Press Release – FAA Statement on Ebola

The health and welfare of flight crews, airline workers and the traveling public is a top priority of the FAA. We work closely with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the aviation industry, as well as other Federal government partners on issues of public health and on disease awareness, when appropriate.
Guidance on training and procedures for the aviation industry are provided by the CDC, which is also the best source for studies and reports on infectious disease. The CDC’s traveler’s health notices and aviation industry guidance are available at http://www.cdc.gov/.
Frequently Asked Questions

• Under what circumstances will the FAA restrict flights to and from countries with citizens infected with Ebola? Decisions about flight restrictions in response to an international public health emergency would be an interagency decision.  The health and welfare of flight crews, airline workers and the traveling public is a priority of the FAA. We work closely with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), as well as other federal government partners on issues of public health and on communicable disease awareness, when appropriate
  
  The CDC’s information for travelers is available online.
  
• What authority does the FAA have to restrict flights to and from another country? While the FAA has the authority to direct flight operations in United States airspace, any decision to restrict flights between the United States and other countries due to public health and disease concerns would be an interagency decision that would engage the Departments of Health and Human Services/CDC, State, Homeland Security, and Transportation. The World Health Organization (WHO) and the CDC have not recommended general travel restrictions to or from the countries affected by Ebola.
  
• How are airlines preparing for Ebola? The FAA is working with the CDC which has developed guidance for airline crews, cleaning and cargo personnel, and air medical transport. The CDC’s notices and guidelines are well publicized. U.S. airlines have CDC’s guidance and have been sharing the information with their crews. The FAA will continue to work collaboratively with the U.S. aviation industry and public health authorities.
  
  The CDC’s airline guidance is available online. The guidance for cabin aircrews was updated on October 15, 2014.
  
• Does the FAA require health screening of passengers bound to the United States? In early October, DHS, with the CDC, implemented enhanced screening measures at five airports around the country—New York’s JFK, Newark, Dulles, Atlanta, and Chicago. All passengers arriving in the United States from or through one of the three countries will be required to fly into one of these five airports that have the enhanced screening and additional resources in place. Passengers flying into one of these airports whose travel originated in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea are subject to secondary screening and added protocols, including having their temperature taken, before they can be admitted into the United States. At present there are no direct, non-stop commercial flights from Liberia, Sierra Leone or Guinea to any airport in the United States.
    DHS/U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and the CDC have closely coordinated to develop policies, procedures, and protocols to identify travelers that are known by U.S. public health officials to have a communicable disease and to handle in a manner that minimizes risk to the public. These procedures have been utilized collaboratively by both agencies on a number of occasions with positive results.
  CBP personnel review all travelers entering the United States for general overt signs of illnesses (visual observation, questioning, and notification of CDC as appropriate) at all U.S. ports of entry, including all federal inspection services areas at U.S. airports that service international flights. When a traveler is identified with a possible communicable disease or identified from information that is received from the CDC, CBP personnel will take the appropriate safety measures by donning personal protective equipment (PPE), to include gloves and surgical masks, which are readily available for use in the course of their duties.  CBP personnel receive training in illness recognition, but if they identify an individual believed to be infected, CBP will contact CDC along with local public health authorities to help with further medical evaluation.
  
  
• What should a crewmember do if they suspect someone is infected with Ebola? The CDC, through a network of Quarantine Stations located at 20 ports of entry and land-border crossings, has routine health inspection procedures that consist of working with airline, cargo ship, and cruise ship companies to protect passengers and crews from certain infectious diseases. Quarantine inspectors meet arriving aircraft and ships reporting ill passengers and/or crew (as defined in the foreign quarantine regulations) and assist them in getting appropriate medical treatment. If the flight crew of a commercial aircraft ARRIVING in the U.S. becomes aware of an ill person on board which may include a person with Ebola symptoms, the captain is REQUIRED by law (42 CFR 71.21(b)) to report the illness to the nearest U.S. Quarantine Station, who will arrange the appropriate medical response at the flight’s destination airport. International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) standards and procedures provide for reports to be made to air traffic control. Once the FAA receives a report, it promptly communicates it to the CDC Emergency Operations Center (EOC).
  Information on U.S. Quarantine Stations is available at http://www.cdc.gov/quarantine/quarantinestationcontactlistfull.html, with major quarantine stations located in Anchorage, Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, El Paso, Honolulu, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis-St. Paul, New York (JFK), Newark, Philadelphia, San Diego, San Francisco, San Juan, Seattle, and Washington, DC.
  
  The FAA has an agreement in place with CDC that outlines how the FAA and CDC will exchange notifications of reports that they receive of deaths, suspected cases of communicable disease, and other public health risks onboard aircraft.  The FAA notifies the CDC Emergency Operations Center of any of these reports received by FAA Air Traffic Services units.  There are ICAO provisions regarding the use of Air Traffic Service units to facilitate communications between airborne flights and public health authorities.

NTSB: Pilot Error Caused Fatal Jet Crash

The captain of a Beechcraft 390 Premier failed to follow the correct procedures for an anti-skid failure, resulting in a fiery crash that killed five passengers, the NTSB said in its final report on Tuesday. The jet was returning to Thomson-McDuffie County Airport, in Thomson, Georgia, on February 20, 2013, when it failed to slow down after touchdown. The captain initiated a go-around. Nine seconds later, the jet collided with a utility pole about 1,835 feet from the end of the runway, 63 feet above the ground. The captain and first officer suffered serious injuries. NTSB Acting Chairman Christopher Hart said crew fatigue was a factor in the accident.
"This pilot's inadequate knowledge of his aircraft was compounded by his fatigue," said Hart. "As a result, five people died who did not have to. Just as pilots should not take off without enough fuel, they should not operate an aircraft without enough rest." The captain failed to adhere to the airplane's flight manual procedures for anti-skid failure in flight and did not retract the lift dump -- a critical system to assist in stopping the aircraft -- immediately after making the decision to perform a go-around, according to the NTSB. According to the checklist for an anti-skid system failure, the flap configurations available for the pilot were flaps up or flaps 10. Either of these configurations would have required a longer landing distance than the runway provided. As a result, the pilot should have sought landing at an alternate airport, the NTSB said.
Investigators found the aircraft had extended flaps 30 on the approach, which is prohibited by the anti-skid failure procedures. At the time of impact, the flaps were transitioning through flaps 15. Additionally, while both the airplane's flight manual and a placard in the cockpit warned against extending the lift dump in flight, the go-around was attempted with the lift dump deployed, making a safe climb unlikely. The full report is posted online.

The wreckage of an airplane that was missing for more than six months has been found in Marion County

The wreckage of an airplane that was missing for more than six months has been found in Marion County, Florida, about five miles from the airport where it last took off, local news outlets have reported. Daryl Burns was hiking in dense woods on Sunday afternoon when he spotted the wreck. Skeletal remains were found in the cockpit, Burns told The Gainseville Sun. The airplane, a Sonex, was largely intact, but it was upside down, and the engine was detached. Pilot Theodore Weiss, 74, had departed from the Marion County Airport for Zephyrhills Municipal Airport on April 5.
Volunteers had searched the forested area multiple times since the crash, according to The Sun. The wreck site was only about 300 yards from a state road, but it was hard to spot among the oak trees. "Our helicopter had trouble finding it -- even knowing where it was," said Lauren Lettelier, spokesperson for the Marion County sheriff's office. The wreckage has been removed.

Flying Car Crash Cause Determined

Some tangled parachute lines, a seriously aft C of G and some kind of air turbulence ganged up on a Maverick flying car to send it spiraling into a schoolyard in western Canada in early May. Canada's Transportation Safety Board turned over the investigation to the manufacturer of the aircraft, ITEC, to come up with the cause and the company's COO Troy Townsend traveled to Kelowna, British Columbia, a week later to conduct the probe. By analyzing video from two GoPro cameras onboard the aircraft, plus video shot from the ground by AVweb and airport surveillance camera video, Townsend and pilot Ray Siebring determined at least three independent factors contributed to the stall/spin that ended with the Maverick spinning from an altitude of about 500 feet into the playground fence of a school in Vernon, B.C., on May 10. "Any one of those factors wasn't enough to bring the aircraft down but they all added up together," said Townsend, who has hundreds of hours on the vehicle, which is really just a large powered parachute with a street-legal car as its payload

New Technology Will Produce Safer Maps

Pilots may presume that we now have access to accurate terrain maps nationwide, but in some remote areas, maps may be based on incomplete data or inaccurate observations that are decades old. "Mars is better mapped than the state of Alaska," Steve Colligan, president of E-Terra, an Anchorage mapping firm, told The Washington Post recently. Fatal accidents have been blamed on a lack of accurate terrain data that could have made a difference to pilots caught in changing weather in the mountains. Now the U.S. Geological Survey is leading an effort called the 3D Elevation Program, with the aim to chart all 50 states using state-of-the-art, accurate technology -- airborne lasers (lidar) or radar (ifsar).
The lidar (light detection and ranging) data and interferometric synthetic aperture radar (ifsar) data make it possible for the USGS to construct accurate 3-D terrain maps. "It's not an image; it's data," Kevin Gallagher, associate director for USGS Core Science Systems, told the Post. "That's what makes it so powerful. Lidar is like looking at the world through a new set of glasses." The project to collect all the needed data has run into funding obstacles, the Post reports. The effort to map Alaska started in 2010, but it's only about half done. High-quality lidar data is available for only about 4 percent of the U.S., according to the USGS. The agency estimates it would take eight years to collect data for the entire country.

Three Die In Midair At Frederick Airport (Updated)

Three people were reportedly killed Thursday afternoon at the Frederick, Maryland, airport when an airplane and a helicopter collided close to the runway. The airplane was a Cirrus SR22, according to WJZ-TV, and news photographs show firefighters with a deployed parachute from the aircraft.  Two men aboard the Cirrus were taken to a Hagerstown, Maryland, hospital where they were treated and released. The three men who died were on the helicopter, a Robinson R44 that was on a training flight
Gilbert Porter, 75, a passenger on the Cirrus told the Washington Post that pilot Scott Graeves, 55, were getting ready to land at Frederick when they felt the collision. Graeves deployed the chute and the aircraft settled in a copse of trees."I'm very lucky to be alive. What saved our lives was that parachute," Porter told the Post. Both Porter and Graeves live near the airport and were returning from a day trip to Tennessee when the collision occurred about 3:40 p.m. The occupants of the helicopter were all found near its wreckage. They've been Identified as Christopher D. Parsons, 29, of Westminster, Md.; William Jenkins, 47, of Morrison, Colo.; and Breandan J. MacFawn, 35, of Cumberland, Md. It wasn't immediately known who was flying.

Skydiving Altitude Record Shattered

Following a nearly three-year secret development program, computer scientist Alan Eustace today shattered the world skydiving record with a jump from 135,890 feet, a supersonic free fall and a safe landing 70 miles from his departure point at Roswell, New Mexico. The previous record skydive was from from 128,100 feet—it was set by Austrian daredevil Felix Baumgartner during a highly-publicized event two years ago. Eustace, 57, is a senior vice president at Google and has been described as an engineer with a deep passion for details and as well as a team-oriented leader. Forgoing a capsule for the trip aloft and the millions in sponsorship money used by Baumgartner, Eustace worked with scientists with expertise in spacesuit design, life support systems, balloons and parachutes to create a system that suspended him in a spacesuit as he was carried up to nearly the top of the stratosphere.
On a comparative shoestring budget, Eustace used GoPro cameras to record the experience and an off-the-shelf radio for contact with is ground crew. An explosive squib allowed Eustace to release himself from the helium balloon. During his free fall Eustace reached a maximum speed of 822 MPH and generated a sonic boom that was heard on the ground. His technical team also designed a carbon fiber device that prevented Eustace from becoming entangled in his parachute should he not be stabilized when he deployed the parachute. The United States Parachute Association’s director of competition, James Hayhust, verified the record and said the jump was “. . . legitimate science. I think they’re putting a little lookout tower at the edge of space that the common man can share.”