Vereinigung Cockpit Flight Safety Newsletter

Dear Members,

we are looking forward to welcome you to our spring party at the Chamäleon Beach in Flörsheim to celebrate Vereinigung Cockpit's 50th anniversary on 25 May 2019. Please note that this year's spring party replaces VC's usual summer party. For further information please refer to the member area of the VC website.

Our VC Waypoints represent one aspect of our aim to constantly contribute to the improvement of flight safety. Next to our popular links to publications of IFALPA, ECA, and EASA todays Waypoints edition covers the following topics:

  • Dutch Safety Board Recommendations for flying over conflict zones
  • First APEG AIRPROX Magazine
  • IFALPA Briefing Leaflet on Remote Pilots
  • IFALPA Position Paper on Non-Routine Operations

I invite you to browse through the contents to learn the latest about your topic of interest.

As we continuously strive to improve our Waypoint we require and seek your feedback. Please forward your inputs to flightsafety@vcockpit.de  or just use the reply function of your mail provider should you have any suggestions for improvement, tips, or wishes regarding topics to address. We will do our best to keep the Waypoints as informative and interesting as possible for your convenience.

Kind regards,

Your Technical Director Flight Safety

Flying over conflict zones

The dutch safety board issued a follow-up recommendations report of the Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 crash on 17 July 2014. Overflying conflict zones ist still a current risk in aviation. The report identifyies eleven recommendations to manage these risks more effectively while focusing on airspace management, sharing threat information, and risk assessment.

First AIRPROX Magazin published!

The Aircraft Proximity Evaluation Group (APEG) published its first AIRPROX Magazine (only availabe in German). APEGs objective is to increase aviation safety by analysing air proximities and by providing recommendations to prevent similar occurences in the future.The VC ATS working group participated in the development of the magazine, which contains anonymised analyses of dangerous air proximities in german airspace, recommendations for further actions and general information material.

Further information about the air proximity reporting system and a reporting form are availabe here.

Note: the reporting form does not replace mandatory reporting of occurences according to Regulation (EU) No. 376/2014 and 996/2010.

IFALPA Briefing Leaflet: Remote Pilots

IFALPA offers its initial thoughts on one of the fastest growing and technologically advanced forms of aviation - Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS). IFALPAs Briefing Leaflet considers and encourages potential membership of Remote Pilots in Member Associations as cooperation can provide a number of benefits. Thus, as the role of Remote Pilots may have a major impact on the avation industry of the future, all groups of pilots should cooperate and connect their interests for better working conditions.

   

IFALPA Positionspapier: Non-Routine Operations

In this Position Paper, IFALPA adresses possible safety risks generated by non-routine operations. More and more flights are conducted outside the scope of Standard Operating Procedures, e.g.:

  • Ferry flights with known technical defects,
  • Post maintenance flights,
  • Trial flights for new procedures or equipment.

Furthermore, these flights are carried out by line pilots without any specific training instead of specifically trained test pilots. To reduce this identified safety risk, IFALPA issued recommendations for non-routine operations.