Flight Safety Information April 8, 2014 - No. 072 In This Issue Cost of Hunt for Malaysia Airlines Jet Reaches $44 Million Satellite operator refining data to narrow MH370's last position, says report Man arrested for forging SA commercial pilot's license Brazil Falling Short in Rush to Overhaul World Cup Airports Southwest Airlines jet diverts to Boise after pilots notice crack in windshield Honduras arrests 2 U.S. pilots who abandoned luxury jet FAA Proposes $325,000 Civil Penalty Against Alfa Chemistry PRISM SMS Why buying a corporate jet pays for itself For Shame: The Giant Poster That Shows Drone Pilots the People They're Bombing Air India proposes 15% pay cut for pilots Meet the 'intelligent aircraft'-You may fly it one day International Humanitarian Aviation Summit Upcoming Events Cost of Hunt for Malaysia Airlines Jet Reaches $44 Million SYDNEY -- The hunt for missing Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370 is on track to cost hundreds of millions of dollars, becoming the most expensive search in aviation history with 26 countries contributing planes, ships, submarines and satellites. A month into the search for the jet, estimates compiled by Reuters show that at least $44 million has already been spent on the deployment of military ships and aircraft in the Indian Ocean and South China Sea by Australia, China, the United States and Vietnam. The figure is based on defense force statistics on available hourly costs of various assets, estimates by defence analysts and costs reported by the Pentagon. Image: Search for the missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 AUSTRALIAN DEFENCE VIA REUTERS Sub Lieutenant Officer Samuel Archibald looks through binoculars on the bridge of the Australian Navy ship HMAS Perth in the southern Indian Ocean during the search for the missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370. The figure for the first month of the search is already about equal to the official $44 million spent in searches lasting several months spread over a two-year time frame for Air France's Flight AF447, which crashed into the Atlantic Ocean in 2009. The $44 million estimate for MH370 does not cover all the defence assets being used by countries including Britain, France, New Zealand and South Korea, nor numerous other costs such as civilian aircraft, accommodation for hundreds of personnel and expenses for intelligence analysts worldwide. Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott, whose country is leading the search, and his Malaysian counterpart, Najib Razak, have repeatedly said the cost of the search is not an issue. http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/missing-jet/cost-hunt-malaysia-airlines-jet-reaches-44-million-n74436 Back to Top Satellite operator refining data to narrow MH370's last position, says report British satellite telecommunications firm Inmarsat Plc said it is refining satellite data to better establish the last position of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, which is believed to have gone missing in the southern Indian Ocean more than a month ago. Inmarsat, whose calculations first determined that MH370 flew south over the Indian Ocean,... British satellite telecommunications firm Inmarsat Plc said it is refining satellite data to better establish the last position of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, which is believed to have gone missing in the southern Indian Ocean more than a month ago. Inmarsat, whose calculations first determined that MH370 flew south over the Indian Ocean, told Bloomberg that it is providing "more analysis and refinement" and "looking at what else we can do with the data that's at hand". "We continue to provide data, we continue to be asked to refine that data," the London-based company's executive chairman, Andrew Sukawaty, was quoted as saying. Inmarsat, part of a British contingent including the U.K. Air Accidents Investigation Branch that is aiding Malaysian investigators, had worked tirelessly since the jet disappeared on March 8 with 239 people on board, the report said. Inmarsat engineers, it said, calculated two possible trajectories from passive return signals from the jet to its satellites before applying principles relating to the impact of movement on sound waves to determine it had headed south. "This is such an unusual situation where communication was shut off and it was just our safety terminal in essence getting handshakes," Sukawaty told Bloomberg in Abu Dhabi. "We check on aircraft in the sky so we know not precisely where they are but what region they're in so we can give it service." He said Inmarsat had initially provided data that showed how long the returns from MH370 were received and also numbers that revealed the plane's angle from the satellite - which together, produced the two search arcs - the Southern Corridor, that goes all the way to west of Australia, and the Northern Corridor, which goes into Central Asia. Then some "very sophisticated analysis" was applied on a third set of data using the Doppler Effect principles that proved the plane was lost somewhere in the southern arc, where a multi-national search effort has been focused. The search area of more than 234,000 square kilometres could be further narrowed with further guidance on the crash zone, Bloomberg said, even as authorities now focus on looking for the aircraft's two black boxes in the depths of the Indian Ocean. Retired Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, who is coordinating the multinational search, had earlier said that an Australian navy ship had detected two sets of pulse signals that sounded "just like an emergency locator beacon". The first set of ping was heard on Saturday and lasted for two hours and 20 minutes, after which the signal was lost. But the Ocean Shield ship then turned around and later heard further signals for 13 minutes. Sukawaty said that Inmarsat provides basic air-safety connectivity for 10,000 planes - "every aircraft that crosses the ocean, virtually", with carriers choosing service levels based on commercial decisions and required standards. Even as the International Air Transport Association planned to form a task force to evaluate the viability of real- time data downloads to constantly pinpoint the positions of aircraft, he told Bloomberg that cost was not a significant issue. "Providing things like location data through this feed is a fairly simple and inexpensive process. We even looked at more extensive data and for something like $7 to $10 per five-hour flight this data can be streamed," he was quoted as saying. – April 8, 2014. http://news.malaysia.msn.com/tmi/satellite-operator-refining-data-to-narrow-mh370%E2%80%99s-last-position- says-report Back to Top Man arrested for forging SA commercial pilot's license Johannesburg - A Congolese national has appeared before the Kempton Park Magistrate Court on charges of forging a South African commercial pilot's license. His arrest follows an anonymous alert to the South African Civil Aviation Authority (SACAA). Preliminary investigations have revealed that the 33-year-old man allegedly used the forged South African commercial pilot's license to get a revalidation of a commercial pilot license which was issued by the Democratic Republic Congo's Civil Aviation Authority. The man was arrested in Kempton Park whilst trying to conduct a simulator training in order to keep his fraudulent DRC-issued commercial pilot's license valid. "The SACAA is working closely with the DRC Civil Aviation Authority in order to ensure that this unscrupulous individual, and any other like him, does not get to sit in the cockpit anytime soon," said SACAA's Director of Civil Aviation, Poppy Khoza. She added that they hoped he would face the full might of the law, so that any others considering similar offences can be aware of the dire consequences they would face. If convicted, the accused could face a monetary penalty of up to R50 000, or a ten year imprisonment term, or both penalties. According to Khoza, the SACAA's dedicated personnel are doing laudable work in rooting out corruption and unethical behaviour in the civil aviation industry. Ninety five cases were administered between January 2013 and March 2014 compared to 73 during the preceding calendar year and 32 in 2011. Besides opening criminal cases against some of the culprits, lawbreakers were issued with penalty notices and warning letters, whilst some had their various licences, certi?cates or approvals suspended, or downgraded, or cancelled. Culprits ranged from air traf?c controllers through to pilot's licence holders, air operating certi?cate holders, aircraft maintenance organisations, aviation training schools, aircraft maintenance engineers, aviation security regulated agents, and airport licence holders.-+ Khoza appealed to members of the public and aviation industry to report any unbecoming civil aviation behaviour to the SACAA. She further lauded the whistle-blower and many others who cooperate with the Authority in bringing these matters to the attention of the SACAA, adding that the SACAA will not tolerate any form of unethical conduct by any member of the aviation community. "We truly relish the cooperation and would like to record our undertaking that the SACAA will leave no stone unturned in pursuit of preserving aviation safety and the lives of the flying public," said Khoza. http://www.news24.com/Travel/South-Africa/Man-arrested-for-forging-SA-commercial-pilots-license-20140408 Back to Top Brazil Falling Short in Rush to Overhaul World Cup Airports An aerial view of the International Airport of Recife, northeastern Brazil, April 6, 2014. Recife is one of the host cities for the 2014 World Cup. SAO PAULO/BRASILIA - With less than 10 weeks until the start of the World Cup, work on crucial new airport terminals has fallen behind in most of the dozen Brazilian host cities, heightening the risk of overcrowding and confusion during the tournament. A temporary canvas terminal will be used instead of a planned airport expansion to receive fans in Fortaleza, which will host six matches including Brazil's game against Mexico and a quarter-final. During President Dilma Rousseff's visit to an airport in Belo Horizonte, the site of a semi-final, officials admitted on Monday that construction would not be completed in time. Back-up plans are also being prepared in other cities. "Other airports have not said anything yet, but they will probably have to come up with contingencies," said Carlos Ozores, a principal at aviation consultancy ICF International who has consulted for Brazilian airlines and airport operators. Concern over Brazil's airports is especially acute since they represent some of the tournament's most lasting investments. A host of other transportation projects have been scrapped or postponed, adding to criticism that the World Cup will leave few long-term benefits for ordinary Brazilians. Soccer legend Pele said on Monday he worried that the state of Brazil's airports could ruin the opportunity presented by the tournament, adding that he was saddened to see rushed efforts when his country had years to prepare. Quick fixes and last-minute deliveries are a recipe for chaos in the complex aviation industry, analysts say. Bungled openings of terminals from London to Denver took months to straighten out. The stakes will be high in Brazil as more than 600,000 visitors arrive for the World Cup starting in June, one of the biggest sudden influxes the country has ever seen. "People coming to Brazil are going to be shocked, especially Americans, by the how bad the airports are," said Paul Irvine, who runs travel agency Dehouche in Rio de Janeiro. "There won't be any catastrophic issues ... but they will be chaotic and ugly as heck," he said. Any air travel chaos could be especially embarrassing for Rousseff, who made a bold political bet by privatizing a handful of key airports to ready them for the tournament, accelerating work that had languished under state control. The move broke with the ideology of her leftist Workers' Party. If those airports fail to deliver the smooth service that helped to justify the privatizations, the issue could quickly become an election campaign issue as Rousseff seeks a second term in October. The airport concessions are a closely watched first step in her more than $100 billion plan to draw private investment to public infrastructure projects. Construction delays at publicly administered airports have been far more dramatic. At the start of last month, airport overhauls in seven World Cup host cities were only half finished or worse, according to Infraero, the government agency that oversees airport operations. Still, the privately run projects are drawing scrutiny. Civil aviation authority ANAC has redoubled its inspections of three privatized airports since learning at the start of this year that work was behind proposed timelines. Adjusting Expectations At the international airport serving the capital Brasilia, the racket of jackhammers rings through an open concourse, where passengers riding up an escalator can see a six-foot-wide hole in the floor behind a boarded-off area. One new terminal is set to open in weeks and the private operator promises another by May, although municipal authorities are downplaying that possibility. At Guarulhos Airport outside of Sao Paulo, Brazil's biggest city, the glistening facade of the new Terminal 3 hides an interior still missing several walls, ceilings and basic operating systems. "Guarulhos is where we expect to get the most blowback," said one government official briefed on the airport's progress, who requested anonymity given the sensitivity of the issue. The automated baggage check and immigrations systems originally promised will not be ready for the World Cup. The new international terminal is set to open at a fraction of its eventual capacity, handling just one in four foreign flights - less than 10 percent of overall traffic at the airport. "At Terminal 3 in Guarulhos, they have already shifted from more airlines to fewer for the World Cup, and one could imagine further announcements ahead," said Ozores. "There's clearly a correction going on, an adjustment of expectations." By most accounts, construction at the privatized airports has moved at a relentless pace, with as many as 8,000 workers on shifts around the clock at each site. Operators say they will deliver new terminals by the deadlines they promised. But the timelines for the airports were tight from the start. After winning auctions in February 2012, paperwork and regulations held up construction until the second half of the year, leaving airports with as little as a year and a half for their overhauls. Viracopos, another privatized airport outside of Sao Paulo where several national teams will be chartering flights, was 82 percent finished with its promised expansion in January, about three months before its deadline. Its operator declined a request to visit the site. By contrast, several World Cup stadiums were finished late, but organizers have now held test matches in all except one of 12 scheduled to host games: Sao Paulo's Arena Corinthians, where the deaths of three construction workers have slowed work amid investigations. Brazil's need for new airport terminals is unmistakable, with three in four airports stretched beyond intended capacity since 2010 after air traffic more than doubled in a decade, according to Infraero. However, the scramble to finish construction on the eve of the World Cup has created the potential for snags in a system with little margin for error. The Brazilian Air Force has further complicated things by declaring no-fly zones over stadiums during matches for security reasons, disrupting flights in several cities for as much as five hours at a time. Brazilian airlines have also been cutting costs and slashing payrolls after two years of heavy losses, and travel headaches are common in the country even without the crush of a major sporting event. During a recent visit to the Brasilia airport, for example, one airline's computer system crashed for hours, sending queues snaking out the door and along the curb. "It will be chaotic and strange situation for most travelers," said travel agent Irvine of Dehouche. "But they will muddle through." http://www.voanews.com/content/reu-brazil-falling-short-in-rush-to-overhaul-world-cup-airports/1888371.html Back to Top Southwest Airlines jet diverts to Boise after pilots notice crack in windshield Southwest Airlines Flight #762 made an unplanned stop in Boise on Sunday morning. A Southwest Airlines jet carrying 148 people made an emergency landing in Boise on Sunday because of a cracked windshield, according to Boise fire and airport officials. A pilot on the Boeing 737, which was traveling from Seattle to Phoenix, spoke with the Boise tower just after 8 a.m. Sunday. Boise Fire Battalion Chief JD Ellis said firefighters were on standby at the airport until the plane landed. "The pilots released us after they landed," Ellis said. Boise Airport spokeswoman Patti Miller said passengers were put on another plane. Diversions due to cracked windshields aren't common. "This is the first one that I've heard of since I've been here, almost six years," Miller said. Miller said she saw crews working on the plane's windshield, but she didn't get close enough to see the damage. Though such incidents are rare, a Christian Science Monitor article in November noted an unusual case in 2007 when the windshields on 14 different planes cracked during a 90-minute period. http://www.idahostatesman.com/2014/04/07/3121870/jet-diverts-to-boise-after- pilots.html?sp=/99/101/#storylink=cpy Back to Top Honduras arrests 2 U.S. pilots who abandoned luxury jet Honduran security forces on Monday arrested two U.S. pilots who abandoned a luxury jet last week at the Roatan airport on the country's Caribbean coast, police said. The pilots were apprehended at the airport in San Pedro Sula, in northern Honduras, as they were preparing to board a flight for the United States, the coordinator of the Fusina inter-institutional security force, Quintin Suarez, told reporters. The abandoned jet had landed at the Roatan airport last Tuesday and the pilots - identified as Luis Felipe Parra and Hector Manuel Guerra - after parking it, simply abandoned it, said Suarez without providing any further details. Honduran authorities are investigating why the pilots just walked away from the jet and are attempting to find out "if the plane was transporting drugs or another (prohibited) substance," Suarez said. He added that the plane "will remain in (police) custody" during the investigation. Honduran territorial waters and airspace, mainly in the Caribbean area, are used by South American drug traffickers as a conduit through which to send narcotics to the United States. So far this year, Honduran authorities have seized more than 2,000 kilograms of cocaine and dozens of barrels of chemicals to refine that drug, as well as weapons and ammunition of assorted calibers. http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2014/04/07/honduras-arrests-2-us-pilots-who-abandoned-luxury-jet/ Back to Top FAA Proposes $325,000 Civil Penalty Against Alfa Chemistry BURLINGTON, Mass. - The U.S. Department of Transportation's Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is proposing a $325,000 civil penalty against Alfa Chemistry of Stony Brook, New York, for allegedly violating U.S. Department of Transportation Hazardous Materials Regulations. The FAA alleges that on two separate FedEx cargo flights, Alfa Chemistry shipped undeclared hazardous material that DOT regulations prohibit from being transported on passenger and cargo aircraft. The company allegedly shipped approximately one pint of Acrolein on April 19, 2013 and three additional pints of it on May 23, 2013. Acrolein can become explosive when combined with air and is classified as a toxic/poisonous material and flammable liquid under DOT Hazardous Materials Regulations. On May 24, 2013, FAA and FedEx personnel tried to inspect the second shipment of Acrolein at the FedEx sort facility in Peabody, Massachusetts, after it began emitting a strong, pungent odor. However, they were unable to examine it because they began to experience coughing fits and extreme eye, nose and throat irritation due to the severity of the odor and vapors coming from the shipment. A FedEx employee had to put on a protective suit to inspect the shipment. The FAA determined that neither shipment had required shipping papers or emergency response information. The FAA also determined that the May 23, 2013 shipment was not marked, labeled, or packaged as required by the Hazardous Materials Regulations. Additionally, the FAA determined Alfa Chemistry failed to properly train and test the employees who packaged the Acrolein. Alfa Chemistry has 30 days from the receipt of the FAA's enforcement letter to respond to the agency. http://www.aviation.ca/2014040117667/news/international/us/federal-aviation-administration/17667-press- release-faa-proposes-325000-civil-penalty-against-alfa-chemistry Back to Top Back to Top Why buying a corporate jet pays for itself Talking about very free and easy. Lots of American companies have private jets, and the government gives them a pretty good reason to buy one: They can pay for themselves in just a few years. The reason is that the American government pretends a jet only lasts five years, when in reality you can use it for decades. The government is pretending that other long-lived corporate investments-train cars, broadcast antennae, oil rigs and satellite tracking equipment-will also become useless far sooner than they will, five or seven years into a much longer working life. This willful blindness is an attempt to fool businesses into buying more expensive stuff, thus goosing the economy, but there's not a lot of evidence that it actually works. "As a result, businesses holding these assets are able to recoup the entire cost of acquiring the asset long before it's ceased to produce value," Dean Sonderegger, an executive at Bloomberg BNA who builds software that allows companies to track these write-offs. "Take private jets, for example, which have an IRS-specified useful life of five years, allowing firms to write off 70% of their cost within the first three years." The term of art here is depreciation, and it serves a useful purpose. You shouldn't have to pay taxes on your necessary business expenses, but it doesn't make sense to let companies deduct the entire cost of something they buy in the first year if it will last for years. So companies are allowed to deduct a percentage of the equipment's cost over time, as its value depreciates. But when these rates were set in the 1986 tax reform, they were, for some reason-probably last-minute political horse-trading-often based on lifespans much shorter than the real ones. Today, businesses can also add in bonus depreciation-who doesn't love a bonus?-that was first instituted as stimulus after the recession in 2000, renewed and subsequently increased in the years that followed; it currently speeds up depreciation by 50%. So has this game of accounting make-believe helped the economy? Not noticeably. Federal Reserve researchers have found negligible effects at most, and the Treasury Department found that many firms did not take advantage of the depreciation. "What I hear from my clients is that it's more business driving these purchases," Sonderegger says. "The tax tends to be the tail of the dog." But that doesn't stop the small percentage of trade groups who do rely on those breaks-notably, manufacturers of private jets-from lobbying aggressively to maintain them. What's the tail of this particular dog cost American taxpayers? Perhaps $35 billion annually, according to one Congressional Research Service estimate. That's money that could go toward lowering corporate tax rates by 2%, or reducing the annual deficit 7%, or increasing investment in under-funded research programs or anti-poverty measures. President Barack Obama would prefer to eliminate the write-offs, but hasn't gotten anywhere. Just last week, a Senate committee approved the renewal of a package of tax breaks that included bonus depreciation, and it is likely to become law. "This will be the last tax extenders bill the committee takes up as long as I'm chairman," promised Senator Ron Wyden, who just took over the tax-writing committee. But this is the 15th time the breaks, which largely benefit business, have been quietly renewed, and that's a lot of inertia for him to fight. http://qz.com/196369/why-buying-a-corporate-jet-pays-for-itself/ Back to Top For Shame: The Giant Poster That Shows Drone Pilots the People They're Bombing Not just a pixel on a screen A drone's view of the huge poster placed in northwest Pakistan by Not a Bug Splat (Not a Bug Splat) A new project, initiated by a collective of artists from around the world including the French JR, has tried to reach the people pulling the trigger in America's drone wars-the drone operators themselves. It's called "Not A Bug Splat," and its gets its name from the term drone operators use for a successful "kill," because-in the pixelated grayscale of the drone camera-ending a human life looks like squashing a bug. Not a Bug Splat The collective created a huge poster of a child whom organizers say lost his family to drone strikes in the Pakistan's heavily bombed province, Khyber Pukhtoonkhwa. "Now, when viewed by a drone camera, what an operator sees on his screen is not an anonymous dot on the landscape, but an innocent child victim's face," reads the project's website. In the last decade, drone operators have killed as many as 3,600 people in northwest Pakistan alone. Those people-they include as many as 951 civilians and 200 children-died without trial or jury. They were specks on the screen, and then they were dead. Not a Bug Splat isn't only for drone operators, though. It also addresses itself to other eyes in the sky: The installation is also designed to be captured by satellites in order to make it a permanent part of the landscape on online mapping sites. It is an incredible object and project. And I wonder if, by joining the satellite image record, it will prove especially lasting. Satellite images have long straddled the line between military technology and scientific record, between war and art. Not a Bug Splat uses the power of one to comment on the other, and it challenges all those who have access to images photographed from the sky to use their power to make a more just world. http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/04/for-shame-the-giant-poster-that-shows-drone-pilots-the- people-theyre-bombing/360257/ Back to Top Air India proposes 15% pay cut for pilots Air India has proposed to cut the salary of its pilots by up to 15%, a move that could lead to another round of industrial action just ahead of the coming summer holiday travel season. NEW DELHI: Air India has proposed to cut the salary of its pilots by up to 15%, a move that could lead to another round of industrial action just ahead of the coming summer holiday travel season. The largest cut will be for executive commanders of wide body aircraft, with their monthly pay dropping from Rs 8.8 lakh to Rs 7.5 lakh. Fresh co-pilots of wide body aircraft, who are earning Rs 2.3 lakh per month, could get away with a cut of just over Rs 1,000. While pilots' union has rejected the new structure, the airline management says it has given them 21 days to respond. "The final salary structure will be decided only after consultation with pilots is over. We have limited the cut to 15% and tried to find the least painful way," said an official. Loss-making AI is surviving on taxpayers' money with the government pledging Rs 30,000 equity infusion over the next decade. The airline has an annual salary bill of Rs 3,200 crore and expects to cut it by Rs 250 crore through a leaner wage structure. Of the total wage bill, pilots get Rs 1,100 crore and AI wants to save Rs 150 crore through the new structure. However, even the proposed new wage structure will not lead to immediate pay parity between pilots of erstwhile Indian Airlines (narrow body fleet) and Air India (wide body fleet). "We have limited the cut to 15%. Supposing someone's salary was to be cut 20% or 25%, the portion beyond 15% has been termed as 'unabsorbed cost to company'. The future salary hikes or promotion will be adjusted against this unadjusted CTC," said the official. So, when will pay parity happen? "It will take two to three years under this formula. Ultimately, the only difference between a captain and co-pilot of wide body and narrow body aircraft will be Rs 50,000 and Rs 25,000 per month, which will be the wide body allowance paid over and above a common salary to pilots of bigger planes," said the official. Meanwhile, pilots have rejected this pay proposal. "Other airlines, both Indian and foreign, pay more to pilots. With this pay structure, the airline management has ensured that AI witnesses an exodus of pilots to other airlines. Tata-Singapore, Tata-AirAsia, Etihad, Emirates and IndiGo are hiring like crazy. Does the management want to have an airline without any good pilots as the best will leave. A pilot of IA and AI flying a plane together will continue to be paid differently for the same work and this is not acceptable," said a pilot. The Indian Commercial Pilots Association (ICPA) of erstwhile IA pilots is the only pilot union in the airline. The union of AI pilots was disbanded when their pilots went on strike two years back. In a communication to its members, ICPA has rejected the proposed pay structure and vowed it will not accept anything "less than the prevailing market rates". It has called an emergency meeting to decide the future course of action. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/india-business/Air-India-proposes-15-pay-cut-for- pilots/articleshow/33412290.cms Back to Top Meet the 'intelligent aircraft'-You may fly it one day The aircraft of tomorrow won't just take you from London to New York and Tokyo; it should allow you to stay connected all the way. That's not just passengers, but the pilots and ground staff too - a development that's likely to transform air travel, says Honeywell, a technology and manufacturing firm that develops a variety of systems and services for aircraft. "From a passenger perspective, it means you won't see much difference in service from when you walk into an airport on your iPhone at high speed and you walk onto a plane," Jack Jacobs, the vice president for safety and information management at Honeywell Aerospace told CNBC. "That's not the way it is today." He added: "From a pilot and crew perspective, they will be able to rely on much more information on the plane that wasn't there before that allows them to fly safely, avoid bad weather, turbulence - well in advance of what they can do today." Just how connected an aircraft is to air traffic control has been in the spotlight in recent weeks following the disappearance of Flight MH370 to Beijing in China from Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia on March 8. More connections, please: A survey conducted by Honeywell in 2013. More connections, please: A survey conducted by Honeywell in 2013. Jacobs said that while there is some degree of connectivity on aircraft today, the last piece of the puzzle is providing a high speed link at a lower cost. Honeywell says it is the leader when it comes to making equipment for in-flight Wi-Fi services. In February, the U.S. firm and Air China signed an agreement to test a new high-bandwidth system in 2015 and it is in discussions with other airlines about introducing the new systems. It says that the new technology to enhance connectivity can be included in upgrades to existing aircraft as well as new planes. Get connected Being hooked up to the internet or mobile phone network appears to have become a pressing need for many airplane passengers. According to industry consultancy IMDC, the number of aircraft equipped with passenger connectivity systems will double to more than 4,000 by 2016. In a survey of more than 3,000 adults in the U.S., U.K, and Singapore surveyed by Honeywell last year, more than one-third of Singaporeans and Americans, and nearly half of Britons said they would give up a preferred seat for a better Internet connection. "With the connectivity we have today on a flight you can do basic email, but if you want to stream video or play xbox live or have a conference call, you're not going to be able to do that. The bandwidth does not make it possible. But as the systems we're working on become live, you'll be able to stream video and satisfy passengers from a kid to a business person," said Jacobs. Analysts say the amount of data created during a flight can also be put to better use with better connectivity, turning an airplane into an 'intelligent aircraft.' "The pilot today relies pretty much on the information they see in front of them, which is navigation equipment and so on," said Jacobs. "As we go forward, that high-speed connection means they could be getting information real time. They could ask a plane a thousand miles away or three planes ahead what the weather is like." Jacobs said another benefit from a more connected aircraft would be its ability to relay essential information back to ground staff. "We're enabling technology now that allows a piece of equipment on the plane to relay information to the home base before you land that says be ready I'm coming or I need you to fix me," he said. http://www.cnbc.com/id/101517944 Back to Top Back to Top Upcoming Events: Middle East Air Cargo and Logistics Exhibition & Conference 2014 April 9-10, 2014 Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre (ADNEC) http://cargomiddleeast.com Flight Safety Foundation Business Aviation Safety Summit 2014 April 16-17, 2014 San Diego, CA http://flightsafety.org/files/doc/2014FSF_Prospectus.pdf Airport Show Dubai May 11-13, 2014 Dubai International Convention and Exhibition Centre (DICEC) www.theairportshow.com/portal/home.aspx International Humanitarian Aviation Summit 12-14MAY Toledo, Spain wfp.org National Safety Council Aviation Safety Committee Annual Conference Savanah, GA - May 14-15, 2014 Contact: tammy.washington@nsc.org http://cwp.marriott.com/savdt/artexmeeting/ Asia Pacific Aviation Safety Seminar 21-22 May 2014, Bangkok, Thailand http://bit.ly/APASS2014 Curt Lewis