ICAO establishes minute-by-minute aircraft tracking

An international aviation summit gave strong backing on Wednesday (Feb 4) to a plan to have all commercial flights emit a distress signal every minute in emergencies, in response to last year's Malaysia Airlines disaster.

A large majority of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO)'s 191 member states are in favour of implementing the plan as soon as possible, said officials, paving the way for its adoption next year.

The plan was prompted by last year's disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing in what remains one of history's great aviation mysteries. The aircraft, with 239 people on board, has never been found, nearly a year on.

"Global tracking will not prevent accidents," said ICAO chairman Olumuyiwa Benard Aliu. Radar can track a plane but coverage is spotty and fades when aircraft are out at sea or they are flying below a certain altitude.

Under the new rules, airlines will be required to track their aircraft using a system that gives their location at 15-minute intervals. "When an airplane is in distress, the system will repeat the signal every minute," Aliu told a press conference.

The ICAO Council is expected to ratify the proposal in November, making it obligatory for all airlines starting in 2016. According to officials, it's the quickest and easiest fix to a growing air safety concern - locating downed aircraft. "We can do it today and it's not expensive," said Nancy Graham, director of the ICAO's Air Navigation Bureau.

The head of the International Air Transport Association, which speaks for the airline industry, agreed. "A number of airlines are planning to improve now the ways of tracking their airplanes," IATA president Tony Tyler said.

At the Montreal meeting due to wrap up on Thursday, delegates also agreed in principal on a new way to disseminate warnings about the imminent risks of flying over war zones. A repository would be created containing all risk information, much of which is currently available to carriers but is often fragmented.

The creation of a central database administered by the ICAO is in response to the crash of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 last July after being shot down over eastern Ukraine.

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IATA says aviation safety remains high

Safety in global aviation remains high, the International Air Transport Association said on Tuesday, as it seeks to improve in-flight tracking after the disappearance of a Malaysian passenger jet in March.

There were 0.34 accidents per million flights in the first four months of 2014 compared with 0.32 over the preceding five years, IATA said at its annual general meeting in Doha, Qatar.

"The preliminary rate for the industry as a whole (including non-IATA airlines) is performing strongly," with 0.29 accidents per million flights in January-April against 0.48 in the previous five years, it said.

IATA groups 242 airlines representing 84 per cent of global air traffic.

Its statement noted that the industry recorded three accidents between January and April, including the mysterious disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370.

"Aviation stakeholders are united in their desire to ensure that we never face another situation where an aircraft simply disappears," said Kevin Hiatt, senior vice president at IATA's Safety and Flight Operations department.

MH370 disappeared on March 8 en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people aboard. An extensive search in the Indian Ocean has been unable to locate the plane.

An IATA taskforce on in-flight tracking, formed by the UN's aviation agency, the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), is to present its findings in September.

"While states work through ICAO to develop and implement performance-based global standards, the industry is committed to moving forward with recommendations that airlines can implement now," said Hiatt.

He acknowledged, however, that airlines alone can decide if they want to implement such standards.

Meanwhile, the company specialising in air transport communications and information technology SITA announced in Doha plans to introduce a new aircraft tracking device.

"The solution, which is currently being evaluated by several airlines for testing, will utilise technology that is already installed in the aircraft to provide advanced tracking capabilities," a statement said.

It said the system known as "SITA AIRCOM Server Flight Tracker solution" will alert airline flight dispatchers "to unexpected aircraft movements" it said.

According to its designers, "the solution does not call for extensive additional cost or investment by the airlines" as it relies on a system that is already installed in many aircraft.

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Airlines meet in Doha under shadow of MH370 disappearance

The mystery of how Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 flew into oblivion, and the challenge of finding new ways to track aircraft, will hang over the annual conference of airlines that opens Sunday in Doha.

The loss of the Malaysia Airlines plane, with 239 people on board, was a shock to the airline industry, and clouds the event in Doha just as it also celebrates 100 years of commercial aviation.

Aircraft being produced today for the next expected boom in traffic are scarcely comparable to the biplanes which carried mail or seaplanes which later assured many long-distance routes before the age of electronic navigation.

The main purpose of this 70th annual meeting, organised by the International Air Transport Association (IATA), is to enable its 240 members accounting for 84.0 per cent of global air traffic to talk about business prospects for the sector.

But the three-day get-together will open under the shadow of the Boeing 777 airliner which took off from Kuala Lumpur on March 8 bound for Beijing, but flew into danger leaving behind a trail of despair for relatives of the passengers and crew, muddle over what had happened, and mystery over where it had gone.

Various theories emerged about how and why the plane may have veered widely off course, and searches switched direction accordingly, but no debris has been found in the southern Indian Ocean where the aircraft is now believed to have looped far off course.

The drama also revealed to astonished public opinion that in an age of sophisticated civil and military radar scanning and of GPS satellite location and monitoring systems, an airliner can fly into apparent blind spots, leaving little or no trace.

This has led to calls for all airliners to be equipped at modest cost with extra emitters.

When IATA held its last annual meeting in Cape Town, South Africa, in 2013 one of the matters raised was poor air transport safety in Africa.

This year the conference will focus on how to improve the tracking of aircraft using various technologies to monitor their movements or to ensure the transmission of flight data. It is likely to encourage various international initiatives on this.

The International Civil Aviation Organization has just formed a working group which by September is to come up with ways of tracking aircraft.

At the European Aviation Safety Agency, executive director Patrick Ky said: "This meeting of IATA is particularly important in the context of the disappearance of Flight MH370."

He said: "We are mobilised to ensure that such a tragic event doesn't happen again."

At Air France, the director responsible for operations, Alain Bassil, said: "The disappearance of Flight MH370 is a landmark for airline companies as a whole ... The annual meeting of IATA is an opportunity to advance in the procedures for looking for an aircraft and providing emergency help in the event of an accident."

The French airline, the operator of an Airbus 330 airliner which plunged into the Atlantic Ocean on June 1, 2009, was slightly ahead on the issue, he said.

The company had extended the life of signals from the so-called black boxes of data carried on aircraft to 90 days to allow more time for investigators to locate a wreck.

It has also equipped its planes to automatically report their positions more frequently than most other airlines.

"Our airliners transmit their positions every ten minutes," he said, while the average at other airlines is 20 minutes.

"We have developed software so that the plane can report its position automatically, every minute, if it veers from its flight path or otherwise behaves in a way which does not correspond to that part of the flight path, such as a premature descent to a back-up airport."

IATA will also make its forecasts for profits by the sector this year.

In March, it adjusted its outlook down to US$18.7 billion (13.7 billion euros) from US$19.7 billion forecast previously, because of a rise in the price of fuel.

The place chosen for the meeting, in the Middle East where air traffic is booming, is also symbolic. This week a new airport was opened in Doha.

Last year, traffic in the region showed the biggest increase anywhere, expanding by 11.4 per cent compared with an average figure of 5.2 per cent.

In just over a decade, airlines in the Middle East have increased their share of world traffic from 4.0 per cent to 9.0 per cent. And traffic in the region is expected to grow at an average rate of 7.1 per cent a year in the next 20 years compared with 4.7 per cent for the sector globally.

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Indonesia needs to do more to improve aviation safety, say experts

In the history of Indonesia's aviation industry, Jakarta has never developed its own capability to fully investigate air accidents on its territory. However, that changed three years ago with a modest laboratory.

Indonesia took a major step in air accident investigation by setting up its own flight recorder laboratory. It now has the capabilities to retrieve, read and analyse flight data from what is commonly known as the "black box".

The Indonesian National Transportation Safety Committee (KNKT) sent a handful of technicians overseas for training. Now, it has the expertise to retrieve flight data from all types of aircraft operating in Indonesia.

Andreas RH, a flight recorder technician, said: "We can now handle data from all types of aircraft operating in Indonesia. There's no need to send information overseas like before."

Fortunately though, Andreas has fewer black boxes to analyse this year, compared to last year.

In 2011, there were 32 air accidents. In 2012, that figure fell to 27.

It is a significant improvement, especially since the number of flights jumped last year. The rate of aviation accidents now stands at 1.43 per 100,000 flight hours.

Tatang Kurniadi, chairman of Indonesia's National Transportation Safety Committee, said: "For example, in 2007, our total flight time nationally was around 500,000 hours. Now it is more than 1.8 million hours. So if we compare the rate of accidents, it has dropped dramatically."

Still, Mr Tatang points out that the number of accidents remains at an average of 23 annually. He attributes this to a combination of factors.

He said: "It's a combination of new airports, new aircraft and new pilots flying the routes. These need attention."

Chappy Hakim, a former air marshall who chaired the special task force in 2007 on Indonesia's aviation safety, said business interests are compromising safety standards.

Mr Chappy said: "There are runways with restrictions. There are numerous reasons why a Boeing 737 cannot be fully-loaded or carry full capacity. It means there are restrictions. You can operate but with restrictions. But who are monitoring the restrictions?"

Indonesia has made tangible progress in the last five years to improve the standards of its aviation industry. That has led the European Union to lift its ban on a number of Indonesian airlines, including the national carrier Garuda.

However, there is still a lot of work to be done before Indonesia can reach international standards of safety.

Mr Chappy added: "We have progressed in many aspects but we have not yet improved on all the findings that ICAO reported in 2007. Up until this year, I don't think we will be able to move up from category two to category one."

Indonesia will need to hurry to get its aviation sector ready to meet the challenges of 2015 -- that is when the ASEAN open skies agreement will be implemented, which will see even more flights in and out of the country.

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Open skies agreement in 2015, will Indonesia be ready for it? This is a tough call to make.

Asiana Pilots Fear Criminal Charges in San Francisco Crash

Pilots of the Asiana Airlines Inc. jet that crashed nine days ago fear they will face criminal prosecution in the carrier's home country of South Korea, said people familiar with their thinking, a prospect that alarms U.S. pilot-union leaders and air-safety experts.

The Korean pilots of the Boeing 777, which hit a sea wall after making a dangerously low and slow approach to San Francisco International Airport in good weather, returned to Seoul on Friday. Before leaving, the pilots told associates they are concerned that their government intends to hit them with criminal charges for lapses in the cockpit.

Unlike in the U.S., South Korean law and precedent make that a possibility. South Korean law allows prison sentences of up to three years in the event of pilot negligence.

The captain of a Korean Air DC-10 that crashed in 1989 in Libya went to prison, according to news accounts at the time.

The Asiana pilots told these associates that they didn't expect to face jail time immediately upon arriving home, but they received no such assurances for the long term, according to a person familiar with the details.

Efforts to reach the pilots directly were unsuccessful. The union that represents them, the Air Line Pilots Association of Korea, has criticized the scrutiny of the crew's actions before the crash, saying information released by the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board has focused only on pilot error while neglecting possible contributing factors.

The South Korean transportation ministry on Wednesday is slated to kick off a four-week probe of the crash, said a senior official with the ministry. The agency plans to delve into pilot training, whether the pilots followed proper approach procedures and their prior experience landing in San Francisco.

The official said there were no current plans to charge the pilots criminally, though the final decision hinges on the probe.

The crash left three dead and dozens injured. It all but destroyed the jet, which had an estimated market value of $63.9 million, according to aviation-consulting firm Avitas.

In a meeting with Korean government officials Monday, Asiana said it would enhance its pilot training, update its data on airports with difficult approaches and move to ensure better cockpit communication with pilots.

The plan was presented as part of a session on risk management attended by eight Korean carriers, and an Asiana spokeswoman declined to elaborate. The airline previously said it planned to beef up certain kinds of training, though Asiana has repeatedly said the pilots on Flight 214 were highly experienced and their training met all domestic and international standards.

Many air-safety experts argue that making pilots criminally liable threatens to chill their voluntary reporting of hazards and prevent airlines from benefiting from other confidential safety information needed to eliminate budding dangers. And when prosecutors pursue prison terms after a crash, critics contend, it makes it harder to determine precisely what happened.

U.S. pilot-union officials and safety advocates have launched a behind-the-scenes effort to head off any criminal action, seeking support from U.S. government and airline officials.

"I am concerned about the issue," said Lee Moak, president of the Air Line Pilots Association, the largest pilot union in North America, which assisted the Asiana pilots during the crash investigation. Criminalization, he said, can end up "crippling the ability to learn from accidents so they can be prevented."

U.S. laws and tradition essentially preclude criminal charges even against pilots who cause fatal accidents, except when their actions are intentional, egregiously reckless or result from drugs or alcohol.

But from Asia to Europe to Latin America, judges and prosecutors over the years have filed criminal cases, typically over the strong objections of labor, independent air-safety groups and the International Civil Aviation Organization, an arm of the United Nations.

France, Spain, Brazil and Indonesia are among countries where air crashes have spurred criminal probes. The moves prompted ICAO to set up a special task force that recently submitted recommendations, which remain confidential, to prevent criminalization of accidents.

Kenneth Quinn, the task force's vice chairman and a partner in the law firm Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP, said criminal action shouldn't follow a crash "unless there is evidence of willful misconduct or gross negligence." Mr. Quinn is general counsel of the nonprofit Flight Safety Foundation, which fights air-accident criminalization.

Some say moves to file criminal charges sometimes can be understandable. In countries where crash victims or their families "don't have a viable way to get meaningful compensation" through civil procedures, "it's natural for people look toward criminal prosecution," said James Kreindler, a plaintiffs' attorney with the New York law firm Kreindler & Kreindler LLP.

Meantime, there has been criticism over the NTSB's extensive, early disclosures of preliminary data from its investigation. Some of the pilots' backers feel the focus on apparent pilot error may provide ammunition for those inclined to pursue a criminal case.

Last week, ALPA criticized the safety board for "prematurely releasing" information from recorders aboard Asiana 214, before investigators fully interviewed the pilots. The union also complained that without providing the full context behind data that was made public, such disclosure "represents a potential detriment to flight safety."

An NTSB spokeswoman said "we routinely provide the public with factual information" about accidents. "For the public to have confidence in the investigative process," she said, "transparency and accuracy are critical."

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This is sad isn't it? Errors of a pilot that is not being committed willfully being subjected to criminal charges in the country. From having one of the best jobs in the world, you ended up in a small prison cell for not doing your job fitting to expectations.