Flight Safety Information - December 28, 2020 No. 261 In This Issue : Incident: TUI Belgium B763 at Brussels on Dec 25th 2020, flaps problem : Incident: Envoy E175 at Dallas on Dec 26th 2020, pressurization issue : Incident: KLM B789 over Atlantic on Dec 26th 2020, cracked windshield : Incident: UPS MD11 at Louisville on Dec 19th 2020, fumes in cockpit : Incident: British Airways A20N near Zadar on Dec 26th 2020, first officer incapacitated : Incident: Pobeda B738 at Ekaterinburg on Dec 26th 2020, rejected takeoff due to engine anti-ice indication : Incident: Rusline CRJ1 at Tyumen on Dec 26th 2020, could not retract landing gear : Boeing 777-346ER - High Engine Vibration (Japan) : Air Canada Boeing 737-8 Max jet forced to divert after engine shut down with mechanical issue : Tribunal Rules Delta ‘Retaliated’ Against Pilot For Safety Report : EU Extends Pakistan International Airlines Flight Ban By 3 Months : U.S. Airlines Finally Get Their Hands On Another $15 Billion Federal Bailout : Scientists turn CO2 into jet fuel : Montenegro Airlines ceases operations : A 4G network on the moon is bad news for radio astronomy : NTSB - Position Available - Transportation Disaster Assistance (TDA) Specialist : 2021 Aircraft Cabin Air Conference Incident: TUI Belgium B763 at Brussels on Dec 25th 2020, flaps problem A TUI Airlines Belgium Boeing 767-300, registration OO-JNL performing flight TB-1712 from Fuerteventura,CI to Brussels (Belgium) with 150 passengers and 11 crew, was on a approach to Brussels' runway 25L when the crew aborted the approach reporting a technical problem, subsequently explaining they had a flaps problem. The crew positioned for another approach to runway 25L and landed safely on runway 25L at a normal speed about 15 minutes later. The aircraft returned to service about 12 hours after landing. The aircraft suffered a similiar problem the following day, see Incident: TUI Belgium B763 at Brussels on Dec 26th 2020, flaps indication. http://avherald.com/h?article=4e111778&opt=0 Incident: Envoy E175 at Dallas on Dec 26th 2020, pressurization issue An Envoy Embraer ERJ-175, registration N259NN performing flight MQ-3322/AA-3322 from Dallas Ft. Worth,TX to Svannah,GA (USA), was climbing out of Dallas Ft. Worth's runway 17R when the crew requested and was approved to stop climb at 9000 feet. The aircraft was vectored around while the crew worked their procedures, the crew subsequently requested to enter a hold to burn off fuel reporting they had pressurization issues. The aircraft returned to Dallas Ft. Worth for a safe landing on runway 17L about 100 minutes after departure. A replacement Embraer ERJ-175 registration N233NN reached Savannah with a delay 3:45 hours. A source told the Aviation Herald Bleed Air #1 had failed. https://flightaware.com/live/flight/AAL3322/history/20201226/1820Z/KDFW/KSAV http://avherald.com/h?article=4e11107e&opt=0 Incident: KLM B789 over Atlantic on Dec 26th 2020, cracked windshield A KLM Boeing 787-9, registration PH-BHD performing flight KL-705 from Amsterdam (Netherlands) to Rio de Janeiro Galeao,RJ (Brazil), was enroute at FL360 about 620nm south of Azores Islands (Portugal) and about 590nm westsouthwest of the Canary Islands,CI (Spain) when the right hand windshield's outer pane cracked with a loud bang audible up into the passenger cabin. The crew subsequently decided to return to Amsterdam re-assuring ATC that it was "only the outer pane, so no very big damage of the window". The aircraft initially maintained FL360 for the return, descended to FL350 over the Celtic Sea abeam Brest (France) and landed safely back on Amsterdam's runway 18R about 9:10 hours after departure and about 4:40 hours after the decision to turn around. A replacement Boeing 787-9 registration PH-BHO departed Amsterdam about 2 hours after PH-BHD had landed and reached Rio de Janeiro with a delay of about 14.5 hours. A passenger reported about 4 hours into the flight a pane of one of the cockpit windows cracked with a loud bang. http://avherald.com/h?article=4e10cf1d&opt=0 Incident: UPS MD11 at Louisville on Dec 19th 2020, fumes in cockpit A UPS United Parcel Service McDonnell Douglas MD-11, registration N260UP performing flight 5X-2988 from Louisville,KY to Seattle Boeing Field,WA (USA) with 2 crew, was climbing out of Louisville's runway 17R when the crew donned their oxygen masks, declared emergency reporting fumes in the cockpit and stopped the climb at 3000 feet for an emergency return to the airport. The aircraft was cleared for a visual approach to runway 17R and landed safely on runway 17R about 10 minutes after departure. The aircraft returned to service about 13.5 hours after landing. https://flightaware.com/live/flight/UPS2988/history/20201219/2116Z/KSDF/KBFI http://avherald.com/h?article=4e101a84&opt=0 Incident: British Airways A20N near Zadar on Dec 26th 2020, first officer incapacitated A British Airways Airbus A320-200N, registration G-TTNM performing flight BA-640 from London Heathrow,EN (UK) to Athens (Greece), was enroute at FL310 about 20nm north of Zadar (Croatia) when the captain decided to turn around and return because the first officer felt unwell. While enroute back to London the captain indicated he might need to divert perhaps to Zurich (Switzerland) or Paris (France). The first officer became incapacitated (unconscious) about 45nm west of Zurich prompting the captain to decide to divert to Zurich. The aircraft landed safely on Zurich's runway 14 about 90 minutes after turning around near Zadar and taxied to a remote stand. The aircraft remained on the ground in Zurich for about 5.5 hours, then continued the flight and reached Athens with a delay of about 9 hours. https://flightaware.com/live/flight/BAW640/history/20201226/0750Z/EGLL/LGAV http://avherald.com/h?article=4e1071b4&opt=0 Incident: Pobeda B738 at Ekaterinburg on Dec 26th 2020, rejected takeoff due to engine anti-ice indication A Pobeda Boeing 737-800, registration VQ-BTI performing flight DP-563 from Ekaterinburg to Krasnodar (Russia) with 148 passengers and 6 crew, rejected takeoff at low speed at Ekaterinburg due to an engine (CFM56) anti-ice indication. The aircraft slowed safely and returned to the apron. The aircraft was able to depart about 3 hours later and reached Krasnodar with a delay of 3 hours. Ural's Transport Prosecution Office is looking into the occurrence caused by an engine anti-ice indication. http://avherald.com/h?article=4e101310&opt=0 Incident: Rusline CRJ1 at Tyumen on Dec 26th 2020, could not retract landing gear A Rusline Canadair CRJ-100, registration VP-BNK performing flight 7R-508 from Tyumen to Voronezh (Russia) with 35 passengers, was climbing out of Tyumen when the crew could not retract the landing gear. The crew decided to divert to Ekaterinburg (Russia), about 150nm west of Tyumen, at low altitude for a safe landing about 2 hours after departure. A replacement Canadair CRJ-200 registration VP-BMN continued the flight and is estimated to reach Voronezh with a delay of about 6 hours. Ural's Transport Prosecution Office began an inspection because of the emergency landing due to the landing gear indicating not retracted. Ekaterinburg's Koltsovo Airport confirmed flight 7R-508 diverted due to an indication the landing gear did not retract. http://avherald.com/h?article=4e10116b&opt=0 Boeing 777-346ER - High Engine Vibration (Japan) Date: 26-DEC-2020 Time: 03:35 UTC Type: Boeing 777-346ER Owner/operator: Japan Airlines Registration: JA740J C/n / msn: 36127/744 Fatalities: Fatalities: 0 / Occupants: 38 Other fatalities: 0 Aircraft damage: Unknown Location: east of Japan - Pacific Ocean Phase: En route Nature: Passenger - Scheduled Departure airport: Tokyo International Airport/Haneda (HND/RJTT), Japan Destination airport: New York/John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK/KJFK), USA Narrative: A Boeing 777-300ER of Japan Airlines, operating JAL/JL6 from Tokyo/Haneda, Japan to New York/JFK, USA with 32 passengers onboard, suffered a high engine vibration indication on No. 1 engine while cruising at FL330 over Pacific Ocean. The airplane departed from Haneda at 02:05 UTC/11:05 LT, and the incident occurred at 03:35 UTC. The Boeing continued the flight toward the destination, however, the flight crew made a turn back to Haneda at ca. 05 UTC for precaution. A safe and normal landing on Haneda was carried out at 08:03 UTC/17:03 LT. The flight was restarted by a replaced plane, JA731J with a large estimated delay of 8 hours and 40 minutes. https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/wiki.php?id=246244 (Photo courtesy: K. Pettit) Tribunal Rules Delta ‘Retaliated’ Against Pilot For Safety Report A Labor Department tribunal has awarded a Delta pilot $500,000 in a whistleblower case after determining the airline “weaponized” a bogus psychological assessment that grounded her for two years. Speaking for the panel, Administrative Law Judge Scott Morris further determined that the trip to the psychiatrist was retaliation for Karlene Pettit’s drafting a 43-page report detailing alleged safety issues at the airline, and its safety culture. Petitt has a doctorate in aviation safety. The psychiatrist retained by Delta determined that Petitt was bipolar and therefore disqualified from flying. Two subsequent examinations repudiated those findings and were critical of the original psychiatrist, who subsequently lost his license to practice for his involvement in another case that resulted in another pilot disqualification. Delta had already reported the diagnosis to the FAA medical section before the two later examinations were conducted. In his decision, Morris determined that Petitt had proven that the use of Delta’s so-called “Section 15” was the culmination of a plot among high-level Delta executives to retaliate against the 40-year veteran pilot for bringing up the alleged safety issues. “To be clear, the Tribunal fervently believes, when properly used, the Section 15 process is a valuable and needed tool to protect Respondent (Delta), its pilots, the pilots union, but most importantly, the public,” Morris wrote. “However, it is improper for Respondent to weaponize this process for the purposes of obtaining blind compliance by its pilots due to fear that Respondent can ruin their career by such cavalier use of this tool of last resort.” In an unusual move, Morris also ordered the airline to publish the judgment where its pilots could see it to educate them on the value and importance of whistleblower protection in assuring that important issues of public interest can be raised. Among those deposed for the hearing was FAA Administrator Steve Dickson, who was Delta’s VP of Flight Operations at the time. An FAA spokesman told AVweb Dickson met once with Petitt when she presented her report to him and chief pilot Jim Graham. ”The matter was handled by a cross-divisional team, as were hundreds of other disciplinary proceedings,” the spokesman said. He referred AVweb to Dickson’s testimony at his Senate confirmation hearing where the Petitt case was raised. In that testimony, Dickson also said that he believed the decision to invoke Section 15 was justified by “a credible report about statements the pilot made to company officials and behavior she exhibited, which raised legitimate questions about her fitness to fly.” Petitt had asked for $30 million in compensatory damages but the tribunal rejected the claim because it viewed the claim as a bid to claim punitive damages, which the tribunal cannot award. The $500,000 award was higher than most cases of this nature but Morris said the emotional and reputation harm endured by Petitt was unusually damaging to her. She was also awarded back pay and other compensation for the time she was grounded. Petitt did not respond to AVweb’s request for comment. Delta also did not respond to AVweb but told The Wall Street Journal it plans to appeal the decision and denies it retaliated against Petitt with the psychiatric assessment. It said it encourages voluntary reporting of safety issues by employees and has “zero tolerance for retaliation in any form.” https://www.avweb.com/aviation-news/tribunal-rules-delta-retaliated-against-pilot-for-safety-report/ EU Extends Pakistan International Airlines Flight Ban By 3 Months The European Union (EU) has extended its ban on Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) for a further three months. On Saturday, the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) informed PIA that the ban on flights to Europe would only be lifted after a safety audit of the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA). The EU suspended all PIA flights to Europe in July for six months over concerns about PIA pilots. The news comes a day after Pakistans Aviation Minister Ghulam Sarwar Khan said that he hoped that the ban on Pakistan International Airlines flying to Europe would be lifted soon. While speaking to media from his home town of Taxila, Pakistan’s top aviation minister said the Europeans worry about how commercial pilots in Pakistan got their licenses had been addressed. He also took the opportunity to tell the press that eight new planes were being inducted into the Pakistan International Airlines fleet. EASA is not yet satisfied In another move to get the ban lifted, PIA CEO, Air Marshal Arshad Malik, wrote a letter to the European aviation authorities asking for Pakistan’s national flag carrier to be granted provisional permission to resume European operations. EASA rejected the proposal saying that the pre-conditions for lifting the ban had not yet been met and that an audit of the CAA would be necessary before they would consider lifting the ban. The European safety agency said that their experts had examined all the submitted materials and supporting arguments related to PIA’s Safety Management System (SMS). In the European Union Aviation Safety Agency letter to Pakistan Airlines, English-language daily newspaper Pakistan Today quotes EASA as saying the following: “Reg¬arding the lack of confidence in certification and oversight activities performed by the Pakistani CAA, which was the second aspect that led to the suspension of Third Country Operator Authorisation, the investigation performed by the European Commission and by the ICAO have not yet been concluded. Consequently, as all preconditions to lift the suspension are not met and, as an audit will be necessary, the agency decided not to revoke your Third Country Operator (TCO) authorization but to extend the suspension period by additional three months….” Why did the EASA ban PIA? The European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) had suspended the PIA’s authorization to operate in European Union in July over concerns that many PIA pilots were flying with fake pilot licenses. Following the crash of Pakistan International Airlines Flight 8303 near Karachi in May that killed 97 passengers. It was concluded that the cause of the Airbus A320 crashing was the result of human error. While talking about the crash in Parliament, the country’s aviation chief said that as many as one-third of PIA’s pilots were flying with fake licenses. Other airlines have stepped in Europe’s decision to ban PIA from its airspace came as a huge blow to the airline, which was already under scrutiny due to uncovered pitfalls in the Pakistani aviation industry. While this has all been financially troubling for PIA, International airlines have stepped in to make up for the loss of PIA flights. Earlier this month, Virgin Atlantic launched its first direct flights between London and Pakistan, while British Airways increased its number of flights to Islamabad and Lahore. https://simpleflying.com/eu-extends-pia-flight-ban/ U.S. Airlines Finally Get Their Hands On Another $15 Billion Federal Bailout Executives at American Airlines will be breathing a sigh of relief today after President Trump finally signed a multi-billion-dollar coronavirus relief and government funding package into law on Sunday afternoon. The Dallas Fort Worth-based carrier had started to recall thousands of furloughed workers despite Trump’s threat to veto the bill at the last minute, describing it as a “disgrace”. American Airlines, along with the likes of United, Delta, Southwest and other airlines, will now get their hands on a $15 billion slice of the $900 billion emergency funding package. The money is designed to keep employees in a paid job through to the end of March 2021 even if there isn’t enough work to go around because of the slump in travel demand caused by the pandemic. Congress approved the bailout package on December 20 but President Trump had delayed signing off on the law because he disapproved with the value of stimulus cheques that every American is set to receive. While American Airlines described the delay as an “unexpected development” the airline went ahead and recalled thousands of furloughed workers even when a federal shutdown was looking like a possibility. Most of the recalled workers received paycheques on Christmas Eve for the month of December. The vast majority of recalled workers, however, are unlikely to actually be required to attend the workplace in the next few months because there are so few flights actually operating. United Airlines, which had furloughed 13,000 employees, will also now be able to start the process of recalling workers and Southwest will withdraw a threat to furlough workers for the first time in the airline’s history after getting its hands on the federal bailout. The Association of Flight Attendants (AFA-CWA) estimates that more than 100,000 airline workers will be brought back into employment, including healthcare benefits, as a result of the bailout. Members of the powerful flight attendant union bombarded lawmakers with 43,000 phone calls and more than one hundred thousand letters in an effort to get the bill passed. Airline workers will be hoping that an even larger bailout is proposed once President Elect Joe Biden takes office in January. The success of passing that funding package, however, will largely rely on what the Senate looks like come the Georgia runoff election next month. https://www.paddleyourownkanoo.com/2020/12/28/u-s-airlines-finally-get-their-hands-on-another-15-billion-federal-bailout/ Boeing Looks To Speed Up South Carolina 787 Production Shift Boeing is wrapping up its 787 Dreamliner production in Everett, Washington, in March. That is four months earlier than planned. February will see the last Everett made Dreamliner. After that, production of the Dreamliner will shift to North Charleston in South Carolina. Dominic Gates, writing for The Seattle Times, broke the news and cited an internal Boeing memo by Lane Ballard, general manager of the 787 program and the boss at the North Charleston factory. “Production and delivery consolidation in South Carolina … will take place in March 2021,” said Mr Ballard. The Boeing executive also confirmed that Dreamliner production would slide back to five a month to coincide with the move. Boeing will continue to build its 747, 777, and 767 aircraft at Everett. Just three months ago, Boeing confirmed it would end Dreamliner production in Everett. However, at the time, Boeing said the shift would not occur until mid-2021. Around 1,000 people work on the Dreamliner at Everett. Fortunately, their continued employment at Boeing seems assured for the time being. Most are likely to remain on the books. While Boeing doesn’t plan to offer them work in North Charleston, quality control work on the 787s will continue at Everett after March. Boeing calls the quality control work “join verification” – a reference to the well-publicized problems Boeing’s had with fuselage joins on the Dreamliners. There is a build-up of finished Dreamliners needing “join verification.” This will apparently take some time. “Airplanes that are stored until delivery, and airplanes currently in our production system, will go through this join verification process,” Ballard wrote in the memo shared by The Seattle Times. Earlier this month, it was reported Boeing had approximately 60 Dreamliners completed and in storage, awaiting inspections and delivery to customers. “Stored airplanes assembled in Everett will go to Everett for join inspection and delivery, and stored airplanes assembled in South Carolina will go to South Carolina for join inspection and delivery.” The decision will see all 787 manufacturing done at North Charleston To date, Boeing has been assembling its 787 Dreamliners in Everett, North Charleston, Kansas, and Japan. With assembly only occurring in North Charleston and the three outstations used for quality control purposes, that will now change. By bringing Dreamliner production back to one site, Boeing may overcome many of the production issues dogging the aircraft’s manufacture. Boeing’s North Charleston factory is non-unionized. It runs with lower operating and labor costs than at Everett. Mr. Ballard didn’t say why Boeing was bringing the move to North Charleston forward, but it will save the cash-strapped aircraft manufacturer money in the long run. A chance to draw a line under a troubled production program After a tough year, Boeing is seeing some rays of light. The 737 MAX saga drew to a halt with the Federal Aviation Administration clearing the trouble-plagued aircraft to fly again in the United States. Consequently, several airlines are planning to resume MAX flight, and two significant MAX orders were made in December. While the Dreamliner never hit the headlines to the extent the MAX did, quality issues have caused significant ongoing issues and seen aircraft grounded. The move to consolidate assembly in North Charleston could be seen as an attempt to draw a line under the Dreamliner’s problems and start afresh. It will certainly be easier to keep an eye on quality with aircraft only coming out of one factory. https://simpleflying.com/boeing-charleston-shift-speed-up/ Scientists turn CO2 into jet fuel Researchers may have found a way to reduce the environmental impact of air travel in situations when electric aircraft and alternative fuels aren’t practical. Wired reports that Oxford University scientists have successfully turned CO2 into jet fuel, raising the possibility of conventionally-powered aircraft with net zero emissions. The technique effectively reverses the process of burning fuel by relying on the organic combustion method. The team heated a mix of citric acid, hydrogen and an iron-manganese-potassium catalyst to turn CO2 into a liquid fuel capable of powering jet aircraft. The approach is inexpensive, uncomplicated and uses commonplace materials. It’s cheaper than processes used to turn hydrogen and water into fuel. There are numerous challenges to bringing this to aircraft. The lab method only produced a few grams of fuel — you’d clearly need much more to support even a single flight, let alone an entire fleet. You’d need much more widespread use of carbon capture. And if you want effectively zero emissions, the capture and conversion systems would have to run on clean energy. The researches are talking with industrial partners, though, and don’t see any major scientific hurdles. It might also be one of the most viable options for fleets. Many of them would have to replace their aircraft to go electric or switch fuel types. This conversion process would let airlines keep their existing aircraft and go carbon neutral until they’re truly ready for eco-friendly propulsion. https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/co2-converted-into-jet-fuel-224318943.html Montenegro Airlines ceases operations Montenegro Airlines has become the latest casualty of the Covid-19 pandemic, with all flights suspended as of December 26. The Montenegrin flag carrier was founded in 1994, and has previously operated UK routes to both London’s Gatwick and Stansted airports. Montenegro Airlines had been loss-making for some time, but, like many other airlines worldwide, was particularly affected by the global travel restrictions and fall in customer demand as a result of Covid-19. In a statement on the carrier’s website it said: “Due to the new circumstances related to the decision of the Government of Montenegro not to support the existence of a national airline in the future, and which has a very negative impact on the safety of continued air traffic, we estimated that the level of risk that Montenegro Airlines can not accept. “We hereby inform you that as of December 26, 2020, we will completely suspend the planned traffic. The safety of passengers, crew and aircraft has been a priority for the company from its inception until today. “Thank you to all our passengers for the years of trust, travel and friendship, and we apologize in advance to all to whom this decision on the work of MA, in the coming days and weeks will cause problems in the organization of travel that are or plan to begin.” The airline served a number of destinations from its hubs at Podgoric and Tivat airports. Before the onset of Covid-19 Easyjet had been operating flights from Gatwick and Manchester to Tivat, while Ryanair served Podgorica from Stansted. https://www.businesstraveller.com/business-travel/2020/12/28/montenegro-airlines-ceases-operations/ A 4G network on the moon is bad news for radio astronomy • Nokia has been tapped by NASA to research technology for a 4G network on the moon. By: Emma Alexander, PhD Candidate in Astrophysics, University of Manchester As you drive down the road leading to Jodrell Bank Observatory, a sign asks visitors to turn off their mobile phones, stating that the Lovell telescope is so powerful it could detect a phone signal on Mars. Radio telescopes are designed to be incredibly sensitive. To quote the legendary astronomer Carl Sagan, “The total amount of energy from outside the solar system ever received by all the radio telescopes on the planet Earth is less than the energy of a single snowflake striking the ground.” The total energy now is probably a few snowflakes’ worth, but nevertheless it is still true that astronomical radio signals are typically magnitudes smaller than artificial ones. If Jodrell Bank could pick up interference from a phone signal on Mars, how would it fare with an entire 4G network on the Moon? That is the issue that is worrying astronomers like me, now that Nokia of America has been awarded US$14.1m (£10.8m) for the development of the first ever cellular network on the Moon. The LTE/4G network will aim to facilitate long term lunar habitability, providing communications for key aspects such as lunar rovers and navigation. Radio frequency interference (RFI) is the long-term nemesis of radio astronomers. Jodrell Bank – the earliest radio astronomy observatory in the world still in existence – was created because of RFI. Sir Bernard Lovell, one of the pioneers of radio astronomy, found his work at Manchester hampered by RFI from passing trams in the city, and he persuaded the university’s botany department to let him move to their fields in Cheshire for two weeks (he never left). Since then, radio telescopes have been built more and more remotely in an attempt to avoid RFI, with the upcoming Square Kilometre Array (SKA) telescope being built across remote areas of South Africa and Australia. This helps to cut out many common sources for RFI, including mobile phones and microwave ovens. However, ground-based radio telescopes cannot completely avoid space-based sources of RFI such as satellites – or a future lunar telecommunications network. RFI can be mitigated at the source with appropriate shielding and precision in the emission of signals. Astronomers are constantly developing strategies to cut RFI from their data. But this increasingly relies on the goodwill of private companies to ensure that at least some radio frequencies are protected for astronomy. A long-term dream of many radio astronomers would be to have a radio telescope on the far side of the Moon. In addition to being shielded from Earth-based signals, it would also be able to observe at the lowest radio frequencies, which on Earth are particularly affected by a part of the atmosphere called the ionosphere. Observing at low radio frequencies can help answer fundamental questions about the universe, such as what it was like in the first few moments after the big bang. The science case has already been recognised with the Netherlands-China Low Frequency Explorer, a telescope repurposed from the Queqiao relay satellite sent to the Moon in the Chang’e 4 mission . Nasa has also funded a project on the feasibility of turning a lunar crater into a radio telescope with a lining of wire mesh. It’s not just 4G Despite its interest in these radio projects, Nasa also has its eye commercial partnerships. Nokia is just one of 14 American companies Nasa is working with in a new set of partnerships, worth more than US$370m, for the development of its Artemis programme, which aims to return astronauts to the Moon by 2024. The involvement of private companies in space technology is not new. And the rights and wrongs have long been debated. Drawing possibly the most attention has been SpaceX’s Starlink satellites, which caused a stir among astronomers after their first major launch in 2019. Images quickly began to emerge with trails of Starlink satellites cutting across them – often obscuring or outshining the original astronomical targets. Astronomers have had to deal with satellites for a long time, but Starlink’s numbers and brightness are unprecedented and and their orbits are difficult to predict. These concerns apply to anyone doing ground-based astronomy, whether they use an optical or a radio telescope. A recent analysis of satellite impact on radio astronomy was released by the SKA Organisation, which is developing the next generation of radio telescope technology for the Square Kilometre Array. It calculated that the SKA telescopes would be 70% less sensitive in the radio band that Starlink uses for communications, assuming an eventual number of 6,400 Starlink satellites. As space becomes more and more commercialised, the sky is filling with an increasing volume of technology. That is why it has never been more important to have regulations protecting astronomy. To help ensure that as we take further steps into space, we’ll still be able to gaze at it from our home on Earth. https://www.space.com/nokia-4g-moon-network-bad-for-radio-astronomy NTSB - Position Available - Transportation Disaster Assistance (TDA) Specialist The NTSB hiring a Transportation Disaster Assistance (TDA) Specialist in our TDA division. TDA works closely with federal, state, local, and volunteer agencies, as well as the transportation carrier, to coordinate disaster response activities following a transportation accident. Our team focuses on meeting the needs of transportation accident victims and their families during this difficult time. TDA specialists engage directly with victims and family members to address questions and provide investigative updates during the on-scene phase, and throughout the course of an NTSB investigation. Our ideal candidate will bring working knowledge of: · family assistance response operations following transportation accidents, natural disasters, criminal events, or other critical incidents or traumatic events; · domestic and foreign air carrier emergency response and family assistance operations, to include the development of family assistance programs and the interface with alliance and code-share partners, and airports in the implementation of family assistance response plans; and · U.S. civil airport emergency response operations with a specific focus on passenger and family assistance operations. Our ideal candidate will have experience in: · project or case management of victim or family assistance in the aftermath of transportation accidents, natural disasters, criminal events, or other critical incidents or traumatic events. To learn more about this opportunity and what we’re looking for, visit: https://www.usajobs.gov/GetJob/ViewDetails/586748300 2021 Aircraft Cabin Air Conference Registration Now Open ** With over 500 registrants in just 10 days - the sponsors have extended the free registration to the first 1000 registrants ** 2021 Aircraft Cabin Air Conference 15 to 18 March 2021 1500 to 2000 GMT daily via Zoom (0700 to 1200 PST) Four online days of powerful talks given by industry and subject matter experts. Registration is open and FREE for the first 1000 registrants. https://www.aircraftcabinair.com/ Following on from the success of the 2017 and 2019 Aircraft Cabin Air Conferences, the 2021 conference will be an essential four-day free modular online event via Zoom. Providing an in-depth overview or update for all those seeking to understand the subject of contaminated air, the flight safety implications, the latest scientific and medical evidence investigating the contaminated air debate and the emerging solutions available to airlines and aircraft operators. The 2021 conference will be the biggest conference ever held on the issue. Who should participate? Airline Management - Aircraft Manufacturers - Safety equipment providers - Health & Safety Regulators - Maintenance Companies - Airline Safety Departments - Air Accident Investigators- Crew & Unions - Policy Makers- Press & Media - Aircraft Insurers - Leasing Companies - Scientists - Occupational Health Professionals - Academics & Researchers - Engineers Register Curt Lewis