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Aviation History
1946
1946 - 0119.PDF
JANUARY iyra, 1946 FLIGHT 67 Accident Analysis Transport Command's Trooping Record : A Comparison with Pre-war Civil Aviation RA.F. TRANSPORT COM-MAND'S accident rate during1945 amounted to only one passenger killed for every forty millionpassenger miles flown on the Com- mand's scheduled services. This figure»5is disclosed recently by a senior R.A.F. officer, who compared theTransport Command figures with those for civil aviation during the five years,1934 to 1938. The comparison can be seen in the accompanying table. Unfortunately; the accident rate fortrooping aircraft was much higher than that for the scheduled services andreached one passenger fatality for every three million miles flown. Thishigh figure is entirely the result of four unfortunate crashes which occurred inrapid succession in the very early days of trooping, and, happily, there hasbeen no recurrence of such accidents. Difficult Comparison The comparison of the Command'saccident figures with those for pre-war civil aviation is not entirely a fair one.On the one hand, civil aviation during that pre-war period had expandedsteadily over some fourteen years, and the increase in operations amounted toonly 15 per cent, each year. On the other hand, Transport Command waschiefly built up during i\ years of war, at a time when all priorities ofequipment and manning were the per- quisite of the operational theatres.Nevertheless, a 100 per cent, increase in operations per year was accom-plished and, as the figures show, the fatality rate for a world-wide networkof routine aircraft was very low. When considering the troopingfatality figure, it should be borne in mind that trooping by air was origin- ally an operational commitment andthat it was, to some exteht, inevitable that crews and aircraft were usedwhich were intended -primarily for operational flying; secondly, thatlarge-scale trooping by air to the Far East was reversed after VJ day tobecome repatriation by air; thirdly, that nights such as the U.K.-Indiatrip were taking place over a distance of 5,000 miles each way and encoun-tering extremes of weather and climate. Now the position has changed. Aircrews receive extra training specific- ally for passenger work and carefulselection' of the most suitable crews is now possible. In addition, a greatimprovement in the organisation of the routes as a whole has been made pos-sible by the priority of men and mate- rial given to the Command. Further, every effort has been madeto provide improved navigational facilities throughout the trunk routes.Since the cessation of hostilities in Europe more equipment has naturallybecome available, and crews now have the advantage of many navigationalaids, including Gee. Although at the moment the Gee chain does not coverthe entire route to India, this is being remedied as quickly as possible. Up-to-Date Weather News Meteorological facilities, too, areexcellent. Apart from the normal Air Ministry meteorological service. Trans-port Command has its own met. flight and also receives constant weatherreports from its aircraft in flight. This enables the latest meteorological infor-mation to be given to pilots, not only at their final briefing before flight, butalso at regular intervals whilst in the Civil Aviation 1934-1938 (Five Years) Belgium ... Holland France Switzerland Sweden U.S.A Britain Transport Com- mand (1945)Scheduled Services Trooping Services Scheduled Services and Trooping Combined Millions of AircraftMiles 7.0 14.830.? 3.6 4.1 294.7 46.6 62 13 75 Millionsof Passenger Miles — 218.8 593.0 284.0 877.0 Total of FatalAccidents to Aircraft 5 4II 1 134 23 4 4 8 Total of FatalAccidents to Passengers — . .— — 49 15 94 109 Fatal Accidents to Air-craft per 10 million Miles 6.9 2.7 3.6 "2.8 2.4 1.154.9 0.6S 3.1 I.I Fatal Accidentsto Pas- sengers per 100 Million Miles — ,— 22.4 2.5 33.1 12.4 No. of Passenger MilesFlown per Passenger Fatality — , _ — 4,400,000* 40,000,000 3,000,000 8,000.000 • Taking the British Civil Aviation figures year by year from 1934-38, the best accident rate recorded was in 1937 when the figure was 9.900,000 passenger miles per passenger fatality. The worst figure was for 1934 at 3,200,000 million passenger miles per passenger fatality. air by means of broadcasts fromstations along the routes. ' All aircraft are most carefully con-trolled during flight. An organisation known as Area Control supervises allaircraft throughout their journeys, each individual control being entirelyresponsible for the safety of aircraft within its area. It is essentially along-range control and it operates until aircraft are within 30 minutes' flyingtime of their next port of call. At this stage, a local airfield organisationknown as Approach Control takes over. Approach Control brings theaircraft to the immediate vicinity of the airfield when yet a third control—Airfield Control—takes over and gives all the final instructions for landingand sees the aircraft safely to the ground. The Release Problem There have been many referencesfrom time to time in the Press to trans- port aircraft accidents, and it is fre-quently assumed that all such aircraft must belong to Transport Command.This, of course, is not the case. It must be remembered that there aremany large-scale operators of trans- port aircraft, and, in addition, thetransportation of troops by air is be- ing undertaken not only by TransportCommand but also by Bomber, and in certain instances. Coastal Commandas well. It is emphasised, therefore, that the accompanying figures coveronly Transport Command's trooping and scheduled services. Naturally, Transport Command stillhas a number of headaches, notably that caused by the acceleration of therelease scheme. There is little doubt that the loss of experienced men underthe release scheme has had the effect of slowing down the trooping pro-gramme during the last few weeks, but in effect this is a good sign, for itdemonstrates that Transport Com- mand is not willing to carry out itsoperations without first-class men and materials. In this it will undoubtedlyhave .the wholehearted support of public opinion. One cannot help wondering whatwill be the ultimate result of the rapid loss of so many valuable men fromTransport Command under the release scheme. It is clear that the dispersal,upon release, of large numbers of "four-engine" pilots, who have hadlong and expensive training and un- usually extensive night ilying experi-ence, is not only a serious loss to Transport Command but may wellprove a serious loss to the future of civil aviation.
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