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Topic:
Flights Safety about transport flight events
It means we are talking
about accidents (or serious incidents) related
to:
> Major airlines (Passengers, cargo)
> Regional airlines
> Charters
> Corporate
> Medevac
> Even Military transport flights
> Etc.
All leisure,
training organization, and general aviation
events are exclude, even though there
is here, as well, a lot to do if not
everything... I just made the choice
to work here on transport aviation.
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ALL
aviation accidents (or serious incidents) are made
by experts...
> Experienced
crews (more than 6000 hours flying time),
> Experienced crews (more than 1000 hours
on the aircraft),
> Judged pretty good vocational by the
other company crew members,
> (despite few exception) they were pretty
well trained about the aircraft procedures,
> (despite few exception) they were pretty
well trained about the company procedures,
> (despite few exception) they were strongly
well trained to CRM,
> All were very motivated crews.
The question is: why the preceding
criteria do not make possible to avoid accidents and serious
incidents?
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Right
or false statements about flight safety (Compiled
by NTSB)
"Without
a certain feeling to be infallible, a pilot could
not exert his job"
Facts: 73% of the
accidents in transport and 80% of
all the air crashes blame the actions
of all or a part of the crew.
"Captains
are more experienced and consequently are those
which make less errors"
Facts: In 80% of the accidents
of 1978 to 1990, Captains was
the Flying Pilot.
"Procedures
will always make it possible to manage the
lack of familiarity between crew members"
Facts: On 37 important
accidents, 73% took
place the first time the Captains
and the FO flew together.
"When
the situation is perceived as unusual by the
Non Flying Pilot... he often believes that
the Flying Pilot knows what it does!"
Facts: 83% of
the human errors in the important
accidents are the fact of defects
of monitoring or questioning.
"Night
flying is the best time to fly
safely"
Facts: 30% of the important accidents
took place during the night - and 13% of
the examined accidents were at night.
"Pilots
are sharper during takeoffs and landings than
during other phases of flight"
Facts: 78% of the important accidents take place
during either takeoff or the landing.
"Can
a pilot make a mistake during taxi?"
Facts: The errors made
during taxi have more consequences
than those done during the other
phases of flight. A study on
the serious accidents shows that 80% of
the errors during
taxi lead to an accident.
"First
Officers are younger, sharper in piloting,
and better communications procedures"
Facts: In the important
accidents concerning a defect
of communication, the FO carried
out 69% of the communication
errors, and more than 50% of
the accidents involved FO during
their first year of pilot (of
transport). |
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"It
is because the equipment gives erroneous information
that the planes hit the ground"
Facts: 90% of the
impacts with the ground involve
crews not observing the procedures.
"Leveling
off is one of the simplest manoeuvres"
Facts: 21% of
the incident reports imply nonregards
of altitude during climbs or
descents; most took place within
the 10 000 /11 000 ft layer.
"The
Flight Management System (FMS) solves all clearance
problems"
Facts: 48% of
the errors with the FMS involve
an error of trajectory follow-up
during departure; 78% involve
a bad coordination between the
crew members. FMS errors have
twice more chance to be notified
by Air Traffic Control than by
the crew member.
"Radio
communications loss are always the result of
serious breakdowns"
Facts: 52% of
the losses of radio communications
are the result of a misuse of
the radio equipment.
"Propellers
or engines blast is never a problem when aircraft
are far away from the terminals"
Facts: Practically half of
the incidents due to propellers
or engines blast occur on taxiways,
engines test areas, and adjacent
areas to the runways (usually
not too busy areas).
"Pilots
only very seldom let themselves to be pushed
press, in a way to to forget procedures"
Facts: When pilots are
in a hurry 63% of the
errors are carried out during
preflight, 34% during
taxi, 80% are carried
out during strong workloads,
and 48% show clearance
or trajectory respect default.
"There
is no reason pilots should be responsible..."
Facts: Researches show
that 96% of all the
violations in flight, are from
origin human...
o O o
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About
CRM...
CRM
was implemented in order to help crew working together
during normal operations and NON normal operations as well.
But during accidents (or serious incidents):
> During most of the
events CRM was poorly used...
> During some events, CRM
was not used at all...
Today, some specialists are talking about "failure
of CRM"
(Reasons
for the failure of CRM Training in Aviation, C. Johnson).
Others think CRM did not removed errors from operations,
and CRM training course are made in detriment of basic
training's which are not always reached by pilots.
I think it is more sound to state that we reached the
CRM limits (as it is performed nowadays). This means CRM
must necessarily evolve. But still is necessary
to be aware of it, and not to consider this training
course (as I heard it too often) "just one... lawful
obligation".
Lets conclude
with the following numbers, showing the need for CRM (NTSB
study regarding air carrier accidents):
> the 81% occurred when the Captain
was the Pilot Flying (PF) and the First Officer was
the Pilot Not Flying (PNF),
> 73% occurred on the first day
crew was flying together, and
> 44% occurred on the first flight
leg of the crew's first flight together.
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Years
after years the picture unfortunately is
the same...
Even with
the significant improvement of the safety culture during
the last decades, 2004 is yet a year with accidents, even
though the number decreased slightly. If some seem to be
satisfied with this light improvement, the reader letter
published in the letters section on the 8-14 February 2005
Flight International issue summarize pretty well that 2004
is not
such an impressive record regarding flight safety.
A good example is probably the 14 October 2004 Pinnacle
Airlines CRJ200 crash, during a ferry flight. The crew
wanted to fly at the limit aircraft ceiling. They experience
flame out on both engines. They would not be able to relight.
The
years 2005 and 2006, are strictly similar, with the following
examples:
- On 8 January 2005, an An-12B
cargo crashed after departing from Entebe (Uganda).
- On 19 February 2005, a British Airways 747
flew from Los Angeles to Manchester on
three engines only.
- On 7 April 2005, a China Eastern A340-300
scrapes its tail at Heathrow. Even though warned by air
traffic control, the captain decided to proceed on... It seems
luck saves the day again, as a reader wrote (10-16
May 2005 Flight International issue)...Years before a Japanese
Boeing 747 had a tail scrape. The repair of the damaged
rear pressure bulkhead was botched and later when it let
go, the fin exploded killing many. A Continental Boeing
777 had a tail scrape at Newark on 2 March and damaged
its rear pressure bulkhead. It was dutifully relanded.
Does this China Eastern Captain have amnesia, or is he
so poorly trained to take decision?
- We could think the previous
examples are pretty scarce, but the safety literature, unfortunately, is
plentiful. We could also think these events type are
from rising airlines. But is British Airways a new company?
Another example comes from JAPAN AIRLINES and shows the
astonishing safety policy used by the company since JAL
admitted safety wasn't top priority. This push the government to analyse
some safety events during the previous years, which appear
being not specific to the aeronautical system. But, it appears safety
was jeopardized in most of the events. This pushes airlines struggling
to reduce human errors.
The number of deaths recorded following
aerial disasters tripled in 2005 compared
to 2004. In 2005, the ICAO counted 713 deaths against 203
passengers killed in 2004, for 18 accidents aerial mortals
against 9 in 2004, whereas the total world number of flights
total maintained itself to about 25 millions for the two
years. Regarding the passengers number inreased of 100
millions for the same period, settling to some more 2 billions
in 2005.
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A
last but positive comment
For every event (accident or incident) we
forget the very large number of normal operations which
succeed to transport the passengers or cargo to their intented
destination.
In commercial aviation, the accident rate is one fatal
accident for every 2 millions of departures (between 1970
and 2003, fatal accident number was divided by 6, from
3 accidents to 0,5 for every million of departures).
Nevertheless, the negative impact on public and the injured
or dead passengers (as well as the people sometimes killed
or injured on the ground), deserve we work hard to cut this
statistic.
To end this paragraph, call in mind that one
accident (commercial flight) per
week is forecast in 2010. Meaning... tomorrow! |
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© CulturAiles,
1996-2009.
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Last
page change(s): 19 Jul. 2007 |
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v5.0 |
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