In response to the recent earthquake and tsunami that brought devastation to Japan and the Pacific Rim, exactEarth announced on 12th March that it is offering its data service free of charge for the next two weeks to any competent maritime authority wishing to have access to their vessels anywhere in the Pacific Rim.

Society may already be dangerously over-reliant on satellite radio navigation systems like GPS, the Royal Academy of Engineering warned in a report published on 8th March. The range of applications using the technology is now so broad that, without adequate independent backup, signal failure or interference could potentially affect safety systems and other critical parts of the economy.

Related: GPS vulnerabilities and the benefits of eLoran.

The General Lighthouse Authorities of the UK and Ireland (GLAs) fully support the findings of the Royal Academy of Engineering’s paper on the dangers of heavy dependency on GPS, discussed on 10th March by Professor Martyn Thomas at the 2011 GNSS Interference, Detection and Monitoring Conference.

Over the last few years, the GLAs have conducted two GPS jamming trials to investigate and demonstrate the effects of GPS failure on the maritime industry, which has an enormous reliance on GPS for positioning, navigation and timing information.

It was announced from Apeldoorn in The Netherlands on 2nd March that HITT NV, supplier of traffic management, hydrographic and navigation systems for aviation and shipping were in exclusive discussions with the owners of IVS 3D with the objective to merge their activities with the hydrographic division of HITT.

On 2nd March the EGNOS Safety-of-Life signal was formally declared available to aviation, according to a report from the European Space Agency (ESA). For the first time, space-based navigation signals have become officially usable for the critical task of vertically guiding aircraft during landing approaches.

CANSO, the Civil Air Navigation Services Organisation, announced on 2nd March the appointment of Robert Hutchison as Director of Communications and Marketing. He took up his appointment the day before reporting to Director General Graham Lake.

It was announced from Northrop Grumman Corporation on 1st March that it had been selected to supply bridge navigation systems for nine new mid-shore patrol vessels to be built for the Canadian Coast Guard.

The House of Commons Science and Technology Committee published its report on 2nd March into studies of last year’s volcanic ash occurrence which limited air traffic over much of north west Europe. Entitled “Too little, too late” it is apparent that the British Government left scientific advice to last minute in the volcanic ash emergency, it was concluded by the Members of Parliament who comprised the Committee.

Global shipping chiefs called upon the world to help secure the release of hundreds of innocent seafarers snatched by Somali pirates, it was reported from London on 1st March.

The Round Table of International Shipping Associations comprises BIMCO, ICS/ISF, INTERCARGO and INTERTANKO and has embarked on a major campaign to encourage over a million people to heap pressure on their national governments to crackdown on piracy.

The International Federation of Air Line Pilots’ Associations (IFALPA) announced on 21st February that as a result of its collaboration with the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), the latest (2011-2012) edition of The ICAO Emergency Response Guidance Manual (ERG) has been published.

‘Red Book’, as the ERG is known, is the industry’s standard guide for
aircraft incidents involving dangerous goods, and contains general information on the factors that may need to be considered when dealing with such incidents.

The Brussels-based European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation Organisation (EUROCONTROL) announced early in February that in the year since it was signed, PENS – the Pan European Network Services Services – initiative has achieved two major milestones.

The first milestone has seen all European Air Database (EAD) services migrated from a dedicated IP network to PENS.

The second important milestone achieved at the end of 2010 was the agreement to create a dedicated PENS infrastructure to support the validation of Single European Sky ATM Research (SESAR).

At 1153 Western Standard Time on 3rd October 2009, the pilot of an Air Tractor Inc. 502 aircraft, registered VH-ODP, took off from an agricultural airstrip on a property about 5 km north-east of Wickepin, Western Australia to conduct agricultural spraying operations.

A short time later, the owner of the property discovered the wreckage of
the aircraft, which had impacted the ground in an inverted attitude, fatally
injuring the pilot.

The investigation did not identify any organisational or systemic issues
that might adversely affect the future safety of aviation operations.

The International Union of Marine Insurance (IUMI) has welcomed the announcement by the International Chamber of Shipping (an affiliate member
of IUMI) that it is now taking a more neutral position on the use of private armed security personnel on board ships to protect them from pirates. This is precisely the stance adopted by IUMI, which announced in January that it was up to individual insurers whether to provide cover for ships and operators if private armed guards were employed on board.

The International Arctic Science Committee (IASC) announced in late February that the IASC Medal for 2011 will be awarded to Professor Martin Jakobsson.

Martin Jakobsson represents a new generation of Arctic scientists for whom multinational and cross-disciplinary science comes naturally. His view that data should be open and accessible for all research is part of his success as illustrated by the wide use of the International Bathymetric Chart of the Arctic Ocean (IBCAO). This chart is fundamental to understanding of the Arctic, and has been cited in several thousand publications in areas such as oceanography, tectonics and palaeo-climate.

Within the Action Plan to promote this year’s World Maritime Day theme ?
Piracy: Orchestrating the Response, a meeting took place at IMO Headquarters on
17th February between IMO Secretary-General Admiral Efthimios E. Mitropoulos
and industry and seafarer representatives. All re-iterated the need for urgent and co-ordinated action from Governments, the shipping industry and the maritime community to address the escalating crisis of kidnap and ransom of seafarers off the coast of Somalia, in the Gulf of Aden, in the Arabian Sea and in the western Indian Ocean.

Adoption of a roadmap by 14 ICAO Member States to further protect global air transport from terrorist and other security threats was praised by the Secretary General of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), Raymond Benjamin, at the conclusion of a two-day regional aviation security conference in
New Delhi on 15th February.

The annual number of passengers worldwide will increase from 2.5 billion to 5 billion over the next 20 years and the number of flights from 26 million to 50 million, Raymond Benjamin, Secretary General of ICAO told a luncheon in Canada on 17th February. The major challenge for the air transport sector will be to manage this sustained growth and, at the same time, improve the safety, security and sustainability of civil aviation.

Local authorities in the United Kingdom will be given greater control over how their roads appear on maps and satellite navigation systems, it was announced in February by Local and Regional Transport Minister, Norman Baker, as part of bureaucracy-cutting proposals.

Northrop Grumman Corporation’s Sperry Marine business unit supplied the navigation, communications and safety systems for Royal Caribbean’s newest cruise ship, Allure of the Seas, which just completed hers maiden voyage from the yard in Finland to home port of Port Everglades, Florida.

At about 0935 Papua New Guinea local time on 26th September 2010, a Cessna Company T210L aircraft, registered VH-LMT, was being operated on a private, visual flight rules, flight from Tufi to Gurney, Papua New Guinea with the pilot and four passengers on board. When the aircraft was about 46 km north-east of Gurney, the engine lost power and the pilot conducted a ditching into shallow water adjacent to a beach. The aircraft was reported to have sustained minor damage and none of the occupants were injured.

The Hon. Jason Clare, MP., Australian Minister for Defence Materiel addressed the Australian Defence Magazine Conference at the Hyatt Hotel, Canberra, on 16th February.

Conference had the theme, ‘A Big Year Ahead’. Inter alia the Minister said, ‘In the Air Force we will take delivery of the final nine Boeing F18 Super Hornets; and work towards Initial Operating Capability on Wedgetail, the Airborne Early Warning & Control [AEW&C] aircraft.

On 8th February the International Federation of Airline Pilots Associations (IFALPA), the global voice of airline pilots, issued its Vision Statement entitled ‘The Future of Air Navigation’.

This document considers ICAO’s role and the role of governments; the roles of the air navigation service providers and that of the aviation industry.

It was reported on 11th February that members of the Italian Coast Guard have gathered at ESA to attend an advanced training workshop on the latest space technologies for maritime monitoring and surveillance and to identify future opportunities for collaboration. ESA and the Italian Coast Guard have been collaborating for nearly 20 years on satellite-based services for vessel and oil pollution surveillance in the Mediterranean as well as in international waters.

Electronic navigation specialist MARIS and training company Seagull have reached an agreement to develop a comprehensive product-specific computer-based training ECDIS (Electronic Chart Display and Information System) module, it was reported at the end of January.

In order to replace paper charts, ECDIS systems must fulfil considerable technical requirements laid down in the IMO ECDIS Performance Standards. New requirements for competence and training have been amended in the STCW convention. As well as including approved ECDIS simulator training, the standard opens up wider delivery sources of training, including onboard instruction.

At about 0945 (GMT), on 10th February a Swearingen SA-227 Metroliner (Spanish registration EC-ITP), operated by Flightline/Manx2 Air as flight 7100 from Belfast, Northern Ireland, crashed after attempting a landing at Cork Airport, Cork, Ireland. Twelve people were aboard the aircraft, and there are reports of both fatalities and survivors.

The National Transportation Safety Board reported later that day that it was sending three investigators to assist the Government of Ireland as it investigates the crash.