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| 5/22/2007 | Legislation Criminalizes Laser Pointers Aimed At Aircraft | $12 Item Can Impair Pilot Vision It doesn't matter if you are a terrorist or a prankster -- if you shine laser pointers at airplanes, you could now face up to five years in prison.
Under legislation approved Tuesday by the House of Representatives, the use of cheap, handheld laser pens "presents an imminent threat to aviation security and passenger safety," said House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) before the voice vote to approve the measure, according to the Associated Press.
Since 1990 the Federal Aviation Administration has reported more than 500 incidents of pilots being blinded or disoriented by laser beams according to Florida congressman Ric Keller, sponsor of the legislation.
Keller showed a laser pointer to House members and said what could be purchased for $12 at any office supply store, had the power to cause vision disturbances for pilots from two miles away.
The National Transportation Safety Board has documented two cases where pilots sustained actual injury to their eyes and were incapacitated during critical phases of a flight.
As ANN reported, last year New Jersey resident David Banach was sentenced under a provision of the USA Patriot Act to two years of probation for shining a laser pointer at an aircraft on final approach to Teterboro.
The plane, carrying six passengers, was at 3,000 feet when the beam hit the cockpit window -- causing both pilots to briefly lose night vision. They managed to land safely | |
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| 5/21/2007 | CFIT and TAWS | Several low cost but crucial measures can be taken to reduce the likelyhood of flase EPGWS warnings and/or the system's failure to provide a valid warning. | |
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| 5/17/2007 | List of airlines banned within the EU | Effective aviation safety standards in Europe have rendered our safety record amongst the best in the world. Whilst the European Union and its Member States are working with safety authorities in other countries to raise safety standards across the world, there are still some airlines operating in conditions below essential safety levels.
To improve safety in Europe further, the European Commission ��� in consultation with Member States��� aviation safety authorities ��� has decided to ban airlines found to be unsafe from operating in European airspace.
These are listed in the document below. The first list includes all airlines banned from operating in Europe. The second list includes airlines which are restricted to operating in Europe under specific conditions.
These lists will be updated regularly and published in the Official Journal of the European Union where they are included as annexes A and B to the Commission Regulation. Before taking any action based on the information in these lists, all users should ensure they have the latest version. | |
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| 5/17/2007 | Wake vortex tracking by lidar goes live at Paris Charles de Gaulle airport | The wakes from aircraft taking off or landing on the closely spaced parallel runways on the south side of Paris Charles de Gaulle airport are now being tracked by lidar (laser radar) in a trial directed by Eurocontrol, Aeroports de Paris and French air navigation service provider the DSNA.
The objective is to determine the optimum way of operating aircraft at this specific site so as to be able to increase the number of movements the runway pair can handle without the wakes generated by one aircraft upsetting others, according to Eurocontrol.
This is the first of several wake-measuring lidar trials to be mounted in Europe, with others due to be set up at Frankfurt Main and London Heathrow airports over the next year. The lidar, a Lockheed Martin Coherent Technologies Windtracer tracks the behaviour of the turbulent air behind aircraft as they take off and land using an ���eye-safe��� infrared laser which is reflected by particles in the air, allowing a sensor to capture and analyse information about their movement.
During the Single European Sky SESAR definition phase, monitoring of wake vortices was identified as a critical tool for improving safety and increasing runway capacity. Eurocontrol says: �ǣKnowledge of the behaviour of wake vortices under specific meteorological conditions could be used to reduce the International Civil Aviation Organisation recommended separation minima between aircraft.��� | |
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| 5/8/2007 | Tailoring SMS Guidance for MRO | Seeking guidance on FAA's planned implementation of safety management systems (SMS) for repair stations? The wait for something official -- in draft form, at least -- shouldn't be long.
As this issue of O&M went to press, FAA's Flight Standards service was putting the finishing touches on a draft version of a Part 145-series advisory circular (AC) entitled "Introduction to Safety Management Systems for Maintenance Organizations."
Sound familiar? It should -- and the document itself will look familiar to anyone closely following FAA's march toward compliance with ICAO's SMS standards. Last June, FAA released AC 120-92, "Introduction to Safety Management Systems for Air Operators." Don Arendt, FAA manger of Flight Standards Safety Analysis Information Center, explained that the Part 145 AC by the similar name will be very close to the Air Operator version. The main difference is in each document's "Policy" sections that detail which certificate-holder systems the SMS mandates will cover. The Part 145 version (at least the one viewed by O&M in early April) said this:
"Safety management shall be included in the complete scope of the operator's systems including: (1) Parts/Materials; (2) Resource Management (Tools & Equipment, Personnel, and Facilities); (3) Technical Data; (4) Maintenance and Inspection; (5) Quality Control; (6) Records Management; (7) Contract Maintenance; (8) Training."
Aside from that notable difference, the Part 145 guidance is identical to the air operator AC, save for using the term "maintenance organization" in place of "air operator," where applicable. The close resemblance between the two documents is "by design," Arendt told O&M, to ensure that FAA's multiple SMS efforts remain "aligned" as much as possible.
Arendt is quick to note that, despite the focus on cross-segment alignment, the repair station SMS effort will take the uniqueness of the maintenance regulatory environment into account. Unlike FAA rules for operators or airports, the U.S. regulations for maintenance organizations don't create de facto subsets that divide larger (and often more complicated) organizations from smaller ones. Operators can fall under Part 91, 121 and 135, while airports are either Part 139 facilities or are not. Under the Federal Aviation Regulations, however, repair stations large and small: they hold Part 145 certificates. Put another way, if FAA wants to create a rule applicable to repair stations, that rule is generally applicable to all repair stations, regardless of size, scope or complexity.
How much diversity does the FAA Part 145 universe contain? Arendt shared some interesting numerical nuggets: Out of the 5,000-odd Part 145 certificate holders, about 28 percent employ fewer than five people, and 63 percent have fewer than 20 on the payroll. At the other end of the spectrum, about five percent had more than 250 employees. From a complexity-of-operations standpoint, nearly half the Part 145s have two or fewer ratings on their certificates, and 10 percent are working directly for Part 121 operators.
Then there's the potential difference in risk perception among employees that work for each type of certificate holder. Air operators and airports tend to have the majority of their staff members close to the action. Many maintenance organizations, however, are located far from airports and concentrate on servicing much less than entire aircraft or engines, meaning employees may not get much exposure to the end product: in-service aircraft. As such, conveying the risk-mitigation value of an SMS system to a repair station staff may be more challenging than, say, to an airline's ramp workers. "The farther away you get from the airplane, the more abstract the concept of risk gets," Arendt said.
Arendt explained that FAA plans to test its SMS concepts before releasing them on industry in final-rule form. Pilot programs for Part 121s, 135, 139s and 145s are in the works for this year. From there, the agency will determine the most prudent way to implement final regulations, he said. The agency is shooting to have SMS regulations for air operators and maintenance organizations on the books by Jan. 1, 2009, which would align the agency's deadline with that of ICAO.
While the air operators will "most likely" get three years from the final rule's effective date to phase in SMS, maintenance organizations could get more time, Arendt said. The reason? "The repair station world is behind the air operator world on this," he explained. "There's not a lot published on repair station SMS, so we're going to take our time. With some good input, we can be ahead of the world." | |
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