Diapositive 1

MANOPI

TRIDENT - AUV SCHOOL Port de Soller (Mallorca), October 3rd, 2012

Dealing with aircraft accident at sea, Efficient Crisis Management

By Mr. Hubert THOMAS Technical Manager, MANOPI - FRANCE

2012-10-03 ACSA WShop AUV School Soller.ppt © MANOPI, 2012 Confidentiel Industrie 1 MANOPI

ACSA UNDERWATER POSITIONING & ROBOTICS

SERVICE COMPANY: MANOPI

ACSA is a high-tech company manufacturing advanced underwater positioning equipment and robotics.

Even if ACAS has always responded under very short notice in critical situation to authorities and navies requests for ULBs Search at sea, the company is not organized to mobilize its experts for such operations.

Moreover, Investigation Authorities have expressed interest to contractualise black boxes relocation services to a highly specialized and independent service company.

As a consequence MANOPI* has been created to perform FDR and VDR pre- localization (Detector-1000), accurate positioning (GIB-SAR buoys) systems and training to exercises.

* MANOPI and ACSA companies belong to French private ALCEN's group.

PRESENTATION PLAN

1/ INTRODUCTION 2/ ALERTMENT - ACCIDENTS TYPE 3/ TRADITIONAL SAR MEANS 4/ FLYING TEAM CONCEPT 5/ ACSA EQUIPMENT SUITE 6/ ACCIDENT TRACK RECORDS 7/ NEXT STEP - RECOVERY ISSUES

READ IN THE PRESS

"Parts of aircraft might have drifted south following sea currents at a speed of 0.7 knots. Accident "A" After 10 days they could be as far as 300 km away." 2009

Day 3 : Wreck and black boxes have been found in 1300 m, … Day 6 : Precise localization of black boxes is complex ... Day 10 : Black boxes have been found in 70 m, ... Accident "B" 2010

"However, if the technology is available, let's Accident "C" 2009 calculate the cost and talk about the details later…" Aircraft company representative

Satellites Frigates

Dedicated Ship TPL Ship #1 TPL Ship #2 "Pourquoi Pas"

VICTOR SNA SAR

ALERTMENT PROCEDURE

How do we know an accident has occured ?

- IATA International Air Transport Association - ICAO International Civil Aviation Organization - Chicago convention Appendix 13 Rules aircratf accidents investigations

ACCIDENT TYPES

- Tentative to land on sea surface

- High speed crash

Completely different to deal with ?

ACCIDENT TYPE 1

ACCIDENT TYPE 2

ACCIDENT NUMBER

- 41 Major civil aircraft accident over the period 1969-2011

- Numerous helicopters accidents

- Numerous military aircrafs accidents (Refer to French Navy List)

ACCIDENTS DEPTHS

Number Cumulated %

0-50 m 14 14 39%

50-300 m 10 24 67% Accidents 300-1000 m 3 27 75% Depths 1000-2500 m 5 32 89%

> 2500 m 4 36 100%

Divers Recovery 13

ROV Recovery 19

TIME TO RECOVER BLACK BOXES (VDR - FDR)

Crash Water Flight Site BB #1 BB#2 Date Depth 17/07/96 TWA Flight 800 SW South Island 30 m +8 +8 02/09/98 Swissair Flight 111 Halifax 55 m +4 +9 31/10/99 Egyptair Flight 990 New York Waters 85 m +9 +13 30/01/00 Kenia Flight 431 2 miles offshore Abidjan 50 m +6 >14 31/01/00 Alaska Airlines 261 Los Angeles -- Pt. Mugu 230 m +3 +4 25/05/02 China Airlines CI-611 Taiwan Straight 70 m +24 >24 12/12/06 Hélico RSNF Red Sea Jeddah 1040 m +70 - 01/06/09 AF-447 Rio-Paris Brasil 4 500 +700 - 30/06/09 YEMENIA Y-626 Comores 1 200 +59 +59 24/09/09 PA CDG Méditerranée Perpignan 700 +30 - 03/01/04 Flash airlines Egypt Red Sea Tiran Strait 1000 m + 13 +14 03/05/06 A320 Armania Black Sea Sotchi 496 m + 20 + 22

OPERATIONS COSTS

Craft of opportunity : 1000-2000 $/Day

DP SHIP : 150.000-170.000 $/Day

LUMP SUM : 3 M USD

AVERAGE : 6 M USD

SEARCH OPERATIONS

• At sea aircraft accidents are especially difficult to deal with • Crash point coordinates are poorly known • When surface debris are found, they have been pushed away by wind and currents • Access to search area is difficult due to weather conditions and distance to shore • SAR operations require specific equipment not available locally

KEY ISSUES

• Fast and accurate Black Boxes localization and recovery is a key issue in crisis management

• Failing to give consistent and correct information at the very early stage to the media will lead to: - contradictory information given by the crisis communication cell, - local authorities and national airlines' reputation damage, - social media network tendency to spiral out of control, - and finally lost of sovereignty.

KEY ISSUES

• At the opposite, as soon as the crisis room can announce that black boxes have been located and not only heard, media stop hassling the crisis cell. • When recorders coordinates are known with a metric accuracy, then, time is no more a critical issue. • It allows investigation authorities to select and contractualise adequate recovery means with no pressure. • The recovery means have then time to transit and can even arrive on site later than the critical 30 days following accident date. • Further, the ROV will reach CVR and FDR very quickly, even if ULBs are no more active.

EFFICIENT OPERATION MEANS

• Guaranteed success

• Lower operational costs

• Crisis communication under full control

Operational and cost efficiency is now possible worldwide and accessible to every investigation authority based on ACSA's solutions.

UNDERWATER LOCATION BEACONS (ULBs)

Each aircraft Black Box (CVR & FDR) carries an emergency locator beacon also named "ULB" for Underwater Locator Beacon broadcasting acoustic signals. They are specially design for relocation purposes.

ULBs characteristics are: - Frequency : 37.5 kHz +/- 1kHz, - Transmit level : 160 dB, - Repetition rate : ~1 Hz +/- 10%, - Autonomy : 30 days, - Collapsing depth : 6000 m,

Additional difficulties - 2 similar acoustic sources close by, - Sea noise level could be above signal level - Ray bending (Thermocline layer)

TRADITIONAL SAR MEANS (Acoustic Relocation)

• Underwater directional finders • Accuracy +/- 100 m Operate in calm weather

• Towed pinger locators • 30 Tons to air lift + Supply ship

• Acoustic homing devices • Requires ROV and DP Ship

MANOPI’s FLYING TEAM CONCEPT

• MANOPI has gained a strong background in aircrafts, helicopters, weapons relocation and assistance to distressed submarines in numerous complex situations.

• MANOPI improved during critical situations the GIB-SAR design to finally set-up the Flying Team concept as a SAR methodology for fast and accurate Black Boxes localization and recovery.

MANOPI's FLYING TEAM CONCEPT

What have we learned from previous experiences ?

Efficiency is linked to sequencing operations step by step: 1/ Understand accident environment 2/ Locate hay stack 3/ Locate needles 4/ Determine wreck depth 5/ Select adequate rescue means 6/ Fast recovery by homing directly onto target using longitude and latitude coordinates

Needles metric positioning accuracy highly reduces recovery operations’ time and costs !

FLYING TEAM OPERATIONAL APPROACH

The Flying Team is composed of 3 experts, well trained and continuously kept at the highest level of expertise to conduct Black Boxes localization and recovery operations, using ACSA's suite of equipment and proceeding step by step in a very secure way.

- Team is flown to site on commercial airlines together with search equipment - On site mobilization of a vessel of opportunity - Transit to accident site, even in bad weather - Relocate hay stack and needles - Measure wreck depth

Team is ready to be flown 7/7 day to any place worldwide.

ACSA SYSTEMS

Continental Shelf Deep Water Ultra Deep Water (300 m) (2 000 m) (6 000 m)

Find Hay DETECTORDETECTOR-1000 -1000 Stack On going R&D Program* Locate Needles Unveiled early in 2013 GIB-SAR

Guide Recovery * Following mean AF-447 accident

DETECTOR-1000 - OPERATIONAL PROCEDURE

1. Dip Detector below thermocline and surface noise, 2. Acquire signal for 10 minutes, 3. Recover it back on board, 4. While transiting to next station, Process data: ULB is around or not,

5. Dip again until ULB is detected.

Detection without false alarm: Software output ULBs actual frequencies & repetition rates

Operations not dependant on weather conditions

DETECTOR-1000 - COVERAGE EXAMPLE

Detection range 5 km Search area 50x50 Km

49 Stations

GIB-SAR BUOYS - LOCALIZATION PRINCIPLE

Unlike traditional acoustic direction finders, ACSA proposes an innovative technique based on measuring the time of arrival of ULB's acoustic signals on a 4 buoys surface network drifting within the search area.

Each buoy measures the time of arrival (TOA*) of the signals and transmits this information together with its own D-GPS position to the Control and Display console installed on board the support ship using a local radio network.

The ULB acoustic signal propagation time is directly converted to ULB/buoy pseudo distance, knowing the sound velocity, then the position of the acoustic source is given by triangulation. The positions of the buoys are known in WGS-84 coordinates and so is the ULBs position.

* TOA is measured with a 10-4 accuracy (+/- 15 cm on distance measurements).

GIB-SAR BUOYS - LOCALIZATION PRINCIPLE

The ACSA's GIB-SAR system allows a 1 meter ULB's positioning accuracy in coastal and offshore waters up to 2.000 meters. It is also used for guidance of the recovery mean. For example, it only took 15 minutes, during a critical operation, in more than 1.000 meters, for a ROV to join an helicopter wreck as positioned by the GIB-SAR system.

TRIANGULATION PRINCIPLE

GIB-SAR BUOYS SYNOPSIS

GPS RADIO BOARD UHF

PROCESSOR

ACOUSTIC MODULE

Hydrophone

* TOA is measured with a 10-4 accuracy (+/- 15 cm on distance measurements).

POINTS TO KEEP IN MIND

By improving UW positioning accuracy by a factor 10, search area is reduced by a 100 factor and operations cost will follow !

Today, a positioning accuracy of 1 m is a reality on the continental shelf, 5 m at greater depth, when right equipment is employed and properly operated.

Such an accuracy open the path to new innovative underwater robotics solutions.

MANOPI is strongly willing to develop such solutions to offer a full package from positioning to recovery.

ACCIDENT TRACK RECORDS

Key operations have been conducted in the past together with the French Navy and the French Bureau of Investigation (BEA) :

• Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt – 2004,

• Sotchi, Russia - 2006,

• Saudi Arabia Red Sea - 2007.

ACCIDENTS TRACK RECORDS – Sharm-El-Sheikh, EGYPT 2004

• Crashed into the Red Sea shortly after takeoff approximately 6 nautical miles southwest of the airport.

• Due to the depth of the Red Sea in the area where the accident occured (approximately 1.000 meters), specialized recovery ressources were required.

ACCIDENTS TRACK RECORDS – Sharm-El-Sheikh, EGYPT 2004

FDR/CVR Recovery

• «The French Navy used an directional acoustic detector mounted on a pole. The seafloor being uncharted at that time, locating the beacons was complicated by possible reflections and echoes».

• 12 days after the crash, the French Navy called ACSA to narrow the search area.

• On January 15th, 4 hours after accessing the search area, ACSA system produced a new pinger position accurate to within +/- 5 meters.

• « A visual search of a grid created around the new pinger location resulted in the discovery of the FDR on January 16, 2004». © MANOPI, 2012. 34 MANOPI Investigation Organization

Capt. Kelada Egyptian Navy IIC

Frank Hilldrup Gérard Legauffre Olivier Ferrante US Acc Rep French Acc Rep BEA Liaison

Recovery Group FDR/CVR Group French Navy Systems Group Operations Group French Commercial Ships Other Groups

Technical advisors

2004 OPERATIONS TIME FRAME

PATMAR

Alertment

SOMME& TOURVILLE 1

CEPHISMER BEAUTEMPS Environment assesment

2 Resce means mobilization ACSA Localiser Guider Accurate localization 3 Récupérer

I. Batz Black boxes recovery

MOBILISATION & TRANSIT Ile de Batz 4 Janus Investigations

3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 31 2 4 6 8 10 11 1 2 3 4 5 6

Triangulation results

37.5 kHz

Emergency Locator Beacon

Positional uncertainty about 10 meters

Point Zéro

ACSA location

Black Sea Sotchi, RUSSIA 2006

• BEA Mission

• Airbus accident in the Black Sea • Depth : 500 meters

• Needles positioning : 4 Hours • Recovery: 5 weeks later, • Recorders where buried in mud !

Red Sea 2007 - Military Helicopter

• French Navy Mission

• Helicopter accident in the Red Sea • Depth : > 1.000 meters • Mission occurred at the end of ULBs’ battery life

• Helicopter positioning : 24 Hours – poor acoustic propagation due to biologic life (deep scattering layer) 13 min • Positioning accuracy +/- 5m • Recovery: 5 weeks later, • ROV found the helicopter in less DP Ship Log Book than 13 minutes, without sonar!

NEXT STEP

Photo IDB et ROV...

How to reduce recovery costs?

HOW TO REDUCE COSTS SOLUTIONS

- Get rid of DP Ship

- Advanced robotics solutions

- Is technology available today?

- Proposal is to move from TRL 5-6 level up to 7-8 How to reduce costs?

- MANOPI invites you to discuss how to meet this new challenge

- Depth objective: 3000 m

QUESTIONS AND DISCUSSIONS

How to reduce costs?

NEXT STEP - INVITATION TO VISIT US

Aix-en-Provence

POINTS OF CONTACT

Mail:

[email protected]

Cell:

+33 6 21 50 02 43

or visit: