down onto the atmosphere. https://www.wired.com/story/the-space-junk-problem-is-about-to-get-a-whole-lot- gnarlier/ Back to Top ISASI 2017, San Diego CA August 22 - 24. 2017 The International Society of Air Safety Investigators (ISASI) will hold their 48th annual seminar at the Sheraton San Diego Hotel & Marina from August 22 - 24, 2017. This year's theme is: "Investigations - Do They Really Make a Difference?" All up to date information including the link for registration and hotel reservations can be found at www.isasi.org. Dates to Remember Early Registration rate cut off is midnight July 5, 2017 PDT Seminar rate at the hotel will end on July 27. After that date there will be no guarantee that rooms will be available. We look forward to seeing many of you in San Diego Curt Lewis