This Day in FAA History: November 12th

Full FAA Chronology at this link.
19511112: Pursuant to Executive Order 10219 (February 28), the Department of Commerce established the Defense Air Transportation Administration to plan and direct the mobilization of U.S. civil aviation resources for effective utilization in the event of war.
19701112: The National Transportation Safety Board released the results of a 1969 inquiry into the cause and prevention of midair collisions. The Board concluded that “no one solution is available to the aviation community which will result in the elimination of all midair collisions.” The collision potential, however, could be reduced by (1) pilot education and pilot scanning techniques, (2) using collision avoidance systems and pilot warning indicators, (3) establishing standard traffic patterns for all airports, (4) separating high- and low-performance aircraft within terminal areas, (5) implementing area navigation throughout the National Airspace System, (6) increasing the conspicuity of aircraft, and (7) expanding the use of automation in air traffic control.
The Board recommended that FAA:
* Evaluate pilot qualification criteria and minimum airborne equipment requirements for operations into high-density terminal areas.
* Accelerate the program providing for the separation of high- and low-performance aircraft in high-density terminal areas.
* Encourage the development of an airborne collision avoidance system for air carrier and larger general aviation aircraft.
* Provide funds for the ground equipment necessary to support airborne collision avoidance systems.
* Sponsor the development of pilot warning indicator systems.
* Require the installation of collision avoidance and pilot warning indicator systems when they become available.
* Add scanning techniques to the pilot training syllabus.
* Require the installation of white anticollision lights on all aircraft.
* Accelerate the implementation of an area navigation system throughout the National Airspace System (see March 6, 1972).
19741112: For the first time in history an aircraft was given routine air traffic control instructions via aeronautical satellite relay. The milestone occurred when an ATC demonstration project controller at the National Aviation Facilities Experimental Center (NAFEC) issued a route change to an FAA KC-135 aircraft during a test using the ATS-6 satellite. NAFEC’s Experimental Oceanic Air Traffic Control Laboratory was the ground test facility for the ATS-6 ATC communications demonstrations, part of the joint Aerosat project involving the United States, Canada, and the European Space Research Organization (ESRO). (See May 9, 1974, and September 15, 1977.)
19761112: The U.S. Civil Service Commission, in a reversal of a position taken earlier, announced its support for upgrading air traffic controllers at 8 of the nation’s busiest air traffic control facilities from GS-13 to GS-14. The Commission also approved the upgrading of controllers of lower grades at approximately 23 other installations, but insisted on downgradings at a few facilities. PATCO continued to demand better terms, backing its position with the threat of renewed slowdowns. On January 13, 1977, the Commission dropped its insistence on downgradings and approved promotions at some 45 facilities, including the GS-14 level at 8 locations. (See March 15, 1978.)
19811112: Ben L. Abruzzo, Larry Newman, Ron Clark, and Rocky Aoki made the first balloon crossing of the Pacific, a trip from Nagashima, Japan, to near Covelo, Calif., in Double Eagel V.
19961112: A midair collision near New Delhi, India, claimed the lives of all 349 persons aboard two airliners, a Saudi Arabia Airlines 747 and a Kazak Airlines Ilyushin Il-76. The accident was history’s deadliest collision between two aircraft in flight, and ranked third among the world’s worst civil aviation disasters, summarized as follows: (1) March 27, 1977, Pan American and KLM, runway collision, 583 fatalities; (2) August 12, 1985, Japan Air Lines, control system failure, 520 fatalities; (3) November 12, 1996, Saudi and Kazak airlines, midair collision, 349 fatalities; (4) March 3, 1974: Turkish Airlines, in-flight decompression, 346 fatalities; (5) June 23, 1985, Air India, believed sabotage, 329 fatalities; (6) August 19, 1980, Saudi Arabian Airlines, in-flight fire, 301 fatalities; (7) July 3, 1988, Iran Air, military shoot-down, 290 fatalities; (8) May 25, 1979, American Airlines, engine separation, 272 fatalities; (9) December 21, 1988, Pan American, sabotage, 270 fatalities; (10) September 1, 1983, Korean Air Lines, military shoot-down, 269 fatalities. (See dates indicated.)
19981112: Reacting to concerns raised by the September 2 crash of Swissair Flight 111, FAA ordered airlines to inspect two lighting dimmer switches that could overheat and emit smoke when installed in the cockpits of McDonnell Douglas MD-11 aircraft. McDonnell Douglas had issued a service bulletin three years before recommending replacement of the switches. One of the problems reported by the crew of Flight 111 before it crashed was smoke in the cockpit. (See September 2, 1998; December 9, 1998.)
20011112: American Airlines Flight 587 exploded over Queens, New York shortly taking off from John F. Kennedy International Airport. All 260 people aboard the plane and five people on the ground were killed. Some witnesses reported that a burning engine fell from the sky before the aircraft did, and others described a midair explosion. The wreckage fell in three places. One cylindrical piece, resembling an engine housing, fell onto a Texaco station, where it landed six feet from the fuel pumps. Most of the fuselage cratered into an intersection, sending columns of dense black smoke aloft over leaping flames. The third element, a wing section, plunged into Jamaica Bay. (See November 16, 2001.)
20101112: FAA accepted the final report on the November 2008 telecommunications outage prepared by an independent review panel asked to investigate the incident. Administrator Randy Babbitt had asked the panel to examine the cause of the FAA Telecommunications Infrastructure (FTI) outage and to recommend strategies to reduce the potential for similar future outages. He also asked the panel to examine the FTI’s present and future architecture as it relates to emerging technology and future FAA systems. The final report on the FTI outage laid out 14 long-term strategic recommendations the FAA should pursue as it transitions to future network systems. The recommendations focused on
* Governance: the decision making process for FAA systems
* Situational Awareness: FAA network monitoring and information sharing
* Interoperability: data sharing between systems and stakeholders
* Resilience: ability of a network to continue operating under a variety of conditions
* Cyber Security: the ability to thwart, detect, and respond to any attempts to compromise the system (See December 8, 2009.)
20131112: The Justice Department and American Airlines and US Airways settled the lawsuit brought by the Justice Department over the merger of the two airlines. The DOJ filed papers in U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia to announce the settlement that avoided a trial scheduled to start November 25. Under the terms of the settlement, the airlines agreed to sell 104 takeoff and landing slots at Ronald Reagan National Airport in Washington, 34 slots at La Guardia Airport in New York, and two gates each at Boston’s Logan airport, O’Hare, Dallas Love Field, Los Angeles, and Miami. A judge overseeing American Airlines’ bankruptcy proceeding approved the merger settlement on November 27. The two airlines continued to operate separately until FAA approved unified operations. (See October 28, 2013; December 7, 2013.)
20141112: FAA type certificated the Airbus A350-900. The European Aviation Safety Agency approved the jetliner in September. The aircraft seated approximately 300 passengers and was designed to compete with Boeing Co.’s larger 787 Dreamliners and 777 jets.
20191112: New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced completion of a 50-mile unmanned traffic management corridor running from Syracuse International Airport to Rome, New York. The corridor would be used to test unmanned aerial systems and unmanned traffic management technologies. On November 7, Cuomo announced FAA had approved BVLOS drone operations within the first segment of the corridor, an 8 x 4-mile section of airspace between Griffiss International Airport in the city of Rome and the New York State Preparedness Training Center in Oriskany. The State of New York invested approximately $30 million in the UAS corridor project, first introduced in 2016.
20201112: Aireon announced an agreement with FAA allowing the agency access to its satellite-routed aircraft surveillance data to evaluate different air traffic control (ATC) applications. Under the agreement, FAA “will have broad, intra-agency access” to Aireon’s space-based automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast (ADS-B) data feed to integrate in its ATC automation platforms, Aireon said. L3Harris Technologies, which operated FAA’s ground-based ADS-B surveillance network, will act as prime contractor. Aireon receiver payloads carried by Iridium Next satellites capture ADS-B messages that are continuously broadcast by transponder-equipped aircraft below, then stream the data to Aireon’s ground-based teleport network. Aireon processes the data and distributes it to air navigation service providers that subscribe to its service. FAA plans to evaluate the use of Aireon’s data feed for airspace safety analysis, search and rescue, airport surface applications and commercial space launch operations, according to the announcement.
20231112: Joby Aviation, a company developing electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft for commercial passenger service, performed an exhibition flight in New York City, marking the first-ever electric air taxi flight in the city and the first time Joby has flown in an urban setting. The aircraft, a piloted, four-passenger electric aircraft, has zero operating emissions. (See December 1, 2023.)