The fear of flying is a legitimate phobia that can ground someone for life. Despite statistics reminding us how safe airline flying is, countless people still refuse to fly or they reluctantly fly with great stress and anxiety. Although some people do not like to fly because they feel uncomfortable in enclosed spaces or because of their fear of heights, most of those people who fear flying are actually besieged by the prospect of crashing.

Fear of flying can be overcome

    According to an article featured on PBS.org, the chance of an average American being killed in a plane crash is about 1 in 11 million. That’s a pretty small chance, especially when you compare it to the average American’s chance of dying in a car accident: 1 in 5,000. Although this article states that this number can change based on your own personal flying habits (your chances of dying in a plane crash slightly increase the more you fly), the article still concludes by saying that airline flying is very safe.

   And yet there are people who can’t help but fear of dying in a plane crash. What are the reasons behind their fear, and how can they overcome this fear? Listed below are four reasons why people fear plane crashes and why they should toss those reasons into the trash.

1. Hijacking: This phobia became more prevalent after 9/11 and still keeps many people who used to enjoy flying from getting on an airplane ever again. Even if they continue to fly, many people still experience increased stress and even panic when flying due to this fear. Although hijackings can still occur (the chance can never be reduced to zero), airport security across the world has become substantially more stringent since 2001. In addition to airport security checkpoints, undercover agents are also used to constantly look out for and monitor suspicious activity.
2. Turbulence: Many people think that when a plane shakes, suddenly turns or drops a few feet in the air, it is crashing. This is just turbulence, which occurs frequently in unstable air. Indeed, one should keep in mind that the air we breathe and travel through not only moves horizontally, like the wind, but also up and down. Vertical movements of air are typically called updrafts or downdrafts. Sailors from centuries back know how violent downdrafts can be at sea. A sudden downdraft, like the ones associated with a squall, could roll a large square-rigger on its beam in a split second. Just like horizontal gusts of wind, updrafts and downdrafts exhibit irregular and apparently random fluctuations. This is enough to instill fear in anyone of us not used to such weather phenomena. Vertical fluctuations in air flow are what cause an airplane ride to be bumpy and trigger fear, although rarely so for pilots who are trained to slow down and deal with such conditions safely. Such fluctuations should not cause you to crash. Only extreme and very rare cases of turbulence could cause a crash, but then again pilots know how to avoid these pitfalls in the first place. They know how to interpret the weather and are furthermore backed by weather radar in the cockpit as well as by updated weather data sent by countless weather reporting stations on the ground, not to mention local weather reports made over the radio by other pilots flying in their vicinity.Even if your plane flies through powerful turbulence, the chances of the plane being damaged (let alone crashing) are slim to none. Of those airliners that suffered damage in violent turbulence, most landed safely without serious injury to passengers. In other words, passengers simply need to remember that turbulence rarely causes crashes, let alone deaths. Granted, injury can occur (such as bumping your head on the airplane ceiling or falling down in the aisle). For this reason, you should always keep your seatbelt buckled while in the air, in addition to during take-offs and landings, plus while taxiing to and from the airport terminal.
3. Airplane malfunction: Many passengers fear that instruments will fail in flight, wings will rip off or engines will stop. As far as instrument and system failure goes, all modern airliners are equipped with two (sometimes three) backup systems. Most never even experience a failure of the first system because they are maintained to prevent failure. Wings on modern airliners are designed to withstand high levels of stress caused by turbulence and stand little chance of structural failure. In fact, wings are designed to naturally flex before actually bending and then maybe failing. Should an airplane’s engines fail, the plane can in most cases function as a glider all the way down to a safe landing on a suitable surface with non-life threatening damage to the cabin. Pilots are trained to do exactly that if and when they should lose power on all engines, a pretty rare occurrence. Airplanes do not “fall out of the sky”. Instead, they are designed to remain controllable in a host of unlikely hazardous situations. Another thing to remember about airplane design is that airplanes are tested under stringent conditions in order to be certified as airworthy by government expert authorities and thereby allowed to carry passengers.
4. Mid-air collisions: airline flights operate under a flight plan for each flight, whether short or extended. Flight plans help air traffic control know where every aircraft expects to land and at what time. All take-offs and landings are managed by air traffic controllers who tell pilots when it’s OK to take-off and land, to proceed to planned cruise flight or start approach descent. Air traffic controllers use radars to keep track of all flights in their area. Their goal is to keep each take-off and landing well-separated to avoid collision. Pilots also use radar and their very own sharp eyes, weather allowing, to scan for and keep aware of nearby aircraft. All in all, the chances of a mid-air collision are very rare because there are several prevention tools in place, both technological and visual.

   Those of us who have a fear of flying should know that there are several resources out there to help understand how commercial airlines operate and why it is safe to fly. Many airlines and aircraft manufacturing companies have created short films on why flying is safe. There are also many books and programs available to help people understand and overcome their fear of flying. These resources can be easily found through a quick Internet search. You may also want to check these:
1) Fear of Flying Help
2) How Stuff Works
 

About our guest contributor:  Courtney is writer and editor for Airport Management Degrees. In her spare time, she likes to write guest articles for various websites on various topics of interest.

PS: Our guest author, Courtney Henderson, and people running CivAv.com make no representations as to the effectiveness of the fear of flying programs linked above. Would-be and actual airline passengers are invited to shop around and find the program that suits them best.

   Case NOT closed: that 2010 verdict did not sit well with French prosecutors and lawyers for Continental Airlines. They filed an appeal which is now scheduled to be heard in March of 2012 in Versailles, near Paris. The precise grounds of appeal are not readily available at this stage, but it can be assumed that they will be publicly disclosed shortly.

   The unusual aspect of the upcoming appeal proceedings is that the appeal will involve issues of fact in addition to strict issues of law. This appeal has all the makings of a new trial. Experts will be called again to testify possibly about fresh evidence related to the crash that claimed 113 lives just short of 12 years ago.

   Another unusual aspect of the first trial and the upcoming appeal proceedings is that the joint French-British Concorde venture did not lead to charges being laid against British entities and personnel that participated in the design of the supersonic aircraft. As a matter of fact, despite similar incidents (i.e.: a blown tire on take-off) in the operation of Concorde aircraft by British Airways before the Paris crash of an Air France sister aircraft, the focus of the judicial proceedings has always been so far on French legal entities or individuals, and more so on Continental Airlines for its responsibility in the fateful dropping on the runway of a small metal strip from one of its aircraft immediately ahead of Concorde’s take-off on the same runway.

   The question that has arisen in many people’s mind is whether Continental Airlines was scape-goated during the technical investigation of the crash and the subsequent legal proceedings.

   Will the whole case be reopened in an attempt to counter allegations that there was an agreement of sorts among parties involved in the technical investigation of the crash or named in the judicial proceedings to lean one way to the detriment of Continental? 

   A number of experts still maintain that it takes more than a small strip of metal and the consenquent blow-up of a single tire to bring down an airliner in light of strict airworthiness standards and related service bulletins. Or, as others question, was it wise on the part of Concorde’s engineers to design the underside of the delta wing in a way that a strike by a piece of a blown tire on take-off could send a powerful shock wave through the fuel cells within Concorde’s wing, leading to a fuel leak that was possibly ignited by arcing electrical wires beneath the stricken supersonic? 

   It does seem as if the magnificent speed bird had a peculiar Achilles’ Heel. Technical assumptions abound about causal factors of of the crash. Rumours have been circulated to the effect that the doomed Concorde exceeded its maximum take-off weight by six tons and that it took off with a tail wind component. Who is to know for sure? Lawyers for Continental also argued in the lower court that ignited fuel started to escape from Concorde before its main landing gear overran the piece of metal dropped by the preceding Continental airliner. For the average Joe, such allegations are confusing and it’s not easy to find out how they were dealt with by the presiding judge in the lower court.

   The surprising finding by the lower court that the aircraft maintenance mechanic who installed the unsteady metal strip on the Continental jet that took-off ahead of Concorde must have forseen the catastrophic consequences of his shoddy workmanship. In fact, that point might very well be raised on appeal. (Please note that your diligent blogger here can only make an approximation about the ‘manslaughter’ or ‘negligence causing death’ charge for lack or knowledge of French law.)

   At any rate, the period from March to May of 2012 will generate much attention amongst the commercial aviation community and, to some extent, the public at large.

   Concorde was an iconic supersonic aircraft in France. Some may have turned their attention to other topics of interest over the last 12 years, while others still seek closure on the prestigious era of a French-designed marvel of an airliner, not to forget similarly concerned people on the British side.

   To what extent has French pride obscured technical and legal reasoning during the proceedings held by the lower court in Pontoise two years ago, if any connection at all? What lessons can the whole civil aviation community derive from the Paris crash and the demise of the supersonic Concorde program? We are likely to find out in 2012.

   Meanwhile, the French technical investigation authorities (known as the “BEA”) are to release their final investigation report also in the course of 2012, regarding the causes of the downing of Air France flight 447 in June of 2009, in the middle of the Atlantic ocean, also with no survivors.

   Air travellers’ confidence in the overall safety of airline transport remains strong. And it should remain strong after the final judicial outcome of the Air France Concorde crash as well as the more recent crash of the Air France Airbus 330 en route from Rio to Paris, provided the judicial outcome of both tragedies is clear, all-encompassing and entirely justified.

   On a side-note, there remains a demand for public supersonic air transport. In order to respond to such demand, a radically new generation of supersonic aircraft will need to be designed. According to aviation media, that new step in supersonic transport is not around the corner. Launching a new aircraft capable of carrying paying passengers at Mach 2 or 3 over long distances appears for now to be beyond the financial reach of aircraft manufacturers.

   Male and female civilian pilots became part of the solution to provide the RAF and Allied Forces with badly needed aircraft of various types and roles to face and repel the German onslaught from European skies. Because of the shortage of trained military pilots for aerial combat and other flying missions, civilian pilots played a key role in ferrying newly-built military aircraft.

   Their contribution to the War Effort is well documented by JunoBeach.org as well as, in the case of female civilian pilots, by the Women’s Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron (WAFS). A smaller group of female civilian pilots was also known as “Spitfire Women“. In general, female civilian pilots ferried quite a variety of military aircraft with little time to become acquainted with new aircraft types before undertaking their journey across the North Atlantic.

   For many civilian pilots involved in ferrying military aircraft, flying the Spitfire was considered as the ultimate assignment because the Spitfire was viewed as one of the most advanced military aircraft at the time, and still is nowadays for non-military purposes, in terms of single piston-engine aircraft.

   Today, November 11, 2011, this blogger salutes civilian pilots who took the gamble again and again of ferrying military aircraft during World War II, mainly over the North Atlantic to their assigned destination in England, in all sorts of weather conditions. Not all returned alive, needless to say.

   Rumour has it now that the BEA might make a finding of ‘excessive workload’ on the flight crew as a result of the Airbus 330’s computers defaulting to ‘Alternate’ mode when the airspeed sensors became ice-clogged. There was a lot of confusion in the cockpit. That much we know from the beginning when the CVR and FDR were finally recovered from a depth of 4 km (nearly 6,000 feet).

   The BEA (France’s equivalent to the American NTSB) might go as far as stating that the workload was excessive on the crew to the point of creating ‘unsafe conditions’, as a contributing factor in the AF447 crash. This finding, if confirmed by public authorities, would throw the ball back in Airbus’ court, as well as Air France and the Pitot tube manufacturer, all of whom were aware of the defective design of the Pitot tube and attendant consequences years before the fatal crash.

 Despite outward appearances (as publicized in the damaging book on the AF447 flight crew performance released last week), the flight crew might not likely have to shoulder significant blame for the crash.

  The point is the AF 447 flight crew was facing excessive workload from the aut0-pilot disconnect onward during the fatal crash of flight AF447.

  Airbus Industries (now EADS) and Air France should have alledgedly been aware, long before the AF447 crash, of such foreseable consequences of ice-clogged Pitot tubes then in use on this model of Airbus aircraft.

   This is a tough question few aviation experts are willing to face head-on.  Yet, given the spate of mishaps involving highly automated airliners and resulting in in-flight incidents and, much less frequently, in aviation accidents with significant loss of life, hardly anyone involved with designing the hardware and software behind the automation of modern airliners can escape the question.

   At present, there are no clear-cut answers. Some aviation safety investigation experts are still suggesting that on-board fly-by-wire hardware and software be improved in order for airline pilots to actually remain in charge of the airplane at any flight stage and be able to respond to unexpected in-flight challenges as they would with a conventional aircraft. Yet, nobody is tackling the basic underlying question:  Why are competent airline pilots sometimes unable to deal, in tight circumstances, with both the benefits and limitations of highly automated fly-by-wire controlled airliners?

Vagaries of flight automation

   Why, for instance, should high-tech airliner operating manuals state that pilots are not to interfere with the auto-land mode (q.v. by flying the aircraft manually) once auto-land is selected? Is the underlying message that, once committed to auto-land, pilots must stick with it no matter what - for instance, during a Category III landing - except for a pilot ordered go-around?

   This leads to another question: could it be that the more technologically advanced airliners are, the more pilots are inclined to remain hands-off during cruise-climb, cruise, descent, approach or landing stages of flight, despite pilot statements to the contrary?

   Well, there is the crux of the case.

   At present, airlines and public air transport authorities need to make a clear distinction  between electronically assisted flight control and full flight management and control automation. Moreover, the initial and proficiency training of airline pilots needs further fine tuning in either case. 

   The tragic but sadly avoidable crash of AF447 on June 1, 2009, is but one major and recent accident involving advanced aircraft automation, awaiting technical recommendations from civil aviation authorities, that may provide some reassurance and solace to relatives and friends of victims of the crash that the industry can learn from its mistakes.

   Modern airline flight operations appear to industry observers, including this humble blogger, who are unfamiliar with the latest on-board automation features, as a radical change in flying philosophy. Pilots of technologically advanced airliners no longer have direct three-axis and engine power inputs on such aircraft. Instead, they have to deal with a third party in the cockpit: the on-board flight management and control system run by one or more computers. This is a major mind-shift that pilots of so-called conventional aircraft and the airline industry at large have to contend with and catch up to, by relying more than ever on continuing and close support from aircraft manufacturers.  And so do civil aviation regulatory authorities.

   There isn’t much room at all for aviation safety stakeholders to play any sort of cat and mouse game with each other, while air transport flight automation is making quantum leaps. The investigation into Air France flight AF447 disaster that occurred on June 1, 2009, is a case in point.

   The third status report by the BEA results from its analysis so far of the aircraft’s CVR and FDR recently recovered from the ocean’s floor after a lengthy search mission of the crash area in unusually deep waters.

   The BEA status report dated today can be read here.

   Keeping in mind that today’s report is still an interim one, indications so far point to the following partial observations:

- the crash may have been averted but for pilot error

- insufficient cockpit crew management procedures by the two copilots (the First Officer and a back-up pilot) while the Captain was resting outside the cockpit;

- Pitot icing + faulty IAS response procedures not initiated by flight crew for lack of company training

- so far unexplained erratic manual flight control inputs by the flying pilot prior to stall and during stall

- temporary invalid airspeed readouts caused by faulty on-board equipment, which may have confused the flight crew

- so far unexplained nose-up trim to 13 degrees maintained during stall until contact with ocean

- all 3 pilots (Captain back in the cockpit) failed to identify symptoms of stall and to heed system warnings of stall

- flight crew likely unaware of excessive angle of attack owing to possible improper on-board system design

   As the day unfolds, numerous English-language aviation websites are analyzing the BEA’s third investigation status report. See, for example: Aviation Brief and Flight Global.

   The BEA status report issued today does not ascribe legal blame nor will its final report. The BEA’s role  is to make neutral and expert findings on the cause and contributing factors of the crash to prevent similar accidents from reoccurring.

   However, it can be readily seen that a number of entities are involved in some way or another in the crash: Air France for possible lack of flight crew training and for not issuing special procedures; EADS (Airbus Industries) for possible design flaws of the A-330 flight control systems; flight crew members (all three died in the crash) for aircraft operating errors; Pitot tubes manufacturer for design fault and Air France for not responding to previous instances Pitot tube malfunction.

   One can expect a strong response from airline pilots’ unions against findings of pilot error.

   The crash of AF447 will lead to both criminal and civil proceedings, some of which are already underway.

   CivAv.com considers it equally important to pass on the NTSB’s major safety tips as a matter of public interest, with no commercial purpose.

   The NTSB is widely known for its concern in matters of transportation safety and it’s thoroughness in the study of transportation safety deficiencies.

   The list of major tips numbers 10. It is significant that many apply to civil aviation operations and to motor vehicle driving, while some tips are common to more than one mode of transportation, if not all.

   Furthermore, it should not be all that difficult to memorize the tips that apply specifically to the transportation modes that you, dear readers, can act upon as a matter of individual reflex or corporate policy:

1. Promote pilot and air traffic controller professionalism

2. Address human fatigue

3. Promote teen driving safety

4. Improve general aviation safety

5. Improve motorcycle safety

6. Require safety management systems

7. Improve runway safety

8. Address alcohol-impaired driving

9. Improve bus occupant safety

10.Require image and onboard data recorders

ALL CREDIT DUE TO THE NATIONAL TRANSPORTATION SAFETY BOARD (U.S.A.)

Below is a partial list of useful links pertaining to civil aviation safety:

- NTSB

- Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB)

- European Aviation Safety Agency  (EASA)   Please note that not all E.U. member states have relinquished full civil aviation safety authority to EASA.

   A routine flight it was supposed to be, but for an unpredictable event - yet to be confirmed - that was going to unleash a chain reaction leading to a deeply disturbing civil aviation accident in recent times.

  Such a sudden statement, in the first paragraph above, can be interpreted as an overall and quick assessment of the doomed airliner’s situation which, after reaching an unplanned altitude of 38,000 feet, went into an unrecoverable stall and final plunge in the ocean below, at an abnormal descent rate of about 10,000 feet per minute.

   AF447 was trapped, according to various sources, in an aerodynamic condition, perhaps a stall, that the flight crew was unable to correct, and that resulted in a rate of descent equivalent to nearly 120 miles per hour vertical speed, much greater than the Airbus 330′s  glide ratio. Something was terribly wrong, but what was causing it? To this day, over two years after the crash, we still don’t know for sure. Many scenarios are being circulated in aviation circles, none conclusive so far. It is now up to France’s Bureau d’enquêtes et d’analyses (BEA) to identify and report on the most plausible triggering event or events that led to the crash of AF447, as well as on ways to prevent such a deadly occurrence.

   Why did this accident happen in the first place on a routine long-distance flight? How could this happen on a modern airliner supposedly equipped with the best computerized flight control system available at the time, not to mention the captain and the first officer’s cumulative qualifications and experience?

   There seems to have been a total disconnect here between man and machine, perhaps comparable to the one imagined in the acclaimed Space Odyssey 2001 science-fiction novel written by Arthur C. Clarke decades ago. A well trained crew, on the one hand, and an ‘intelligent’ space craft, on the other, working at cross-purposes.

   Most readers of this blog would know how simple a Pitot Tube is (also called an airspeed sensor), however sophisticated the airliner it is attached to. Comparing forward dynamic air pressure against static pressure is its basic function.

   In the case of AF447, there were three such identical Pitot tubes providing essential information to the fly-by-wire computers and auto-pilot operating the airliner under the watchful eyes of the flight crew. Icing is the suspected culprit for knocking off all three airspeed probes in a matter of minutes.

   There were three Pitot tubes feeding information to the three on-board computers. There were three flight crew members in the cockpit when trouble began, each as clued-out as the other, as AF447 was about to start a three minute fatal plunge in the Atlantic Ocean below.

   ‘Hal’, in the Space Odyssey 2001 story, was the one and single journey control computer, designed on heuristic principles allowing it to follow dutifully preprogrammed mission instructions while learning to adapt to various unplanned situations as the space mission unfolded. In short, Hal was able to correct, without human input, what it perceived to be conflicting instructions. Unfortunately, as the novel shows, Hal’s logic did not always match that of humans. Its logic was preeminent when a man/machine conflict of logic arose, and Hal’s logic prevailed with disastrous consequences, not out of hubris, but simply because it genuinely believed to be acting in the best interest of the space mission. 

"Discovery" spaceship in Space Odyssey 2001

  This arrangement stands technically but not necessarily conceptually, in contrast to AF447′s three fully programmed, mutually cross-checking computers relying on input data from… three identical Pitot tubes, among other essential sensors.

   AF447′s computers were not so bold as Hal. When the Airbus’ fly-by-wire system computers could no longer handle the situation, they handed control of the airliner over to the pilots by disconnecting the autopilot and displaying illogical (read: “no longer valid”) data on flight instruments in the cockpit. Quite a double whammy for the flight crew, at a time when the airliner was in a tight area of its flight envelope! 

Airbus A-330 operated by Air France

   In recent months, a French daily ran an article stating that, had the flight crew followed proper procedures, the Airbus A-330 operated on AF447 would have been flyable without the autopilot. Whether that was the case, is for the BEA to confirm or deny. This might be one of the pivotal issues in the current technical investigation. With time, we’ll learn from the BEA whether the flight crew was adequately trained, if trained at all, to deal with such unlikely situations.

   Even if the BEA were to find that the Airbus A-330 operated on AF447 was manually recoverable from an upset at 35,000 feet, the conceptual question will remain as to whether automation turned the table on Airbus designers and on travellers the aircraft was supposed to carry safely to destination.

    Could it be that 30 years ago or so, airline pilots caught in a situation similar to the AF447 flight crew would have said “We no longer have any reliable indications?“  After all, in those days, there were no such thing as a ‘computer laws’ in the cockpit of airliners.  Today’s airline pilots fly with a different frame of mind in many ways because of automation, by far for the better, one would think.

   The three Pitot tubes were as good as one another while subject to identical vagaries due to freezing conditions that prevailed in the area where AF447 went down with its precious load of unsuspecting passengers and crew, not to mention their clueless relatives, friends and associates ready to meet them at the Paris airport or at other final destinations.

   Months after the AF447 crash, Boeing proudly advertised that its (slow-coming) Dreamliner, the B-787, was NOT flown by computers. Before and after the sad crash of AF447, competition between Airbus Industries (EADS) and Boeing was fierce and still is, witness the 49th International Paris Airshow. It begs the same old question: which way is the man vs. machine interface evolving on trend-setting modern airliners?  Is improving the man/machine interface a question of better flight control system design or better pilot training, or both?

   Could it be that the three hapless flight crew members on duty on AF447, when the ‘music died’, decades after the publication of Space Odyssey 2001, were totally clued out as to what situation they were in? Situational awareness was of no help? Known emergency procedures were of no help? Cockpit Crew Management procedures were of no help either, even with three pilots in the cockpit instead of the usual roster of two? The void as to what flight conditions hit AF447 is huge for the time being.

   What are the designers of the Airbus A-330 thinking to themselves at present? Flight crew error or design error, or a mixture of both? It takes a lot of humility to canvass all three possibilities from the comfort of ground-based offices.

   The remaining Space Odyssey 2001 astronauts unknowingly monitored by the eye of Hal, the lip-reading computer, finally managed to shut it down, one logic module at a time. There was no rush in doing so, just method and personal resolve by the remaining astronauts.  In contrast, the AF447 flight crew did not have much time to take appropriate action and recover from the high altitude jet upset.

   AF447, with its three flight crew in the cockpit, with three minutes to go before the fatal splash-down, from an altitude of about 30,000 feet, did not have the luxury of time. They could not figure out, so it seems, what action to take in their predicament, one that was more difficult to deal with, having to contend with three runaway computers because of three allegedly iced-up Pitot tubes. As AF447 neared the surface of the Atlantic ocean in warmer air, the Pitot tubes started to respond again. By then, it was most likely too late to regain control of the aircraft.

   Somewhere in France in the near future, a sort of triumvirate of investigative, industrial and judicial interests will eventually issue findings, positions and accusations over the unjustifiable loss of too many passengers and crew in the world’s most advanced civil aviation systems.  At this point, one can only trust they will actually behave as a triumvirate for the betterment of civil aviation safety.

   For a more sobber and technical view of man/machine interface issues in the world of advanced airliners, please check this three-year old news item regarding a Qantas Airlines incident.

   The alleged fact, for example, that the pilot-in command (P-I-C) was not in the cockpit at the time the AF447′s Airbus 330 fell out of the sky in the equatorial zone on its way across the Atlantic ocean to Paris, made immediate headlines. It’s the kind of sensational information that news headlines are made of, until superseded by corrective updates.

   Airline pilots associations and unions have every right to be concerned about the knee-jerk attitude found in early press releases by aviation representatives.

   Even though the root cause of major aviation accidents is nearly impossible to isolate, airline executives and the media are prompt to call for “pilot error”.  Yet these same individuals know very well that aviation safety culture is at the centre of countless major aviation accidents. Aviation safety culture is not a person, real or corporate, on whom courts can lay liability for air disaster. Witness the French lower court’s ruling, last December, over the July 2000 supersonic Concorde crash at the Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris. The court unwisely laid the blame squarely on an aircraft maintenance engineer and his supervisor, naturally, employed by Delta Airlines.  See the Concorde saga earlier in this blog.

   With the advent of jumbo jets in the 70s and after, a theoretical question was raised a few times, one showing the temporary disconnect between safety regulations and pilot-in-commands’ responsibilities: can the P-I-C of a departing Boeing 747, for example, be held accountable for all safety matters related to the planned flight or not?  Who provides the load sheet to the P-I-C after the jumbo jet is fully loaded with fuel and payload, including number and distribution of passengers on board? Is the P-I-C expected to visually check that the list of contents of the jumbo jet shown on the load sheet is accurate?

   The common sense answer is that the P-I-C of a large aircraft is entitled to rely on the work performed by well trained company ground crew prior to push-back from the gate. Check, for instance, the number of times provisions of the Canadian Aviation Regulations start by stating: “The pilot-in-command of an aircraft shall ensure that...?”  To “ensure” is just about the best these pilots can do. In that verb resides the duty of  “due diligence”  pilots are held to, as in many regulated professions . Pilots of large aircraft cannot personally guarantee success at all stages of flight and need to rely on other aviation professionals to fly aircraft from A to B safely.

   As we have seen with the Gimli Glider’ case back in early 80s, the P-I-C of an Air Canada Boeing 767, had to make a quick mental calculation about the fuel uplift provided to him in liters in order to convert liters to pounds of fuel. The captain erred, simple as that. But the litre to pound conversion, as simple as it may appear from the comfort of our home or offices is something different when the pilot is busy enough with pre-departure checks and signing documents submitted by ground crew. As luck would have it in the ‘Gimli Glider’ case, an important fuel gauge in the cockpit was tagged as unserviceable. As a result, the Boeing 767 ran out of fuel about mid-way through the flight.  However, it was later agreed, after the heroic engine-out landing at Gimli aerodrome near Winnipeg with no casualties and relatively little damage to the airliner (compared to what it could have been), that the relevant operating manual needed to be reworded to better account for the co-existence of both measuring systems in civil aviation: the imperial one and the metric one.  Do such improvements to flight operating manuals support the theory of  pilot error as the central cause of an aviation accident? Let’s be real.

   And this case is one among so many other aviation mishaps where pilot error was excusively and initially on many persons’ mind.

   Remember the more recent Swissair 111 horrific crash off Canada’s East Coast, near Peggy’s Cove? Why did it take the crew nearly 20 minutes to go through the checklist regarding smoke in the cockpit at a point in flight where every minute mattered to get the doomed jumbo jet down safely on the ground at Halifax Int’l (as it was then called)? Was the pilot expected to breach company policy and chuck the emergency checklist away?

   It goes both ways, doesn’t it? In the Swissair 111 case, airline safety culture was so tight it probably gave pilots less personal initiative in emergency situations. Who knows for sure, though? However, the common theme and repeated lesson are that airlines and pilots need to work closer together at all practical times on safety culture, in a way that both management and pilots are ad idem on safety issues. Any airline at odds with the pilots’ union, for instance, over the expiry of the collective agreement and that consequently allows mutual communications over safety matters to fall by the way side, is not operating at peak safety level. Airline pilots are not mercenaries. A friendly employment environment is naturally conducive to pilots staying more focused during flight duty time. This is trite observation and yet in the real world, things do not always support it.

    So, whatever happened, in a general way, to AF447 on its way to Paris between Brazil and Senegal, might soon be known as the contents of the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder are likely to be made public sooner than originally stated, as a result of pressure from stakeholders in the deadly crash, and from the public at large who has the right to know what went wrong.  What purposes would prolonged secrecy really serve by withholding the contents of the black boxes?  Surely not certainty of accident cause, because there is no such thing as a single cause in any major aviation accident (repetition intended.)

   To all concerned: please hold your fire after obtaining raw information from the black boxes. Think of AF447 and its doomed passengers and crew as part of a large system managed and operated by many skilled players, most of them safely on the ground when tragedy strikes on rare occasions. In truth, any rare occasion is  still too much. Work is continuously underway to reach 100% safety in civil aviation.

   For those who don’t already know: there is nothing basically wrong with the pilot-in-command of a large airliner taking a nap during the cruise stage of a long flight, while a back-up pilot fills in alongside the first officer during the captain’s needed break.

   Now, to hear from experts on the civil aviation safety record, here is a link worth checking: Flightglobal Safety Review. Their take, as can be expected, is that there is plenty of room to improve aviation safety even though aviation remains statistically one of the safest modes of public transport. Flightglobal looks at civil aviation safety from a broad historical perspective. That alone puts their report on aviation safety a couple of notches above similar reports.

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