Flight Safety Information April 3, 2018 - No. 067 In This Issue ARGUS 2018 TRAINING COURSES Incident: Blue B733 at Cluj on Apr 1st 2018, bird strike Accident: KLM B722 over Atlantic on Apr 1st 2018, severe turbulence injures 4 Cessna 525 CitationJet Collides with Cessna 150 (Indiana) Hawaii airline pilots report pair of mid-air near misses with drones A New Method to Protect Aircraft From Lightning Strikes? 'Flight Deck LIBIK - Lithium-Ion Battery Incident Kit B.C-based Orca Airways has been bought by Alberta Integra Air UPS Pilots Complain About Shortage of Airplanes GRADUATE RESEARCH SURVEY - 1 GRADUATE RESEARCH SURVEY - 2 Incident: Blue B733 at Cluj on Apr 1st 2018, bird strike A Blue Air Boeing 737-300, registration YR-BAP performing flight 0B-3102 from Cluj to Bucharest Otopeni (Romania), was in the initial climb out of Cluj's runway 25 when the left hand engine (CFM56) ingested a bird and emitted a large bang followed by streaks of flame and sparks. The crew stopped the climb at 9000 feet and returned to Cluj for a safe landing on runway 25 about 30 minutes after departure. Passengers reported almost immediately after the aircraft became airborne there was a loud bang from the left hand engines followed by strong vibrations, flames and sparks from the left hand engine. The crew announced the engine was shut down, they are going to burn off fuel and return to Cluj. The airline reported the aircraft departed in perfect condition and needed to return due to an engine problem. A post flight inspection revealed, also seen on the photo provided, the engine ingested at least one foreign object, a bird or large animal. A ground observer reported the engine was also leaking fuel upon landing back (see photos below). Ground observer photos: http://avherald.com/h?article=4b6da161&opt=256 Back to Top Accident: KLM B722 over Atlantic on Apr 1st 2018, severe turbulence injures 4 A KLM Boeing 777-200, registration PH-BQI performing flight KL-622 (dep Mar 31st) from Atlanta,GA (USA) to Amsterdam (Netherlands), was enroute over the Atlantic Ocean when the aircraft suffered severe turbulence causing injuries to two passengers and two flight attendants. After assessment of the injuries the crew decided to continue the flight to Amsterdam, descending towards Amsterdam the crew requested medical assistance available at landing advising there was one should injury and one wheelchair being needed for transport. The aircraft landed safely in Amsterdam. The injured were provided with medical care at Amsterdam. The aircraft departed for the next flight about 5.5 hours after landing. http://avherald.com/h?article=4b6dcb7a&opt=256 Back to Top Cessna 525 CitationJet Collides with Cessna 150 (Indiana) Date: 02-APR-2018 Time: 17:09 Type: Cessna 525 CitationJet Owner/operator: Registration: C/n / msn: Fatalities: Fatalities: 0 / Occupants: 5 Other fatalities: 2 Airplane damage: Substantial Location: Marion Municipal Airport (KMZZ), Marion, IN - United States of America Phase: Landing Nature: Unknown Departure airport: Destination airport: Marion Muni. (KMZZ) Narrative: Two aircraft, a Cessna 150 and a Cessna 525 CitationJet, collided with two confirmed fatalities in Grant County at Marion Municipal Airport (KMZZ), Marion, Indiana. The Cessna 150 was partially consumed by the post-impact fire and the two occupants were fatally injured. The Cessna CitationJet sustained substantial damage and the five occupants onboard were apparently not injured. https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/wiki.php?id=208685 Back to Top Hawaii airline pilots report pair of mid-air near misses with drones Two near misses with drones have rattled Hawaii airline pilots in recent weeks, and the Federal Aviation Administration confirms they're concerned with the increased number of reported drone sightings nationwide. In 2015, the number of reported sightings was about 1,200. That number grew to about 1,800 in 2016, then increased again to about 2,200 in 2017. Just last week in Hawaii, there were two close encounters on the same day: Mokulele Airlines pilots filed reports with the FAA after two near misses with a drone during their approach into the Daniel K. Inouye International Airport. The pilots say they were flying at around 2,000 feet when a drone passed over their aircraft, within 200 to 400 feet. "I think the users are trying to get some up close and personal pictures of the airplanes from their drones, and what they really don't realize is this is not a game. This is putting people's lives at risk," said Stephen Fredrick, a Mokulele Airlines captain and the company's director of safety. The two incidents took place over Punchbowl and the freeway near the University of Hawaii at Manoa, while the planes were traveling at approximately 300 feet per second - much too fast, Frederick says, to spot something and avoid a collision. "The bottom line is that whether you are a model aircraft pilot or a Part 107 drone pilot, you have to operate safely and not fly in a way that poses a danger to manned aircraft," said Ian Gregor, an FAA spokesperson. "It's imperative that all drone operators must get authorization to fly in controlled airspace." Pilots are afraid viral videos, like a recent one that captured a drone flying within feet of an aiplane landing at McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas, are promoting bad behavior. "This might be a growing trend, and it's something that we're very concerned about because a drone hitting an airplane that's moving at 180 miles an hour can do an awful lot of damage," said Frederick. "It can come through the wind screen, it can impact the leading edge or the tail and do some significant damage and cause some significant problems for the pilot." FAA officials say they believe most drone operators want to fly safely, but have little to no prior aviation experience and may not be aware of what they can and cannot do. That's why they've launched an education initiative with a free app called: "B4UFly". The program shows drone users whether it's safe to fly in their current or planned location and explains that they need to contact air traffic control before flying in controlled airspace. "Drone operators have to understand that as soon as they start flying outside, they are pilots with the responsibility to operate safely, just like pilots of manned aircraft," said Gregor. There are serious consequences if federal officials believe a drone operator is purposefully flying unsafe. For individuals, it's a fine of up to $1,400 or for businesses that's more than $32,000 per violation. However, federal criminal penalties could also include fines of up to $250,000 and three years in prison. As for the reported collision between a drone and a tour helicopter on Kaua'i earlier this year, FAA officials say that while they do believe the pilot's account, they say they have not been able to find any conclusive evidence that it was a drone strike. http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/story/37861846/local-airline-pilots-report-pair-of-mid-air-near-misses- with-drones Back to Top A New Method to Protect Aircraft From Lightning Strikes? Boeing, lightning, MIT While the possibility of an aircraft being struck by lightning is rare and does not present a threat to flight crews or pilots, aircraft manufacturers are looking to improve their current level of understanding of the interaction between aircraft and lightning. A new study published by several researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's (MIT) department of aeronautics presents a theory that providing aircraft with a mechanism for becoming more electrically charged internally when the threat of a lightning strike is present would actually reduce their risk of being struck by lightning. The study proposes a theory that an onboard system could better protect an aircraft from a lightning strike by electrically charging it - a theory that the researchers admit seems counterintuitive on its surface. Their theory stems from their analysis of what occurs when an aircraft flies through an ambient electric field. According to the experts, the aircraft's external electrical state becomes more polarized with one end of the aircraft becoming more positively charged and the other becoming more negatively charged. The increased state of polarization can set off a positive leader, which the researchers describe as a highly conductive flow of plasma that can serve as a preceding stage to a lightning strike. The proposed onboard system would provide a temporary charge for the aircraft to a negative level in an effort to reduce the highly charged positive end and therefore preventing the positive charged end from reaching too critical of a level and initiating a lightning strike. "The idea is to have electric field sensors on the aircraft that continuously monitor the electrical environment the vehicle is subjected to. From these measurements, onboard algorithms would determine the risk of a strike and the net charge level of the aircraft required to improve the situation," said Carmen Guerra Garcia, an assistant professor of aeronautics and astronautics at MIT told Avionics. "The onboard controller would then command the actuators (ion emitters that can charge the aircraft) to drive the aircraft to the optimum net charge level, that which keeps equal safety margins for the positive and negative leader, thereby reducing the risk of a strike." Garcia, a former research engineer for Boeing's European research and technology unit, said that the work published in the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Journal is theoretical. The group is currently experimenting with the actuators and testing them in laboratory scale experiments to provide proof of concept that they can, in fact, charge a model aircraft to desired levels. This idea is based on the physics of lightning initiation: where a positive leader initiates the process and is shortly thereafter followed by a negative leader. According to Guerra Garcia, the group is using a numerical model of the electrostatics of an aircraft in the presence of an atmospheric electric field. Using some net charge and physical threshold criteria, they're trying to determine under what conditions the leader discharges will be triggered. The FAA estimates that on average, in-service commercial aircraft are struck by lightning once per year. However, a lightning strike poses very little danger to aircraft on board flight-critical avionics computers or passengers and flight crews inside, as the airplanes are required by internationally accepted standards to be able to withstand external electrical activity. When lightning strikes do occur, a follow- up inspection and safety check are required. MIT's researchers also point out that the nonmetallic composite structures being increasingly incorporated on newer airframes could make them more vulnerable to lightning-related derange compared to older all-metal airframes. "There is no safety concern; aircraft are adequately protected so that a lightning strike poses no risk," said Guerra Garcia. "However, a lightning arc is a high temperature plasma channel that delivers very high currents in short times, and therefore adequate electromagnetic shielding of the electronics systems is needed." Currently, one of the preliminary experiments an MIT graduate student is performing is testing the feasibility of charging to prevent lightning strikes on a metallic sphere within MIT's Wright Brothers Wind Tunnel. In the future, the researchers want to carry out experiments within more realistic environments, such as by flying a drone through a thunderstorm. Based on the latest mathematical modeling MIT has done, a key issue it is focusing on is speeding up the response time of the electrical charging system, according to Emeritus Professor Manuel Martinez- Sanchez. The current modeling shows that the proposed system could protect an aircraft within fractions of a second, which would not be fast enough to protect against some forms of triggered lightning. "The study is at an early stage, so it is still early to say whether such an onboard system could be incorporated into future airplane designs. The implementation of this strategy requires a significant improvement in current modeling capabilities of the physics, since the onboard algorithms would need to have predictive capability of when leaders are about to occur. This is not possible now, but we are working on the more theoretical aspects of the problem to improve our current understanding," said Guerra Garcia. http://www.aviationtoday.com/2018/04/02/new-way-protecting-aircraft-lightning-strikes/ Back to Top Back to Top B.C-based Orca Airways has been bought by Alberta Integra Air Orca Airways plane. Photo Christine McAvoy On March 15th we published this story about Orca Airways' flight certificate being revoked by Transport Canada. The department says it took the action in the interest of public safety due to Orca's repeated non- compliance with aviation safety regulations. They identified several areas where the company was not meeting regulatory requirements including maintenance, operational control, documentation and quality assurance. The department stated it would not allow Orca Airways to resume its commercial air service until it proved it can keep its operations consistently compliant with aviation safety regulations. Calgary-based Integra Air came in to assist Orca on March 15th, and in a March statement their CEO said "Integra Air is currently in the process of negotiating aircraft, crews and management to support Orca Airways and prevent any further interruption to Orca passengers and customers". Rather than going through the rigorous process of working up to compliance, it appears as though Orca has decided to throw in the towel. Integra has yet to make a public statement but in a call to the company today we were told that they acquired Orca roughly three weeks ago and are continuing to operate their routes to Vancouver Island, seemingly without missing a beat. Integra's branding on the flyorcaair.com website also confirms this. A representative for the company also let us know that no staff have lost their jobs and in fact the company is in the process of hiring more pilots. http://www.richmond-news.com/news/b-c-based-orca-airways-has-been-bought-by-alberta-integra-air- 1.23251368 Back to Top UPS Pilots Complain About Shortage of Airplanes * Aviators seek arbitration over use of third-party contractors * Courier says it needs more capacity while awaiting new planes United Parcel Service Inc. was already in trouble with Wall Street over a long-term investment plan to cope with soaring e-commerce. Now the company is clashing with its pilots union because of a short- term fix for the same challenge. Aviators are angry that UPS has turned to third-party cargo airlines to help make up for a shortage of aircraft capacity. Accusing UPS of years of poor planning and insufficient investment, the Independent Pilots Association has complained to an industry arbitrator that the courier is violating its labor contract by outsourcing flying that should be done by its own pilots. Package Goods UPS owns 240 freighter planes and leases more for the peak holiday season "On a daily basis, our pilots operate a system chronically short on aircraft and strained to the breaking point," union spokesman Brian Gaudet said. The dispute underscores the pressure on UPS to keep pace with the rise in online shopping, which is fueling record demand for its delivery services. The Atlanta-based courier has contracted with Western Global Airlines and 21 Air to provide and fly a total of seven aircraft, the union told its 2,700 members Feb. 22 in a memo seen by Bloomberg News. UPS acknowledged it's hiring outside contractors, declining to identify the companies. The courier said it was leasing planes to be flown by UPS crews and also having third parties fly their own planes on the company's behalf. Western Global, based in Estero, Florida, and Greensboro, North Carolina-based 21 Air didn't reply to requests for comments. 'Bridging the Gap' The extra help is needed in "bridging the gap" ahead of a major fleet expansion, UPS said in a statement. The company said it was in discussions with the union about the pilots' complaints. "We believe it is in everyone's best interest to resolve our issues through internal dispute-resolution procedures," the company said. The capacity shortage came to the fore during the 2017 holiday season, when record demand briefly overwhelmed operations. That forced the company to increase overtime as it rushed to complete shipments on time. On Feb. 1, UPS pledged to spend an extra $7 billion through 2020 on an aggressive expansion and modernization program that includes automating warehouses and buying additional Boeing Co. 747 and 767 freighters. The shares tumbled that day by the most in a year as investors questioned why it wasn't raising prices more steeply to compensate for higher costs. UPS fell 12 percent this year through March 29, compared with the 3.8 percent drop for rival FedEx Corp. and a 2 percent decline for a Standard & Poor's index of industrial companies. Contract Allegation Using third-party airlines for longer than 45 days in a year violates UPS's labor contract with its pilots, the union said in its memo. It's asked an arbitrator to determine if the company owes its pilots money damages, among other actions. UPS hasn't said how long it will continue using the subcontractors. Rules laying out who can fly for an airline and when are common throughout pilot contracts in so-called scope clauses, said Dan Akins of aviation consultant Flightpath Economics. Pilots fight to defend their work. "I would say scope is section one of every contract, because that's protected work," Akins said. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-02/ups-seen-at-breaking-point-as-pilots-lament- too-few-aircraft Back to Top GRADUATE RESEARCH SURVEY - 1 International airline pilot and 39-year veteran of flying, Karlene Petitt, has instructed pilots on Boeing aircraft for over 21 years, and holds type ratings on B777, A330, B747-400, B747-200, B767, B757, B737, and B727. She is working on her PhD in Aviation with a focus on safety at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. Petitt is researching the impact of training, aircraft understanding, safety culture, aviation passion, and manual flight tendencies, to better understand the impact on performance. If the pilot is always blamed for errors, the underlying factors may never be identified. The survey will take approximately 10-15 minutes and is anonymous. If you fly for a commercial operation, with a two (or more) person crew (corporate, charter, or airline) please visit http://petittaviationresearch.com to learn more and access the link to the survey that can be found at the bottom of the page. If you know any commercial pilot who qualifies, please share this link with them: http://petittaviationresearch.com The more pilots you send this to, the more impact we can make. Thank you! Karlene Petitt MBA. MHS. Doctoral Candidate Aviation ERAU Typed: B777, A330, B747-400, B747-200, B767, B757, B737, B727, http://karlenepetitt.blogspot.com Back to Top GRADUATE RESEARCH SURVEY - 2 Dear Participant: Graduate students at Lewis University have invited you to participate in a research project entitled: Evaluating, Attitudes, and Opinions on the Cyber Threat Vulnerabilities of Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast. The purpose of this survey is to collect survey data from the aviation communities on beliefs of current ADS-B security and its present issues. This study has been approved by Lewis University's Institutional Review Board (IRB). The survey is anonymous. Participation in this research is completely voluntary and you may refuse to participate without consequence. The survey will take approximately ten minutes to complete. If you would like to know the results of this research, contact faculty advisor Dr. Erik Baker at bakerer@lewisu.edu. Thank you for your consideration. Your help is greatly appreciated. Survey link: https://goo.gl/forms/MP1833a6acHXBLGn2 Curt Lewis