U.S. aviation regulators said they are exploring ways to speed reconsideration of bans on airline passengers using electronic devices during landing and takeoff.

The Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement today it won't change rules prohibiting use of laptops, tablet computers and smartphones at altitudes below 10,000 feet (3,048 meters) until they are shown to not affect aircraft controls.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski, whose agency shares responsibility for regulating cell phones on aircraft, said today he supports changing the rules. Genachowski, testifying at a U.S. House hearing on his agency's budget, said he'd "encourage the FAA to look at that and to ensure it's doing as little as necessary to protect public safety."

 The FAA hasn't specified the effects of holding talks with airlines, electronics makers, passenger groups and other parties on evaluating devices such as tablets, and didn't say how or when discussions will take place. The New York Times first reported the agency's interest in reconsidering the rules.

Tests by the RTCA, a non-profit firm in Washington that performs research on radio and navigation for the FAA, have shown it's theoretically possible for electronic devices to emit signals that may interfere with airliner equipment.  RTCA tests conducted from 2003 to 2006 failed to find evidence that FAA rules should be relaxed, according to an agency fact sheet. Those tests were conducted before the introduction of Apple Inc. (AAPL)'s iPad or Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN)'s Kindle devices.

 The FAA has wrestled with the safety of electronic devices since discovering in the 1960s that transistor radios could interfere with aircraft navigation equipment, according to Jay Ely, a NASA Langley Research Center engineer.

Interference from personal devices is unlikely, Ely said in a telephone interview. Regulators are concerned that almost every device can emit radio waves on unintended frequencies, particularly when damaged or not made properly.

"From a safety point of view, you want those aircraft systems to work all the time in all conditions -- and you can't guarantee that when there's an unknown emission on board," he said. Rigorous testing is the only way to ensure no interference because so many variables exist in how electronic devices and aircraft function, he said.

The FAA has given permission to pilots at airlines such as Alaska Air Group Inc. (ALK)'s Alaska Airlines and United Continental Holdings Inc. (UAL)'s United Airlines to use iPads in the cockpit in place of paper charts and manuals. Those airlines had to demonstrate that the tablet computers didn't emit radio waves that caused interference with aircraft electronics. The airlines are only required to test the specific models their pilots use, not those that passengers may bring aboard, according to FAA regulations.

Airlines will "work cooperatively" with FAA on any efforts to evaluate electronic devices, according to an e-mailed statement from Airlines For America, the Washington-based trade group for the largest U.S. carriers.

The FAA must maintain a high standard in any changes, John Cox, a former airline pilot who is now a consultant with Safety Operating Systems, a company in Washington. "What we cannot do is lower the standards for electronic interference to the point where we create a safety hazard," Cox said in a phone interview. Cox said he has seen how electronic devices can cause unintended consequences on aircraft; a mechanic's walkie-talkie once opened the lock on his cockpit door.

Passengers are allowed to use most electronic devices, except cell phones, once a flight has reached an altitude of 10,000 feet. "At a lower altitude, any potential interference could be more of a safety hazard as the cockpit crew focuses on critical arrival and departure duties," the FAA said. Cell phones are governed by FCC, which prohibit their use on flights because of "potential interference with ground networks," according to the FAA.

 The FCC in 2004 considered changing its rules to allow personal phone use on aircraft. The agency later withdrew the proposal after public comments objected to the change. Phones that can be switched into "airplane mode," disabling their radio transmissions, may be permitted at altitudes above 10,000 feet, according to the agency.

http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/easa-sets-out-new-efb-guidance-as-technology-quickens-369788/

· General applicability and intended use of AMC 20-27;

· The use of SBAS/GNSS geometric altitude as a source of altitude for approaches to LNAV/VNAV minima;

· Provisioning of steering and monitoring signals with angular vertical deviations as opposed to the linear deviations assumed in AMC 20-27;

· Acceptance of previous demonstration of compliance with FAA AC 20-129 for credit for AMC 20-27 airworthiness and operational approval.

EASA safety action coordinator Michel Masson presented the initial findings to the Flight Safety Foundation's European Aviation Safety Seminar in Dublin on 29 February.

 The essential components of the problem have been divided into 17 detailed issues, said Masson, including the division of priorities between "flying the aircraft and managing the automation the transformation of the pilot's role", and "complacency, over-reliance on automation, and decision-making".

Crews, says the study, should be provided with more guidance on what the appropriate levels of automation are for different tasks and situations, which implies that airlines should have a published policy on this.

EASA's draft "paths for improvement" at this stage include revising multi-crew pilot licence and computer-based training requirements on automation management, and adopting a more evidence-based approach to the way automation management is taught in recurrent training and testing.

There are also suggested demands on manufacturers and operators to publish type-specific (rather than generic) automation policies. EASA also raises questions about "the certification of assumptions with regard to flight crew competencies" where automation is concerned.

 The agency also suggests it should approve or harmonise "flight deck software customisation" - for example, electronic checklists and procedures, warning systems, and electronic flight bags. 

http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/easa-floats-cockpit-automation-policy-369065/

That would mean approximately one fatality for every 22 million flights - that equates to one death roughly every two and a half years, a period in which more than 1.4 billion passengers will have boarded scheduled flights operated by US airlines.

The FAA's Commercial Aviation Safety Team (CAST), announced earlier this month that it planned to move beyond its 'historic' approach of examining past accident data to a far more proactive approach that will focus on risk prediction and mitigation strategies through developing prognostic safety analysis using significantly more data sources - including air traffic data.

CAST is co-chaired by Hylander, Senior Vice President - Corporate Safety, Security and Compliance, Delta Air Lines and Gilligan, Associate Administrator for Aviation Safety at the FAA.

"Like all good goals, these are rather aggressive," Hylander told reporters. "The question really becomes, how do we get to the next step?"
Safety experts are now turning their attention to these new approaches to anticipate and counter incipient hazards often in ground operations. Runway incursions, or two aircraft mistakenly ending up on the same strip now account for the largest single safety problem, according to Mark Rosenker, another former FAA safety board member.

Steps are also underway to re-calculate risk. Instead of focussing on rates of fatal accidents, experts now want attention to shift to a far tougher standard: individual fatalities per millions of flights.

Voluntary programmes such as the Aviation Safety Action Program (ASAP), Flight Operations Quality Assurance (FOQA) program, and the Air Traffic Safety Action Program (ATSAP) currently feed into the Aviation Safety Information Analysis and Sharing (ASIAS) programme which connects 46 safety databases across the industry.

The programme today has matured to the point where the FAA can now look at data from air carriers representing 92 per cent of US commercial operations and identify emerging vulnerabilities and trends.

As part of that effort, at least 37 US airlines are now actively encouraging pilots to voluntarily file reports about a whole gamut of safety lapses, with assurances of no punishment.

In future databases documenting the full range of incidents before they turn into accidents will be expanded, giving safety experts access to more than 100,000 reports, along with some 30,000 voluntary incident reports filed by air traffic controllers nationwide.

http://www.airtrafficmanagement.net/view_news.asp?ID=4686

As the recent flurry of articles about why portable electronic devices are restricted during air travel makes clear, the conclusion to be drawn from the information available is a very complicated: "We just don't know." For this reason alone airlines err on the side of caution, asking people nicely (and sometimes not so nicely) to turn off their gadgets during takeoff and landing.

Here's what we do know, or at least here's what makes sense and comes from reputable sources, including the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA):

1. Radio-frequency emissions from cell phones, laptops and other electronics can occur at the same frequencies used by aircraft communication, navigation and surveillance radio receivers. These emissions could cause fluctuations in navigation readouts, problems with other flight displays, and interference with air traffic communications.

2. It's less risky to let passengers use portable electronics (with the exception of cell phones) at cruising altitudes above 3,000 meters* because the flight crew would have more time to diagnose and address any possible interference than they would during takeoff or landing.

3. Because passengers bring such a variety of portable electronics onboard in so many different states of function or disrepair, the FAA can't assure that none of them will interfere with flight instrumentation. The agency thus tells carriers to prohibit their use completely during critical phases of flight.

4. The FAA has begun allowing flight crews to use tablet computers including iPads in the cockpit. But this is not as surprising as it might sound: Crews have actually been using portable computers called "electronic flight bags" since the early 1990s to replace printed aircraft operating manuals, flight crew operating manuals and navigational charts.

5. Portable voice recorders, hearing aids, electric shavers and heart pacemakers do not need to be shut off at any time during a flight because their signals don't interfere with aircraft systems.

6. For any gadget not specifically mentioned by FAA rules, an airline must demonstrate that this device doesn't interfere with aircraft operation before it is allowed on board.

7. The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has banned the inflight use of 800 MHz cell phones since 1991 to keep cell networks from interfering with airplane instrumentation. (Before that cell phones were banned because they didn't fit in the overhead luggage compartment or safely under a passenger's seat.)

8. The FCC and FAA work in tandem to ban cell phones on airplanes. Even if a cell phone were to meet the FAA's safety requirements, an airline would need an exemption from the FCC rule for that cell phone to be used inflight. Likewise, if the FCC rescinds its ban, the FAA would require an airline to show that the use of a specific model of phone won't interfere with the navigation and communications systems of the specific type of aircraft on which it would be used.

9. RTCA, Inc., a Washington, D.C.-based federal advisory group, concluded that the FAA should keep its inflight restrictions in place after the group studied electromagnetic interference from cell phones and Wi-Fi transmitters in laptops from 2003 to 2006. At the same time, RTCA also published detailed processes that carriers and electronics makers can follow to certify such devices for inflight use if desired.

10. Airlines may offer inflight Wi-Fi between takeoff and landing. The FAA doesn't restrict the use of Skype or other Internet calling software. (Airlines, however, have banned them for the sanity of their crew and passengers.)

Source: Scientic American

Skies Are Now So Safe on U.S. Flights That Experts Turn Focus to 'Surface Threats'

By ANDY PASZTOR

(WSJ) Here's some good news for anyone boarding a plane this holiday season: Flying on U.S. airlines has become so safe that experts increasingly believe the biggest remaining risk of an accident is when the wheels are on the ground.

A Continental 737 jetliner veered off a runway at Denver International Airport in December 2008. Gusty winds and pilot training were blamed.

Airline industry and government officials said this month that to improve safety on scheduled flights by U.S. passenger and cargo carriers, they are focusing more on countering hazards present before takeoff and after touchdown.

These "surface threats," to use the industry lingo, include ramp collisions, pilots who blunder onto the wrong runway-potentially into the path of a speeding jet-and planes running off wet or snowy airstrips. Airline pilots have long said that maneuvering big planes around complex and bustling airports, often at night or with poor visibility, is one of the most challenging parts of their jobs.

Flying on U.S. airlines has become so safe that experts increasingly believe the biggest accident risks are when a plane's wheels are on the ground.
After a string of harrowing near-collisions on runways at various airports, the Federal Aviation Administration in 2007 called for action to prevent recurrences. Since then, the annual numbers for the most serious category of such tarmac incidents have dropped significantly. Now, these and other risks on the ground again are receiving emphasis among U.S. experts.

That's largely because over the past few years, safety programs have achieved remarkable success in reducing airborne risks. Joint industry-government efforts have made once-deadly problems such as navigation errors, fuel-tank fires, weather-related crashes and engine malfunctions a rarity.

There were no fatalities on U.S. commercial flights in 2011. The year before, the only deaths were two pilots who perished in a U.S. cargo plane that caught fire and crashed in Dubai.

"America's skies are the safest they have ever been," said Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood in a press briefing on Wednesday.

As a result, reducing dangers on the ground is essential to continuing safety improvements. "We've learned how to operate planes very, very well in the air," said Richard Healing, a former member of the National Transportation Safety Board. Now, "runway events are much more likely to pose a major hazard than in-flight problems," he said.

Terra Firma

Some recent incidents:

January 2010: US Airways commuter jet rolls off end of runway in Charleston, W.Va., smashing into safety zone at end of strip.

December 2010: American Airlines Boeing 757 slides off runway in Jackson Hole, Wyo.

April 2011: Wing of taxiing Air France A380 superjumbo jet smashes into tail of Comair commuter jet at Kennedy International Airport in New York.

Source: government and industry data.

The picture for "general aviation," which includes private and some corporate flights, is much darker. More than 450 people died in U.S. general-aviation accidents last year, amounting to one fatal accident for every 100,000 flight hours.

From the late 1990s to the end of the last decade, the fatal-crash rate of U.S. scheduled carriers fell by more than 80%, with no fatalities at all in some years. Improvements in the U.S. have exceeded the ambitious goals established during President Bill Clinton's administration. Advances in cockpit technology have all but eliminated traditional threats such as jets flying into mountains in bad weather or slamming into the ground because of sudden wind changes on approach.

Such safety enhancements are estimated to save the industry more than $600 million annually in aircraft losses, lawsuits, higher insurance rates and other fallout from high-profile crashes.

In a briefing this month, Ken Hylander, the top safety official at Delta Air Lines, and Peggy Gilligan, the FAA's top safety official, told reporters the goal by 2025 is to cut today's remarkably low accident risk in half, down to one fatality per some 22 million flights. By some measures, that is dozens of times as safe as

That would amount to less than a single death over roughly two and a half years, a period in which more than 1.4 billion passengers would have boarded scheduled flights by U.S. airlines.

"Like all good goals, these are rather aggressive," said Mr. Hylander, who recently was named co-chair of the main airline industry-government safety team. "The question really becomes, how do we get to the next step?"

With no fatal crashes of scheduled U.S. airliners in four of the past five years, and other, longer-term measures also showing steady declines, safety experts now focus on new approaches to anticipate and counter incipient hazards.

Industry-government efforts are whittling away at subtle threats, often to ground operations, that previously garnered less attention. So-called runway incursions, or two planes mistakenly ending up on the same strip, "most likely account for the largest single safety problem in front of us," said Mark Rosenker, another former safety board member.

Government and airline officials also are reworking the way they calculate risk. Instead of the prior emphasis on rates of fatal accidents, experts have started to talk publicly about statistics that highlight a much tougher standard: individual fatalities per millions of flights.

Today's safety efforts depend on expanding databases documenting the full gamut of close calls before they turn into accidents. As part of that effort, at least 37 U.S. airlines, seven more than 18 months ago, are now encouraging pilots to voluntarily file reports about all types of safety lapses, with assurances there will be no punishment. Safety experts have access to more than 100,000 such reports, along with some 30,000 voluntary incident reports filed by air-traffic controllers nationwide.

The well-illustrated document, in simple language, covers initiatives within the four components of the ICAO safety framework including: policy and standardization; safety monitoring; safety analysis; and implementation of safety programmes. The strategy is intended to achieve systemic safety improvements that yield sustainable results

http://blogs.crikey.com.au/planetalking/2011/09/16/safety-versus-corporate-culture-in-airlines/

By JOAN LOWY

WASHINGTON (AP) - Pilots' "automation addiction" has eroded their flying skills to the point that they sometimes don't know how to recover from stalls and other mid-flight problems, say pilots and safety officials. The weakened skills have contributed to hundreds of deaths in airline crashes in the last five years.

Some 51 "loss of control" accidents occurred in which planes stalled in flight or got into unusual positions from which pilots were unable to recover, making it the most common type of airline accident, according to the International Air Transport Association.

"We're seeing a new breed of accident with these state-of-the art planes," said Rory Kay, an airline captain and co-chair of a Federal Aviation Administration advisory committee on pilot training. "We're forgetting how to fly."

Opportunities for airline pilots to maintain their flying proficiency by manually flying planes are increasingly limited, the FAA committee recently warned. Airlines and regulators discourage or even prohibit pilots from turning off the autopilot and flying planes themselves, the committee said.

Fatal airline accidents have decreased dramatically in the U.S. over the past decade. However, The Associated Press interviewed pilots, industry officials and aviation safety experts who expressed concern about the implications of decreased opportunities for manual flight, and reviewed more than a dozen loss-of-control accidents around the world.

Safety experts say they're seeing cases in which pilots who are suddenly confronted with a loss of computerized flight controls don't appear to know how to respond immediately, or they make errors - sometimes fatally so.

A draft FAA study found pilots sometimes "abdicate too much responsibility to automated systems." Because these systems are so integrated in today's planes, one malfunctioning piece of equipment or a single bad computer instruction can suddenly cascade into a series of other failures, unnerving pilots who have been trained to rely on the equipment.

The study examined 46 accidents and major incidents, 734 voluntary reports by pilots and others as well as data from more than 9,000 flights in which a safety official rides in the cockpit to observe pilots in action. It found that in more than 60 percent of accidents, and 30 percent of major incidents, pilots had trouble manually flying the plane or made mistakes with automated flight controls.

A typical mistake was not recognizing that either the autopilot or the auto-throttle - which controls power to the engines - had disconnected. Others failed to take the proper steps to recover from a stall in flight or to monitor and maintain airspeed.

The airline industry is suffering from "automation addiction," Kay said.

In the most recent fatal airline crash in the U.S., in 2009 near Buffalo, N.Y., the co-pilot of a regional airliner programmed incorrect information into the plane's computers, causing it to slow to an unsafe speed. That triggered a stall warning. The startled captain, who hadn't noticed the plane had slowed too much, responded by repeatedly pulling back on the control yoke, overriding two safety systems, when the correct procedure was to push forward.

An investigation later found there were no mechanical or structural problems that would have prevented the plane from flying if the captain had responded correctly. Instead, his actions caused an aerodynamic stall. The plane plummeted to earth, killing all 49 people aboard and one on the ground.

Two weeks after the New York accident, a Turkish Airlines Boeing 737 crashed into a field while trying to land in Amsterdam. Nine people were killed and 120 injured. An investigation found that one of the plane's altimeters, which measures altitude, had fed incorrect information to the plane's computers.

That, in turn, caused the auto-throttle to reduce speed to a dangerously slow level so that the plane lost lift and stalled. Dutch investigators described the flight's three pilots' "automation surprise" when they discovered the plane was about to stall. They hadn't been closely monitoring the airspeed.

Last month, French investigators recommended that all pilots get mandatory training in manual flying and handling a high-altitude stall. The recommendations were in response to the 2009 crash of an Air France jet flying from Brazil to Paris. All 228 people aboard were killed.

An investigation found that airspeed sensors fed bad information to the Airbus A330's computers. That caused the autopilot to disengage suddenly and a stall warning to activate.

The co-pilot at the controls struggled to save the plane, but because he kept pointing the plane's nose up, he actually caused the stall instead of preventing it, experts said. Despite the bad airspeed information, which lasted for less than a minute, there was nothing to prevent the plane from continuing to fly if the pilot had followed the correct procedure for such circumstances, which is to continue to fly levelly in the same direction at the same speed while trying to determine the nature of the problem, they said.

In such cases, the pilots and the technology are failing together, said former US Airways Capt. Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger, whose precision flying is credited with saving all 155 people aboard an Airbus A320 after it lost power in a collision with Canada geese shortly after takeoff from New York's LaGuardia Airport two years ago.

"If we only look at the pilots - the human factor - then we are ignoring other important factors," he said. "We have to look at how they work together."

The ability of pilots to respond to the unexpected loss or malfunction of automated aircraft systems "is the big issue that we can no longer hide from in aviation," said Bill Voss, president of the Flight Safety Foundation in Alexandria, Va. "We've been very slow to recognize the consequence of it and deal with it."

The foundation, which is industry supported, promotes aviation safety around the world.

Airlines are also seeing smaller incidents in which pilots waste precious time repeatedly trying to restart the autopilot or fix other automated systems when what they should be doing is "grasping the controls and flying the airplane," said Bob Coffman, another member of the FAA pilot training committee and an airline captain.

Paul Railsback, operations director at the Air Transport Association, which represents airlines, said, "We think the best way to handle this is through the policies and training of the airlines to ensure they stipulate that the pilots devote a fair amount of time to manually flying. We want to encourage pilots to do that and not rely 100 percent on the automation. I think many airlines are moving in that direction."

In May, the FAA proposed requiring airlines to train pilots on how to recover from a stall, as well as expose them to more realistic problem scenarios.

But other new regulations are going in the opposite direction. Today, pilots are required to use their autopilot when flying at altitudes above 24,000 feet, which is where airliners spend much of their time cruising. The required minimum vertical safety buffer between planes has been reduced from 2,000 feet to 1,000 feet. That means more planes flying closer together, necessitating the kind of precision flying more reliably produced by automation than human beings.

The same situation is increasingly common closer to the ground.

The FAA is moving from an air traffic control system based on radar technology to more precise GPS navigation. Instead of time-consuming, fuel-burning stair-step descents, planes will be able to glide in more steeply for landings with their engines idling. Aircraft will be able to land and take off closer together and more frequently, even in poor weather, because pilots will know the precise location of other aircraft and obstacles on the ground. Fewer planes will be diverted.

But the new landing procedures require pilots to cede even more control to automation.

"Those procedures have to be flown with the autopilot on," Voss said. "You can't afford a sneeze on those procedures."

Even when not using the new procedures, airlines direct their pilots to switch on the autopilot about a minute and a half after takeoff when the plane reaches about 1,000 feet, Coffman said. The autopilot generally doesn't come off until about a minute and a half before landing, he said.

Pilots still control the plane's flight path. But they are programming computers rather than flying with their hands.

Opportunities to fly manually are especially limited at commuter airlines, where pilots may fly with the autopilot off for about 80 seconds out of a typical two-hour flight, Coffman said.

But it is the less experienced first officers starting out at smaller carriers who most need manual flying experience. And, airline training programs are focused on training pilots to fly with the automation, rather than without it. Senior pilots, even if their manual flying skills are rusty, can at least draw on experience flying older generations of less automated planes.

Adding to concerns about an overreliance on automation is an expected pilot shortage in the U.S. and many other countries. U.S. airlines used to be able to draw on a pool of former military pilots with extensive manual flying experience. But more pilots now choose to stay in the armed forces, and corporate aviation competes for pilots with airlines, where salaries have dropped.

Changing training programs to include more manual flying won't be enough because pilots spend only a few days a year in training, Voss said. Airlines will have to rethink their operations fundamentally if they're going to give pilots realistic opportunities to keep their flying skills honed, he said.

Prompted by a series of incidents, the FAA will require airlines flying planes weighing less than 60,000 pounds to install sensors that detect ice and warn pilots, or tell their pilots to automatically switch on anti-icing equipment sooner than has been the case.

The FAA said in the rule, which takes effect in 60 days, that there has been a series of cases in which pilots didn't realize ice was forming on a plane's wings and didn't activate anti-icing equipment. Even microscopic layers of ice crystals can destroy wings' ability to keep a plane aloft.

"This rule is meant to prevent that from happening again by giving flightcrews a clear means of knowing when to activate the airframe ice protection system," the FAA said.

The rule will cost airlines $12.7 million while saving them $27.2 million by preventing crashes and deaths, the agency said.

Regional jets such as the Bombardier CRJ-100 and the Embraer ERJ-145 weigh less than 60,000 pounds. The majority of the 2,500 planes flown by U.S. regional airlines will have to comply with the rule, according to data from the Washington- based Regional Airline Association, whose members include AMR Corp. (AMR)'s American Eagle and Great Lakes Aviation Ltd. (GLUX)

"We want pilots to have the best technology available to detect icing conditions so they can take the steps necessary to ensure passenger safety," U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said in a statement.

The FAA said its research into icing hazards began after the Oct. 31, 1994, crash of an American Eagle ATR-72 turboprop plane in Roselawn, Indiana, due to ice, killing all 68 people aboard.

U.S. and European regulators had not done enough to protect planes from ice, the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board found in its investigation.

The NTSB, in correspondence between the two agencies, praised the new standards while asking the FAA to broaden the rule to larger planes such as Bombardier Inc.'s Q400 turboprop. The FAA declined, saying there was no evidence that these planes are susceptible to icing.

Larger jets made by Airbus SAS and Boeing Co. (BA) use hot air from jet engines to melt ice off wings and have not been as plagued by ice hazards as smaller turboprops, the FAA said.

-from http://www.bloomberg.com/ by Alan Levin

EASA issued the Terms of Reference (TOR) for task number MDM.055 on July 18, 2011. This task anticipates the creation of adequate rules and guidance material to permit EASA to implement a set of SMS rules.

The Terms of Reference do not specifically explain to whom the SMS rules created under this project would apply - they merely mention some of the parties to whom ICAO has recommended apply it. This is a more important omission than some people may understand, and it provides EASA with the ability to dynamically change the scope of application as necessary during the course of the rulemaking project without amending the TOR. Under current ICAO recommendations, SMS should apply to air carriers, repair stations, manufacturers and airports. In the United States, the FAA made the decision to create two different SMS rules - one for airports, and then a second one for air carriers that is intended to be later applied to repair stations and manufacturers. EASA has said that it is amending COMMISSION REGULATION (EC) No 2042/2003 of 20 November 2003. This regulation applies to design and production organizations as well as maintenance organizations (but not to air carriers). EASA is clearly leaving itself open to any reasonable implementation strategy.

EASA has established its own goals for the task group, as follows:

Review the rules and AMC to clearly distinguish between essential safety elements and non-essential implementation aspects; rebalance as necessary (implementing rule to AMC or AMC to implementing rule).

Adopt the provisions on processing alternative means of compliance, as proposed with Part-AR and Part-OR (AR.120/OR.120), to enhance transparency and support standardisation.

Evaluate the possibility for persons to apply for the approval of such alternative means of compliance, where this is currently not foreseen in Part-AR.
Implement in Section A the management system provisions as proposed with Part-OR to ensure compliance with the relevant ICAO standards on SMS. SMS elements shall be fully integrated with the organisations' management system.
As part of SMS implementation, review and further develop as appropriate provisions addressing human factors, in particular to provide further guidance on how approved maintenance organisations should take into account human performance limitations, such as maintenance engineer fatigue.

Improve consistency in organisation approvals and review the concept of small/large organisation to align with the approach proposed with Part-OR (complex/non-complex organisation, where size is not the only criterion to be considered).

Implement in Section B relevant provisions linked with the implementation of an SSP in the framework of the European Aviation Safety Programme (EASP), based on the proposal made with Part-AR.

This SMS project will be worked internally within EASA, although EASA has reserved to itself the right to call informal meetings with industry or National Aviation Authorities for additional feedback. This internal project mechanism is consistent with the process recently used by Japan to create its SMS rules for repair stations (they offered the proposed rules for notice and comment but did not otherwise seek input from the international community). It is different from the FAA's approach in the United States - the FAA formed an Aviation Rulemaking Committee (ARC) made up of industry and FAA and took advice from the ARC on how to formulate the air carrier SMS rules.

This rule establishes two levels of lightning protection for aircraft systems based on consequences of system function failure: Catastrophic consequences which would prevent continued safe flight and landing; and hazardous or major consequences which would reduce the capability of the aircraft or the ability of the flightcrew to respond to an adverse operating condition. This rule also establishes lightning protection for aircraft systems according to the aircraft's potential for lightning exposure. The airworthiness standards establish consistent lightning protection requirements for aircraft electrical and electronic systems.

According to the FAA, the existing regulations for the lightning protection of electrical and electronic systems installed on aircraft certificated under Parts 23, 27 and 29 of Title 14, Code of Federal Regulations (14 CFR) require the type certification applicant only to "consider" the effects of lightning. Unlike system lightning protection regulations for Part 25 airplanes, these regulations have not been significantly amended since they were first adopted, and do not reflect current advances in technology.

Adopted in the 1960s, these regulations require that the aircraft be protected against catastrophic effects of lightning, but do not have specific requirements for electrical and electronic system lightning protection. At the time, most aircraft contained mechanical systems, or simple electrical and electronic systems. Airframe components were made from aluminum materials, with high electrical conductivity, and offered good protection against lightning. The early 1980s ushered in Part 25 transport airplane designs that routinely included more complex electrical and electronic systems. In addition, there has been a trend for increased use of composite aircraft materials with less inherent lightning protection than aluminum. As electrical and electronic systems became more common on Part 25 airplanes, the FAA issued Sec. 25.1316 on April 28, 1994 (59 FR 22112), specifically requiring protection for electrical and electronic systems on Part 25 transport category airplanes.

BRUSSELS (BNO NEWS) -- The European Union (EU) on Thursday announced that an air safety agreement with Canada had been approved by its Parliament.

The agreement will allow smoother procedures between both parties as duplicate checks or certification procedures will be eliminated since the deal provides mutual recognition of technical aviation and aircraft standards. In addition, it foresees joint inspections, investigations, exchange of aviation safety data and increased regulatory cooperation.

Furthermore, the deal is expected to enhance aviation safety by reducing red tape and facilitating trade between the two parties. The agreement also enhances certainty as to the law in EU-Canada relations, by recognizing the principles of the EU internal aviation market and the status of a "Community carrier."

The air safety agreement, which is the EU's farthest-reaching with a third country, was signed in May 2009 but was waiting the Parliament's consent as required under the Lisbon Treaty.

WASHINGTON - Initial testing of GPS receivers confirms aircraft navigation systems will experience significant jamming from thousands of broadband-wireless transmitters planned to be deployed across the U.S.

The tests were conducted to determine the susceptibility of GPS receivers to interference from the high-power terrestrial transmitters LightSquared plans to deploy.

All GPS receivers tested by the National Position, Navigation and Timing Engineering Forum (NPEF) were effected by the high-power transmissions, FAA's Deane Bunce, NPEF co-chair, told a meeting in Washington today.

The testing indicates LightSquared's plans to deploy a terrestrial network of 40,000 base stations will result the degradation or loss of GPS function at distances from the transmitters ranging from a few kilometers to 300km for space-based receivers, he said.

Simulations conducted by aviation standards developer RTCA for the FAA concluded "GPS is likely to be unavailable over the whole US East Coast", based on LightSquared's deployment plans, Robert Frazier, of the FAA's spectrum planning and international office, told the meeting.

Potential mitigations identified by the NPEF include relocating LightSquared's transmissions to a different frequency band and retrofitting GPS receivers with filters. But redesiging receivers and re-equipping aircraft "will take a minimum of 7-8 years, and possibly up 15 years, and would not necessarily buy back the performance lost because of the filter," Bunce said.

"There is now overwhelming evidence of interference, and no evidence of a mitigation solution in the results," Jim Kirkland, general counsel for GPS manufacturer Trimble Navigation, told the meeting. "It's time to stop this and look for alternative spectrum."

"We believe we can deploy in a way that we can coexist with GPS," said Jeff Carlisle, executive vice president of regulatory affairs and public policy for LightSquared. "We always knew there would be interference. The hard question is how to mitigate it."

Potential mitigations being proposed by LightSquared include using only the lower of its two frequency bands, the furthest away from GPS, to launch its service; reducing transmitter power; adjusting base station locations; and modifying the timnescale for full use of its frequency allocation.

A working group led by LightSquared and the US GPS industry Council, representing manufacturers, has conducted receiver testing mandated by the US Federal Communications Commission. The results, including mitigation recommendations, will be submitted in June 15.

http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/story_channel.jsp?channel=busav&id=news/awx/2011/06/09/awx_06_09_2011_p0-334122.xml&headline=LightSquared%20Tests%20Confirm%20GPS%20Jamming

The changes are part of an extensive revision on the adequacy of certification in the wake of several fatal accidents.

While the European Aviation Safety Agency highlights, in its proposal, the ATR 72 crash at Roselawn, Indiana in October 1994 - the result of freezing drizzle - it also mentions pitot icing and the possibility that this contributed to the loss of Air France flight AF447 in 2009.

Freezing drizzle and rain constitute an icing environment consisting of supercooled large drops. While EASA has said that these have caused at least six accidents since 1988, they are outside the icing envelope defined by the CS-25 certification standards document for large transport aircraft.

"It has been evidenced that the icing environment used for certification of large [aircraft] and turbine engines needs to be expanded to improve the level of safety when operating in icing conditions," it said in its proposal.  The suggested rules would provide a new section to CS-25, designated appendix O, detailing the size, water content and other characteristics of supercooled large drops and the capabilities aircraft must demonstrate when confronted by such conditions.

Other icing phenomena - mixed phase and crystallisation - have not resulted in fatal accidents but have contributed to engine power loss incidents over the past two decades. "They are considered as a serious safety threat," EASA added in a detailed notice of proposed amendment to CS-25, the consultation period for which closes this month.

EASA said it considered the US Federal Aviation Administration's similar proposed rulemaking of June 2010 but added that, while its objective is to "harmonise as much as possible" the two authorities' regulations, the European proposal contains some differences.

It will apply to all new large aircraft, not be limited to a specific category, as well as all flight instrument external probes. EASA also proposes clarifying and extending provisions for alerting flightcrew when a probe's anti-ice system is not operating normally.

EASA said it looked at using terminal radar and airborne sensors to identify icing zones with supercooled drops, but concluded these were "not mature enough". Another alternative, use of predictive weather tools, was also rejected. Both options would have still required additional rulemaking.

Source: http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2011/06/08/357682/easa-prepares-to-broaden-icing-certification-criteria.html