Flight Safety Information December 6, 2018 - No. 247 In This Issue Incident: Iran Airtours A320 near Ahwaz on Nov 25th 2018, loss of cabin pressure Accident: Jetblue A320 at Orlando on Dec 3rd 2018, fumes on board, passenger and cabin crew sick Incident: Joon A343 near Kuwait on Dec 4th 2018, lot of smoke in the cabin Incident: Spicejet DH8D at Delhi on Dec 4th 2018, cargo smoke indication EVAS - Cockpit Smoke Protection Incident: Calm AT72 enroute on Nov 2nd 2018, engine shut down and restarted in flight Incident: India B788 at Hong Kong on Oct 20th 2018, descended to 200 feet AGL 2.6nm short of the runway McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet - Midair Collision (Pacific Ocean) Lockheed Martin KC-130J - Midair Collision (Pacific Ocean) Passenger's disorderly behavior leads to emergency landing at MSP airport Thinking illusions and second guessing Angle of Attack (AOA) instruments...By Andrew McGregor Boeing Omitted Safety-System Details, Minimized Training for Crashed Lion Air 737 Model Registration opens for the Defence Aviation Safety Conference, Supported by the DSA Royal Air Maroc to join Oneworld airline alliance, giving group a foothold in Africa Boeing, ELG Carbon Fibre Find New Life for Airplane Structure Material More than an auto-pilot, AI charts its course in aviation Cargo Airlines face pilot shortages Air Astana takes delivery of its first Embraer E190-E2 jet Incident: Iran Airtours A320 near Ahwaz on Nov 25th 2018, loss of cabin pressure An Iran Airtours Airbus A320-200, registration EP-TTA performing flight B9-956 from Tehran Mehrabad to Ahwaz (Iran), was enroute at FL340 about 140nm northeast of Ahwaz when the crew initiated an emergency descent to FL140 due to the loss of cabin pressure, the passenger oxygen masks were released. The aircraft continued to Ahwaz for a safe landing about 40 minutes after leaving FL340. Iran's CAO opened an investigation and reported in Persian (editorial note: which we badly struggle to understand properly, in particular also the numbers/digits. To serve the purpose of global prevention of the repeat of causes leading to an occurrence an additional timely release of all occurrence reports in the only world spanning aviation language English would be necessary, a Persian only release does not achieve this purpose as set by ICAO annex 13 and just forces many aviators to waste much more time and effort each in trying to understand the circumstances leading to the occurrence. Aviators operating internationally are required to read/speak English besides their local language, investigators need to be able to read/write/speak English to communicate with their counterparts all around the globe) that the aircraft had experienced a left hand engine (V2500) bleed air problem as well as a right hand wing anti-ice valve problem the previous day. The aircraft was dispatched under Minimum Equipment List requirements with the defects deferred, during the flight the right hand engine bleed air failed, too. The aircraft returned to Tehran without passengers. According to ADS-B data the aircraft climbed to FL250 on the ferry flight back to Tehran departing Ahwaz 16 hours after landing there. The aircraft remained on the ground in Tehran for 29 hours before returning to service. http://avherald.com/h?article=4c12b1f3&opt=0 Back to Top Accident: Jetblue A320 at Orlando on Dec 3rd 2018, fumes on board, passenger and cabin crew sick A Jetblue Airbus A320-200, registration N648JB performing flight B6-2828 from Orlando,FL to Newark,NJ (USA), was enroute at FL340 about 90nm northwest of Orlando when the crew advised they had a medical emergency on board and descended the aircraft to FL290 and set course towards Raleigh Durham,NC (USA). About 15 minutes later, almost over Savannah,GA (USA) the crew requested to return to Orlando and turned towards Orlando. On final approach tower advised several medical vehicles were awaiting the aircraft at the gate. The aircraft landed safely back on Orlando's runway 18L about 80 minutes after departure. While taxiing to the gate the crew missed a turn to remain on the cleared taxi route, tower immediately cleared the alternate taxi route. Passengers reported they were told about a fellow passenger suffering a medical emergency as reason for their return to Orlando. After landing they were all instructed to disembark. A listener on frequency reported the crew requested to return to Orlando, a few minutes later the crew advised they had a fume event on board, three cabin crew were complaining about headaches, a 7 year old kid was vomitting. The occurrence aircraft remained on the ground for 11 hours, then returned to service. https://flightaware.com/live/flight/JBU2828/history/20181204/0110Z/KMCO/KEWR http://avherald.com/h?article=4c12e0f0&opt=0 Back to Top Incident: Joon A343 near Kuwait on Dec 4th 2018, lot of smoke in the cabin An Joon Airbus A340-300 on behalf of Air France, registration F-GLZN performing flight AF-218 from Paris Charles de Gaulle (France) to Mumbai (India) with 237 people on board, was enroute at FL350 about 40nm eastnortheast of Kuwait City (Kuwait) when the crew donned their oxygen masks and declared emergency reporting they had a lot of smoke in the cabin. The crew requested runway 33R at Kuwait and full emergency services present at the runway. Kuwait Airport sent all other arrivals into holding patterns. The aircraft landed on runway 33R about 16 minutes later and stopped on the runway. While emergency services were examining the aircraft, the flight crew reported the smoke had dissipated, temperatures on board were okay, and they were ready to taxi. The aircraft vacated the runway and taxied to the apron. A flight in the holdings, the crew of which were already considering to divert with some urgency, decided to continue for Kuwait. The remainder of the flight was cancelled. The occurrence aircraft remained on the ground for about 24 hours, then departed Kuwait for Paris as flight AF-7676. http://avherald.com/h?article=4c12dc45&opt=0 Back to Top Incident: Spicejet DH8D at Delhi on Dec 4th 2018, cargo smoke indication A Spicejet de Havilland Dash 8-400, registration VT-SUQ performing flight SG-2695 from Delhi to Jodhpur (India) with 60 people on board, was climbing out of Delhi when the crew stopped the climb at about FL150 due to a cargo smoke indication. The aircraft returned to Delhi for a safe landing about 30 minutes after departure. Emergency services found no trace of fire, heat or smoke. The smoke indication was determined false. The occurrence aircraft returned to service about 16.5 hours after landing back. The rotation to and from Jodhpur was cancelled. http://avherald.com/h?article=4c12d784&opt=0 Back to Top Back to Top Incident: Calm AT72 enroute on Nov 2nd 2018, engine shut down and restarted in flight A Calm Air Avions de Transport Regional ATR-72-202, registration C-FJCQ performing flight MO-117 from Thompson,MB to Winnipeg,MB (Canada) with 43 passengers and 4 crew, was enroute about 150nm north of Winnipeg when one engine (PW124) rolled back to about 37% torque. The crew selected continuous relight and the engine recovered to cruise torque. About 30 minutes later the engine rolled back to 0% torque, the crew secured the engine. As the related checklist offered the option to restart the engine, the crew attempted a relight of the engine which was successful. The aircraft landed in Winnipeg without further incident. The Canadian TSB reported: "While en route, at approximately 150 nautical miles north of CYWG, the flight crew observed instrument fluctuations on the number 1 (right) engine and the torque rolled back to 37%. The flight crew then selected continuous relight and the engine torque slowly recovered to cruise value. Approximately 30 minutes later, the right engine dropped to 0% torque. The flight crew secured the engine and completed the ATR QRH checklist for "engine flame-out in flight". Included in the checklist is an option to attempt a re-start of the engine. The flight crew successfully restarted the engine and landed uneventfully at CYWG. During a subsequent inspection by the operator's maintenance, the #1 engine EEC, the #1 engine high-pressure fuel pump and the MFCU were inspected and replaced. Ground runs were carried out with no faults found, and the aircraft was returned to service." (Editorial note: there is no possibility as of current to find out whether engine #1, which would be left hand engine, or the right hand engine was affected. The crew told ATC "one engine" had been shut down, which could cause the confusion of the #1 engine although the right hand engine #2 according to the narrative was affected). http://avherald.com/h?article=4c12d23e&opt=0 Back to Top Incident: India B788 at Hong Kong on Oct 20th 2018, descended to 200 feet AGL 2.6nm short of the runway An Air India Boeing 787-8, registration VT-ANE performing flight AI-314 from Delhi (India) to Hong Kong (China) with 197 passengers and 10 crew, was on the ILS approach to Hong Kong's runway 07R at about 06:14L (22:14Z Oct 19th), ATIS had warned of possible glideslope fluctuations, when the aircraft descended to 200 feet AGL about 2.6nm short of the runway until the EGPWS issued a warning. The crew initiated a go around, positioned for another approach and landed safely on their second approach to runway 07R. Hong Kong's Air Investigation Authority (HKAIA) released their preliminary report stating: "Before the approach to VHHH, the crew had received cautionary information from the Hong Kong arrival Automatic Terminal Information Service (ATIS) regarding the possibility of Instrument Landing System (ILS) glideslope fluctuation. At 06:08:17 hours, the Air Traffic Control (ATC) further advised the crew of the possible glide path signal fluctuation. At 06:11:00 hours, ATC cleared the aircraft for the instrument landing system (ILS) approach for Runway 07R. During the approach, the aircraft descended rapidly, triggering a Ground Proximity Warning System (GPWS) alert on board the aircraft. The crew recovered the aircraft at about 200 feet above mean sea level, approximately 2.6 nautical miles from Runway 07R before performing a go around. The aircraft landed uneventfully on Runway 07R on the second approach." The HKAIA reported the captain (ATPL, 1750 hours on type) was pilot flying, the first officer was pilot monitoring. Metars: VHHH 200000Z 09017KT 9999 FEW022 26/19 Q1019 NOSIG= VHHH 192330Z 08013KT 9999 FEW022 SCT035 25/19 Q1019 NOSIG= VHHH 192300Z 08011KT 9999 FEW022 SCT035 24/19 Q1019 NOSIG= VHHH 192230Z 09012KT 9999 FEW022 SCT035 24/19 Q1019 NOSIG= VHHH 192200Z 09010KT 9999 FEW020 SCT030 24/19 Q1018 NOSIG= VHHH 192130Z 08014KT 9999 FEW020 SCT030 24/20 Q1018 NOSIG= VHHH 192100Z 09012KT 9999 FEW020 SCT030 24/20 Q1018 NOSIG= VHHH 192030Z 08011KT 9999 FEW020 SCT030 24/20 Q1018 NOSIG= VHHH 192000Z 08013KT 9999 FEW020 SCT030 24/20 Q1018 NOSIG= VHHH 191930Z 08013KT 9999 FEW020 SCT032 24/20 Q1018 NOSIG= VHHH 191900Z 09013KT 9999 FEW022 SCT035 24/20 Q1018 NOSIG= VHHH 191830Z 08012KT 9999 FEW022 SCT032 24/19 Q1018 NOSIG= VHHH 191800Z 09015KT 9999 FEW022 SCT030 25/20 Q1018 NOSIG= http://avherald.com/h?article=4c12b53a&opt=0 Back to Top McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet - Midair Collision (Pacific Ocean) Date: 06-DEC-2018 Time: 02:00 LT Type: McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet Owner/operator: US Marine Corps (USMC) Registration: C/n / msn: Fatalities: Fatalities: / Occupants: 2 Aircraft damage: Aircraft missing Location: Pacific Ocean off Japan - Pacific Ocean Phase: Manoeuvring (airshow, firefighting, ag.ops.) Nature: Military Departure airport: MCAS Iwakuni (IWK/RJOI) Destination airport: Narrative: A USMC F/A-18 fighter aircraft with two crew onboard experienced a midair collision with a USMC KC-130 tanker aircraft with 5 crew onboard during refueling operations over the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Japan. One person has been rescued alive by Japanese Maritime Self Defense Forces. https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/wiki.php?id=219051 Back to Top Lockheed Martin KC-130J - Midair Collision (Pacific Ocean) Date: 06-DEC-2018 Time: 02:00 LT Type: Lockheed Martin KC-130J Owner/operator: US Marine Corps (USMC) Registration: C/n / msn: Fatalities: Fatalities: / Occupants: 5 Aircraft damage: Aircraft missing Location: Pacific Ocean off Japan - Pacific Ocean Phase: Manoeuvring (airshow, firefighting, ag.ops.) Nature: Military Departure airport: MCAS Iwakuni (IWK/RJOI) Destination airport: Narrative: A USMC F/A-18 fighter aircraft with two crew onboard experienced a midair collision with a USMC KC-130 tanker aircraft with 5 crew onboard during refueling operations over the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Japan. One person has been rescued alive by Japanese Maritime Self Defense Forces. https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/wiki.php?id=219052 Back to Top Passenger's disorderly behavior leads to emergency landing at MSP airport An international flight was forced to make an emergency landing at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport Wednesday morning due to a disorderly passenger. Airport officials said the Norwegian Airlines flight - traveling from Oakland, California, to Paris - landed at MSP airport at about 1:30 a.m. Police were at the scene, responding to reports of an intoxicated, disorderly passenger. That passenger was escorted off the plane and brought to a nearby hospital. The plane took off from MSP airport to continue the flight to Paris. https://kstp.com/news/international-flight-emergency-landing-msp-airport-disorderly-passenger/5168003/ Back to Top Back to Top Thinking illusions and second guessing Angle of Attack (AOA) instruments By Andrew McGregor[1] Introduction In the aftermath of a serious accident or incident, the standard ICAO investigation process promises to identify the cause so that recommendations can be issued in order to prevent a recurrence. The whole industry believes in this and pretends that the recommendations are followed. But often they are not; or if they are, it takes an inordinate amount of time to implement them. Incidents are supposed to be considered as valuable opportunities to catch problems before they cause accidents, but this seldom happens, even though the paperwork is always filled out by someone. The official accident report into the AF447 crash referred to 28 incidents involving airspeed discrepancies similar to the one that caused the crash. While the Annex 13 process provides accident reports which are open and transparent, incident reports are not commonly available. Nobody broadcasts a tally of incident reports that are similar or related. The assumption is that 'this is the first time it happened, if it has happened elsewhere, the "all singing and dancing" perfect system would have corrected it and fixed it. Therefore, you must be the only pilot that this has happened to. But don't worry, it is always possible to learn from your mistakes and do better next time'. However, often and unknowingly, somewhere else in the world, similar incident(s) have likely happened and caught others out too. Angle of Attack incidents, are no exception. The Lion air accident is not the first crash that has been caused by faulty AOA meters. But more on that later. Optical and Thinking illusions Daniel Kahneman in his book 'Thinking Fast and Slow' [1] explains how we succumb to cognitive or thinking illusions, in the same way that we succumb to optical illusions. He develops this analogy scientifically. Optical illusions occur when an observer sees something different to what is real. Lines of equal length are perceived to have different lengths; circles of equal size are seen to be different; straight lines are seen as curved. The eyes send a raw signal to the brain which is misinterpreted. The problem occurs in the brain, not the eyes. What makes optical illusions notorious is that knowing that the perception is wrong does nothing to correct the perception; for example, the lines still look bent or curved even when a straight edge has confirmed that they are straight. Kahneman demonstrates that cognitive or thinking illusions work just like optical illusions. Thinking illusions are pernicious, compelling and they influence us even when we know they are prone to error. Through many empirical demonstrations Kahneman and colleagues have shown that even when our minds understand rationally that our subconscious decisions may be flawed, we remain susceptible to them and often act on them regardless. The problem is accentuated by the fact that unlike with optical illusions, we have no straight edge with which to correct our thinking illusions. There are three types of thinking illusions that cause havoc with our air accident investigation processes. These are: The hindsight illusion. This is seeing a particular outcome as being inevitable, but only after the event. This often leads to unreasonable criticism of the accident participants and also a reluctance to modify or improve procedures to prevent it from occurring to someone else. The skill illusion. We are better than what we really are, and so should others be also. This discourages us from putting in place procedures to correct or manage our skill inadequacies. The Illusion of validity. This illusion relates to a work process or system of procedures in which we know consciously that the system is ineffective or not valid but we continue to believe in it -or at least act on it-regardless of this knowledge. This discourages us from improving it. These illusions are pernicious, powerful and everyone succumbs, often to the same types of illusions. Our systems don't yet have any defence against these. It is not hard to understand how these thinking illusions stop us from correctly determining all the factors that contributed to an accident and discourage recommendations from being actioned. Applying all this to the Angle of Attack problem The Angle of Attack problem is particularly significant in this discussion because pilots who fly both Airbus and Boeing aircraft are not provided Angle of Attack information yet are required to make decisions as if they are fully informed. The hindsight and skill illusions suggest that in the aftermath of an AOA incident, we will naturally expect a pilot without AOA information to have made better decisions than what was reasonable under the circumstances. The illusion of validity will cause us to think that the present system without AOA readout to the pilot is good enough and does not warrant improvement, even though rational thinking suggests that it is not. It will also discourage us from looking for evidence of other incidents and examples like the Lion Air accident, which collectively support the need to provide the pilot with AOA information. Some of these are discussed below. Other Angle of Attack incidents and accidents. The Perpignan crash. [2] On 27 November 2008, an experienced Air New Zealand(ANZ) pilot and two experienced XL Airways pilots participated in a non-passenger demonstration flight to verify that an aircraft on lease to XL Airways, was acceptable for receiving back to ANZ. The pilots slowed the aircraft to near stall speed in order to verify the aircraft stall protection system but this failed because two of the three angle of attack instruments provided the same incorrect data without failing completely. Nor did they provide a clear warning to the pilots that they had failed or that they disagreed with the third correct unit that was outvoted. As a result the aircraft stalled and the pilots were unable to recover. The report stated that the pilots flew too close to the stall without formal flight test procedures or expertise, even though aircraft routinely fly close to the stall at cruise altitudes. The accident report stated that water from inadvertent fire hose washing likely remained in the AOA instruments and froze on climbing, causing them to read incorrectly. The accident report stated that the maximum flow rate for which the AOA meters are designed is only 7.5 l/min. This flow is less than a domestic garden hose is able to deliver. The report did not recommend that pilots be provided AOA information or a clear warning when the AOA instruments provided inconsistent information. The need to provide this information to improve the pilot's situational awareness was not mentioned. Whether or not the causes and contributing factors were due to environmental effects, sensor defects, or sensor washings, formal compliance with JAR25.1309 required the aircraft designers to address the consequences of blockages of one, two or three sensors resulting in a false stall warning. However the official accident report did not address this shortcoming which the Perpignan accident pilots unwittingly demonstrated at the cost of their own lives. The official accident report also provided an opportunity for the designers to consider the case of an aircraft climbing with frozen AOA sensors, as occurred in the next angle of attack incident, the Bilbao incident. Regrettably this opportunity was not utilized. The Bilbao incident. [3] On 5 November 2014, an Airbus 321 departed from Bilbao, Spain. Part way though the climb, the pilots experienced an un-commanded aggressive nose down maneuver which could only be managed with full backwards side stick. The pilots communicated with their engineering technicians who through the ACARS system, were able to determine that there was a problem with inconsistent Angle of Attack information and advised the pilots to turn off one of the Air Data Reference Units. This placed the aircraft in Alternate Law and enabled the pilots to regain improved control. The investigation concluded that two of the AOA sensors had frozen or jammed at a lower altitude earlier in the climb, eventually activating the stall protection as the aircraft climbed, and lowering the nose of the aircraft into an aggressive descent. After this incident the manufacturer promulgated recovery guidelines similar to what the pilots implemented during the incident, but the cause of the AOA instruments freezing or jamming was not determined. Intensification and unpredictability of future weather systems IATA [4] has expressed concern about the unpredictability of tropical weather systems at convergence zones and their potential to subject aircraft instrumentation to conditions more severe than their design case. They have no solutions. As global warming intensifies, these environmental challenges are likely to worsen, potentially exposing air data sensors to more severe conditions than the effects of a domestic garden hose. The earlier incidents demonstrated complex AOA failure scenarios which while different in some respects to what is currently known about the Lion air crash, also have some similarities. The earlier incidents and accidents show that the recent additional guidelines following the Lion Air accident may not be sufficient to address every possible AOA-related situation that a pilot could be faced with as weather systems intensify. A clear aid that would improve a pilot's situational awareness and decision making in nearly all near-stall and AOA malfunction situations is the supply of AOA information to the pilot. Formulation of the necessary changes needs to be based on information from less severe incidents which need to be tracked and collated. The resulting findings need to be made more available, in the same way that reports of single accidents are available and transparent. The feedback from this new process is needed to correct the illusion of validity; the illusion that compels us to believe that the present system which doesn't give the pilot access to critical AOA sensor status information, is adequate. Does all that feel a little too ambitious? Welcome to the world of thinking illusions. [1]Andrew McGregor is a forensic engineer, commercial pilot and experienced air accident investigator. He owns and directs Prosolve Ltd, a forensic engineering practice based in Auckland New Zealand. He may be contacted at amcgreg@prosolve.co.nz References 1. Kahneman, D. (2011).Thinking, fast and slow. Macmillan. 2. BEA Report; Accident on 27 November 2008 off the coast of Canet-Plage (66) to the Airbus A320-232 registered D-AXLA operated by XL Airways Germany; English translation of the French version. Published by Bureau d'Enquetes et d'Analyses pur la securite de l'aviation civile. 3. BFU Interim report NO BFU 6X014-14, of incident that occurred on 5 November 2014, at 12 NM NW of Pamplona, Spain; published 17 March 2015 by Bundesstelle fur Flugunfalluntersuchung. www.bfu-web.d 4. IATA 2016 'Environmental factors affecting loss of control in flight: Best practices for threat recognition and management' International Air Transport Association, IATA 2016 ISBN 978-92-9252-968-0 Back to Top Boeing Omitted Safety-System Details, Minimized Training for Crashed Lion Air 737 Model After the Flight 610 crash, some regulators and pilots are asking why details on the plane's MCAS anti-stall system weren't in the Boeing manual An Indonesian transportation safety investigator with a Boeing 737 model at a Nov. 28 news conference in Jakarta. By Andrew Tangel and Andy Pasztor An automated flight-control system on Boeing Co.'s BA -4.85% 737 MAX aircraft, which investigators suspect played a central role in the fatal Oct. 29 jetliner crash in Indonesia, was largely omitted from the plane's operations manual and was the subject of debate inside Boeing, government and industry officials say. Pilots of Lion Air Flight 610 battled systems on the Boeing 737 MAX for 11 minutes after the plane took off from Jakarta, until it crashed into the Java Sea, killing all 189 people on board. Boeing is devising a software fix and trying to reinstill confidence in the cockpit systems of the 737 MAX, which U.S. airlines have called safe. Fatal Flight Lion Air Flight 610 pilots battled systems on the Boeing 737 MAX for 11 minutes before the plane crashed into the Java Sea. Debate inside Boeing on what the 737 MAX manuals should say about the automated system and how much training would be required before pilots could safely slide behind the controls was more intense than usual, industry officials recall. The decision to omit the new control system from manuals has put a Boeing design principle at the center of a probe into a fatal airliner crash for the first time in more than two decades. It has sparked public scrutiny of a typically behind-the-scenes process and threatens to tarnish Boeing's reputation for safety and its tradition of prioritizing pilot authority over automation. Former Boeing and current airline and government officials said there was a strong push to keep 737 MAX training to a minimum-a common goal for the introduction of new models. One former Boeing official recalls a colleague expressing concern about keeping their job if regulators rejected the company's proposed guidelines. The program was eventually approved. Boeing said it didn't intentionally keep relevant information from aviators and had discussed the new system-known by its acronym, MCAS-with airlines at conferences in recent years. A spokesman disputed the characterization of the debate as unusually heated, saying, "Discussions were consistent with our regular process." "When Boeing developed its training and materials, it followed a process that was absolutely consistent with introducing previous new airplanes" and new models, the spokesman said. The goal, he said, is to ensure that pilots have all the information they need and that maintenance crews understand how to service the aircraft. An Indonesian rescue team lifted a pair of tires from Lion Air Flight 610 from the Java Sea on Nov. 4. Boeing arrived at the decision in a typical way, with internal discussions and dialogue with airlines and regulators, according to U.S. government and industry officials familiar with the details. From the start Boeing and its customers were keen to keep training to a few hours of self-instruction on computers to ease the burden on airlines, the officials said. Engineering, training and other experts inside Boeing had differing views on the precise language to be used in manuals. People familiar with the process said there was a sharp focus on one point: avoiding added simulator training. Some regulators and pilots are among those asking why Boeing decided against detailing how the new system worked and why pilots weren't trained on its specific characteristics. Key aspects of the system differ markedly from systems on older versions of the 737. "Airline pilots need to know everything they can know about how the airplane works," said Gordon Bethune, a former Boeing executive who oversaw earlier 737 models and later was chief executive of Continental Airlines. "The ball was dropped," he said. Preliminary data released by crash investigators points to the MCAS system misfiring during the Lion Air flight, when a signal from a single malfunctioning sensor prompted the system to repeatedly push down the plane's nose prior to its plunge into the Java Sea. "It's pretty surprising that there isn't a cross check or redundancy" to prevent such a hazard, said Randy Babbitt, a former Federal Aviation Administration chief. The Boeing spokesman said the system "was designed and certified using aerospace industry best practices." Boeing began developing the 737 MAX in 2011, a year after European rival Airbus SE introduced the A320neo single-aisle planes, which require minimal pilot training. Regulators eventually approved the Boeing program, and the plane's launch customer, Southwest Airlines Co. , embraced it. A Southwest spokeswoman said the airline developed its 737 MAX training based on Boeing's information and "was a recipient of, not a driver of, the training" mandates. That plane's success surprised even Airbus, while Boeing was losing market share. No airlines are challenging the basic safety of the 737 MAX, which went into commercial service about a year ago. Since the accident, three of Boeing's biggest 737 MAX customers- American Airlines Group Inc., Southwest and United Continental Holdings Inc. -have said the plane is safe and their pilots are well-trained to fly it. Investigators in the Lion Air crash are also delving into apparent maintenance lapses and pilot errors in what is expected to be a monthslong probe. Meanwhile, Lion Air co-founder Rusdi Kirana said the carrier may cancel orders for more than 200 Boeing planes, as relations with the plane maker sour. He has taken issue with a Boeing statement that he said cast aspersions on the airline, and claimed in an interview, "Boeing didn't make a proper manual." Boeing said Lion Air is "a valued customer." From the 737 MAX's inception, Boeing teams sought to make the plane maneuver like its predecessor, the 737 NG, and thereby preclude the need for extra flight-simulator sessions. It proved tricky, however, to reduce handling differences between the two models. Boeing engineers determined the MAX's design required additional stall protections in extreme maneuvers, partly to gain essential FAA certification, according to people familiar with the matter. So Boeing developed MCAS, which automatically and repeatedly pushes down the nose of the plane under certain manual flying conditions. Pilots said they weren't explicitly informed until the Lion Air crash that the system could give such strong and persistent commands and ultimately push the nose down as far as possible. By contrast, the anti-stall system on the earlier 737 NG could be countered relatively easily, by pulling back the control yoke. It is up to manufacturers and regulators to determine which information to include in manuals and how to train pilots. People familiar with the Boeing manual said MCAS was mentioned, but only in the glossary spelling out the acronym (for Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System). Details of the new system were included in early documents related to the manual, before Boeing decided they would be redundant, some of these people said. The FAA agreed and approved the final manual. A Boeing spokesman said one section still "expressly advises flight crews to expect automatic nose-down" commands as the plane approaches stall speed. Boeing also has stressed that its manuals include the procedure for turning off stall-protection systems, which pilots are trained to follow whether in the MAX or older planes. Boeing concluded pilots were unlikely to ever encounter situations where the new anti-stall system kicked in, according to a Southwest memo reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. "They would never see the system in action," a person familiar with Boeing's development of the system said. Boeing in recent weeks has privately said it was a judgment call that details about the new system weren't necessary in the manuals, according to people familiar with the company's discussions with aviators and customers. Boeing has been meeting with airlines and pilot unions as it works on the software fix expected in coming weeks. Boeing's position has some support. A top executive at a 737 MAX customer agreed pilots didn't need to know the system's details. "They're not engineers and their job is to fly the aircraft," this executive said. A United Airlines union official said in a note to pilots that despite the omission from the Boeing manual, aviators have been instructed to stop nose-down commands in older and newer 737s the same way: turn off the system. "Regardless of the source or cause," the note said, "you will do exactly as you have been trained." The Lion Air aircraft that crashed had experienced various flight-control malfunctions on all of its four previous flights. The preliminary crash report makes clear technicians failed to solve the problem, because the same malfunctions reoccurred just before the crash. In the ill-fated flight, according to the preliminary report, the plane's flight-control alerts malfunctioned again, providing erroneous stall warnings from the instant the aircraft lifted off the runway. Cockpit instruments displayed a barrage of fault warnings, including unreliable airspeed and altitude, according to the report. The crew battled more than two dozen repeated automated nose-down commands by manually commanding nose-up maneuvers, until they lost control some 11 minutes after takeoff. The FAA confirmed it is reviewing its decision to accept Boeing's initial risk analyses of the automated system and other approved systems on the new plane. The FAA and Boeing also are developing a test of the entire MCAS system, which wasn't previously required. Southwest's pilot union president, Jon Weaks, said he was encouraged by Boeing's commitment to pilot feedback, telling members in a note that he was assured "there will be no more surprises." https://www.wsj.com/articles/behind-boeings-decision-to-omit-details-on-safety-system-in-lion-air-crash-from-manual-1544025884 Back to Top Registration opens for the Defence Aviation Safety Conference, Supported by the DSA The Defence Aviation Safety Conference will convene in London on the 29-30 April 2019 Defence Aviation Safety Conference Conference organisers, SMi Group are delighted to announce that registration has officially opened for the Defence Aviation Safety Conference, the leading event dedicated to aviation safety in the defence and military environment. Supported by the Defence Safety Authority (DSA), UK MoD, this highly anticipated two-day event will bring together senior military leaders with responsibility for safety in the aviation domain as well as international defence experts from government and industry. Whilst it will predominantly be focused on the Air Force, the programme will feature key aviation leaders from the land and maritime domains. An event infographic has been released, visit the website's download centre to view it: http://www.defenceaviationsafety.com/veulio Key topics will include: Designing and maintaining safe air systems including the role of certification in each Ensuring and assuring safe operation of air systems Weapons safety and integration Safe integration and certification of systems-of-systems How military and industry can work together to apply standards more effectively to reduce the cost and length of the certification process Mutual recognition and the shared use of available evidence Certification requirements at different stages of a system's lifecycle Key Speakers at the conference include: Lieutenant General Richard Felton CBE, Director General Defence Safety Authority (DSA), UK MoD Major General Günter Katz, Director General, German Military Aviation Authority, German MoD Major General John T. Rauch Jr, Air Force Chief of Safety Commander, Air Force Safety Center, US Air Force Air Vice-Marshall Graham Russell, Director Helicopters, DE&S, UK MoD Rear Admiral Jonathan Pentreath, Commander, Joint Helicopter Command, Army Head Quarters, UK MoD Air Commodore Jason Agius, Director General Defence Aviation Safety Authority, Australian Air Force Air Commodore Mark Jeffrey, Head of RAF Safety Centre, Royal Air Force Brigadier General Rolf Folland, Norwegian Air inspectorate of Flying, Norwegian Air Force Brigadier General Laurent Aubigny, Director State Aviation Safety Authority, French Armed Forces Colonel Anders Janson, Director of the Swedish Military Aviation Authority, Swedish Armed Forces Mr. Richard Duriez, Aerospace Capabilities Section Armament & Aerospace Capabilities Directorate, Defence Investment Division, NATO International Staff As the only event specifically dedicated to Defence Aviation Safety, this is a must attend event for Air Force, Army and Navy Aviators, as well as government and industry experts. There is a £400 early bird discount available until the 14th December. View the agenda or register online at: http://www.defenceaviationsafety.com/veulio To sponsor or exhibit at the conference, please contact: Sadia Malick on +44 (0) 207 827 6748 or email smalick@smi-online.co.uk -END- Defence Aviation Safety Conference 29 - 30 April 2019, London, UK REGISTER BY 14/12/18 AND SAVE £400 About SMi Group: Established since 1993, the SMi Group is a global event-production company that specializes in Business-to-Business Conferences, Workshops, Masterclasses and online Communities. We create and deliver events in the Defence, Security, Energy, Utilities, Finance and Pharmaceutical industries. We pride ourselves on having access to the world's most forward-thinking opinion leaders and visionaries, allowing us to bring our communities together to Learn, Engage, Share and Network. More information can be found at http://www.smi-online.co.uk https://www.realwire.com/releases/Registration-opens-for-Defence-Aviation-Safety-Conference-Supported-by-DSA Back to Top Royal Air Maroc to join Oneworld airline alliance, giving group a foothold in Africa • Royal Air Maroc is set to become the latest member of the Oneworld alliance. • The Moroccan airline gives the global alliance, which includes American and British Airways, an African partner. • The new addition comes as other African carriers, including Ethiopian Airlines and Kenya Airways have expanded. Passengers board a Royal Air Maroc plane. The Oneworld global airline alliance that includes American Airlines and British Airways, said Wednesday that it is bringing in Royal Air Maroc, giving the group a partner in Africa after other carriers on the continent expanded. Such alliances allow carriers to book travelers on each others' routes, giving them access to other markets. They also allow travelers to earn and redeem frequent flyer miles on each others' flights. Royal Air Maroc, the flag carrier of Morocco, has a fleet of 55 planes and serves 94 destinations - tiny compared with several of the Oneworld members. Its addition, however, gives the alliance a foothold in Africa, where other airlines have aligned with its competitors and are expanding. Ethiopian Airlines, for instance, is part of the Star Alliance along with United Airlines. Kenya Airways has worked with Delta Air Lines in the SkyTeam and expanded into the U.S. in recent years. Royal Air Maroc's membership will likely take effect in mid-2020, said Oneworld, the smallest of the three major alliances. Other members of Oneworld include Iberia, Cathay Pacific, Qantas and Latam. Airlines around the world in recent years have been fostering stronger partnerships with other airlines as they seek to expand but face strong foreign ownership limits or cost constraints to growing in other regions. Carriers including the biggest three U.S. airlines - Delta, United and American - have been pursuing additional joint ventures that allow them to coordinate schedules and share revenue with foreign carriers. Last week, for example, United said it reached a deal for a joint venture with Colombia's Avianca Holdings and Panama-based Copa Holdings. The new addition to Oneworld comes after alliance member Qatar Airways threatened in October to leave the group. Royal Air Maroc will give Oneworld access to its robust intra-Africa service as well as a robust network in Europe and some trans-Atlantic service, the alliance's CEO Rob Gurney told CNBC. Royal Air Maroc currently serves Montreal, Washington D.C. and New York and plans to add service to Miami, an American Airlines hub, next spring. The airline is set to receive new Boeing 787-900s this month and plans to add new service from Casablanca to the U.S. in the coming years, but it has not yet settled on which cities, its CEO Abdelhamid Addou told CNBC. While Royal Air Maroc plans to fly to Beijing when the Chinese capital's new airport is complete, a larger expansion in Asia isn't likely because there is a lot of competition, Addou said. In addition to targeting business travelers and Moroccans who are living abroad or visiting friends and family, airline executives plan to capitalize on Morocco's increasing popularity with tourists. The country received close to 5.9 million foreign tourists last year, up 15 percent from 2016 and up 19 percent from 2010, according to Moroccan government figures. https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/05/royal-air-maroc-to-join-american-airlines-oneworld-alliance.html Back to Top Boeing, ELG Carbon Fibre Find New Life for Airplane Structure Material SEATTLE, Dec. 5, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Boeing [NYSE:BA] and ELG Carbon Fibre today announced a partnership to recycle excess aerospace-grade composite material, which will be used by other companies to make products such as electronic accessories and automotive equipment. The agreement - the first of its kind for the aerospace industry - covers excess carbon fiber from 11 Boeing airplane manufacturing sites and will reduce solid waste by more than one million pounds a year. Carbon-fiber reinforced material is extremely strong and lightweight, making it attractive for a variety of uses, including in building the super-efficient 787 Dreamliner and the all-new 777X airplane. As the largest user of aerospace-grade composites from its commercial and defense programs, Boeing has been working for several years to create an economically viable carbon fiber reuse industry. The company improved its production methods to minimize excess and developed a model for collecting scrap material. But technical barriers stood in the way of repurposing material that had already been "cured" or prepped for use in the airplane manufacturing process. UK-based ELG developed a proprietary method to recycle "cured" composites so they do not have to be thrown out. "Recycling cured carbon fiber was not possible just a few years ago," said Tia Benson Tolle, Boeing Materials & Fabrication director for Product Strategy & Future Airplane Development. "We are excited to collaborate with ELG and leverage innovative recycling methods to work toward a vision where no composite scrap will be sent to landfills." To prove that the recycling method can be applied on a grand scale, Boeing and ELG conducted a pilot project where they recycled excess material from Boeing's Composite Wing Center in Everett, Wash., where the massive wings for the 777X airplane are made. ELG put the excess materials through treatment in a furnace, which vaporizes the resin that holds the carbon fiber layers together and leaves behind clean material. Over the course of 18 months, the companies saved 1.5 million pounds of carbon fiber, which was cleaned and sold to companies in the electronics and ground transportation industries. "Security of supply is extremely important when considering using these materials in long-term automotive and electronic projects," said Frazer Barnes, managing director of ELG Carbon Fibre. "This agreement gives us the ability to provide that assurance, which gives our customers the confidence to use recycled materials." Based on the success of the pilot project, Boeing says the new agreement should save a majority of the excess composite material from its 11 sites, which will support the company's goal to reduce solid waste going to landfills 20 percent by 2025. "This collaboration takes Boeing's commitment to protect the environment to a whole new level. Recycling composites will eventually be as commonplace as recycling aluminum and titanium," said Kevin Bartelson, 777 Wing Operations leader. Boeing and ELG are considering expanding the agreement to include excess material from three additional Boeing sites in Canada, China and Malaysia. As a result of the partnership, ELG estimates the number of its employees will nearly triple from 39 in 2016 to an expected 112 by the end of 2019 as the recycling market continues to expand. https://www.aviationpros.com/press_release/12438511/boeing-elg-carbon-fibre-find-new-life-for-airplane-structure-material-in-groundbreaking-partnership Back to Top More than an auto-pilot, AI charts its course in aviation Artificial intelligence steps up on the flight deck and in the back office. Boeing 787 Dreamliner. Welcome to Ars UNITE, our week-long virtual conference on the ways that innovation brings unusual pairings together. Each day this week from Wednesday through Friday, we're bringing you a pair of stories about facing the future. Today's focus is on AI in transportation-buckle up! Ask anyone what they think of when the words "artificial intelligence" and aviation are combined, and it's likely the first things they'll mention are drones. But autonomous aircraft are only a fraction of the impact that advances in machine learning and other artificial intelligence (AI) technologies will have in aviation-the technologies' reach could encompass nearly every aspect of the industry. Aircraft manufacturers and airlines are investing significant resources in AI technologies in applications that span from the flightdeck to the customer's experience. Automated systems have been part of commercial aviation for years. Thanks to the adoption of "fly-by-wire" controls and automated flight systems, machine learning and AI technology are moving into a crew-member role in the cockpit. Rather than simply reducing the workload on pilots, these systems are on the verge of becoming what amounts to another co-pilot. For example, systems originally developed for unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) safety-such as Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast (ADS-B) for traffic situational awareness-have migrated into manned aircraft cockpits. And emerging systems like the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) are being developed to increase safety when there's a need to compensate for aircraft handling characteristics. They use sensor data to adjust the control surfaces of an aircraft automatically, based on flight conditions. But machine-learning systems are only as good as the data they get. There is inherent risk in handing off more of what humans do in a high-risk environment to ML or AI that few people understand. While the final investigation of the recent crash of Lion Air 610 is still underway, the details revealed so far are a strong warning of the risks of handing off too much control to autonomous systems. While catastrophic aviation accidents seldom happen as a result of a single mistake (and this was no exception), the MCAS sensors failed, maintenance failed to fully correct the issue, and the pilots had not been fully trained and informed on the function and use of the MCAS. The lesson, reinforced at a tragic cost of 189 lives, is that the aviation industry will have to fold data quality and the care and feeding of ML and AI systems into the safety culture that commercial aviation is already renowned for. As machine learning and AI transform the role of pilots, those technologies need to be as thoroughly tested as their human counterparts and deemed at least as competent. Beyond the auto-pilot The Airbus A350 XWB aircraft, shown here during the Dubai Airshow in 2015, has more than 50,000 sensors collecting flight and performance data totaling over 2.5TB a day. Major aircraft manufacturers such as Airbus are already phasing in AI. According to Airbus Vice President for AI Adam Bonnifield, the company has been working on these technologies for a long time. "Airbus is not that unfamiliar with these technologies because of our background in aviation and building systems that essentially solve some problems in autonomy," he told Ars. There's plenty of data to tap regarding machine learning aboard the modern airliner: the A350 XWB, Airbus' twin-engine wide-body aircraft introduced in 2015, has some 50,000 sensors and collects 2.5 terabytes of data daily. And AI can make use of that data in a number of ways. Airbus is working on projects that reduce the cognitive load (and the resulting cognitive fatigue) on pilots, as well as the number of pilots required to be at the controls. This means the crew can spend more time handling the overall strategy and mission of a flight and less time dealing with all the small sub-problems of piloting an aircraft. Bonnifield explained that, while many people view autonomy in aircraft as "a binary"-either an airplane is autonomous or it isn't-he feels differently. "It's more of a spectrum," he said, "where we take some of the small problems of flying a plane and try to use AI to solve them." One example of this is an option available on Airbus aircraft called runway overrun protection. ROPS is software that calculates aircraft approach speed and weight, and it compares the resulting physics model with the published runway length and current local weather on approach. If it detects an unsafe situation, it broadcasts the message "Runway too short!" ROPS also calculates optimal approach glide-slopes, or trajectories, for a landing approach, and it helps with taxiing, takeoff, and other aspects of flight. Another area of AI focus at Airbus is building autonomous vehicles and air taxis designed to transport people inside urban areas. And AI could potentially be used in a passenger plane when the pilots are rendered unconscious from a fall in cabin pressure. It can add up factors and make better decisions faster under high-pressure situations than humans given the right data, creating a potential increase in safety. Simplifying communications Air traffic controllers at the NATS London Area Control Centre LACC in Swanwick, UK. Heavily accented English over noisy communications channels is a real test of AI voice recognition. Air Traffic Control (ATC) communications is a critical aspect of all flights. In the European airspace, much conversation happens in heavily accented English, making it difficult for pilots and controllers to understand each other. Pilots need to listen for their tail/flight number to be called for clearances, directional instructions, and traffic alerts, often under challenging instrument meteorological conditions (IMC) when they can't see out of the cockpit. Airbus directed AI at this problem as part of a public contest in the company's AI Gym-a program in which Airbus seeks outside partners to assist in developing breakthrough AI systems. Cleaning up air traffic conversations is difficult for machine-learning algorithms to parse, because ATC audio is noisy, and the conversation is rapid-fire and full of what Airbus described as "domain-specific vocabulary." The goal of AI Gym was to provide full transcription of ATC audio, as well as extract aircraft call signs from audio for conversation tracking and alerting. "We opened it up to a broad community of different businesses, consulting firms, startups, and research groups to collaborate with us," said Bonnifield. The competition closed in October 2018, and Airbus has already begun work to convert the results into a product. The AI Gym program has allowed Airbus to attack a number of other potential uses for AI by leveraging outside expertise. "We have these interesting problems and use cases that are largely unexplored and unsolved," Bonnifield said. "Partly because of the fact that the space is so new, we're living at this very immature inflection point of the technology where there's a lot of experimentation happening and even some terrific open source technology." Through the program, Airbus is working with "all the usual suspects," Bonnifield said; the projects are all performed under non-disclosure agreements. The anonymity of the NDA can be a good thing, he suggested, because not every effort is successful-and failures aren't advertised. While "the usual suspects" in machine learning might often be expected to be the companies to come up with the highest-performing solution, Bonnifield said he discovered that most of the time the best solutions come from tiny startups. Often, research teams with only a few people are able to produce the best solution. Bonnifield said he believed this is probably unique to the AI space. Airbus' big challenge is how to bring these small teams at the tip of the innovation spear along and give them an easy way to collaborate. That has required Airbus to change the way it works with outsiders. "Some of the startups have never done an RFP [Request for Proposals response] before," Bonnifield explained. Getting to business When it comes to flight-safety issues, airlines rely heavily on their equipment manufacturers (such as Airbus and Boeing). But airlines aren't just counting on AI to assist on the flight deck. Machine learning and AI are being called upon in the back office to help airlines in their battle to streamline ground operations and to create the best customer experience by making travel as painless and seamless as possible. United Airlines Vice President of Digital Products and Analytics Praveen Sharma said that United is investing in all available new technology to use machine learning with the backend data it gathers from customers, maintenance logs, employee duty logs, and in-flight progressive data to improve all aspects of its business. In September, United and Palantir Technologies announced a long-term relationship to deploy Palantir Foundry to accelerate enterprise-wide data initiatives across a range of critical business units as the airline's central platform. According to Sharma, "One challenge... we are trying to solve is how to bring this vast amount of data from various parts of the company on different platforms onto a single platform... [that] we can leverage for our machine learning and AI model." The two companies have been working on a wide range of projects for the past year to do this. Palantir partnered with Airbus to create Skywise, an aviation data-analytics platform that Airbus provides to smaller airlines as a subscription service that would include tools to help reduce unplanned maintenance on aircraft. GE has also tried to turn aircraft sensor data into a machine-learning-based service to drive predictive maintenance of the company's jet engines. United and its regional carrier, United Express, operate about 4,600 flights a day to 357 airports across five continents. Last year, the companies operated more than 1.6 million flights carrying more than 148 million customers. When unforeseen maintenance issues do occur or other operational issues get in the way, United is using machine learning to help swap out aircraft. This isn't as simple as one might expect; the system must take into account all of the variables required for assigning a crew (such as rest time and appropriate crew aircraft certifications), aircraft fuel and operations limitations, and aircraft seating capacity. "These are complicated decisions that often must be calculated and decided in a 25-minute timeframe based on the limited amount of data available at that time," Sharma explained. Beyond maintenance But United's use of machine learning and AI goes far beyond managing maintenance and aircraft schedules. It also taps into customer data. Using the data gleaned from each passenger interaction, United is applying AI and machine learning to streamline its customers' experience based on their data-and tuning offers to match their profiles. United's machine-learning algorithms take 150 different customer and flight data points and, in real time, decide which particular product to put in front of a customer at the purchase or check-in point. The engine takes into account things like passengers' previous purchases, preferences, destinations, and activities. Customers' interactions move through United's real-time decision engine, up and running since 2014, which gives them various product options to improve their travel experience. Options include flight choice, seat upgrades, mileage purchase, or the ability to jump to the front of the line with Priority Access. To drive what gets offered up to each customer, Sharma said that United uses a prediction model based on a Bayesian inference model. "It decides not just what offer to give," Sharma explained, "but what image to put in front of the customer and what tagline to use." Sharma said that the application of machine learning is paying off. Based on measurements collected by United, customers aren't having to hunt for things they want to purchase or for desired experiences. Other airlines are embracing AI in other forms to take the pain out of travel (and to reduce the workload on airline employees). Facial-recognition technology is now showing up on terminal kiosks to help speed check-in at the airport. Most facial-recognition algorithms are based on deep learning, which is part of machine learning. Delta Airlines is the first to deploy this process, speeding up passengers' time to gate by almost 10 minutes, according to the airline's estimates. The system, used currently for check-in and baggage check on international flights, leverages passengers' passport photos. Delta expects to expand operations to domestic flights next year. Preventing future disasters Perhaps one of the most important uses of AI-based analytics, however, may be in identifying risks to the safety of aircraft before a disaster-such as the crash of Lion Air Flight 610, when a failure of the automated control system on a prior flight may have signaled a major safety issue. NASA Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley is heavily involved in aviation-related AI, and one of NASA's projects there is focused on identifying "anomalous operations" within data from commercial aviation-events that could be precursors to potentially bigger problems. This is a primary area of research for Nikunj Oza, a computer scientist and leader of the data sciences group within NASA Ames' intelligent systems division known as Code TI. Because commercial aviation's safety record is so good-much better than driving, for example-it's much more difficult to identify those few cases where there's an anomaly that might represent a safety issue. NASA has done some initial development of algorithms related to anomaly detection and incident precursor identification, and it has started the process for gathering feedback from experts in the field. The agency is currently developing a system for use in safety analysis of aircraft data-in particular, for FAA's analytics partner Mitre, the federally funded research and development center. Mitre runs a program called Aviation Safety Information Analysis and Sharing (ASIAS), a data consortium that shares safety data among NASA, the Federal Aviation Administration, the National Transportation Safety Board, aircraft manufacturers, and more than 50 airlines. The airlines upload some subsets of their flight-recorded data to Mitre, which performs analysis and provides feedback on potential problems. (The data is shared confidentially by the airlines.) The hope for the analytics being developed at Ames is that the AI can discover patterns of anomalies in flight data that could be indicative of a systematic problem with aircraft. "You'd like to find that as soon as possible and come up with some kind of a mitigation to prevent it happening again," Oza explained. He said that, so far, rather than AI replacing humans outright in aviation, AI and human experts have proven to be complementary-a partnership that can save human lives. https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/12/unite-day1-1/ Back to Top Cargo Airlines face pilot shortages FedEx (NYSE: FDX), the world's largest airline by freight tonne-kilometers flown, is dealing with an impending pilot shortage. The Memphis-based carrier is expected to lose 150-200 of its 4,500 pilots this year and a similar number each year for the foreseeable future. The reason for this departure is that many pilots are reaching the federally mandated retirement age of 65. FedEx has attempted to delay the departure of pilots near retirement age by offering bonus incentives of $40,000 - $110,000 in exchange for continued service into 2019. FedEx is already the highest paying airline for pilots with thirty years of experience at over $300,000. The entire commercial airline industry is facing a shortage of pilots for both cargo and passenger planes. Estimates suggest that there will be 1,600 unfilled pilot positions in the U.S. by 2020. One of the reasons for the lack of new commercial pilots is due to the high barriers of entry for new pilots. Acquiring a private pilot license often requires a college degree, an expensive forty-hour course followed by fifteen-hundred flight hours before one can be hired by a commercial airline. In the airline industry, only veteran pilots with at least ten years in the industry can expect to make at least one hundred-thousand-dollar salary. Even the military which has served as a personnel pipeline for U.S. Carriers saw a shortfall of aviators (ten percent of needed pilots) in 2018 due to excessively frequent deployments. Despite the lack of supply of pilots, there is no shortage of demand for commercial cargo flights. The International Aviation Transport Association (IATA) forecasts global e-commerce sales to surpass 14% of the total retail market and generate four trillion dollars in 2020. This holiday season will see UPS (NYSE: UPS) charter short term leases to bring their fleet number from 247 planes up to nearly 600, roughly matching FedEx's fleet of 670 aircraft. Both UPS and FedEx will be hiring 100,000 and 55,000 seasonal workers respectively for their air and ground divisions. Amazon's (NASDAQ: AMZN) potential advantage over FedEx and UPS in terms of cultivating pilots lies in their contracting ability. One of their aircraft leasing partners, Atlas Air, will hire a total of 400 to 500 pilots for Amazon and will build out its own fleet. This third-party sourcing will enable Amazon to avoid committing to the immense costs associated with air freight logistics and allow the company to be flexible for seasonal changes. On its part, FedEx launched the Purple Runway program earlier this year to promote student interest in pursuing aviation careers at selected colleges. UPS has also started the FlightPath training program to attract new pilots. If freight aviation can't recruit enough new pilots, the industry may seek automation to address personnel cost increases. Without passengers, cargo aircraft are not bound by consumer demand for a multi-pilot flight crew. Greg Hyslop, chief technology officer for Boeing (NYSE: BA), spoke on automation, stating, "Clearly, for transporting cargo, you could see autonomous aircraft." "Airline analysts are already counting the billions of dollars in savings airlines could reap by culling humans." Given Hyslop's faith in automation, experts believe single-pilot or even pilot-less commercial freight aircraft will be possible in the near future. https://www.freightwaves.com/news/airfreight/cargo-airlines-face-pilot-shortages Back to Top Air Astana takes delivery of its first Embraer E190-E2 jet Air Astana, the flag carrier of Kazakhstan, has received its first of five Embraer E190-E2 jets. The aircraft is registered as P4-KHA and was ferried from Brasil to Kazakhstan last week. To draw global attention to the threat of extinction of the snow leopard, which is native to the mountain ranges in southern Kazakhstan, the brand new jet wears a special Air Astana 'Snow Leopard' livery. The new generation Embraer E190-E2 aircraft will replace older E190s in the fleet. The airline currently operates a fleet of nine Embraer E190 aircraft, with the first aircraft having entered service in 2011. https://ifn.news/posts/air-astana-takes-delivery-of-its-first-embraer-e190-e2-jet/ Curt Lewis