Flight Safety Information June 11, 2014 - No. 118 In This Issue FAA for the first time OKs commercial drone flights over land $40 Million and 3 Months Later, Flight 370 Remains Lost Air Canada pilots landing in Halifax report possible laser strike American Airlines jet makes emergency landing at Tulsa Boeing sells 777-300ER for use as a business aircraft French Mirage Fighter Jet Crashes in Niger Emirati becomes first female fighter pilot PIA assessing possible aircraft damage in Karachi airport raid PRISM SMS Cessna Citation Sovereign+ jet picks up European certification Airbus Suffers Worst Order Loss as Emirates Deal Scrapped Upcoming Events FAA for the first time OKs commercial drone flights over land AeroVironment's Puma AE is used by BP at Prudhoe Bay in Alaska. (BP) Marking a milestone for the industry, Monrovia drone maker AeroVironment Inc. has announced a contract to use an unmanned aircraft to perform routine commercial services over land in compliance with Federal Aviation Administration regulations. The company's small drone, called Puma AE, is now scouring BP Exploration Inc.'s Prudhoe Bay oil field in Alaska, a first under FAA authorization. As the U.S. Navy moves toward developing its first fleet of aircraft carrier-based combat drones, a dogfight has broken out in Washington over the direction of the program. "These surveys on Alaska's North Slope are another important step toward broader commercial use of unmanned aircraft," Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said in a statement. "The technology is quickly changing, and the opportunities are growing." Since Sunday, the drone has been flying above the largest oil field in North America using high-tech sensors to create 3-D computerized models of roads, pads and pipelines for industrial applications. The five-year contract could be a sign of things to come as drone technology becomes more advanced and demand increases from police agencies and others for using drones in the commercial world. Melanie Hinton, spokesperson for Assn. for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International, the nation's largest drone trade group, said the milestone is "an exciting moment in the integration process." Drones "have proven adept at safely and effectively performing aerial surveys, and can be an effective tool for the oil and gas industry," she said. Hinton said her group believes that more needs to be done to allow for such operations, with limits. The Puma, which takes off after being thrown into the air, was originally designed to give troops on the ground a bird's-eye view of what's happening over a ridge or around a bend. This is an important achievement for our joint team and for the industry - AeroVironment Chief Executive Timothy E. Conver In one mission for BP, the AeroVironment drone assisted drivers moving 3.5-million-pound drill rigs on tight roadways in low-visibility conditions by giving them high-resolution 3-D models of the road ahead. "This is an important achievement for our joint team and for the industry in demonstrating the safe and effective use of our proven UAS technology for commercial applications," AeroVironment Chief Executive Timothy E. Conver said in a statement. AeroVironment is the Pentagon's top supplier of small drones -- including the Raven, Wasp and Puma models. But the company, which makes drones in its Simi Valley facilities, has seen sales decline as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan come to a close. Hoping for new revenue streams, AeroVironment has been waiting for the FAA to allow drones to fly for commercial purposes here at home. Currently, drones are not allowed to fly in the U.S. except with special permission from the FAA. As demand increases from commercial industries, though, the agency has moved to ease restrictions. Oil and gas companies such as BP want to utilize them to keep an eye on their pipelines. Moviemakers want to use drones to film action scenes. The idea of using robotic aircraft as transport vehicles has been discussed as a way to deliver books for Amazon.com and pizza for Domino's. The FAA is working to meet a congressional mandate to integrate U.S. airspace with robotic aircraft by September 2015. However, the prospect of thousands of unmanned aircraft flying around U.S. airspace in populated areas beginning at that time appears unlikely. The FAA has said that remotely piloted aircraft aren't allowed in national airspace on a wide scale because they don't have an adequate "detect, sense and avoid" technology to prevent midair collisions. Last summer, the FAA gave away two first-of-their-kind certificates that permitted operators to fly drones for commercial purposes. However, they were in remote areas over water. The oil field at Prudhoe Bay is in the northernmost part of Alaska, near the Beaufort Sea. There, AeroVironment's Puma, which has a wingspan of about 9 feet, flies at 200 to 400 feet above ground level for up to 3.5 hours at a time. "This technology will help BP optimize the planning and implementation of maintenance programs for the North Slope infrastructure throughout Prudhoe Bay," said Dawn Patience, a BP spokeswoman. "Targeting maintenance activities on specific road areas will save time, and address safety and reliability." http://www.latimes.com/business/aerospace/la-fi-faa-bp-drone-20140609-story.html Back to Top $40 Million and 3 Months Later, Flight 370 Remains Lost In theory, it seems it should be nearly impossible to lose track of a commercial airplane in flight: with sophisticated radar and satellite tracking, it would take a catastrophic series of system failures for a flight to simply disappear without a trace. Even if a flight could simply vanish, surely it wouldn't take more than a few days - or even a few weeks - to find a Boeing 777, with dozens of planes, submersibles, and ships searching for it. Yet three months have now passed since Malaysian Flight 370 veered off course soon after it left Kuala Lumpur, and its fate remains unknown despite extensive searches costing between $33 and $42 million. As days turned to weeks anguished relatives of the victims hurled insults and even protested, accusing officials of not doing enough to find the plane. So what went wrong? Many factors contributed to the prolonged search, but by far the most important was false and incomplete information directing searchers in the wrong areas. Initial information suggested that the plane went down in South China Sea, along its original route, but as new information was analyzed (including from spy satellites that rival countries were cautious about sharing), the search area shifted again, and then again. The plane's transponder stopped transmitting location data (whether due to a power failure or pilot action remains unknown) as it slipped out of radar range. Beyond that it became anyone's guess where the plane went. Many of the techniques that police and investigators would use to help locate a missing person on land were not available in the search for MH 370. For example cell phone signals from many of the 239 people on board the flight have not been found, likely because the plane was flying too high; and even if it had been flying at a lower altitude, there are no cell phone towers in the middle of the Indian Ocean to pick up the signal. The best hope was the airplane's "black box," equipped with an electronic pinger that sends out a regular sound for as long as the battery holds out - which stopped about two months ago. Investigators believed they had located it in April, but after weeks of fruitless searches they concluded it had been a mistake. According to a New York Times piece, faulty readings had led them to the wrong search area: "Michael Dean, a United States Navy official... said the pings detected in early April were probably not from the black boxes, and could have in fact been from the search ships themselves or the underwater craft." Though the search has not ended, with the pinger battery now dead the investigators have very little to go on. As a CNN story put it, with the recent loss of the pinger data "MH370 search goes back to square one." Other Flight Disappearances When Air France Flight 447 disappeared over the North Atlantic in 2009, it took two years and $100 million to find the wreckage despite the fact that floating debris was found within a week of the plane's loss. As of now not a single trace of Flight 370 has been found. It is possible that the plane will never be found, or if it is, it will be located by accident; after all, the search is enormously expensive. By one estimate the search could end up costing nearly a quarter of a billion dollars. The hard reality is that economic times are tough all over the world, and the hundreds of millions of dollars spent trying to recover this one flight might be used for more productive purposes. Though a handful of countries have donated ships and searchers, it is not the obligation of the United States or Australia (nor their taxpaying citizens) to spend tens of millions of dollars looking for a single aircraft from a private Malaysian airline with no guarantee of success. Obviously determining what happened might help to improve airline safety, but if this was a case of pilot sabotage, as some have suggested, then there's little that can be done except to improve pilot screening and airplane tracking - measures which can be implemented without locating Flight 370. Though we like to think that science is a panacea, all the sophisticated technology in the world can't overcome the simple fact that the plane was lost over an immense ocean. Investigators have of course narrowed down the search area based on known factors such as the airplane's amount of fuel and last heading. But beyond that, finding a plane that's about 200 feet long in the moving currents of the Indian Ocean is a daunting task even under the best of circumstances. http://news.discovery.com/human/40-million-and-3-months-later-flight-370-remains-lost-140610.htm Back to Top Air Canada pilots landing in Halifax report possible laser strike Air Canada pilots landing in Halifax on Monday reported that a laser beam may have been directed into the cockpit, a dangerous trend that's rising sharply in Canada. The flight, an Airbus arriving from Toronto, was approaching the runway when the possible laser strike happened, according to a report entered Tuesday into a Transport Canada database. Laser beams pose a serious risk to both pilots and passengers, according to Transport Canada. They may only distract the pilot, but they can also completely block their vision and even permanently damage their eyesight. Monday's incident didn't cause any operational trouble, said the report, and will be investigated. Occasionally, there are other explanations for what seems at first to be a laser beam. However, reported laser strikes have been rising steadily, increasing by more than 300 per cent between 2009 and 2013, according to the same Transport Canada database, which tracks irregular occurrences on civil flights. In 2009, there were 108 reports; there were 183 in 2010, 230 in 2011, and 318 in 2012. In 2013, a total of 443 possible laser incidents were reported, up almost 40 per cent from 2012. A spokeswoman for Halifax Stanfield International Airport said airport management wasn't aware until Tuesday afternoon about the report. "They weren't aware of anything happening," said Karen Sinclair. "As the airport authority, we might not necessarily hear about it." Sinclair said she has never heard of another laser strike in more than 20 years working at the airport. However, Transport Canada records show at least 13 flights over Nova Scotia since 2009 have quietly handled similar incidents. In 2010, two Air Canada Jazz flights between Halifax and Sydney made reports. In one, a flight departing Halifax had a green light aimed at the cockpit. "The laser appeared to come from the edge of town, was flashed four or five times and seemed intentional," said the report. In June 2013, a nighttime WestJet flight from Toronto to Halifax "reported a green laser directed at the cockpit on approach to runway 05 in the Sackville area." RCMP officers were asked to meet the pilots at the gate. The penalty in Canada for pointing laser beams at flights is up to five years in prison or a $100,000 maximum fine. http://thechronicleherald.ca/metro/1213764-air-canada-pilots-landing-in-halifax-report-possible-laser- strike Back to Top American Airlines jet makes emergency landing at Tulsa An American Airlines maintenance flight made an emergency landing at Tulsa International Airport Tuesday around noon. Pilots on the maintenance flight, which was carrying four passengers on a Boeing 767, declared an alert and told air traffic controllers that there was some kind of flight control problem, said airport spokeswoman Alexis Higgins. "The plane landed safely and everyone is alright," Higgins said. American Airlines spokeswoman Andrea Huguely said the pilot landed the plane after seeing a slat indication light. The slat is a part of the control system on the wing. The plane was a local flight and was scheduled to take off and land at Tulsa International Airport. Maintenance crews are working to address the problem. Higgins said there are probably two to three emergency landings per week at Tulsa International Airport. http://www.tulsaworld.com/business/americanairlines/american-airlines-jet-makes-emergency-landing-at- tulsa/article_8db32217-a7c0-51db-a2d1-a09697284c58.html Back to Top Boeing sells 777-300ER for use as a business aircraft Boeing has sold a Boeing 777-300ER for use as a business aircraft to an undisclosed customer, the company said. The year has been good for Boeing business jet order activity, Capt. Steve Taylor, president of Boeing's business jet division, said in a statement. "Customers are showing strong interest in our wide-body VIP products, and the BBJ 777-300 ER is an airplane that really provides unmatched comfort and range on long-haul flights." It's the second widebody business jet order this year, the company said. Boeing introduced the commercial 747-8 and the 787 in 2006 for business use. Since then, widebody jets have accounted for about 40 percent of the business aircraft orders, the company said. The 777-300ER has a cabin size of 3,641 square feet and a range of 9,220 nautical miles. Boeing delivers the VIP planes to customers without the customized interior. A completion center of the customer's choosing then installs the interior. Boeing's business jet line includes modified 737 single-aisle commercial airplanes as well as the twin-aisle 747-8, 767, 777 and 787. Since 1996 when Boeing formed its business jet division, the company has delivered 195 business aircraft and taken orders for 217. http://blogs.kansas.com/aviation/2014/06/11/boeing-sells-777-300er-for-use-as-a-business- aircraft/#storylink=cpy Back to Top French Mirage Fighter Jet Crashes in Niger A Mirage 2000-D aircraft flies over the Avord Air Base, central France. A Mirage 2000-D aircraft crashed in Niger on June 9 due to a 'technical malfunction,' the French army staff said. (Miguel Medina / AFP) PARIS - A French Mirage 2000D fighter jet used to patrol the skies over Mali crashed in neighboring Niger due to a technical glitch, the army said Tuesday. The two crew members ejected and survived uninjured. The Mirage was flying back on Monday evening from a mission in Mali, where the French army has been fighting jihadist groups, and crashed half-way between Gao in Mali's restive north and the Niger capital Niamey, where France has a military base. "The crew was forced to eject following a technical failure," said French military spokesman Gilles Jaron. "The pilot and navigator were retrieved safe and sound." The plane, which was worth tens of millions of dollars, is one of six fighter jets being used by the French army in the region. France sent troops to Mali in January 2013 to combat Islamist groups who had seized control of much of the vast desert north of the country. Around 1,600 French troops are still engaged in operations there. http://www.defensenews.com/article/20140610/DEFREG04/306100037/French-Mirage-Fighter-Jet- Crashes-Niger Back to Top Emirati becomes first female fighter pilot Captain Mansouri, 35, pilots an F-16 Fighting Falcon, a single-engine multirole fighter aircraft, and is a squadron commander. (Courtesy of WAM) Mariam Hassan Salem al-Mansouri has become the first Emirati woman to hold the rank of fighter pilot in the UAE Air Force and may be the first Gulf woman to enjoy the title. Captain Mansouri, 35, pilots an F-16 Fighting Falcon, a single-engine multirole fighter aircraft, and is a squadron commander. With backing from her family, Mansouri, who had always wanted to fly fighter jets for her country, joined the UAE Air Force in 2007 when authorities first announced they were accepting volunteers. During her career, Mansouri has taken part in a significant number of the aerial maneuvers both inside and outside the UAE alongside allied and friendly states. Emirati Vice President and Dubai ruler Sheikh Mohamed bin Rashed al-Maktoum honored Mansouri for her achievement and presented her with a medal as well as the Mohamed Bin Rashed award for distinguished governmental performance. http://english.alarabiya.net/en/perspective/profiles/2014/06/11/Emirati-becomes-first-female-fighter- pilot.html Back to Top PIA assessing possible aircraft damage in Karachi airport raid Pakistan International Airlines is assessing whether any of its aircraft were damaged during a Pakistani Taliban raid at Karachi's airport during the early morning of 9 June. A carrier spokesman confirms that some aircraft, namely Boeing 747-300s, were located near the gunfire during the incident, but adds that the aircraft were "not airworthy" at the time of the incident. He was responding to a query from Flightglobal following the emergence of imagery on social media that appears to show damage to the right side of a 747-300. The image shows two large holes in the fuselage just above the windows on the lower deck, and just below the upper deck emergency exit. The holes appear too large to have been made by bullets, and there is a great deal of scarring around the edges. According to Flightglobal's Ascend Online database, PIA has four 747-300s, of which three are in storage. The Rolls-Royce RB211 powered aircraft, which were formerly operated by Cathay Pacific, have 503 economy class seats and are mainly used for pilgrimage flights. http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/pia-assessing-possible-aircraft-damage-in-karachi-airport- 400239/ Back to Top Back to Top Cessna Citation Sovereign+ jet picks up European certification Cessna Aircraft Co. has secured the European Aviation Safety Agency certification for its Citation Sovereign+ business jet. With the new certification, Cessna can market the Wichita-built Sovereign+ in the European marketplace, where Cessna says customers are ready to take delivery. Cessna Aircraft Co. is a subsidiary of Wichita-based Textron Aviation Inc., which is a Textron Inc. company. http://www.bizjournals.com/wichita/news/2014/06/10/cessna-citation-sovereign-jet-picks-up- european.html Back to Top Airbus Suffers Worst Order Loss as Emirates Deal Scrapped Emirates Scraps A350 Order in Setback for Airbus Airbus Group NV (AIR) suffered its biggest-ever order cancellation as Gulf airline Emirates scrapped a deal for A350 planes valued at $16 billion, hurting efforts to break Boeing Co. (BA)'s dominance in wide-body aircraft. Emirates will drop orders for 50 A350-900s and 20 larger -1000s, Airbus said today. The deal was struck in 2007 and the planes were due for delivery from 2019, shortly before Boeing's new 777X, for which the Dubai-based airline is the No. 1 buyer. The world's largest carrier by international traffic reviewed its fleet requirements after last year topping up orders for the A380 superjumbo, adding 50 more to become by far the largest operator. The surprise decision on the A350 comes with the jetliner months away from entering commercial service. "The A350 is a good aircraft, it's a clean ship, it's cutting edge, but I don't think the delivery schedule of the A350 fits in line with Emirates' growth capabilities at this moment," said Mark D. Martin, chief executive officer of Dubai-based Martin Consulting LLC. Airbus fell as much as 2.34 euros, or 4.3 percent, to 51.53 euros. The stock is down 7 percent this year after almost doubling in value in 2013. Rolls-Royce Holdings Plc (RR/), which makes the engines for the aircraft, declined as much as 3 percent in London, where the company is based. An Airbus A350 aircraft stands on the tarmac at Toulouse-Blagnac airport in Toulouse Emirates President Tim Clark, who is equally loyal to Boeing and Airbus, had long been a critic of the A350-1000, saying the aircraft didn't meet his specifications. Smaller regional rivals Qatar Airways Ltd. and Etihad Airways PJSC had also bemoaned the airliner, with Abu Dhabi-based Etihad at one stage dropping its order, only to come back last year for more. "It's not great news," John Leahy, the Airbus chief operating officer who is also the company's chief salesman said at a briefing. "Tim does change his mind from time to time, so maybe we could persuade him later on to change his mind again." Other airlines have already contacted the Toulouse, France-based manufacturer to enquire about taking up the vacant delivery slots, Leahy said, adding that with most positions sold out through 2020 there'll be "no trouble" selling the planes. The A350-900 typically seats 315 passengers, while the -1000 version can fit about 369 travelers. Airbus says the aircraft's use of weight-saving materials and swept wings help save fuel, typically the single- biggest expense for airlines. A ground crew member walks near an Emirates Airbus A380 aircraft on the tarmac near At the Dubai Air Show last year, Emirates said it would buy 150 777Xs, the re-engined version of the Boeing wide-body, and take out 50 options with a total value of $76 billion. Emirates is the biggest customer for the existing 777, a twin-engine model that boasts the world's biggest powerplant and is one of the Chicago-based Boeing's bestsellers. Today's announcement may indicate that the Gulf carrier has undertaken a fleet re-appraisal and will standardize around just the 777 and A380, said John Strickland, an aviation specialist and director of JLS Consulting Ltd. in London. Rolls-Royce is the sole engine provider for the A350, and the company said today that Emirates's decision will cut its order book by 2.6 billion pounds ($4.36 billion). Emirates doesn't use Rolls powerplants on its A380s, opting instead for the alternative Engine Alliance model that's made by General Electric Co. (GE) and United Technologies Corp. (UTX)'s Pratt & Whitney. Rolls-Royce said it's confident the delivery slots dropped by Emirates will be taken up by other carriers, saying it is "disappointed" with the decision to cancel the A350s. 'Very Confident' Airbus and Boeing are the only manufacturers of twin-aisle aircraft, a market that's more lucrative than the narrow-body segment because of the higher prices and margins. Customers are largely purchasing two-engine wide-bodies that are more efficient than the larger superjumbos, with both Airbus and Boeing struggling to add customers for their largest jets. "Airbus is very confident in its A350 program," the company said in the release, adding that the order book stands at "a healthy 742 firm orders." While the planemaker would like to have Emirates as an A350 buyer, airlines are "hungry" for planes of that size and it should "pick up business elsewhere," Strickland said. The A350 will enter commercial service with Qatar Airways, which remains the biggest buyer of the twin- jet that's largely made of light composite materials. The airliner comes in three sizes -- including the -800 with about 260 seats -- and competes both with the Boeing 777 and the smaller 787 Dreamliner. Airbus has won by far the most orders for the mid-sized version. While the development of the A350 has been free of major glitches for at least a year -- an increasingly rare occurrence for aircraft programs -- Airbus has struggled to keep the momentum particularly for the smallest variant, with customers dropping purchases to move to bigger planes. The A350-1000 staged a comeback about two years ago after an order dearth as customers preferred the popular 777. "The 777 is now increasingly becoming the mainstay fleet of Emirates," said Dubai-based Martin. "In fact, if you look at how they deploy the 777, the 777 is flying to almost all their key destinations." http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-06-11/airbus-loses-major-order-as-emirates-scraps-purchase-of- a350-jet.html Back to Top Upcoming Events: Gulf Flight Safety Council Doha, Qatar 22nd of June 2014 membership@gfsc.aero 6th Annual Aviation Human Factors & SMS Seminar June 24th & 25th 2014 Dallas, TX www.regonline.com/builder/site/Default.aspx?EventID=1384474 21st Century Pilot Reliability Certification Workshop June 30th and July 1st, 2014 Hasbrouck Heights, NJ 07605 Please contact Kacy Schwartz kacy@convergentperformance.com 719-481-0530 International System Safety Society Annual Symposium 04-08AUG2014 - St. Louis, MO http://issc2014.system-safety.org Curt Lewis