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Aviation History
1961
1961 - 0317.PDF
FLIGHT, 10 March 1961 325 MR JUSTICE CAIRNS REPORTS FOR many years there has been criticism of the manner inwhich accidents and incidents to civil aircraft were beinginvestigated. Anomalies and apparent injustices also existed in the legislation concerning personnel licensing. Publication lastweek of the report* of the committee appointed in 1959 under the chairmanship of the Hon Mr Justice Cairns to enquire into the lawand practice covering the investigation of accidents, and the cancellation, suspension or variation of flight and maintenancelicences, shows it to be a new and, it is to be hoped, influential look at accident investigation. Since the primary object of any investigation should be theprevention of similar accidents in the future, and because the present regulations do not emphasize this object sufficiently, theCommittee recommends that this main purpose be stated more clearly. Wherever appropriate, accident reports should refer toprevious accidents of a similar nature. This will enable trends or patterns in causes to be established more easily and might, forexample, have prevented some of the mis-read altimeter incidents. It is also recommended that a greater proportion of accidents andincidents should be investigated. There should be more public accountability; with certain reservations, unpublished inspectors'investigation reports, notes the Committee, should be made avail- able on demand to the public. Despite the great skill and experience of investigators, BALPAand others have always thought that if anything the pilot did or did not do called for investigation, then the investigating team shouldinclude a pilot who is familiar with the aircraft type and with the route. A recommendation to that effect has now been made. A clear recommendation is made that an independent reviewtribunal should be set up to which appeal could be made against the findings of an inspector's investigation; this does not includepublic enquiries or foreign investigations. This is something which will be welcomed, as criticism has often been levelled at thefinality of an inspector's report. The Committee also recommends that appeals on points of law could go to the High Court. The recommendation that an investigation should be reopened ifnew evidence becomes available is another step towards avoiding findings which might be compromised by insufficient evidence. Under the present regulations a court of inquiry can recommendcancellation or variation of a licence. Although this power has not been much exercised, emphasis on the licensing situation ofindividuals involved in accidents has sometimes tended to detract from a court's primary function of determining the causes of anaccident. The Committee recommends that these recommenda- tions be removed from the legislation. It was suggested to the Committee that the accredited UKrepresentative to a foreign investigation should prepare an in- dependent report which would then be published. The Committeedid not accept this completely, recommending that such a report be published only at the Minister's discretion, and only then if itshowed that foreign findings of the investigation were seriously unsatisfactory. But the report makes the fundamental point thatit should be made clear that when the report of a foreign investiga- tion is published in the UK it does not necessarily represent theconclusions of a UK authority. At the time of the coroner's inquest on those killed in the Vikingaccident at Southall, criticism was made of the lengthy and detailed investigation of witnesses and evidence, and the conflict this causedwith the accident investigation branch of the Ministry of Aviation. To avoid such conflict the Committee recommends that when noconclusion can be reached the inquest be adjourned until after the inspector's investigation or public inquiry. The BEA Elizabethan accident at Munich highlighted a casefor postponement of licence action against a pilot involved in a foreign investigation until he had been given the opportunity tostate his case. With Captain Thain a proper inquiry was not set up until after questions had been asked in the House. The Committeerecommends that licence action be postponed until the holder has been given the opportunity to state his case and an inquiry intothe circumstances has been conducted on behalf of the Minister. There should also be an independent Appeals Board. The Minister of Aviation has said that the proposals are"broadly acceptable." * Report of the Committee on Civil Aircraft Accidents: CAP 169,HMSO, 4s 6d. BREVITIES Central African Airways have purchased a Viscount from MEA,bringing their fleet to five. CAA said that they "encountered consider- able difficulty in locating an operator who was prepared to sell aViscount." First hearing of the Air Transport Licensing Board is set for nextTuesday, March 14, at 3 Dean's Yard, Westminster. Two applications, both inclusive tours from Glasgow, are to be heard: Channel Airwaysto Ostend (objected to by Pegasus Airways), and Air Safaris to Palma (objected to by Starways, Overseas and Pegasus). The hearing, inpublic, begins at 2.30 p.m. It is hoped that Cunard Eagle's North Atlantic case will start on April 18, and that the British United andCunard Eagle European cases will start on May 16. Passengers carried by British airlines in 1960 rose by a quarter andtotal traffic increased by more than a fifth. Both BOAC and the inde- pendent airlines last year increased their available seat-miles by about31 per cent, and were rewarded with passenger-mile increases of 29 and 27 per cent. BEA offered over 21 per cent more passenger capacityand increased passenger miles flown by 20 per cent. These figures appear in the Ministry of Aviation operating and traffic statistics for1960, just received, which we hope to review shortly. The FAA's five Convair 440s, which are used for navaid calibration,are to be converted to Allison 501-D13 turboprops by Pacific Airmotive by October 1961 at a cost of about $3m. Air-India has obtained the right to extend their Delhi - Moscow ser-vice beyond Moscow. At the same time Aeroflot have been given "beyond" rights from Delhi to Rangoon and Djakarta. United Air Lines personnel are undergoing a course at Crawley,Sussex, on a Redifon Caravelle flight simulator, of the type to be installed at United's training centre in Denver. According to the Minister of Labour Gazette, average earnings byworkers in the UK air transport industry is £17 19s 7d per week, compared with a national average of £14 10s 8d. Cost to the taxpayer of the Princess flying-boats to date has beenabout £9,127,000, including storage costs of about £5,000 a year. The Ministry of Aviation has so far received "some inquiries" in responseto advertisements inviting offers. New orders for Fokker Friendships are announced: Braathens haveordered a fourth and taken an option on a fifth; All Nippon Airways has increased its order from three to six, and given a letter of intent forup to five more; and Philips Gloeilampenfabrieken of Eindhoven have ordered an executive version. Total number of Fokker Friendships soldis 91, 82 having been sold also by Fairchild. The Minister of Aviation, Mr Peter Thorneycroft, told the Houseof Commons on February 27 that though British thinking on the super- sonic airliner was on the basis of Mach 2, "there is some reason tobelieve that American preference would be for the Mach 3. Whatever is decided upon, we should, I think, attempt to do it as an internationalco-operative effort." Last Wednesday, March 8, Cunard Eagle was to take delivery of asecond Britannia, and a third is due to be delivered on May 1. Both aircraft have been bought from Canadian Pacific, who have operated afleet of six Britannias since May 1958. The aircraft will be used on Cunard Eagle's routes to Bermuda, Nassau, and Miami, and also betweenNew York and Bermuda. Eagle is also evaluating the CL-44, Boeing 707-420, Vickers VC10 and VC11, DH Trident, Vickers Vanguardand the Douglas DC-8. Recently Aer Lingus flew to Dusseldorf seventeen local managers of airlines represented in Manchester. From left to right they are:— Front row: Eric Allamand (Aer Lingus), Tom Seale (Air India), Don Kirkman (UAT), Gordon Erridge (BEA), Dean Hewitt-Dean (Air France), K. Leahy (PanAm), and Harry Edge (BUA). On steps: Ron Beavis (Iberia), R. Nathan (El Al), Charles Mansbridge (CPAL), Ray Morsden-Smith (TWA), Eric Humphries (KLM), Jim Hawkins (MEA), Geoff Bingham (Alitalia), John Flannery (SAS), J. Koski (TCA), and John Wardropper (BOAC)
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