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Aviation History
1979
1979 - 0190.PDF
184 FLIGHT International, 20 January 1979 AIRLINE SAFETY 1978: the first appraisal How safe were the world's airlines in 1978? The tables on the following four pages are the first to list the signi ficant accidents. They were compiled by HUGH FIELD, who adds his interpretation of the trends. J. Nl. RAMSDEN considers the safety record of eighteen nations, and analyses the worst accident ever—the impact of two 747s on the runway atTenerife on March 27,1977. DURING 1978 the world's scheduled and non-scheduled airlines carried some 765 million passengers, accord ing to the International Civil Aviation Organisation. Our first assessment of air-transport safety during the year suggests that only 986 passengers were killed in accidents. We record 32 accidents to passenger-carrying aircraft weighing more than 5,680kg, 26 of them in the course of scheduled passenger flights. The year began badly when, on January 1, an Air-India 747 crashed immediately after a night take-off from Delhi, killing all 190 passengers. The crash into water showed once again the value of flight-data recorder and cockpit-voicei recorder traces, which enabled investigators to pinpoint a faulty flight director. The worst accident to a non^scheduled flight, the loss of a Loftleidir DC-8 in Sri Lanka, killed 174 passengers, though another 75 survived. This accident and that to an Alitalia DC-9 at Palermo on December 23 bear the hall marks of some form of altimeter malfunction or misread ing. Both are still under investigation. The year ended with a rare American domestic accident. The small num ber of fatalities in the United Air Lines DC-8 accident at Portland appears to have been partly due to the lack of any fuel in the wreckage to cause a fire. The number of passenger fatalities in scheduled flights, 764, is more than the 1977 figure, but the overall accident risk in scheduled service is still improving. The fatal acci dent rate over the five years 1969-75 was 3-3 per million departures; for the latest five-year period, 1974-78, the figure has reduced to 2 • 2 per million departures. The rate at which accidents occur on non-scheduled flights is nearly four times greater than on scheduled flights, but the number of fatalities was substantially less last year. After peaking at 770 casualties in 1977, the FATAL ACCIDENTS'. SCHEDULED PASSENGER FLIGHTS figure fell to only 222 last year, similar to the 1975 and 1976 totals. The sample is so small that dramatic percent age changes arise if a wide-body airliner is lost with all on board. Two of the accidents to scheduled flights involved col lisions with light aircraft and have inevitably called into question the efficiency of air traffic control. The publicity surrounding the San Diego collision has led to a call for the American Federal Aviation Administration to ban light aircraft from its terminal areas. Perhaps attention might best be directed at separating the traffic not in terms of "heavy" or "light" hut of "instrument" or "visual". The tables list significant general-aviation fatal acci dents, concentrating on those in which the aircraft was engaged in a commercial operation. No attempt is made to quantify these accidents, but they give an indication of the business-aircraft and air-taxi safety record. This class of operation is as vulnerable as the airliner category to weaknesses in approach aids in marginal weather. Non-fatal incidents are included to indicate the type of occurrence that upsets schedules and invokes insurance claims. The list is representative rather than comprehen sive, since many airlines have no need to report such incidents outside their own organisations. Information exchanges are gradually allowing more information of this kind to become available. Hijacking scarcely features in the 1978 safety record, but the vulnerability of an aircraft to hostile action was nevertheless demonstrated when an Air Rhodesia Viscount was shot down by a heat-seeking missile. Though the record stands against the airline, any remedial action lies in the hands of the politicians rather than on the desk of the air-safety officer. Date Jan 1 Jan 27 Jan 31 Feb 10 Feb 11 Marl Marl Mar 3 Mar 9 Mar 16 Mar 25 Apr 5 Apr 21 Apr 29 May 8 Jun 26 Aug 18 Aug 26 Sep 3 Sep 3 Sep 25 Oct 3 Carrier Air-India SADELCA TABA Columbia-Pacific Leasing Pacific Western Continental Nigeria LAV China Airlines Balkan-Bulgarian Burma Airways Aircraft 747 (VT-EBD) DC-3(HK-1351) Bandeirante (PT-GJT) B99(N199EA) 737 (C-FPWC) DC-10 (N68045) F.28 (5N-ANA) HS.748 (YV-45C) 737 Tu-134(LZ-TUB) F.27 (XY-ADK) Antilles Air Boats Goose Korean Air Lines Caribe Airlines National Airlines Air Canada Philippine Airlines Burma Airways Air Rhodesia Air Guinee PSA Burma Airways 707 (HL-7429) DC-6(HK-1705) 727 (N4744) DC-9 (C-FTLV) One-Eleven (RP-C1184) Twin Otter (XY-AEI) Viscount (VP-WAS) 11-18 727 (N533PS) F.27 (XY-ADY) Location Bombay Caqueta, Colombia Eirunepe, Brazil Richland, Wash Cranbrook, BC Los Angeles Lagos Caracas Hong Kong ? Rangoon St John, VI Kern, USSR Bogota Pensacola, Fla Toronto Mr Manila S. Burma Kariba Bamako (Guinee) San Diego Nr Mandalay, Burma Fatalities Crew 23 4 2 2 5 - 5 4 1 7 4 2 - 3 - - 3 4 7 7 1 Pass 190 9 -15 39 2 11 43 -66 44 _ 2 5 3 2 1 11 34 8 129 1 Total occupants Cre 23 4 2 2 5 13 5 4 6 7 4 2 13 3 6 5 6 3 4 8 7 4 w Pass 190 9 12 15 45 184 11 43 92 66 44 7 97 9 52 102 78 11 52 9 129. 40 Phase Circumstances T/O ER T/O T/O L T/O App T/O ER ER T/O ER ER T/O App T/O ER T/O ER ER App T/O Attitude-director failure at night Hit high ground Hit tree. Faulty crew drill Pitch-up due to faulty trim Reverser opened during over shoot to avoid snowplough Tyre burst. Aircraft slewed and caught fire Mid-air collision with trainer Crashed into sea. Fire re ported in cabin Unsuccessful hijack attempt Between Sofia and Warsaw. No details Seen to enter fog. Caught fire No details Forced landing after naviga tional error No details Poor visibility. Crashed in shallow water Abort due to tyre burst Bomb in toilet No details Shot down by guerrillas No details Collision with Cessna 172. 13 ground fatalities Turnback after engine problem T/O Take-off; ER En route; App Descent to final aid; L Landing (visual or on final aid); G On ground
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