AircraftNews.Com

There is a saying that if one slowly heats a pot of water with a live frog in it the frog will go to sleep and not get out and so get cooked whereas if he is dropped into a hot pot he will leap out. So it is in many situations in life. We have it in aviation where slowly evolving situations get way past a point where some action should be taken because each development is incremental and not so different from the last situation. So it is with Airbus pitots and standby instruments and now with Flight 188 overflying its destination I think we have the same thing. It does not really matter if they went to sleep or lost track of time there was considerable potential for trouble. Much has been made of the poor match of the human physiology and performance and yet steadily the man is being taken out of the loop in flying so that such things can happen. An extraordinary number of RPT flights pass uneventfully but where a trend emerges it should be addressed. Ground control is now possible and studies should be made, discussed and decisions taken. Pilots do not have to leave the cockpit. It is just another logical progression. The Helios tragedy where apparently a cabin crew member was walking about with a portable O2 system but unable to enter the cockpit is another situation where ground control could have saved hundreds. The reasons why this has not happened are many and various and to do with how aviation has evolved a rigid and inflexible regulatory process. Vested interests are many but it is mainly a sort of general inertia and no one has had the courage really to say come on guys wake up or more to the point, hear those who have been saying such. As usual there will be wails of technical difficulty and cost but it seems clear that it is going to be a small cost in the long-term and long over due for considerations. Maybe the risk of different sort of hostile take over is behind the resistance but we seem to find ways to trust our fellow men in many other situations. Why not? Read more…

There has been a deafening silence in the general press about the AF 447 tragedy of recent times. What with drones running round in various places bombing baddies with the occasional bit of collateral damage generally agreed to be regrettable by the responsible (what a way to use the word) parties and regular suicide bombings not to mention ferries turning over and NSW Cabinet Ministers being laid low by spurned lovers it does not take long for even such a monumental tragedy to fade into the background but those of us who fly are worried and will not rest until some sense can be made of it.
At present the official position is that we do not know the cause but suspect a perfect storm of events starting with a sensor failure led to a loss of control. The more time passes the more this seems pretty thin. If this could be the case then thousands are daily in danger. I expect that behind the scenes this is being taken very seriously and I also suspect that given the propensity for litigation currently prevailing loose lips sink financial ships is guiding the dissemination of information i.e. what you don’t know wont hurt you (or more accurately in some cases wont hurt the company).
It seems we have reached the point predicted frequently by experts where systems too complicated to be completely analyzed have been created and are in daily world wide service.
In the design philosophy of the Airbus et al a very serious effort has been made to build in protection by redundancy but as reports come in more and more evidence of startling failures emerges of the type which warrant drastic action.
I have collected reports of a total of 52 incidents in which malfunctions of automated flight systems with computers at their core have created situations where there was a serious risk of the loss of an aircraft and all aboard. As my research has not been exhaustive likely ther are many more. Two of these situations did lead to the loss of aircraft. In one case, the crash of a B2, the crew were able to eject but the bomber worth about $250 mil was lost while in the other case – AF 447, the aircraft and all on board were lost.
Why are we continuing to fly them? In the case of the Air force and B2s the failure was diagnosed and corrected but in the case of the AF447 it is clear that in actual fact the risks are regarded as acceptable in the face of the cost of the only rational action which is to stop using these aircraft till we understand what is going on. Or am I just just being alarmist?
Read more…

Southwest Airlines inspected Nearly 200 Boeing 737 belonging to Southwest airline had to be inspected after a hole in the aft fuselage of one of their aircraft forced an emergency landing.

Federal safety officials at Dallas are investigating how a foot-long hole opened in the top of the jet, forcing the emergency landing in Charleston, W. Va.

The Boeing 737 jet lost pressure in the cabin, but no one was injured on Monday’s Nashville-to-Baltimore flight that carried 126 passengers and five crew members.

The plane was built in 1994, and government records indicated that an inspection in January turned up eight cracks in the frame that required repairs.

Read more…

Here in Oz we have recently introduced compulsory drug testing for people involved in aviation.
At first sight this might seem like a good thing and a sort of Motherhood matter. Who could object to it?
On second thought I am not so sure.
Firstly what is the rationale for it? Do we really think people are flying and working in aviation under the influence? Where is the evidence?
If there are individuals so irresponsible and I do fear there are would anyone so irresponsible be liable to change their behaviour in the face of possibly being confronted with a blow in the bag or lick the stick man?

I rather suspect not.
How much does all this cost and where is the cost benefit analysis?
Having observed Aviation for quite a long time I have a very uneasy feeling that the reality here is that this is a feel good exercise for box tickers which will as is becoming usual lead to much of the effort and a large slab of the cost being handed on to the aviation community so bureaucrats can be seen to be doing good stuff.
Aviation is, perhaps inevitably, highly regulated but recently I have noticed increasing mountains of paper all in the name of compliance and safety with entities such as the SMS (Safety Management system) becoming required and yet in practice becoming more like a distracting burden. There is only so much time people can give to such things before they actually subtract from the time and attention available to Aviate safely.
Maybe there should be a requirement for a regulation to be removed before another can be applied?
I would be very intersted in the views of others on this.