Flight Safety Information May 12, 2020 - No. 095 In This Issue Incident: Aviastar T204 at Krasnojarsk on May 12th 2020, could not retract landing gear Quest Kodiak 100 - Fatal Accident (Indonesia) Pilot in Kobe Bryant crash wasn't responsible for deaths, brother says Ryanair passengers will have to ask to use toilet when flights resume 'Astonishing' - veteran military pilots see first survey data on how many have cancer Coronavirus pandemic could force a major U.S. airline out of business, says Boeing CEO Pentagon Wants Better Data For Its Predictive Aircraft Maintenance AI COVID-19: A LIST OF RETIRED AIRCRAFT Embraer blames failed Boeing deal for sharp drop in commercial jet deliveries Ryanair cools on Airbus, moves back towards all-Boeing fleet FAA establishes spaceport office to support growing number of launch sites A Huge Piece of Space Debris Falls to Earth Uncontrolled Online - Human Factors & CRM Courses The USC Aviation Safety & Security Program Has Moved Online! SCSI Online Human Factors in Accident Investigation Course Incident: Aviastar T204 at Krasnojarsk on May 12th 2020, could not retract landing gear An Aviastar Russia Tupolev TU-204, registration RA-64052 performing freight flight 4B-9623 from Krasnojarsk to Norilsk (Russia) with 4 crew, was climbing out of Krasnojarsk's runway 29 when the crew stopped the climb at 5000 feet due to being unable to retract the landing gear. The aircraft entered a hold to burn off fuel and returned to Krasnojarsk for a safe landing on runway 29 about 2 hours after departure. The aircraft is still on the ground in Krasnojarsk about 6 hours after landing back. http://avherald.com/h?article=4d72ecb4&opt=0 Back to Top Quest Kodiak 100 - Fatal Accident (Indonesia) Date: 12-MAY-2020 Time: Type: Quest Kodiak 100 Owner/operator: Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF) Registration: PK-MEC C/n / msn: 100-0026 Fatalities: Fatalities: 1 / Occupants: 1 Other fatalities: 0 Aircraft damage: Written off (damaged beyond repair) Location: Lake Sentani - Indonesia Phase: En route Nature: Unknown Departure airport: Jayapura-Sentani Airport (DJJ/WAJJ) Destination airport: Mamit Airfield Narrative: The aircraft impacted the waters of Lake Sentani following a mayday call. The airplane submerged, sustaining substantial damage, and the sole pilot onboard received fatal injures. https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/235908 Back to Top Pilot in Kobe Bryant crash wasn't responsible for deaths, brother says Court filings on behalf of the brother, in response to a lawsuit by Vanessa Bryant, claim that Kobe Bryant knew of the risks of flying in a helicopter. The brother of the pilot of a helicopter that crashed in January, killing Kobe Bryant and seven other passengers, including Bryant's 13-year-old daughter, Gianna, claimed in court documents filed Monday that the pilot shouldn't be held responsible. The pilot, Ara George Zobayan, was also killed in the crash in Calabasas, northwest of Los Angeles, on Jan. 26. The documents, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court in response to a wrongful death suit from the NBA star's widow, Vanessa Bryant, claimed that Kobe Bryant knew of the risks of flying in a helicopter and chose to anyway. "This negligence was a substantial factor in causing their purported damages," according to documents filed Monday on behalf of Berge Zobayan, the pilot's brother. In her suit, which was filed Feb. 24, Vanessa Bryant claimed that Zobayan and the company he worked for, Island Express Helicopters, put their Sikorsky S-76B in the air when conditions weren't safe for flying. The suit alleges that Zobayan didn't evaluate weather data before taking off and didn't abort the flight in conditions that were so foggy that the Los Angeles Police Department grounded its fleet of helicopters until the afternoon. Vanessa Bryant's legal team and a representative didn't immediately respond to a request for comment Monday. The hillside crash also killed Orange Coast College baseball coach John Altobelli and his wife, Keri, whose daughter played basketball with Gianna, and Christina Mauser, who helped Bryant coach the girls' basketball team. The families of Altobelli and Mauser sued last month, although they named only the helicopter company and its owner, Island Express Holding Corp., as defendants. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/pilot-kobe-bryant-crash-wasn-t-responsible-deaths-pilot-s-n1204771 Back to Top Ryanair passengers will have to ask to use toilet when flights resume Airline lays out new coronavirus rules as it aims to restart 40% of services in July Passengers travelling with Ryanair will have to ask permission to use the toilet under new rules laid out by the airline, as it prepares to restart 40% of flights in July in the hope that government restrictions on travel in Europe will be lifted. Europe's biggest budget carrier intends to run almost 1,000 flights a day from 1 July and to restore 90% of its pre-pandemic route network. Before the Covid-19 pandemic, Ryanair was operating 2,400 flights a day. It will restart flying from most of its 80 bases across the continent. Ryanair published a return to flying video that advises passengers to check their temperature before going to the airport, check in online and download their boarding pass to their smartphone. Travellers will undergo further temperature tests at the airport, must wear face masks or other coverings and wash their hands and use hand sanitiser in terminals. On board the aircraft, they will be able to buy pre-packaged snacks and drinks, using cashless payments only. Queuing for toilets will be prohibited on board, although individual passengers will be able to use the facilities "upon request". Physical distancing at airports and onboard will be encouraged where possible. The measures include fewer checked bags and a deep clean of the aircraft every night with chemicals that are effective for more than 24 hours. All Ryanair planes are fitted with Hepa air filters similar to those used in critical hospital wards, the airline says. Since the Covid-19 flight restrictions were imposed in mid-March, Ryanair has been operating a skeleton daily schedule of 30 flights between Ireland, the UK and Europe. The pandemic has forced airlines around the world to ground their fleets. As a temporary public health measure, while EU countries emerge from their Covid-19 lockdowns, Ryanair will require all passengers flying in July and August to fill in details at the point of check-in of how long their planned visit will be, and their address while visiting another EU country. This contact information will be provided to EU governments to help them to monitor any isolation regulations. The Ryanair chief executive, Eddie Wilson, said: "It is important for our customers and our people that we return to some normal schedules from 1 July onwards. Governments around Europe have implemented a four-month lockdown to limit the spread of the Covid-19 virus. After four months, it is time to get Europe flying again so we can reunite friends and families, allow people to return to work, and restart Europe's tourism industry, which provides so many millions of jobs." Other airlines including Wizz Air and KLM have also announced a return to flying. The British Airways owner, IAG, had been planning to run 1,000 flights a day from July, but its chief executive, Willie Walsh, said on Monday it would review its plans in light of the UK government's plan to quarantine people arriving by air. He said the number of flights would probably be "pretty minimal". Michael O'Leary, the group chief executive of Ryanair, brushed off the 14-day quarantine, from which French and Irish travellers will be exempt. He said the exemption showed the quarantine period was not based on science, passengers would ignore it, and the UK government lacked the police resources to check on people. He told ITV's Good Morning Britain: "I don't think this 14-day isolation will be effective. It will have no credibility among the travelling public, but it is manageable." https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/may/12/ryanair-flights-resume-coronavirus-rules-july Back to Top 'Astonishing' - veteran military pilots see first survey data on how many have cancer WASHINGTON Last fall, the Red River Valley Fighter Pilots Association asked its 3,400 members, all current or former military pilots, to respond to a survey about whether they had been diagnosed with cancer. The response was "astonishing," a leader of the group said. A total of 894 association members, known as "River Rats," responded to the seven-question survey which asked, "Have you ever been diagnosed with cancer?" The results of the survey were shared exclusively with McClatchy. "500 of them, 56 percent of them, said 'Yes, I am disclosing a personal cancer.' That was astonishing. I was not prepared for that," said retired Air Force F-15E Strike Eagle pilot Col. Vince "Aztec" Alcazar, in an interview with McClatchy. Alcazar, who does not have cancer, serves on the association's medical issues committee. Of the 500 respondents who disclosed at least one cancer, "13 percent of them disclosed multiple cancers," Alcazar said. STAY INFORMED The most commonly reported cancer was melanoma or skin cancer, and the second most common was prostate cancer, Alcazar said. The survey's limitations included that it only captured the number of cancers among living members and does not reflect how many of its former members had died of cancer. VETCANCER-Percentages In October in it's exclusive investigation, "Stricken" McClatchy reported that the rates of treatment at VA health care centers for many types of cancers rose sharply over the last two decades of war. Across all services, treatment rates for urinary cancers - which include bladder, ureter and kidney cancers - have jumped 61 percent from fiscal year 2000 to 2018. Prostate cancer treatment rates have risen 23 percent. McClatchy was also able to report treatment rate increases by service. The Marine Corps recorded the sharpest increase, with a 98 percent jump in urinary cancer treatments. Patrick Gleason/McClatchy It also didn't track what type of aircraft the pilot flew or age at diagnosis. Alcazar said the association kept the questions limited in order to get the most responses possible, and avoid any privacy concerns. The association plans to approach Congress with this initial data to seek legislation for a more exhaustive scientific study, conducted by the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Defense to review the medical records of all pilots, living and deceased, for the last several decades to determine how many have had cancer. "Now, I've got a narrative to take to lawmakers on Capitol Hill," Alcazar said. "It's just not 4 or 5, or 10 or 20 or 100 emails" of personal stories of pilot cancers, he said. "It's a large organization that took the time to do a well thought-out survey. And the results say, 'it's worth a look folks.'" The association would like to see a congressionally mandated study of all military pilots and air crews for all types of military aircraft. The Air Force is conducting such a study of all its former aviators going back to 1970. Several lawmakers, including Rep. Elaine Luria, D-Va., have introduced legislation to look at aspects of military pilot cancers. An investigation by McClatchy last fall found that the rate of treatment at VA healthcare facilities for various types of cancers across the services had skyrocketed over the last two decades. For example, prostate cancer treatment rates among Air Force veterans rose 44 percent from fiscal year 2000 to fiscal year 2018. Alcazar said the River Rats have shared their initial survey findings with Air Force leadership. Even though the association's 3,400 aviator membership is large, it is a small sliver of the total number of retired Air Force and Navy aviators who have served as pilots or crew on fighter, surveillance, ground attack, transport or other aircraft. For example, between 800 and 1,000 Navy pilots or aircrew left the military each year between fiscal year 1999 and fiscal year 2018, according to data provided to McClatchy by the Navy. The Air Force did not immediately provide the numbers of how many of the approximately 19,000 currently serving aviators leave military service each year. Getting actual numbers on the likelihood of cancer among pilots could help the military medical community save lives, Alcazar said. "You walk into a VA hospital for the first time. They go 'Oh, you flew F-18s in the Marine Corps.' Or, 'You flew F-16s in the United States Air Force. There's a whole bunch of certain kinds of cancers that have been found to be a little bit more common in these groups of pilots than they are in the mainstream population," he said. "So we're going to start looking at indicators. We're going to start screening for those." https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/national-security/article242654356.html Back to Top Coronavirus pandemic could force a major U.S. airline out of business, says Boeing CEO "Something will happen when September comes around. Traffic levels will not be back to 100 percent. They won't even be back to 25 percent. So there will definitely be adjustments that have to be made on the part of the airlines," David Calhoun said. Boeing CEO: It could take 3 to 5 years for airline industry to return from 'apocalyptic' state The airline industry is having an "apocalyptic" moment that could force a major U.S. carrier out of business, said David Calhoun, president and CEO of Boeing, in an interview with Savannah Guthrie on NBC's "TODAY" show that aired on Tuesday morning. "The threat to the airline industry is grave. There's no question about it. And apocalyptic does actually accurately describe the moment," Calhoun said of the impact of the coronavirus. The airline industry raked in record profits for a decade, due to lower jet fuel prices and consolidation through a series of mergers. That ended with the coronavirus pandemic, which has devastated the industry and has led to a 95 percent drop in air travel demand. American Airlines, United, Southwest and Delta all reported huge quarterly losses, their first in years. Airline executives have said the pandemic is the industry's worst crisis, and have compared its impact to the events of September 11. Despite billions of dollars in emergency funding as part of the government's CARES Act, the future for the industry remains uncertain, with many airline executives forecasting traffic will not return to prior levels for three to five years, leading to questions about the survival of some major carriers. "I don't want to get too predictive on that subject. But yes, most likely," Calhoun said when asked if he thought a major U.S. carrier would have to go out of business. "Something will happen when September comes around. Traffic levels will not be back to 100 percent. They won't even be back to 25 percent. So there will definitely be adjustments that have to be made on the part of the airlines," Calhoun said. The air travel experience will be very different, he acknowledged. While he recommended that regulators require face masks, he said the interior of a plane's cabin was nonetheless "designed to prevent transmission of exactly this kind of airborne carrier." "The cabin itself replaces its air every two to three minutes," he said. "By the time you layer those protections, and you consider the responsible actions of the public themselves, I believe you do gradually get back to the same level of confidence that we've had before." Calhoun told the "TODAY" show he does not share the same view on the future of airlines as does billionaire investor Warren Buffet, who recently sold his entire $4 billion stake in U.S. airlines. Buffett said at the time he did not think people would fly as many passenger miles as they did last year. "The world has changed for the airlines," Buffett said earlier this month at the annual shareholder meeting for his investment firm, Berkshire Hathaway. "I don't know if Americans have now changed their habits or will change their habits because of the extended period." "I don't happen to share the view," Calhoun told Guthrie. "I share the near-term turmoil. Near-term for me doesn't mean a few months. I believe it's three full years before we return to the traffic levels that we had just in 2019, and then probably another two before we begin to return to the growth rates that we used to have. And I'm hopeful that somewhere between here and there, there's a vaccine, and that the moment of high anxiety begins to really subside. But I still believe in the future of the industry." Guthrie also questioned Calhoun about the future of Boeing itself. The company's troubled 737 Max jet fleet remains grounded worldwide, after two crashes led to hundreds of fatalities. "In remembrance of the two accidents, which were as real as can be, our heartfelt sorrows to everybody who was touched by those accidents," Calhoun said. "We made a bad assumption, with respect to the design envelope for that airplane, at that moment in time, under that condition. Our assumption about how a pilot would react in a very tense, difficult moment was wrong. Simple as that. But I do believe that has been fixed. I also believe in the culture at Boeing. I believe - actually, all of our employees believe - deeply in safety. And have we taken a magnifying glass to everything we do, everything, so that we don't ever allow for something like that to happen in the future." "I am confident in the Max," Calhoun said. "The certification work, the FAA's work, has been as thorough as anything I've ever seen. We've worked every scenario we can possibly work into the testing programs. And it does exceedingly well." Calhoun also spoke proudly of how "magical" it was for Boeing to be helping out during the pandemic, delivering front-line emergency supplies. "The pilots who fly these airplanes around the world, to deliver these supplies, it's our front line helping the health care front line," Calhoun said. "It's pretty magical when it happens, and it is wildly motivating for me, of course, but mostly for our people. And they need that kind of motivation." https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/coronavirus-pandemic-could-force-major-u-s-airline-out-business-n1205036 Back to Top Pentagon Wants Better Data For Its Predictive Aircraft Maintenance AI On May 7, the Pentagon's Joint Artificial Intelligence Center (JAIC) released a request for information, seeking ideas on how to improve its use of AI to predict when its planes, helicopters, and unmanned aerial vehicles require repairs or maintenance. the JAIC indicated in the solicitation that it has experienced challenges when using its pathfinder project AI to predict maintenance on H-60 helicopters and their T700 engines, including the accuracy and completeness of historical aircraft data. The JAIC reported that it is seeking a partner to advance these efforts, looking to find timely and trusted model outputs that can predict engine maintenance and servicing. The JAIC's partner will, among other tasks, assist in the data collection and curation to produce historical data on each H-60 aircraft in the US military, develop and train AI models that can predict the probability of a condition requiring maintenance, and provide a visual representation of model output to maintainers and planners. Read More: Pentagon Wants Better Data For Its Predictive Aircraft Maintenance AI https://www.oodaloop.com/briefs/2020/05/11/pentagon-wants-better-data-for-its-predictive-aircraft-maintenance-ai/ Back to Top COVID-19: A LIST OF RETIRED AIRCRAFT The low demand caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has forced all airlines to resize their fleet and flight operations. With this some airlines sent their aircraft to storage sites and some straight into retirement. Here we have collected a list of retired aircraft to share with you. Lufthansa At the beginning of April, Lufthansa Group announced the first measures for reducing the fleet due to the lower demand caused by COVID-19. The A340-600 fleet will be temporarily decommissioned as well as six Airbus A380s and five Boeing 747-400s. Lufthansa Cityline will also withdraw three Airbus A340-300 aircraft from service. Lufthansa's CEO, Carsten Spohr, announced that after COVID-19 the airline will be smaller and will reduce the size of the fleet by about 100 aircraft. In the short-haul segment, operated by Eurowings, an additional ten Airbus A320s are planned to be phased out. KLM Last month KLM retired their entire fleet of Boeing 747-400s. Initially the airline was expecting to retire this type of aircraft in 2021, but due to COVID-19 the retirement was brought forward without much notice. Currently, three KLM 747-400Ms (PH-BFT, PH-BFV and PH-BFW) are continuing to fly to Shanghai as cargo flights only. Air France During an interview with the French newspaper La Tribune, Air France CEO Ben Smith confirmed that he is anticipating the exit of the Airbus A380 fleet. The first A380 left the fleet in January, performing its last flight to Ireland to be dismantled. Since then Air France have sent two A380s to Tarbes Airport in France and another two to Teruel, Spain. Virgin Atlantic This week, Virgin Atlantic announced the immediate retirement of all their B747-400 and four A330-200 aircraft. On March 24th the airline retired their last A340-600 (G-VWIN). The last three aircraft flew to Bournemouth Airport and two of them, G-VNAP and G-VWIN, already have a new owner, Maleth-Aero. IAG Group IAG Group, the parent of British Airways and Iberia, announced the potential early retirement of BA B747s and Iberia's A340s. British Airways is to retire an additional 2 Boeing 747 aircraft in 2020, in addition to planned retirements. It is also investigating early retirement of the aircraft. The future of Airbus A380 at BA is not mentioned. American Airlines American has officially retired the Embraer E190, Boeing 757 and Boeing 767 fleets, which were originally scheduled to retire by the end of 2020. The airline has also accelerated the retirement of their Airbus A330-300s. Additionally, American is retiring 19 Bombardier CRJ200 aircraft, operated by PSA Airlines. Delta Delta will retire the MD-88 and MD-90 aircraft earlier than previously planned, with both aircraft types exiting the fleet effective June 2020. Air Canada Air Canada is accelerating the retirement of 79 older aircraft from their fleet, including Boeing 767, Airbus 319 and Embraer 190 aircraft, with the Embraer aircraft exiting the fleet immediately. Air Transat At the end of March, Air Transat retired their last A310 with registration C-GSAT. Air Transat repatriation flight TS765 from Porto, Portugal arrived in Toronto via Halifax on 30th March. The last flight was scheduled for the 27th of April from Quebec to Paris and back. Last month, Austrian Airlines announced, in a statement, that they will start the phase-out of part of the fleet; including the retirement of all seven A319s and three of six B767-300s until 2022, then the rest of the Dash 8 fleet. Singapore Airlines According to RoutesOnline, Singapore Airlines will be pushing forward the retirement of their B777-200/ER. A few of them are now parked in Alice Springs, NT, Australia. https://samchui.com/2020/05/10/covid-19-a-list-of-retired-aircraft/#.XrqfUERKiUk Back to Top Embraer blames failed Boeing deal for sharp drop in commercial jet deliveries SAO PAULO - Planemaker Embraer said Tuesday it delivered just five commercial jets in the first quarter, less than half of what it delivered a year ago, blaming the drop on preparations for a deal with Boeing Co that fell apart last month. Embraer had hoped Boeing's takeover of its commercial plane division for $4.2 billion would bring much-needed marketing power to its midsize jets, which have been praised for their fuel efficiency but have lagged in sales. Embraer did not mention the coronavirus pandemic, which brought the air travel industry to a complete halt in the last two weeks of March, as a factor affecting plane sales. Embraer's numbers are low even for the first quarter, usually the slowest of the year. In a securities filing, the company said deliveries had been "negatively impacted" by the conclusion of the carve-out process in January to have everything ready for Boeing to close the purchase. The company delivered 11 commercial jets in 2019 and 14 in 2018. The company said its backlog, a gauge of future revenue, stood at $15.9 billion, compared with $16.8 billion three months ago. Executive jets also fell slightly to 9 deliveries from 11 a year ago. https://www.stltoday.com/business/local/embraer-blames-failed-boeing-deal-for-sharp-drop-in-commercial-jet-deliveries/article_f22c1bf5-413d-5c0c-a4bc-e20f88a80c60.html Back to Top Ryanair cools on Airbus, moves back towards all-Boeing fleet DUBLIN (Reuters) - Ryanair plans to move back towards an all-Boeing fleet by cancelling leases for Airbus A320s for its Lauda subsidiary and likely replacing 30 Airbus jets at the Austrian airline with Boeing 737s, Chief Executive Michael O'Leary told Reuters. Ryanair's purchase in 2018 of Airbus operator Lauda was pitched as a way to diversify the fleet of the budget airline group, which had until then exclusively flown Boeing jets and currently has over 450 737s. O'Leary, whose expansion plans have been curtailed by the grounding of Boeing's 737 MAX, said in March last year he was in early talks with Airbus about an order for 100 A321s and that Ryanair wanted to have a dual Boeing-Airbus fleet. But on Tuesday, O'Leary said he currently viewed talking with Airbus as a waste of his time. "We would not initiate talks with Airbus until such time as Airbus wants to initiate talks with us," he said in an interview. "Until they need an order from the Ryanair Group, frankly we are wasting our time talking to Airbus," he added, without elaborating. Instead, Ryanair planned to "significantly reduce the scale of the Lauda fleet," said O'Leary, who is known for his brinkmanship in negotiations. "We have (Airbus) aircraft that are due to be delivered over the next 12 months and we will cancel almost all of those deliveries," which are from leasing companies, he said. Assuming talks with Boeing about compensation for delays in the delivery of 210 737 MAX jets - and on a possible new aircraft order - go to plan, then Ryanair will probably replace Lauda's 30 Airbus jets with Boeing, he added. "As long as we can reach an acceptable outcome with Boeing, the Boeing orders we have in place would readily replace - I think Lauda will have a fleet of about 30 Airbus aircraft - we would probably replace those Airbus with Boeing over the next couple of years." In February, Ryanair said it was planning to increase Lauda's fleet from 23 to 38 Airbus A320s by the summer of 2020. Ryanair is also in talks with unions at Lauda about pay cuts and a new labour agreement. O'Leary said the Austrian union was refusing to engage and if this did not change by the end of May, Lauda's home base in Vienna would close, with Ryanair Boeing jets replacing the Lauda Airbus planes. O'Leary said the talks with Boeing on compensation and a possible new order had accelerated, but would likely not be concluded by a deadline of May 18-19 and may not conclude until the MAX returns to service, which he said was likely to happen in August or September. O'Leary said the MAX grounding could delay Ryanair's plan to fly 200 million passengers by 2020 "by a year or two." https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/ryanair-cools-airbus-moves-back-114450440.html Back to Top FAA establishes spaceport office to support growing number of launch sites WASHINGTON - As the Federal Aviation Administration licenses another commercial spaceport, it has formally opened an office to address the issues facing such launch sites. The FAA's Office of Commercial Space Transportation (AST) issued a launch site operators license, better known as a spaceport license, May 5 to the Titusville-Cocoa Airport Authority. The license allows the authority to conduct launches from Space Coast Regional Airport in Titusville, Florida. The authority spent the last several years working on a spaceport license application, including an environmental assessment whose draft was published in December. The authority noted in those documents that while it could host a variety of commercial launch vehicles designed to take off and land on runways, it did not have an agreement at the time with any particular launch company to use the facility. The latest license brings to 12 the number of FAA-licensed spaceports in the United States. While some have high-profile customers, like Spaceport America in New Mexico, which serves as the home base for Virgin Galactic's suborbital SpaceShipTwo vehicle, many of the other licensed spaceports have no launch companies using them. To help support launch sites, Congress directed the FAA in a 2018 reauthorization bill to establish an Office of Spaceports. The FAA formally opened the office as part of a reorganization of AST announced in early April. The reauthorization bill directed the new Office of Spaceports to address issues such as licensing, infrastructure improvements, technical support and promotion of spaceports, as well as strengthening the resilience of the commercial space transportation infrastructure. "None of this is any small feat," said Pam Underwood, the new director of the office, during an April 29 online meeting of the Global Spaceport Alliance, a group whose members include many existing or prospective spaceports in the United States and elsewhere. "These are detailed activities that we take very seriously." Underwood said the new office has several initial activities. It is working with the U.S. Space Force on efforts to revise the management of the Eastern and Western Ranges in Florida and California. It is developing a plan to offer infrastructure grants to spaceports, similar to those the FAA provides to airports, should such a program be funded by Congress in the future. Other issues involve regulations. She said the office is looking into modernizing the regulation of launch and reentry sites, and coordinate those regulations with those under development in other nations. The office will also work to promote the capabilities of commercial launch sites. One immediate topic, she said, is helping spaceports exchange information on how to operate amid the coronavirus pandemic. "We've been able to talk with spaceports and get feedback about how this is impacting their daily activities and some of the economic and operational implications," she said. The reauthorization act also directed the FAA to produce a report on national spaceport policy. That report would examine needs by government and commercial users for launch facilities and "proposes policies and programs designed to ensure a robust and resilient orbital and suborbital infrastructure." It would also examine spaceport activities in other countries. That report, which was due to Congress a year after the bill's enactment in October 2018, has been written but is not quite ready for release, Underwood said. "The policy report is in review," she said, having to go through multiple levels within the FAA and elsewhere in the federal government. She said she didn't know when it would be ready, in part because the government's response to the pandemic has taken resources away from activities like review of the report. https://spacenews.com/faa-establishes-spaceport-office-to-support-growing-number-of-launch-sites/ Back to Top A Huge Piece of Space Debris Falls to Earth Uncontrolled Fortunately, it landed in the ocean (NEWSER) - For a few hours Monday, a nearly 20-ton piece of space debris fell uncontrolled from the sky, passing over Los Angeles and New York City and causing a bit of stress for the experts tracking it before it safely splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean. "The problem is that it is traveling very fast horizontally through the atmosphere and it's hard to predict when it will finally come down," one astronomer explains to CNN. The empty core stage from China's Long March-5B rocket, which was launched last week and orbited for several days before re-entering Earth's atmosphere, is the fourth-largest piece of space debris ever to fall back to Earth uncontrolled, and the largest to do so since 1991, KTLA reports. Had the Atlantic Ocean not ended up as the final resting place, however, the astronomer says things might not have turned out as poorly as you might be picturing. "For a large object like this, dense pieces like parts of the rocket engines could survive re-entry and crash to Earth," he says. "Once they reach the lower atmosphere they are traveling relatively slowly, so worst case is they could take out a house." SpaceTrack had pegged the US, Australia, and Africa as potential re-entry locations, and the debris ended up landing just off the coast of West Africa. ScienceAlert reports that the core stage of the rocket was 98 feet long, but SpaceFlightNow notes that most of the rocket was expected to burn up upon re-entering the atmosphere. https://www.newser.com/story/290767/massive-piece-of-space-debris-falls-to-earth-uncontrolled.html Back to Top Back to Top The USC Aviation Safety & Security Program Has Moved Online! The following upcoming courses will take plane in our virtual WebEx classrooms. Software Safety Philosophies and methods of developing software, analyzing software, and managing a software safety program. May 11-14, 2020 4 Days Tuition: $2125 SeMS Aviation Security Management Systems Managing and implementing aviation security measures at medium to small size aircraft operators, all airports, and Indirect Air Carriers, with emphasis on risk assessment and cyber security. May 11-15, 2020 4.5 Days Tuition: $2575 Safety Management Systems for Managers Providing Managers and Supervisors an understanding of the principles of an SMS and a clear vision of the role of the manager. May 27-28, 2020 1.5 Days Tuition: $1025 Aviation Safety Management Systems Providing the skills and practical methods to plan, manage, and maintain an effective Aviation Safety Management System. Special emphasis for safety managers, training, flight department and maintenance managers and supervisors, pilots, air traffic controllers, dispatchers, and schedulers. June 1-12, 2020 9.5 Days Tuition: $3625 Human Factors in Aviation Safety Presenting human factors in a manner that can be readily understood and applied by aviation practitioners in all phases of aviation operations. Emphasis is placed on identifying the causes of human error, predicting how human error can affect performance, and applying countermeasures to reduce or eliminate its effects. June 15-19, 2020 4.5 Days Tuition: $2575 Earn Credit for FlightSafety International Master Technician-Management Program Students taking the following USC courses will earn elective credits towards FlightSafety International's Master Technician-Management Program • Human Factors in Aviation Safety • Gas Turbine Accident Investigation • Helicopter Accident Investigation • Safety Management for Aviation Maintenance • Safety Management for Ground Operations Safety • Accident/Incident Response Preparedness Earn Credit for National Business Aviation Association Certified Aviation Manager Exam Students taking the following USC courses will earn two points toward completing the application for the National Business Aviation Association Certified Aviation Manager Exam. • Aviation Safety Management Systems • Accident/Incident Response Preparedness • Human Factors in Aviation Safety • Aircraft Accident Investigation • SeMS Aviation Security Management Systems For further details, please visit our website or use the contact information below. Email: aviation@usc.edu Telephone: +1 (310) 342-1345 Curt Lewis