India has new crew visa requirements.
When flying as operating crew you will need an e-Business Visa. Carry a copy with you when disembarking.
Processing time is around 4 to 5 days.
Use the following link to apply.
https://indianvisaonline.gov.in/evisa/Registration
Keep in mind e-tourist visa is for pax only.
On October 12th, GCAA announced the changes to the OMAE FIR. They’ve got it all detailed in the latest AIRAC (AIP link below).
The major change–all aircraft require RNAV1 with GNSS to operate in the Emirates FIR, starting December 7th. This is a change from the previous RNAV5. With that, you can expect changes to SIDs, STARs, all ATS routes, holding procedures, communication frequencies, and others. It’s a major overhaul to anticipate for the expected increase in traffic.
We’ve got for you:
–AIC 04/2017
–AIP Link (you can find all the specifics to the changes here)
–UAE ENROUTE CHART
OMAE/UAE TRIGGER NOTAM - PERM AIRAC AIP AMDT NR 13/2017 WEF 07 DEC 2017 RNAV 1 WITH GNSS OPS RQMNTS MANDATED RNAV 1 ROUTES ADDED STD ROUTINGS AMD CONDITIONAL ROUTES ADDED ENR HOLDINGS ADDED WAYPOINTS ADDED, DELETED AND AMD OMR-51 LOWER LIMIT AMD ADDED FREQ FOR EMIRATES FIR. 07 DEC 00:00 2017 UNTIL 21 DEC 23:59 2017.
Post Maria Airport and Airspace status:
Updated October 25, 2017 1800Z
Bahamas
Turks & Caicos
Dominican Republic
Puerto Rico
TJZS all aircraft should use caution when operating within the interior or near the Island due to numerous low flying rotary wing aircraft. For additional operation information click here.
For more information on operating into Puerto Rico
For Ops reports in Puerto Rico
U.S. Virgin Islands
For more information on operating into TIST/STT
British Virgin Islands
Sint Maartin
St. Kitts & Nevis
Antigua
Anguilla
Guadeloupe
Dominica
Serious damage. Homes and trees flattened. Recovery efforts are currently being coordinated from the nearby islands of St Lucia and Antigua.
Effective immediately Turkey has suspended all Visa services to US citizens. This includes both physical Visa and E-Visa.
However, most operating crew will not be impacted. When listed on Gendec as Operating crew and you have a valid crew ID, you may stay up to 72hrs without visa.
We will update any changes here as and when known.
Several ATC unions have called for a national strike, affecting French airports and airspace from Monday evening at 1700UTC (Oct 9) through Wednesday at 0400UTC (Oct 11).
All FIRs are experiencing high delays.
Impact expected to the FIR’s per current (10OCT) information are as follows:
LFRR/Brest Experiencing high delays
LFFF/Paris All sectors experiencing delays with highest delays in the west. Situation is starting to show signs of improvement.
LFEE/Reims All sectors experiencing delays with highest delays in the East and North
LFBB/Bordeaux Some high delays and with no ease forseen
LFMM/Marseille High delays all around. Regulations will be in place until a least 2359UTC
The following routes are available:
Tango 9 Global and Tango 213 Global, UM30 and UZ180 are fully available.
T9 is still dealing with alot of delays.
Airports:
LFPG/Paris DeGaulle and LFPO/Paris Orly are experiencing delays and there is a 30% capacity reduction in both airports plus at the following airports:
LFOB/Beauvais, LFLL/Lyon, LFML/Marseille, LFMN/Nice, LFBO/Toulouse and LFRS/Nantes
LFSB/Basel – unconfirmed as of yet but may be used as an alternate
LFPB /Paris-Le Bourget will not be affected.
Expect high impact. Ops over or to France are best avoided today.
We will continue to post any further information here as soon as received.
Tropical Storm Nate is currently just off the northern coast of Nicaragua, moving NW at 8kts with sustained winds of 35kts.
It’s forecast to move on towards Louisiana over the weekend as a Cat 1 Hurricane.
Heavy rain expected across Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Honduras, Belize and Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsular.
No airport closures anywhere yet, but keep an eye on the forecast for MMUN/Cancun, as that’s directly in the path of the storm.
Update 03Oct: The FAA has released AC_90-117, which is their updated overview of Data Link Communications.
St Thomas re-opens to commercial flights today.
All non-military aircraft need to use St. Thomas Jet Center. To request ops, there’s a Notam out saying you should try calling them direct on +1-340-777-9177, but we’ve heard from our local contacts that might not work. If so, you should send your request via SMS to +1-340-998-7243, but make sure you include complete info about your planned flight:
Airport hours are 0900-1800 local time. Only military ops allowed outside these hours.
Tower and unicom frequency is 118.8. Limited coverage from SJU Center.
ATIS, navaids, ILS, runway lights – all out of service.
No customs at the airport – if you need to clear customs then you can do so through TJIG/Isla Grande.
No internet, no ability to print out anything for flight crews, no rental cars. The only phone service that seems to work is AT&T, and that is patchy at best. SMS messages seem to work much better than phone calls.
The Iraqi CAA will ban all international flights to/from ORER/Erbil and ORSU/Sulaimaniyah starting from Friday 29th Sep.
From then on, those airports will only be open for Iraqi carriers and domestic ops.
Tensions around the Kurdish autonomous region of Iraq are rising following a referendum on independence.
The Iraqi govt has demanded that the KRG (Kurdistan Regional Government) hand over control of its two international airports – ORER and ORSU. Until the KRG comply with this request, the international ban on flights to these airports is set to continue.
At the request of the Iraqi govt, Iran had already closed it’s airspace to ORER/ORSU traffic earlier this week, and Turkey was considering implementing the same ban.
The KRG are now deciding whether to give up control of their airports or lose their international flights. Should it be the latter, then from now on anyone attempting to travel to the region will have to transit via Baghdad.
We will update as more information becomes available.
Update – 1700Z / 05Oct:
Each airport is dealing with PPR individually, so best to make contact locally for full requirements.
Please see our main Maria post here for individual airport and PPR requirements.
First Hand Accounts: https://ops.group/blog/ops-reports-puerto-rico/
Local Contacts:
Following the 19Sep earthquake in Mexico City, MMMX airport sustained damage, and forced closure:
MMTO/Toluca Remained operational, did not close, no issues reported.
Any updates to MMMX operations will be posted here.
As of 2100Z today 19 September Hurricane Maria was located about 80 miles SE of the island of St. Croix and 175 miles SE of San Juan, Puerto Rico. The category 5 storm is slowly moving WNW at 10 mph. This movement and speed will place the cyclone right over the whole island of Puerto Rico by Wednesday 20 September at around 1800Z.
All Puerto Rican coastal areas are under hurricane warning and all airports in the island are expected to close at some point tomorrow. The East and North coasts of the Dominican Republic are expected to be hit by the storm in the early hours of Thursday 21 September; these coastal areas are also under hurricane warning mainly affecting Punta Cana (MDPC) and Puerto Plata (MDPP), which will most likely stop operations sometime tomorrow.
Last update: 20September at 2000Z
Note: some airports in the Caribbean are closing for the expected arrival of Hurricane Maria.
Due to damage and weather caused by Hurricane Irma below is the most recent information on Airports affected.
FLORIDA
Antigua & Barbuda
Anguilla
British Virgin Islands
Cuba
Dominican Republic
Guadeloupe
Dominica
Haiti
Puerto Rico
St. Kitts & Nevis
Turks & Caicos
St. Maarten
St. Thomas
St. Barthelemy
Montserrat
SOOO/Cayenne FIR: French Guiana ATC has finally given up the ghost – they’ve now implemented their contingency plan for their airspace, due to continued strike action.
If you want to cross this bit of airspace, there are now very specific routes and levels you have to fly at. Once you’re inside the airspace, don’t change your sped or level. All the details have been published in the Notams – check these carefully!
Just the Facts:
On September 15th, North Korea launched another missile, for the first time crossing over Japanese landmass. This one flew for 19 minutes, flew 2300 miles, and was likely a variant of the Hwasong-12 missile.
With the extended range, it puts more airspace at risk from debris fields. Once can reasonably exclude quite a bit of this airspace, as all launches are easterly.
This launch passed over the airways below off the coast of Japan:
Continued caution should be taken in oceanic airspace west of North Korea.
For more reading, read our post on the missiles specific to the Sea of Japan:
https://ops.group/blog/heres-why-north-korean-missiles-are-now-a-real-threat-to-civil-aviation/
Typhoon Talim, the equivalent of a category 4 hurricane, is now headed straight for Japan.
On Miyako-Jima Island in Okinawan island chain in the far south-west of Japan, Talim has already brought destruction: winds of over 100mph, power cuts, and the highest recorded rainfall in more than 50 years. The typhoon its expected to progress up towards the Japanese mainland over the weekend.
Forecasters had previously predicted it would pass over Taiwan’s northern cities before continuing on towards the Chinese coastline. A few flights were cancelled, more than 200,000 people were evacuated from Fujian and Zhejiang provinces, and flow restriction Notams were issued for both countries airspace (RCAA/Taipei FIR & ZSHA/Shanghai FIR) – although airports in the region remained open as the typhoon’s progress was closely monitored.
However, now it seems likely that Japan will bear the worst of the impact. If you’re operating anywhere in this region over the next few days, best keep an eye on the Japanese Met Agency’s dedicated webpage for Typhoon Talim… just in case it decides to change course again.
There are some new rules at ZBAA about how to go about getting clearance to depart. The new guidance doesn’t seem to have been officially published anywhere yet, but ground handling agents have been handing out a bit of paper translated from Chinese. Check out the image below for original version, which shows what you need to do. Here’s the short version:
Also, it’s been reported by an Opsgroup member that if you do not then push-back within 5 minutes of getting your clearance, you will get bumped to the bottom of the pile. Same thing happens if your EOBT is more than 15 minutes early or late from the filed time in the FPL.
Remember, slots are required at ZBAA, and GA aircraft are not permitted to arrive/depart between peak hours 0700-0900 local. There’s also only 24 hours maximum parking time allowed at ZBAA for foreign GA.
A TCO is an authorization issued by EASA to any third-country operator wishing to perform commercial air transport in any of the following European countries:
Plus the following territories:
Applications are made directly to EASA using their application form.
https://www.easa.europa.eu/document-library/application-forms/fotco00160
You will need to provide the following documentation:
Contact details for applications are made to:
European Aviation Safety Agency
Applications Handling Department
Postfach 10 12 53
D-50452 Köln
Germany
Fax: +49 (0)221 89990 ext. 4461
E-mail: tco.applications@easa.europa.eu
Should EASA deem the application in order the operating authorization process is completed in approximately 30 days. Some flights can avoid this requirement, such as Air Ambulance or Humanitarian flights.
Please note:
If you plan to operate to these areas, we’d suggest getting your TCO right away, even if you don’t have a planned flight at the moment. They can take some time to obtain.
For NAT Ops on Sunday August 27th, note that BSGF/Sondrestrom will be closed to all traffic, as they are upgrading infrastructure. Sundays in Greenland see most airports closed in any case, but the option of paying $1000 or so to have them open for you is normally there. On this date, BGSF won’t be, which may affect your diversion options.
They do say that if there’s an emergency, call them on +299 52 42 27 to determine availability.
All operators, in particular those with an N-reg on the tail, should be aware of the rapidly deepening crisis in Venezuela. The more tabloid news sources will say that “Venezuela is on the brink of civil war”; while that’s not quite the case (yet), it does give you a good indication of the level of concern. In OPSGROUP Note to Members #29 we will summarise the current situation.
Sanctions On July 31, the US government imposed sanctions on Venezuela, specifically on President Maduro. This creates an uncertain situation for US registered aircraft operating in Venezuelan airspace. Retaliatory sanctions, even as far as grounding a US aircraft, are not out of the question.
Embassy withdrawals On August 1st, the UK Foreign Office followed the US in withdrawing family of personnel from their respective embassies. This is a common precursor to a deeper security risk, and in the last 5 years we’ve seen this pattern in Libya, Syria, and Yemen.
Flight Ops See below on overflight. There have been interruptions to Notam and Metar service throughout 2017. At one point it appeared that SV** had lost its connection to the international AFTN system.
Aireport The most recent OpsGroup member reports are not encouraging. The top report on SVMI is titled “Hazardous in Caracas“. “The operating conditions in Caracas have deteriorated to a new level. New ATC controllers that have been installed in the last few months do not speak English very well, if at all, and in some cases and they are issuing clearances not appropriate for IFR or terrain clearance. Tremendous caution should be exercised especially when moving internally within Venezuela. SVMI authorities are now demanding to see the complete insurance policy for the aircraft, not just proof of insurance. We had Spanish speaking personnel with us and when we questioned a local SVMI controller about not using English, his response was that we should all be speaking Spanish! “. More in Aireport. If you’ve been through recently, add your report.
Threats SVMI/Caracas Simón Bolívar airport is located in an extremely high-risk area for armed robbery and kidnappings. The US describes the greatest current risks as social unrest, violent crime, and pervasive food and medicine shortages.
Travel advice Western countries are all now recommending against “all but essential travel”. A large majority of airline carriers have now stopped operating to Venezuela, for a mix of reasons – primarily the fact that onward payment of ticket monies have been stopped by the Venezuelan government. There are frequent violent protests.
Overflight Operations through Venezuelan airspace do not require an overflight permit, and so there have been no incidences recorded of US aircraft being denied a permit. However, on several occasions in the last month, Venezuela has for short periods arbitrarily closed its airspace to overflying aircraft. A common problem with Venezuelan overflight is the denial of airspace entry due to unpaid navigation fees, which is why checking this in advance is recommended. This may be a tool used to deny US aircraft entry in the future. Plan operations through the SVZM/Maiquetia FIR with caution. To be clear, we do not assess any risk to enroute aircraft, but be mindful of the fact that if you do enter SVZM airspace, you may end up diverting to an SV** airport. Right now, that’s not ideal.
Avoiding Venezuela If you elect to avoid SVZM airspace, to the west will be via Colombia – permit required for all overflights, and to the east will be via the SYGC/Georgetown FIR (Guyana) – permit not required, or via the Paramaribio FIR (Suriname) – permit required. Finally to the east, if you use the SOOO/Rochambeau FIR (French Guyana) – permit required unless operating a GA aircraft under 12.5k lbs.
If you need a tech stop and previously used/considered SVMI, then look at alternatives like TNCC, TTPP, SBEG, SMJP. Use the OpsGroup planning map to figure your best alternate options.
Published August 2nd, 2017 :
You can request membership of OPSGROUP to receive the full International Ops Bulletin delivered every Wednesday, along with all OPSGROUP member benefits: Members Questions, Group Discussions, Slack, free maps and charts (normally $25), Full access to aireport for group reviews of handlers and airports, regular alerts for critical international ops info, complimentary Airports Database (normally $375), Full access to safeairspace.net including updated risk alerts, and guidance and help when you want it on any International Operations topic (that last one is really useful!). Read 125 different member reviews.
KZZZ/USA The US has opted for ‘Enhanced Security’ instead of a wider laptop ban. In fact, the existing ban is likely to end once airports can comply with the new rules. The information in the official DHS release is somewhere between vague and zero, which kind of makes sense.
So, the story is pretty simple – there is no wider laptop ban, but no specifics have yet been released publicly as to what exactly ‘Enhanced Security’ means for Aircraft Operators. The DHS will work directly with larger AO’s directly affected.
Following on from the privatisation of Greek Airports this summer (see our article from earlier in June – Summer of Pain), there are new procedures for Greek Slots.
With delays super high into some of the smaller islands, especially at weekends, attention to the correct slot procedure is pretty important.
The slot you’ll get from the HSCA is valid +/- 30 mins. If you go outside that, then you’ll get a flight suspension message from Eurocontrol that looks like this.
FLIGHT PLAN SUSPENSION ACCORDING TO YOUR FLIGHT PLAN IFPLID 01020304 ARCID N765AC ARCTYP C56X EOBD 160201 EOBT 1945 ADEP LOWI ADES LGMK ELDT 2050 NO CORRESPONDING AIRPORT SLOT WAS RECOGNISED
To get a new slot, or the initial one, the official process is this:
If you have any issues, you can call H24 this number in Greece re. slots: +30 210 997 2656. And, we think, this email should also work: slot-hsca@athensairport.gr
References
There have been many reports of countries cutting diplomatic ties with Qatar. We’ll leave the speculation to the media, we want to break down what it means for operators and aircraft owners. Just the facts.
Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain, UAE, Libya, Yemen, Maldives, and Mauritius have all cut diplomatic ties with Qatar.
As of now, only Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt, and UAE have placed flight restrictions on flights to/from Qatar. No known restrictions (beyond those known for Libya and Yemen anyhow) for the remaining countries mentioned in reports.
The new regulations are quite clear. You cannot overfly or land at any airport in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt, or UAE with a Qatari registered aircraft. If you have a non-Qatari registered aircraft, and need to operate to/from Qatar and use the mentioned countries airspace you’ll need special approvals from the authorities below:
Saudi Arabia GACA:
+966115253336
special@gaca.gov.sa
Egypt ECAA:
+202 22678535
+202 24175605
AFTN: HECAYAYX
UAE GCAA:
+971 50 642 4911
avsec-di@gcaa.gov.ae
No special exemptions have been mentioned by Bahrain, but they’ve given the following routing for those effected by the restrictions:
UT430 OUTBOUND VIA RAGAS
UR659 INBOUND VIA MIDSI
—
Due to the situation, Iran has published special routing schemes for transitioning their airspace, as they’ll get quite busy:
Qatar to Ankara:
FL150-FL190, RAGAS-UT430-LAGSA-UL223-TESVA/ALRAM
Qatar to Muscat and Karachi FIR:
FL150-FL19, expect climb after KIS
RAGAS-M561-ASVIB (To Karachi)
RAGAS-M561-KHM-BUBAS (To Muscat)
Ankara to Qatar:
Between FL240 to FL300, ALRAM-UT36-MIDSI
Muscat to Karachi to Qatar:
Between FL240 to FL260, N312/A453-MIDSI
Also, if flying from Ankara to UAE (except OMAA), use the below routing:
BONAM-L319-RADID-M317-KUPTO-G666-ORSAR
The situation is fluid, and we will update this post as we continue to collect news.
In any one of the plausible alternative endings to this event, a departing Boeing 777 impacts the San Gabriel mountains at about 5000 feet, just east of Los Angeles, at 1.25am.
Exactly how this didn’t happen is almost unexplainable. With 353 people on board, this was 22 seconds away from being the worst air disaster in the US.
At 1.24 am, level at 5,000 feet, the flight is 40 seconds from impacting a ridge-line west of St Gabriel Peak. A minute later, a wide turn to the right points the aircraft instead at Mt Wilson — now 22 seconds away and above the aircraft. Only a slow climb, the result of fumbled instructions and a gradual realisation by the crew of the danger, released the flight from a certain and conclusive end in the dark hills.
So exactly what happened? On December 16th last year, at 1.19am, EVA 015, a Boeing 777–300ER with 353 occupants, got airborne from Runway 7R at Los Angeles. 2 minutes after departure, the aircraft starts to make a turn in a direction opposite to that expected by the controller. That left turn immediately sets up a conflict and potential loss of separation with Air Canada 788.
With that conflict resolved, more by the natural tendency of airplanes to diverge than by any positive control instruction, the overall scene becomes bleaker. Rattled by the unanticipated loss of separation, the controllers’ picture is lost; fumbled left-right-left instructions confuse the Boeing crew, and very soon, nobody is actually flying the airplane.
______
The ATC recording and track replay is YouTube nirvana for the congregation of armchair experts (the writer included). “Terrible controlling” is the common cry. “The pilots were at fault” say the counter-parties.
There is no doubt that this is Air Traffic Control at its darkest. But in any incident where we smugly allocate blame to one individual, we are blind to a bigger story. There is always a systemic failure to look at. In this case, there are several.
—
For an Air Traffic Controller, there is a subconscious difference between the fear of losing separation (the legal minimum distance), and the fear of an aircraft collision. The purpose of ATC is to prevent collisions, but the mindset of an Air Traffic Controller is focused on preventing loss of separation. This is an important distinction.
A loss of separation is a traumatic experience for any ATCO. It results in immediate suspension of the right to work, remedial training, a loss of confidence, and a few sleepless nights. Even if the required separation is 5 miles, and a controller allows aircraft to pass with 4.9, it’s game over.
And so, in any conflict on the radar scope that looks like it might become a loss of separation, the controller (being a human being) will encounter physiological symptoms — shock being the first, activating the autonomic nervous system — increasing heart and breathing rate, and releasing adrenaline. These are helpful for both of the Fight or Flight options, but not for thinking clearly. The psychological impact of the loss of separation blurs the importance of preventing a collision.
—
I’ve worked as both pilot and controller. Faced with pressure, we revert to the level of our training. This is why pilots visit the flight simulator every couple of months. We’ve trained to the point that an engine exploding as we rotate the aircraft off the runway is no longer a shock that renders us useless. If this were to happen in reality, we still feel the adrenaline and shock — but we can plunge straight into the “Engine Failure subroutine”. We have training to revert to. Listen to Aer Lingus Flight 120 experiencing this. You can hear the training, and you can also hear the adrenaline. Training wins.
For Air Traffic Controllers, faced with an unexpected situation, we also revert to training —but we don’t train for our emergencies in the same way that pilots do. The training, in fact, isn’t there to revert to.
As a controller, I’ve held Tower, Approach, and Enroute ratings in different countries. ATC training in how to separate airplanes is excellent. Training in how to recover from the unexpected is not.
Ultimately, it’s the same deal. Both Pilots and Controllers spend 99.99% of their time operating in the routine. It’s not uncommon for a pilot to spend his entire career without encountering an engine shutdown. Similarly, many controllers retire without ever having lost separation.
But it would be unthinkable for an airline to have crews that don’t know what to do in an emergency. Why then, is it acceptable to not offer controllers the same degree of contingency training?
—
When we talk about ATC Emergency training, what we are really used to looking at is what to say and do when a pilot has an emergency. Mayday, Pan-Pan, Emergency descent, Hijack.
But what about when ATC has their own emergency. When you’ve missed a conflict, have a deep loss of separation, lost the picture — when you’ve completely screwed up. Somewhere in the manual, there’s probably a few lines about using standard phraseology, exercise best judgement, provide traffic information, don’t interfere with an RA.
As humans, this doesn’t help us. There is no patter to fall into. We need trigger phrases to kick off trained behaviour when the shock of the event wants to take us elsewhere. In the cockpit that I flew in, whatever happened, the trigger phrase was “Take action”. From here, whatever the situation, we knew where to go. Identify the problem, run the checklist, push buttons, talk to ATC.
In the Aer Lingus example above: Mayday, Shamrock 12G, Engine Failure, Climbing straight ahead, Standby.
Alert — Identification — Situation — Intentions — Request.
Clear as a bell.
On the EVA tape, it is clear that the controller has no such place to go to. It’s the equivalent of trying to exit an underwater shipwreck with no guide rope. You need something to hold onto as you find your way back to the surface.
She never did. After the shock of the loss of separation, she was now faced with a 777 heading into the 6500ft San Gabriel hills level at 5000 feet. She did not move on from preventing a loss of separation to preventing a collision with terrain. Even when apparently finally realising the aircraft was heading for high ground, there was little in the way of an urgent climb or turn instruction, and nothing that mentioned to the crew that they were in immediate danger.
_
If we consider ourselves to blame for the situation, it will cloud our judgement, obscuring the true picture. If we allow that to develop further, we can lose the picture entirely. There is nothing in our training that gives us a clear path out of the loss of separation. No mnemonics, no patter, no phraseology.
This is the lesson to be learned from this event. ATC agencies should make available to their controllers the same degree of emergency and “unusual situation” training that airlines offer to pilots. And somewhere in there has to be an ingrained, trained-by-rote-reminder that when you lose separation, you immediately pick up the fallen cards and move on to preventing a collision, whether that is with another aircraft or terrain.
In the EVA 015 incident, we can be thankful that the sheer mercy of fate allowed all on board to thread their way through and out the other side of the San Gabriel mountains. If ATC training were more cognisant of the human factors aspect of the shock of losing separation, we may not have to rely on the mercy of fate next time.
Back in March, FSB covered a major wake turbulence upset experienced by a Challenger 604 after passing an A380. After our initial story was published, it was covered in various versions in The Times of London, Flying magazine, AIN Business Aviation News, Deutsche Welle, and NBC. The picture on the Flight Service Bureau facebook page was viewed 1.1 million times.
From the interim report, these facts are confirmed:
In an interview, the crew said:
“The airplane shook briefly, then rolled heavily to the left and the autopilot disengaged. [We] actuated the aileron to the right in order to stop the rolling motion. But the airplane had continued to roll to the left thereby completing several rotations. Subsequently both Inertial Reference Systems (IRS), the Flight Management System (FMS), and the attitude indication failed”
“… since the sky was blue and the ocean’s surface almost the same colour [I] was able to recognise the aircraft’s flight attitude with the help of the clouds“
The BFU published the FDR excerpt above, and a full interior picture of the cabin, post event.
Flight Service Bureau has issued guidance to OpsGroup members, in Note to Members #24 (March 19th, 2017), which can be downloaded publicly here. The highlights are:
With very recent updates to both NAT Doc 007 and ICAO Doc 4444, the rules for SLOP are a little different than before.
References: