Flight Safety Information July 14, 2015 - No. 137 In This Issue Wreckage of Missing Coast Guard Aircraft Recovered (India) DRONES: Experts say they represent real threat to aircraft Stronger NCAA: Improving, Sustaining Air Safety, Industry Growth (Nigeria) Pilots say they're contending with lasers pointed at cockpits Cirrus To Live-test Vision Jet Recovery Parachute in Q4 Tweet about bomb on plane forced Jet Airways emergency landing Teenage Girl Who Survived Plane Crash Walked For Days PROS 2015 TRAINING Gogo Pushes New Tech for Aircraft Broadband United Airlines pays hacker one million air miles in bug bounty reward Embry-Riddle To Offer Free Online Course On Aviation Accident Investigation Upcoming Events JOBS AVAILABLE (New Positions) Wreckage of Missing Coast Guard Aircraft Recovered (India) A large part of the wreckage of missing Donier aircraft recovered CHENNAI: A large part of the wreckage of an Indian Coast Guard aircraft that went missing last month has been recovered from the Bay of Bengal but there is no sign of its three crew members, the defence ministry said today. In a statement issued here, the ministry said that more than a month after it went missing, the aircraft's wreckage was found at depth of 990 metres 17 nautical miles south east of Cuddalore in Tamil Nadu. The recovered wreckage includes the flight data recorder, the cockpit voice recorder, two engines, propellers, tail, tail cone, parts of the airframe, parts of the fuselage and part of the landing gear. These were recovered from the sea bed by Reliance Industries Ltd vessel Olympic Canyon's remotely operated vehicle. Meanwhile there is no news of the front portion of the aircraft, including the cockpit, and the search for it still continues. The Dornier aircraft with pilot Deputy Commandant Vidyasagar, co-pilot, Deputy Commandant Subash Suresh and navigator/observer MK Soni went missing on the night of June 8 while returning to its base at Chennai airport after a surveillance sortie along the Tamil Nadu coast and Palk Bay. An official statement said the last contact with the aircraft was made at 9 pm on June 8. The last known location of the aircraft as per Trichy radar was off Karaikal in Puducherry, where it was tracked till 9.23 p.m., 95 nautical miles south of Chennai. http://www.ndtv.com/india-news/wreckage-of-missing-coast-guard-aircraft-recovered-781038 Back to Top DRONES: Experts say they represent real threat to aircraft A drone operated by Michael Loeschnig of Skyphotos in Murrieta. Loeschnig has repeatedly urged drone operators to stay well away from wildfires. To some, the notion that a little drone would pose a serious threat to a huge firefighting air tanker or passenger-carrying airliner may seem highly unlikely. After all, wouldn't the cool, remotely controlled device just smash into a million pieces in a midair collision and fall to the Earth without causing any damage? Aviation experts, however, say the threat is no laughing matter. They offer this visual aid for skeptics to consider: Think the Hudson River. You remember that. Who couldn't? It was Jan. 15, 2009. A US Airways Airbus A320 piloted by Capt. Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger had just taken off from a New York airport when multiple bird strikes knocked out both engines. The now-famous pilot gently laid the powerless plane in the wide river and all 155 people on board survived. "Small birds have brought down the biggest of aircraft," said Mike Eaton, aviation officer for the San Bernardino and Cleveland national forests. "And this goes back to the 'miracle on the Hudson.' That could certainly happen to our aircraft as well." Only, the next time, the ending might not go as well. With that in mind, pilots who fight fire from the sky have become increasingly alarmed by a recent string of drone sightings over Inland Southern California wildfires. There have been no fewer than three since June 24, when a drone flew 500 below one firefighting airplane and 500 feet above a second, during a critical phase of the 49 square-mile Lake fire. Eaton blamed the incident, which led to the grounding of 20 aircraft, for a surge in the wildfire's size. But it didn't end there. The next day, a drone was spotted at a fire on the outskirts of San Bernardino. And this past weekend, yet another drone was seen in the vicinity of a Yucaipa-area brush fire. Each time, planes were grounded. The incidents spurred state and federal lawmakers to introduce legislation that would make flying drones over wildfires a misdemeanor crime, punishable by thousands of dollars in fines and possibly jail time. ON THE CUSP The flurry of sightings is particularly troubling to Glen E. Winn, an aviation security instructor at USC. He said he fears a deadly accident involving a drone may be right around the corner. "We're just right now - I hate to say this - at the cusp of something that's going to happen," Winn said. "The people who are fooling around with this are really beginning to put people in danger." As happened on the Hudson, Eaton said, the danger in large part is that a drone could be sucked into a jet engine of a DC-10 or other large plane the U.S. Forest Service and other agencies deploy to drop bubble gum-colored retardant on flames. And don't forget, said Steve Meyers, president and chief technical officer for DVI Aviation, an air safety consulting firm in the Chicago area, that "birds are soft tissue." http://www.pe.com/articles/drone-773271-drones-eaton.html Back to Top Stronger NCAA: Improving, Sustaining Air Safety, Industry Growth (Nigeria) The Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) has been receiving a fair share of criticism from aviation experts and stakeholders who say that the authority needs to be strengthened with the right expertise to be able to improve on and sustain attained air safety in Nigeria. Some of the criticisms have even touched on the inability of the NCAA to make aviation business a lucrative one in order for the industry to begin to witness the much needed investment and development. With its enormous potential and the country's huge population, domestic airliners say that only about one per cent of Nigerians can afford to travel by air, with the industry contributing a laughable 0.4 per cent to the gross domestic product (GDP). However, experts believe that with better regulation by the NCAA, the industry can begin to witness the expected growth. The National Association of Pilots and Engineers (NAAPE) recently made its position clear regarding the industry's expectations from the NCAA when it said last week that for the aviation sector to improve on the safety standard already attained after the last air crash in 2013 the authority needed to employ and deploy experienced safety personnel to carry out inspection of airline operations. The NAAPE noted that currently, the regulatory agency does not have the number of personnel with the attendant requisite experience needed because the salary and other emoluments that it pays cannot attract the qualified and experienced experts needed to ensure the safety of airline operations in Nigeria. Obviously, the NCAA will need to work harder in the area of aircraft inspection. The president of the NAAPE, Captain Isaac Balami, said that after the crash of Dana Air Flight 092 on June 3, 2012, experts had said the NCAA needed more operations and airworthiness personnel who will inspect and ensure the airworthiness of aircraft. He said operations and airworthiness inspectors should be engineers and pilots that had spent many years working for airlines to gather the needed experience that would qualify them to be aircraft inspectors, adding that the NCAA may not have such experienced personnel because of poor emoluments. "No matter the academic qualification, anyone who has not worked and spent many years in the sector may not have the needed qualification to become aircraft inspectors. So what we are saying is that the NCAA needs human capacity building. We need to train and grow indigenous captains, those that have put 10 to 20 years working for airlines. These are the people that when they inspect airlines they know what they are looking for and under them no airline will be able to cut corners," Balami said. The NAAPE president further noted that the NCAA should urgently improve the condition of service of these inspectors in order to attract the right personnel and also eliminate corruption, adding that one who earns peanuts would be more susceptible to inducement than one who is not under pressure with the basic needs of life. "Without such improvement in welfare and take home pay it will be difficult for us that have worked with the airlines and earned good salary to work with the NCAA. When you talk about job creation you train people and empower them. It is cheaper to have indigenous personnel than to have expatriates. There is not much training going on except what Bristow, Caverton and Arik Air are doing. I heard the later has sent Nigerians to Germany for training. That is what we need," he said. Two weeks ago, a frontline non-government organisation (NGO) in the Nigerian aviation industry, Aviation Round Table (ART), has also traced the current woes in the sector to "a weak NCAA which is not discharging its duties as expected." The new president of the organisation, Mr Gbenga Olowo, while speaking with aviation journalists in Lagos, called for a stronger NCAA that would drive and develop Nigeria's dwindling aviation industry. Olowo explained that apart from the random checks on aircraft at the tarmac, the NCAA had also failed in its economic regulation aspects and not able to meet expectations of investors and other stakeholders in the aviation sector over the years. He submitted that a stronger, a more viable and an independent NCAA would be able to gather the industry's airlines together and seek a way of taking them out of their present doldrums, adding that the current domestic operators should be merged to two or maximum three to make them stronger, profitable and more reliable in their operations. He said, "The NCAA, should be the manager and government of aviation like we have in the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), in the United States, which is the only government agency on transport. "Our NCAA is not there yet. The zeal of NCAA ended when Dr. Harold Demuren left the agency. Nigerians needs a vibrant NCAA that will be able to take the sector to higher level. "It is a shame that we do not have any solid airline in this country. When we go outside the country for aviation conferences, people ask us 'where are your airlines?' We need a stronger NCAA for us to move forward." "The NCAA must sit up and rescue the market for our airlines provided the airlines are ready to shape up," said Captain John Ojikutu (rtd), general secretary of the ART. However, as much as the opinion of these stakeholders tend to tally, the NCAA has maintained that it is on top of the affairs of the country's aviation regulation and driving its course towards the right destination. The authority's spokesman, Mr Fan Ndubuoke said the NCAA was working quietly and this had manifested in two years of no flight accidents in the country, with regards to commercial aviation. "This is a product of good regulation," he said. He dismissed the criticisms of the aviation stakeholders, describing them as "unwholesome" insinuations borne out of personal interests. "The International Civil Aviation Organisation(ICAO) was here and we had a healthy result and in November they will be back here again for security audit. Our critics will need to be more specific as to which area they are finding the authority below expectations, but we have to acknowledge the fact that in the last few years, there has been a lot of improvement in our regulations," he said. He maintained that the NCAA has the right people with the right experience doing thorough aircraft inspection. "And the result has been more than two years of accident-free air transport in the country. We are monitoring the airlines very closely in all aspects of their operations as it regards regulations by the NCAA and we have taken the welfare of their workers very seriously with their managements. "The NCAA is not an infrastructure building agency, but what we do is training and retraining of our staff and this is what we have been doing very diligently and we will keep the tempo. Yes, there is no profession where more personnel cannot be needed, we do have the needed experienced staff and new ones are employed as the old ones leave," Ndubuoke said But a senior staff of the authority said it was not out of place if the government could assist the NCAA to attract more experienced and skilled manpower in sufficient numbers. "This is because that is the requirement by the ICAO, an agency of United Nations on aviation, to do the job. We are forging ahead successfully with what we have, but funding is an issue. For us to attract our kind of staff and be able to retain them means money," the source said. http://leadership.ng/business/446812/stronger-ncaa-improving-sustaining-air-safety-industry-growth Back to Top Pilots say they're contending with lasers pointed at cockpits Laser light can prove a dangerous distraction for pilots During the early hours of a late spring day, a crew member of a Boston MedFlight helicopter with a patient aboard reported the flash of a green laser aimed at its cockpit as it descended toward Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. State Police scoured the Storrow Drive area near the Esplanade on that May 27 morning, searching for the laser's source, but found nothing. While no one was injured, the company denounced the incident as a "terrible thing" that had put its crew and the patient at risk. The tiny laser pointers, easily available in office supply stores, can cause big problems for pilots, who are increasingly encountering their disorienting light in Massachusetts and across the country - through mischief, malice, or accident. Between 2008 and 2014, the number of laser incidents reported in Massachusetts climbed 175 percent, according to a Globe analysis of thousands of Federal Aviation Administration records. Nationwide, the number grew by 327 percent. In Boston this year, pilots have reported 17 laser events, including the May incident, through June 19, said FAA spokesman Jim Peters, already surpassing last year's total of 15. The FAA attributed the rise in reports to the increased availability of inexpensive laser devices and greater awareness among pilots of their danger. A laser can be as distracting as a camera flash or the high-beam headlights of an oncoming car, the FAA said on its website. While pilots are unlikely to suffer permanent eye damage, it may take them a few minutes to adjust their vision back to normal, which is particularly dangerous during a flight's takeoff and landing. "At 35,000 feet, you have time to react," said Patrick Murphy, who tracks laser incidents on the website LaserPointerSafety.com. "At takeoff or landing, you may not have time to recover." No aircraft accidents have been attributed to lasers, but "given the sizeable number of reports and debilitating effects that can accompany such events, the potential does exist," a FAA report said. The FAA began formally tracking laser events in 2005. The number of annual reports climbed steeply during the next six years, then held steady. In 2012, George Johnson, a supervisory federal air marshal, said the number of attacks had almost reached an "epidemic level." Across the country, pilots reported 3,894 laser-related incidents last year, according to the FAA records. Through June 19 of this year, 2,524 laser events in the United States were recorded, said Peters. Almost 70 percent of these laser events occurred at altitudes between 2,000 and 10,000 feet, according to the FAA. Most took place between 7 and 11 p.m. and involved a green laser. Green lasers are more visible than other colors, the administration found. Laser incidents were more densely located on the West Coast, particularly in California, which had 888 reports in 2014. The highest number of reports last year came from the Los Angeles area, which had 107. Where laser incidents happen more frequently Major cities with airports that had 10 or more laser reports in 2014 Officials warn that thousands of incidents each year still go unreported. Murphy said pilots may have tired of reporting them, particularly when they occur at times when no significant danger is posed, such as when their airplanes were at cruising altitudes. The light from laser pointers can radiate for miles, growing in size and scope at longer distances. Murphy said there are generally two types of people who shine lasers at aircraft: those who do so inadvertently, not realizing how far their laser extends and others he called the "criminal and antisocial element," who flash lasers at aircraft cockpits deliberately to distract pilots. A Medford man was sentenced to 36 months in a federal prison in 2011 for shining a powerful green laser beam into a State Police helicopter that was escorting a tanker through Boston Harbor and then lying about the incident. His conviction on the charge that he pointed the laser at the helicopter on purpose was vacated upon appeal, however. According to federal law, anyone who knowingly aims the beam of a laser at an aircraft can be fined or face up to five years in prison. But prosecutions are rare and convictions even more so. The technology publication Ars Technica tallied 134 arrests made in the incidents nationwide from 2005 to 2013. Eighty of those arrests led to convictions. "It's difficult to locate the person doing it," said State Police spokesman David Procopio, noting that there is often a lag between the time of the incident and when it is reported. Even so, each Massachusetts report is forwarded to the Boston's joint terrorism task force and investigated, said Procopio. The vast majority of the local incidents were considered "nuisance activities," however, where terrorism was not the aim, he said. http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/07/12/mass-pilots-reports-laser-strikes-have-increased/NKqoTGNAo1mtJahmms04bM/story.html Back to Top Cirrus To Live-test Vision Jet Recovery Parachute in Q4 Cirrus Aircraft completed ultimate load testing last month of the ballistic recovery parachute that will be standard equipment on its SF50 Vision Jet and plans to do a live test of this system early in the fourth quarter, SF50 project manager Matthew Bergwall told AIN. The $1.96 million (2012 $) single-engine jet is "on track" for FAA certification by year-end, he added. C1, the second of three conforming flight-test SF50s, is currently being outfitted with the ballistic recovery system. Like the systems used on the flight-test SR20 and SR22 pistons during certification, the one on C1 has been modified to include a release system that will allow the rocket-launched parachute to be jettisoned following completion of the test. In normal operation, the parachute cannot be released once deployed. Meanwhile, C0 is finishing FAR Part 23 Subpart B flight testing, which is expected to be completed next month. Cirrus is also getting ready to install a production interior in C2. Previously, C1 conducted natural ice testing. Three production SF50s are now on the production line, with the first to be used for function and reliability testing, Bergwall said. http://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/business-aviation/2015-07-13/cirrus-live-test-vision-jet-recovery-parachute-q4 Back to Top Tweet about bomb on plane forced Jet Airways emergency landing After the aircraft was check by the Omani security agencies, the plane continued its journey to Dubai. A Jet Airways flight headed for Dubai from Mumbai with 54 passengers and seven crew members made an emergency landing at Muscat International Airport in Oman following a tweet about a bomb onboard the flight earlier this week, the Daily Mail reported on Monday. The tweet about a bomb on board was sent from the account of a man called Surender Partap, reading: "Bomb spotted in Jet Airways 9W-536 from Mumbai to Dubai. At 12:25 from CSIA Operation Badla." After being tracked down and arrested, Partap, who lives in Uttar Pradesh in India, said he had not sent the tweet and claimed that his account had been hacked and. After the aircraft was check, including all the baggage and cargo, by the Omani security agencies, the plane continued its journey to Dubai. This comes two days after a Turkish Airlines flight from Bangkok to Istanbul made an emergency landing in New Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport because of a bomb threat, when a crew member saw a message on the toilet mirror that read "bomb in cargo hold". http://english.alarabiya.net/en/media/digital/2015/07/14/Tweet-about-bomb-on-plane-forces-emergency-landing-in-Muscat.html Back to Top Teenage Girl Who Survived Plane Crash Walked For Days Before Getting Picked Up By Motorist SEATTLE (AP) - A driver picked up a teenage girl who survived a small plane crash in a mountainous area in Washington state, authorities said. Crews had been searching for the plane with three aboard after it failed to reach its destination. Okanogan County Sheriff Frank Rogers said Monday afternoon that the girl managed to walk to a trailhead, where she was picked up by a motorist and brought to a store in Mazama, Washington. Tthe girl had been "walking for a couple of days," Rogers said. She was being taken to a local hospital and she seemed to be in stable condition, he said. Rogers wouldn't comment on the status of the other two people aboard the plane. Officials had identified those aboard as Leland and Sharon Bowman of Marion, Montana, and their 16-year-old step-granddaughter, Autumn Veatch, of Bellingham, Washington. "We're not going into the status of the grandparents. She was the only one who walked out," Rogers told The Associated Press. "She just said they came out of the clouds, and it crashed." The Beech A-35 left Kalispell, Montana, about 1 p.m. PDT Saturday, headed for Lynden, Washington. Family members notified authorities when the plane did not arrive. Five aircraft had been flying over a rugged, mountainous area of Washington state on Monday, searching for the small, private plane. The plane crossed the Idaho-Washington border about 2:20 p.m. PDT Saturday, but it dropped off the radar near Omak, Washington, about an hour later, transportation officials said. The last phone signal from one of the plane's occupants was detected around 3:50 p.m. The search Monday had focused on an area south of Mount Baker and northeast of Seattle. The Civil Air Patrol's Cell Phone Forensics and Radar Analysis teams were analyzing clues left by the phones that were on board. Five aircraft equipped with special radios for detecting the missing plane's emergency-locator transmitter searched the mountains while ground crews focused on areas between Mazama, Washington, and the Rainy Pass area, officials said. "These grids contain some of the toughest mountainous terrain in the state," Civil Air Patrol spokeswoman Julie DeBardelaben said. Rain early Monday slowed efforts, but clearing skies in the afternoon were expected to help with the search. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/teenage-girl-who-survived-plane-crash-walked-for-days-before-getting-picked-up-by-motorist_55a45c47e4b0b8145f73747b? **************** Date: 11-JUL-2015 Time: 07:00 p.m. Type: Beech A35 Bonanza Owner/operator: Private Registration: N8749A C/n / msn: D-2171 Fatalities: Fatalities: / Occupants: 3 Airplane damage: Aircraft missing Location: Missing near Omak, south of Mt Baker, Washington - United States of America Phase: En route Nature: Private Departure airport: Kalispell, Montana (KGPI) Destination airport: Lynden (38W) Narrative: The plane never reached its destination in Lynden and is missing. Search operations are ongoing. One occupant was located away from the accident site with apparent minor injuries on Monday, the 13th of July.. Weather may have been a factor to the accident. www.aviation-safety.net Back to Top Back to Top Gogo Pushes New Tech for Aircraft Broadband GoGo says more than 500 aircraft are being fitted with 2Ku antennas like the one pictured above. Credit: GoGo PARIS - Airline broadband connectivity provider Gogo Inc. said it looked at the Ku- and Ka-band product offerings of SES, Intelsat, ViaSat, Hughes, Inmarsat and others before deciding to launch its own proprietary 2Ku product, to be introduced commercially this year. Chicago-based Gogo has contracted for capacity aboard Intelsat and SES satellites to introduce 2Ku, first on a Gogo-owned Boeing 737 test plane and then commercially later this year. Gogo said it has more than 500 aircraft in various stages of being fitted with 2Ku antennas. In a June 25 presentations to investors, Gogo managers said that while they wait for the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to issue rules on the allocation of the 14-gigahertz section of spectrum, they are pushing ahead with 2Ku worldwide. Jon Cobin, Gogo's executive vice president for global airlines, said the company assumes for now that the FCC auction of the 14-gigahertz spectrum will occur in early 2016. That would substantially increase the amount of spectrum available for air-to-ground communications, but would not address flights outside North America, or flights in North America that spend a part of their time over the ocean. The growing demand for in-flight broadband - for passenger connectivity, aircraft-health reports and cockpit requirements - means that aircraft spending just 5 percent of their time over water are being equipped for satellite links, Gogo officials said. Gogo has 2,300 commercial airline aircraft and 2,000 business jets fitted with air-to-ground gear. Cobin said that Gogo has 51 percent of the current installed aircraft connectivity market, and that since it announced the 2Ku service it has won 74 percent of the competitions it has entered. By Gogo's count, its 51 percent market share for connected aircraft, both air-to-ground and satellite combined, compares with 19 percent for Panasonic Avionics, 14 percent for Global Eagle Entertainment, 9 percent for Thales Group and 7 percent for OnAir. Gogo started its use of air-to-ground links in North America after concluding that the satellite alternatives then were insufficient. With air-to-ground reaching saturation of its limited spectrum and Gogo expanding abroad, the company is now returning to satellites with 2Ku. Gogo said current Ku-band satellites can offer 20-50 megabits per second to a plane, about the same as Ka-band systems. With 2Ku, that increases to 70-100 megabits per second, said Anand Chari, Gogo's chief technology officer. The same 2Ku band antenna system using today's widebeam Ku-band satellites will work with the coming high-throughput Ku-band satellites, Chari said, although in some cases airlines may need to swap out the modems to function with the newer satellites. The choice of Ku-band, he said, was made easy by the fact that in any given region several Ku-band satellites are in orbit and have available capacity. Chari said 2Ku "is going to disrupt global aviation. It's a true global solution and it can do Internet and TV using the same antenna, and it works both with today's satellites and the next-generation high-throughput satellites." One drawback to the satellite solution is that it takes a plane out of service for about three days to perform the installation, Chari said. That compares with about eight hours for air-to-ground hardware. Gogo Chief Executive Michael Small said of mobile satellite services provider Inmarsat - Gogo is a reseller of Inmarsat's Global Xpress Ka-band broadband service - that he is not certain that Inmarsat's planned S-band air-to-ground (ATG) project in Europe will ever see the light of day. "There may or may not be a European ATG," Small said. "We don't rule it out. It's entirely possible that they will get it built. We would be entirely open to using that network. It could potentially be useful for certain aircraft. We don't see it as a factor in our future, but we would be happy to engage in discussions with them." Inmarsat has ordered an S-band satellite payload and has a European Commission operating license. Chari said 2Ku, whose Gogo-developed antennas and modems are the key points of advantage, "will outperform, or at least perform as well as," the Ka-band aeronautical connectivity offered by ViaSat Inc. of Carlsbad, California. "And we will have global coverage and offer operational savings for airlines." Gogo officials said its their 2Ku antenna's efficiency in turning a megahertz of spectrum into throughput - they likened it to a high-fuel-mileage car versus a lower- mileage car - that gives it an advantage over the competition. That, plus the fact that the more planes connected, the less each pay for the bandwidth, is what Gogo is counting on to maintain its market share advantage. Gogo Chief Financial Officer Norman Smagley said 2Ku will cost airlines about one-half what they pay today for Gogo's Ku-band offering, measured by the annual cost per plane for the same amount of bandwidth - $1.8 million in savings per plane per year using current Ku-band satellites. "Think about having a 1,000-aircraft fleet with 2Ku," Smagley said. "That represents $1.8 billion in present-value bandwidth cost savings. That means $1.8 billion more in margin, $1.8 billion more in cash." Small said the savings are estimated from Gogo's current Ku-band service flying with Delta and Japan Airlines today, and laboratory tests of the efficiencies to come with 2Ku. Smagley denied industry scuttlebutt saying Gogo was offering its Ku-band equipment free of charge to airlines to establish market share. "We are not giving it away free," Smagley said. "Every airline is paying for the equipment." He said equipment cost subsidies nonetheless were embedded in larger-order fleet contracts. "The best is yet to come," Smagley said. "We're going to make a lot of money" on 2Ku. http://spacenews.com/2014-top-fixed-satellite-service-operators-gogo-pushes-new-tech-for-aircraft-broadband/#sthash.6TK3qOT6.dpuf Back to Top United Airlines pays hacker one million air miles in bug bounty reward United Airlines bug bounty It didn't take Jordan Wiens very long to find a vulnerability in United Airlines' network, but the payoff was one million free air miles for about six hours of work. A vulnerability researcher from Florida, Wiens was the first recipient of United's highest-level reward in its bug bounty program, reserved for remote code execution (RCE) vulnerabilities in its web properties. United announced the bounty program in May 2015, which it said is the first such program in the airline industry. Usually, bug bounty programs offer rewards in cash, such as those run by Microsoft, Google and Facebook. United's rewards are all in the form of free air miles - ranging from 50,000 free miles for low-level bugs (cross-site request forgery, bugs in third party software affecting United), to 250,000 miles for mid-level bugs (authentication bypass, personally identifiable information leakage, brute force attacks), and 1,000,000 miles for RCE bugs. Several kinds of bugs - including those in systems on board the aircraft such as avionics and in-flight Wi-Fi - are not eligible for the program, although the security of aircraft systems has been called into question recently. Wiens announced his reward on Twitter, and he seemed surprised that United paid out the top reward for his bug submissions. Wiens Twitter status on bug bounty payout Wow! @united really paid out! Got a million miles for my bug bounty submissions! Very cool. He included a screenshot showing that the reward was paid out on 10 July, in two portions: one reward for 999,999 miles, and another for one mile. The rules of the program prohibit disclosing bugs publicly or to any third parties, but Wiens tweeted that the bug he discovered "wasn't technically challenging." Wiens said the RCE vulnerability he disclosed "probably wasn't in critical parts of the network." Even so, RCE vulnerabilities are severe bugs that could allow an unauthenticated attacker to remotely inject code into a program and get it to run. That means someone on the outside could run a program on your server or desktop computer without having to log in. Wiens told a local TV station that he planned to use the miles for coach-class trips for his family, including at least one trip to Hawaii with his wife. Because of the way the airline parcels out rewards miles, that Hawaii trip with his wife would cost him up to 360,000 air miles for two first-class round trip tickets. A critic of the United bug bounty program might point out that rewards miles might not be as attractive as straight-up cash, making security researchers less likely to participate. But one tweeter claimed that Wiens's reward is worth roughly $25,000, similar to top payouts of other bounty programs. We all benefit from these programs: the company offering the program gets the benefit of crowdsourced quality control, the researchers get recognition and compensation for their work, and the rest of us are more secure because of it. It's great that companies like United are starting to latch on to the idea. https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2015/07/13/united-airlines-pays-hacker-one-million-air-miles-in-bug-bounty-reward/ Back to Top Embry-Riddle To Offer Free Online Course On Aviation Accident Investigation Daytona Beach, Fla., July 7, 2015 - Aviation accident investigation plays a vital role in ensuring aircraft are designed, maintained and operated in a safe manner. Faculty from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University - Worldwide will share their accident investigation expertise this fall during a free massive open online course (MOOC). Registration for Aircraft Accident Investigation is limited and will open July 20. The course runs from Aug. 17 to Sept. 13. Participants will learn various aspects of the aircraft accident investigation process, from initial field investigation to publication of the final accident report. Particular emphasis will be placed on the study of human factors and survival investigative techniques and the application of accident investigation findings in industry and research. A critical analysis of selected aircraft accidents and an evaluation of causal factors will be addressed. Additionally, participants will have the opportunity to practice data collection skills in Worldwide's Virtual Crash Laboratory. Embry-Riddle Virtual Crash lab MOOCs give students the flexibility of viewing lectures and working on assignments based on their own schedules. The online learning platform encourages a learning experience that focuses on student interaction using discussion boards and social media platforms such as Twitter. To learn more about the MOOC at Embry-Riddle Worldwide, visit http://worldwide.erau.edu/degrees-programs/free-online-courses/index.html. About Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, the world's largest, fully accredited university specializing in aviation and aerospace, is a nonprofit, independent institution offering more than 75 baccalaureate, master's and Ph.D. degree programs in its colleges of Arts & Sciences, Aviation, Business, Engineering and Security & Intelligence. Embry- Riddle educates students at residential campuses in Daytona Beach, Fla., and Prescott, Ariz.; online; and through the Worldwide Campus' network of education facilities in the United States, Europe, Asia and the Middle East. The university is a major research center, seeking solutions to real-world problems in partnership with the aerospace industry, other universities and government agencies. For more information, visit www.worldwide.erau.edu, follow us on Twitter (@ERAUworldwide) and www.facebook.com/EmbryRiddleWorldwide, and find expert videos at http://www.YouTube.com/EmbryRiddleUniv. http://www.aviationpros.com/press_release/12090233/embry-riddle-aeronautical-university-worldwide-to-offer-free-massive-open-online-course-on-aviation-accident- investigation Back to Top Upcoming Events: EAA AirVenture Schedule July 19-26, 2015 Oshkosh, WI http://www.eaa.org/en/airventure/eaa-airventure-schedule-of-events Infrastructure and Safety Summit Texas A&M Engineering Extension Service July 20-24, 2015 McAllen, Texas http://TEEX.org/itsi Fundamentals of IS-BAO July 21, 2015 Orlando, FL USA https://www.regonline.com/builder/site/Default.aspx?eventid=1659145 IS-BAO Auditing July 22, 2015 Orlando, FL USA https://www.regonline.com/builder/site/Default.aspx?eventid=1659149 Fundamentals of IS-BAO August 19, 2015 Madrid, Spain https://www.regonline.com/builder/site/Default.aspx?eventid=1659089 IS-BAO Auditing August 20, 2015 Madrid, Spain https://www.regonline.com/builder/site/Default.aspx?eventid=1659096 Safety Management Systems Training & Workshop Course offered by ATC Vantage Inc. Tampa, FL August 6-7, 2015 www.atcvantage.com/training Fundamentals of IS-BAO August 25, 2015 Denver, CO USA https://www.regonline.com/builder/site/Default.aspx?eventid=1737105 IS-BAO Auditing August 26, 2015 Denver, CO USA https://www.regonline.com/builder/site/Default.aspx?eventid=1737126 Fundamentals of IS-BAO August 30, 2015 Casablanca, Morocco https://www.regonline.com/builder/site/Default.aspx?eventid=1725994 IS-BAO Auditing August 31, 2015 Casablanca, Morocco https://www.regonline.com/builder/site/Default.aspx?eventid=1725997 Aircraft Fire Hazards, Protection & Investigation Course 9-11 Sept. 2015 Hotel Ibis Nanterre La Defense (near Paris) France http://blazetech.com/resources/pro_services/FireCourse-France_2015.pdf Regulatory Affairs Training Course September 15 & 16 Fort Worth, TX http://jdasolutions.aero/services/regulatory-affairs.php Suspected Unapproved Parts (SUPS) Training Course September 15 & 16 Fort Worth, TX http://jdasolutions.aero/ Back to Top JOBS AVAILABLE: Director, ICAO Liaison International Business Aviation Council DILpost@ibac.org Auditor Quality Assurance JetBlue https://careers.peopleclick.com/careerscp/client_jetblue/external_general/gateway.do?functionName=viewFromLink&jobPostId=5760&localeCode=en-us Deputy Director of Flight Operations and Technical Services Helicopter Association International https://www.rotor.org/AboutHAI/Employment.aspx Manager Safety Risk Management in Seattle Washington United States Alaska Airlines https://tam.alaskaair.com/psc/asjobs/EMPLOYEE/HRMS/c/HRS_HRAM.HRS_CE.GBL?Page=HRS_CE_JOB_DTL&Action=A&JobOpeningId=25776&SiteId=10&PostingSeq=1 ? Engineering & Operations Manager Air Line Pilots Association, International (ALPA), https://jobs-alpa.icims.com/jobs/1192/manager%2c-engineering-%26-operations/job Curt Lewis