Flight Safety Information - September 14, 2022 No.177 In This Issue : Accident: India Express B738 at Muscat on Sep 14th 2022, rejected takeoff due to engine fire : Incident: Transat A332 near Montreal on Aug 27th 2022, member of flight crew incapacitated : Incident: Commut E145 near Lafayette on Sep 11th 2022, smoke in cockpit : Incident: KLM Cityhopper E190 at Amsterdam on Sep 12th 2022, could not retract the gear : Are Air Force Pilots’ Cancer Cases Linked To Cockpit Radiation? Calls Rise For Studies. : Bombardier Opens 2022 Safety Standdown Registration : Appreciating the Importance of Aircraft Logs : Passenger sentenced to 4 months in prison for interfering with flight crew : Major US group partners with non-profit organisation to promote aviation safety in Africa : ISASI - 2023: Save The Date Accident: India Express B738 at Muscat on Sep 14th 2022, rejected takeoff due to engine fire An Air India Express Boeing 737-800, registration VT-AXZ performing flight IX-442 from Muscat (Oman) to Kochi (India) with 145 passengers, was accelerating for takeoff from Muscat's runway 08L at about 11:35L (07:35Z) when the crew rejected takeoff at low speed (about 40 knots over ground) due to a right hand engine (CFM56) fire indication. The crew slowed the aircraft and vacated the runway via the next high speed turn off about 1800 meters/6000 feet down the runway and stopped clear of the runway on the adjacent taxiway. An emergency evacuation via slides followed. 14 passengers are reported to have sustained injuries during the evacuation. https://www.avherald.com/h?article=4fe3cf87&opt=0 Incident: Transat A332 near Montreal on Aug 27th 2022, member of flight crew incapacitated An Air Transat Airbus A330-200, registration C-GUFR performing flight TS-244 from Toronto,ON (Canada) to Glasgow,SC (UK) with 297 passengers and 11 crew, was enroute at FL390 about 50nm west of Montreal,QC (Canada) when the aircraft diverted to Montreal due to the incapacitation of a member of the flight crew. The aircraft landed safely on Montreal's runway 24R about 28 minutes later. The Canadian TSB reported the crew did not declare emergency. The aircraft remained on the ground for about 2 hours, then continued the journey and reached Glasgow with a delay of about 2.5 hours. https://www.avherald.com/h?article=4fe346db&opt=0 Incident: Commut E145 near Lafayette on Sep 11th 2022, smoke in cockpit A Commutair Embraer ERJ-145 on behalf of United, registration N14198 performing flight UA-4233 from Houston Intercontinental,TX to Gulfport,MS (USA), was enroute at FL240 about 40nm southeast of Lafayette,LA (USA) when the crew turned the aircraft around and diverted to Lafayette reporting smoke in the cockpit. The aircraft landed safely on Lafayette's runway 22L about 20 minutes after deciding to divert. A replacement Embraer ERJ-145 registration N27190 reached Gulfport with a delay of 5:45 hours. The occurrence aircraft is still on the ground in Lafayette about 47 hours after landing. https://www.avherald.com/h?article=4fe32bd1&opt=0 Incident: KLM Cityhopper E190 at Amsterdam on Sep 12th 2022, could not retract the gear A KLM Cityhopper Embraer ERJ-190, registration PH-EZH performing flight KL-1065 from Amsterdam (Netherlands) to Cardiff,WL (UK), was climbing out of Amsterdam's runway 24 when the crew requested to level off at 3000 feet reporting their gear would not come up. The crew worked the checklists, advised ATC they expected a normal landing but might not be able to turn after landing and requested a tow truck available, they had three greens. The aircraft landed safely on Amsterdam's runway 18C about 21 minutes after departure. A replacement ERJ-190 registration PH-EZT reached Cardiff with a delay of about 2 hours. The occurrence aircraft returned to service after about 16 hours on the ground. https://www.avherald.com/h?article=4fe33290&opt=0 Are Air Force Pilots’ Cancer Cases Linked To Cockpit Radiation? Calls Rise For Studies. Too little is known about direct links between cockpit radiation and a variety of cancers in U.S. Air Force aircrews. The director of the USAF Operational Test Team for the F-35 says, “We’re just starting to tease out some of the data on that and it’s not very encouraging.” At next week’s annual symposium for the Society of Experimental Test Pilots Colonel Dan “Animal” Javorsek will give a presentation on the relationship between exposure to radar, avionics and other emissions in the cockpits of fighter aircraft and a rising incidence of cancers among active and retired Air Force pilots. Col. Javorsek is a test pilot himself and the current commander of Detachment 6 at the Air Force Operational Test and Evaluation Center (AFOTEC) at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada as well as director of the USAF F-35 Operational Test Team. He is also a cancer survivor. Diagnosed with testicular cancer while commanding a squadron in 2016, Javorsek underwent three surgeries and chemotherapy over several years. As he continued to serve, he began to seriously research possible causes for his illness. When he joined DARPA as a program manager in 2018, he took the reins of the Agency’s Impact of Cockpit Electro-Magnetics on Aircrew Neurology (ICEMAN) program. ICEMAN was a two-year project aimed at determining whether radio waves and magnetic fields were harming pilots and interfering with their ability to operate their aircraft. ICEMAN is now a Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) program and last May Vermont-based Norwich University received a $371,000 Small Business Innovation Research grant from DARPA to continue Phase II research. The DARPA effort did not focus on cancer but a study released in 2020 by the Air Force’s School of Aerospace Medicine at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base did. Researchers tracked the health of approximately 35,000 active-duty airmen who flew fighter jets between 1970 and 2004, concluding they are at higher risk of developing prostate cancer and melanoma, with possible links to non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and testicular cancer. According to the School of Aerospace Medicine, the study results suggested the need for possible cancer prevention measures but were not enough to warrant broad policy changes for the Air Force fighter community. Javorsek, who assumed command of AFOTEC 6 in April 2021, continued to wonder about the effect of cockpit radiation from the newer 4th and 5th generation aircraft he and others have been flying since 2004. The 2021 death of a friend and fellow USAF pilot from cancer inspired Col. Javorsek to establish a non-profit foundation called ACES and Eights to raise awareness for aircrew cancer. The name is a reference to the so-called “dead man’s hand” in poker - two-pair of black Aces and black Eights. While the 2020 study dealt with cancer incidence in older aircrew, “We’re really trying to lean on the Air Force and DoD writ large to do a study similar to their study of the Vietnam era jets but for 4th gen and 5th gen airplanes,” Javorsek says. Congress took note of the previous study and included some language in the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) suggesting further investigation of the issue. Javorsek and others hope a bill pending in Congress - the Aviator Cancer Examination Study Act or ACES Act - sponsored by Rep. August Pfluger (R-Texas), a former USAF F-15/F-22 pilot, will impel the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Pentagon and the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to study cancer and mortality in Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps aircrew members as well as aircraft support personnel. “Congress has been poking at this for the last couple years,” Javorsek observes. “With it comes some incentive [to investigate] beyond the pilot community.” Javorsek’s status as an active-duty commander and test pilot within the Air Force test community gives his advocacy an unusual and admirable quality. The lack of examination of the issue by DoD and the Air Force stem from institutional resistance, the reluctance of aircrew to call attention to themselves and commercial interest within the telecom sector, he says. To illustrate the last, Javorsek maintains that when he managed ICEMAN for DARPA he couldn’t use the word “cancer” in association with the effort for political reasons. “The terms RF and cancer tend to be avoided by a whole host of folks to include the cellphone industry which doesn’t really want to see a lot of investigation.” Most pilots he says are “anti-hypochondriacs,” reluctant to visit flight surgeons when uncertain about their health since “nothing good” comes from such visits with regard to their flight-status (even if only pushed back for a day) or their careers. But speaking from personal experience, Javorek is adamant that, “When it comes to susceptibility to cancer, any time there’s anything that might remotely indicate that, they need to get it checked out.” Pilots from all service branches might more readily take his advice if their leadership understood in some detail what may be happening. The Radiation Fish Bowl The 2020 study of aircrew cancer rates looked largely at those who flew older aircraft (F-100s. F-105s, F-4s, earlier F-15s and F-16s) with analog radars whose side and rear lobes flooded cockpits with radiation which propagated out through their canopies into the ambient environment. But with the advent of stealth technology in the 1970s and 1980s, a determined effort to reduce the radar cross-section (RCS) and thus detectability of airplanes like the F-117, and more broadly aircraft across the Air Force fleet, led to a program called HAVE GLASS. HAVE GLASS was a series of RCS reduction measures for the F-16. Among these was the addition of an indium-tin-oxide layer to the gold tinted cockpit canopy of the fighter. During development of the F-117 (code named HAVE BLUE) Lockheed designers recognized that an airplane’s RCS could be dramatically affected by reflections from the radar energy inside its canopy. In addition to giving the F-117 and angular-shaped canopy, engineers infused it with a metallic layer, creating a Faraday Cage effect, preventing the waves entering the cockpit from the radar in the nose from bouncing back out into the atmosphere. The trick was later added to the F-16 and because it required little more than remanufactured canopies was applied across the USAF 4th and 5th generation aircraft fleets. “The problem,” Javorsek says, “is that the same design for keeping [radiation] out, also keeps it in.” The radar energy that ultimately worked its way out of Super Sabre or Phantom cockpits remains trapped inside newer fighters with HAVE GLASS canopy treatments. “You now basically have a retro-reflector for the radar that’s a couple of feet in front of you,” Col. Javorsek explains. “To make things worse, if you look at how a canopy is shaped and where a pilot sits, a quick ray-trace of the radar waves inside shows they end up focused on the pilot.” In his talk on aircrew radiation and cancer Javorsek makes a simple line drawing to illustrate the problem and it points right at the pilot’s head. For the diminishing number of F-16s, F-15s, A-10s and others still flying with analog radars, the problem is likely worse than in those updated with digital Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radars. The older radars are more “leaky,” Javorsek thinks, with larger side and rear lobes. The long-term impact of the particular type of non-ionizing radiation emitted in the cockpit and its relation to different strains of cancer is something that Javorsek theorizes is important as well. But making educated guesses about the physics of in-cockpit radar radiation isn’t enough. Scientific measurement of the cockpit environment is necessary to assess possible neuro-medical and cancer impacts for aircrew. Sensors designed to measure the cockpit electromagnetic environment at different wavelengths and in different positions were devised for ICEMAN by the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and other participants. These can be employed in collecting data for cancer studies Javorsek hopes as well as in assessing the effects of other avionics including helmet-mounted displays which put radiation immediately in front of a pilot’s forehead and eyeballs. “These helmet-mounted cueing systems are about as close as you can get to your brain, your cognitive function,” Javorsek says. “We know from some work from Caltech did for another DARPA program called RadioBio that there is a relationship between your brain waves and disturbances in the electromagnetic ambient environment.” Questions about the impact of such devices on pilot ocular health are worth considering as well including temporary visual impairment. Ironically, the opportunity for broad studies of all of the above has diminished with the worrying decrease in flight hours pilots across military are dealing with. While they may be less exposed to cockpit radiation, under-experienced pilots are likely to suffer mortality related to operational and combat shortcomings. As for his own advocacy and the bill now working its way through Congress, Javorsek is realistic. “These kinds of grassroots efforts, like this [bill] now in Congress are always at risk of not being followed through. Hopefully it makes it and provides some directive for DoD to produce a report and answer some of these questions.” While he’s speaking and speaking out, he observes that there are things the Air Force and its pilots can do now. “There may be ways we can change how we operate our [radar/avionics] systems, mitigation strategies we can put in place. What I tell young pilots when I’m talking to them about this is they should realize that they have an increased risk [for cancer] and get screened early. If you notice something or your wife notices something, get after it.” https://www.forbes.com/sites/erictegler/2022/09/13/the-link-between-air-force-pilots-and-elevated-cancer-rates-is-more-than-worth-looking-at/?sh=2c73fbb04a10 Bombardier Opens 2022 Safety Standdown Registration Bombardier has opened registration for the 2022 Safety Standdown, which will be held November 8-10 at the Hyatt Regency in Wichita. The Montreal-based airframer’s 26th standdown is free for pilots, maintenance technicians, managers, cabin crew, and other aviation professionals but seating is limited. The three-day aviation safety conference’s theme this year is “Moving Safety Forward.” This year’s session topics include runway excursion prevention, assessing safety in the hangar, creating a “sticky” culture and building followership, aviation stress and self-management, and making fitness for duty a standard practice. Founded in 1996 as an aviation safety event for a Bombardier Learjet demonstration team in Wichita, the Safety Standdown was opened to other corporate pilots and flight crews in 1999. It has since expanded with an online component providing live webcasting of the event as well as other seminars and safety-related articles. https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/business-aviation/2022-09-13/bombardier-opens-2022-safety-standdown-registration Appreciating the Importance of Aircraft Logs Losing your aircraft logbooks can be devastating, possibly leading to tragic repercussions. It’s easy to underestimate the importance and value of an aircraft’s logbooks. This flimsy cardboard box will soon be upgraded to a fireproof safe. [Photo: Jason McDowell] A few weeks ago, I was house sitting at a friend’s place while he was out of town. During this time, he had an annual scheduled for his Stearman biplane. He asked me to drop his aircraft logbooks off at the hangar so his mechanic could make the necessary entries. I had a pretty full schedule, but I agreed to do so. Over the next couple of days, my schedule became increasingly full, and I realized it was going to be very difficult to make that trip over to the hangar. Fortunately, a mutual acquaintance happened to be heading there and offered to drop the Stearman logs off for me. I took him up on the offer, thanked him, and the delivery went fine. The next day, after my schedule had subsided somewhat, I reflected upon that decision. The Stearman owner had entrusted me with the airplane’s logbooks, and trusted that I would hand-deliver them to his mechanic. I, in return, pawned the job off on our friend. In hindsight, it was irresponsible of me, and I don’t feel good about it. Before I was an aircraft owner, I did not fully appreciate the importance of aircraft logs. I roughly equated their value to that of a pilot logbook—important, sure, but not impossible to replicate and/or replace. Should a pilot’s logbooks become lost or destroyed, it would indeed be a massive headache, but with the flight time totals from a previous 8710 application for a new certificate or rating, new endorsements from previous CFIs, and a notary, a semblance of the original logbooks can be cobbled together. But the loss of an aircraft’s logbooks…well, that could more accurately be described as devastating. Documentation Most obvious is the loss of important documentation. Without accurate maintenance records, there would be no recorded times, no documentation of damage history, service bulletins, modifications, airworthiness directives, etc. Piecing together the maintenance history to prove airworthiness would be incredibly time consuming and in many cases, impossible. Some records can be obtained from the FAA. As I described in a previous column, a $10 fee gets you everything on record regarding an airplane’s registration and airworthiness history. When I ordered the records to research my own airplane, I even received scanned technical diagrams of a full-flow oil filter that had been added with an STC. Maintenance aside, another tragedy of lost logbooks would be the resulting decrease of your airplane’s value. A representative from aircraft valuation and appraisal firm Vref estimated that an airplane’s value would be decreased by between 40 and 60 percent without any logbooks. For a $50,000 airplane, this means the cardboard box of logs and binders that accompanies it is worth between $20,000 and $30,000. To one owner, some casual browsing on eBay revealed a treasure trove of information and value—$30 spent on this auction would likely increase the airplane’s value by tens of thousands of dollars. [Photo: eBay] That’s an expensive cardboard box. In addition to being unable to discern the maintenance history, the buyer could find it nearly impossible to secure financing for the aircraft, further complicating the sale. The airplane would be a lemon; nobody would want it, and the few who would be interested would be making extremely low offers. The missing engine logs would be solvable. While not inexpensive, one could simply purchase a new engine (or a used one with logs), install it, and then sell the logless engine for parts. This would essentially provide a clean slate with regard to engine documentation. But no such option exists for an airframe. As Luck Would Have It If tragedy strikes and you find yourself without logs, it’s possible to get lucky. A couple of years ago, I was browsing the International Stinson Club’s Facebook group to learn more about the type, when I spotted an interesting post. A member had found a set of Stinson logbooks listed for sale on eBay. The aforementioned eBay auction contained detailed logs, diagrams, service bulletins, and maintenance records—critical documentation to the aircraft in question. [Photo: eBay] He looked up the tail number and discovered that the Stinson, to which the logs belonged, was actively registered to an individual in North Dakota. Thinking that perhaps the owner frequented the Facebook group, he shared the listing and asked if anyone happened to know them. Nobody did, but a particularly kind and generous individual later announced that he had personally ponied up the $35 to buy the logs, and had them shipped to the mailing address listed with the aircraft registration. Such is the camaraderie of good type groups. Just this past week in a different Facebook group, a Cessna 172 owner shared photos of aircraft and engine logbooks for his own airplane that mysteriously arrived in the mail. Apparently, upon discovering them, another good samaritan recognized the importance of reuniting logs with their respective airplane and dropped them into the mail. They included no note or correspondence— only a P.O. Box as a return address. The 172 owner had plans to send the mystery samaritan a thank you letter and a gift card of some kind. Me, I’m still trying to figure out how best to safeguard my own logbooks. It seems prudent to purchase a good, fireproof safe for them, as well as for some other irreplaceable items. But even with a high-quality safe, the logs still only exist in one place and in one form. I’ve started looking into a company called Planelogix. They bill themselves as “General Aviation’s Premiere Logbook Backup & Digitization Company.” Curious, I perused their website and before long, found myself chatting with one of the founders of the company. As it turns out, the company does a lot more than just digitize logbooks. First, they send a large, airtight Pelican case to your address. You place your logbooks inside, then ship it back to them. Upon receipt, they scan every page of every logbook using optical character recognition and even enter the data by hand, if necessary, to create a set of fully searchable and updatable online maintenance records and logs. After the scanning process, your original logbooks are returned to you. The founder explained that in addition to digitizing the logs, they commonly discover an airplane is not airworthy, stemming from a lack of documentation for one or more necessary entries, often related to ADs. Twin Cessnas, he said, are typically the most notorious because of their complexity. The scanning process, therefore, also functions as a thorough audit of an airplane’s airworthiness. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that utilization of the company’s proprietary database for tracking existing maintenance logs and entering new ones is not required. In other words, they don’t lock you into using their own interface to track service intervals and make new maintenance entries. Upon request, they will provide you with your full set of scanned records in an open file format, enabling you to access and refer to them using commonly-available software. I haven’t yet signed up for the service, but I suspect I will do so fairly soon. The specter of lost, irreplaceable logs is terrifying, and the peace of mind that comes from knowing every logbook entry is both digitized and stored in the cloud would be comforting, indeed. But just for fun, I’ve saved an eBay search for my own tail number, so I’ll be notified if something related to my airplane should ever be listed for sale. https://www.flyingmag.com/appreciating-the-importance-of-aircraft-logs/ Passenger sentenced to 4 months in prison for interfering with flight crew (CNN) — A New York City woman was recently sentenced to four months in prison for interference with flight crew members, according to a Department of Justice news release. Kelly Pichardo had previously pleaded guilty to the charge, which is a Class C felony offense. Pichardo also received 36 months of supervised release and was ordered to pay $9,123 restitution to American Airlines, the department said in the release. The sentence was imposed on August 29, according to court documents. "Unruly and intimidating behavior," the release says, by Pichardo and her co-defendant on a February 2021 American Airlines flight from Dallas to Los Angeles prompted the flight to reroute to Phoenix so that the two could be removed from the plane. They were traveling in first class. Ana Laura Botello, an attorney for Pichardo, declined to comment on the sentencing. The co-defendant, Leeza S. Rodriguez, is scheduled to be sentenced in November "pursuant to her guilty plea," the department said. The indictment said Pichardo and Rodriguez interfered by assaulting a crew member while the aircraft was in flight. "There is a line between boorish behavior on an airplane and criminal activity, and the defendant clearly crossed it," said US Attorney Gary Restaino in the news release. "First class passengers are not immune from prosecution." The Association of Professional Flight Attendants, a union representing more than 20,000 American Airlines flight attendants, said the violent behavior displayed on the flight diverted to Phoenix "must stop." "APFA will continue collaborating with other flight attendant and customer service agent unions, the Department of Transportation, the Federal Aviation Administration, and Congress to ensure these offenders are prosecuted to the full extent of the law with appropriate fines and criminal penalties," said Julie Hedrick, the union's national president, in a statement provided to CNN. The maximum fine for the violation of the Class C felony in this case is $250,000, with a maximum prison term of 20 years. A record year for unruly passenger behavior, 2021 ended with nearly 6,000 reports to the Federal Aviation Administration. More than 1,100 investigations and 350 enforcement actions were initiated. The Federal Bureau of Investigation, with assistance from the Phoenix Police Department, conducted the investigation of the incident involving Pichardo. At the end of 2021, the Justice Department vowed to prioritize prosecution of crimes on commercial airplanes. https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/airline-passenger-prison-sentence-flight-crew-interference/index.html Major US group partners with non-profit organisation to promote aviation safety in Africa US aerospace group Boeing is partnering with non-governmental organisation (NGO) AviAssist to promote aviation safety in Africa. AviAssist is a non-profit organisation set up in 1995 to provide aviation safety resources and guidance for the African aviation sector, and the giant US company is its latest partner. “Safety is fundamental to the success of our industry, and is a core value for the Boeing team," affirmed Boeing Global Safety and Regulatory Affairs director Akachi Iroezi. “Growth of the aviation industry in Africa depends on the safety of the aviation ecosystem and we are collaborating with customers, regulators and other stakeholders to help strengthen the safety of that ecosystem. Working with AviAssist gives us access to a world-class and effective way of promoting safety in the region.” To further support the strengthening of aviation assistance across the continent, the NGO is starting to create a series of AviAssist Safety Promotion Centres (ASPCs) in Africa. The first such ASPC is in Rwanda, and, under the new partnership, Boeing will support it by providing educational programming. The ASPCs will provide training and learning, as well as research, resources to African aviation safety “champions”. They will also link aviation safety professionals and policymakers with research. ASPC-Rwanda is hosted by the University of Rwanda and the partnership between the NGO and the aerospace group will also help support AviAssist’s trainee programme at the University. “We are thrilled to include Boeing in our work in Africa and our ASPCs,” enthused AviAssist director Tom Kok. “With this partnership, Boeing invests in current and future African aviation professionals to help grow the continent’s aviation industry.” The AviAssist and Boeing partnership will further assist in the production of the third series of the NGO’s free online TV safety show, ‘AviAssist Focus Sessions’. In addition, the partnership will help develop safety exhibits at ASPC-Rwanda. https://www.engineeringnews.co.za/article/major-us-group-partners-with-non-profit-organisation-to-promote-aviation-safety-in-africa-2022-09-14/rep_id:4136 International Society of Air Safety Investigators https://www.isasi.org/ SAVE THE DATE: 2023 ISASI Annual Seminar Save the Date.pdf ISASI Annual Seminar 2023 Accidents: The Current Which Lies Beneath Nashville, TN August 21 – 25, 2023 Monday, August 21st – Tutorials Tuesday, August 22nd – General Session Wednesday, August 23rd – General Session Thursday, August 24th – General Session Friday, August 25th – Optional Tour Renaissance Nashville Hotel 611 Commerce Street Nashville, TN 37203 Hosted by the Southeast Regional Chapter (SERC) of the International Society of Safety Investigators (ISASI) Thank you, Your 2023 ISASI Annual Seminar Committee Curt Lewis