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Aviation History
1997
1997 - 0109.PDF
DISPLAY ADVERTISEMENT SALES UK and EUROPE Display Advertising Enquiries +44(181)6523315 Display Advertising Fax +44 (181) 652 8981 Group Advertisement Director lanBurrows +44(181)6523319 Sales and Events Co-ordinator Lisa Devlin +44 (181) 652 3315 Advertisement Production Display/Classified Howard Mason +44(181)6523267 UK, NORTHERN and EASTERN EUROPE, THE MIDDLE EAST and ISRAEL Senior Area Manager Robin Gordon +44 (181) 652 4998 UK, IRELAND, GREECE. IBERIA, BENELUX, AFRICA Area Manager Janice Lowe COMMENT +44(181)6523316 FRANCE Sales Director France Pierre Mussard Reed Business Information France. 15 bis. rue Ernes! Renan, 92130 Issy-les-Moulineaux. France. Telephone+33(1)46294615 Fax +33 (1)40 93 03 37 ITALY Representative Romano Ferrario Gruppo Editoraile Jackson. Via Gorki Telephone +3912) 6603 4435 9, Cinisello B Milano, Italy. Fax+39(2)66034367 NORTH AMERICA Vice-president US Sales John Tidy Reed Business Information. 3700 Campus Drive. Suite 203. Newport Beach, CA 92660. Telephone+1 (714)7561057 Fax+1 (714)7562514 Sales Director East Coast Robert Hancock Reed Business Information. Suite 305.1321 Duke St. Alexandria. VA 22314, USA Telephone tl (70318367444 Fax+1 (703)8367446 Sales Director Mid-West & Canada Gene Glendinning Reed Business Information. 411 Valencia Avenue. Suite 16. Barrington IL60010. USA Telephone+1 (847)304 5588 Fax+1 (847)304 9559 Head Office. Reed Business Information. 475 Park Avenue South. 2nd Floor. New York, NY 10016. Telephone +1(212) 679 8888; Traffic Manager Debbie Kolb Tel+1 (212)5455376 Fax+1 (212)6799455 ASIA, AUSTRALIA Singapore Account Manager Karen Kwan Reed Asian Publishing (Pte) Ltd, No.1 Temasek Avenue, #17-01 Millenia Tower. Singapore 039192. Telephone+65 338 3398; Fax+65 338 3213 CLASSIFIED & RECRUITMENT Classified Advertising Enquiries Classified Advertising Fax Group Advertisement Manager Gareth Pask Sales Manager Sarah Genest International Sales Executives Mo Buttivant Simon Lees Louise Meikle Lucy Middelboe Classified USA Gail Tavelman Classified Asia/Pacific Lina Rohmat Publisher Gavin Howe +44(181)652 3811 +44(181)6524802 +44(181)6524814 +44(181)7703010 +44(181)7703032 +44(181)7703011 +44(181)7703027 +44(181)7703030 +1(212)545 5403 +653383398 +44(181)6523675 The text of Flight International and Airline Business can be found on the following databases Lexis-Nexis. Knight-Ridder DataStar. FT Profile. ESA. lAC/Predicasts. and Reuters Details from: tel +44 (1811302 5101 Published in association with Airline Business by Reed Business Information, Quadrant House. The Quadrant, Sutton. Surrey, SM2 5AS, UK Flight International is sold subject to the following conditions: namely, that it is not, without the written consent of the publishers first given, lent, re-sold, hired out or in any unauthorised cover by way of trade; or affixed to, or as part of, any publication or advertising, literary or pictorial matter whatsoever The publishers of Right International are prepared to accept unsolicited material, but only on the understanding that such material is submitted wholly at the nsk of the provider, and that the publishers cannot guarantee the receipt, safekeeping or return of non-commissioned work in any format, including manuscripts, digital data, photographic prints and transparencies Second-class postage paid at Champlain. New York and additional entries. Postmaster Send address conections to: Flight International, c/o IMS. Box 1518. Champlain, NY 12919 © 1997 Reed Business Information Ltd FREIGHT FRIGHT THE AIRLINE-ACCIDENT statistics for 1996 (P31) suggest that there is a serious safety problem in the air-freight market. Over one-third of all fatal airliner accidents last year were to non-passenger aircraft: they caused the deaths of 158 aircrew and other occupants, and more than 350 further deaths of innocent third par ties on the ground. At the same time as these statistics were being compiled, the US Federal Aviation Administration was readying an airworthi ness directive which calls for checks to — and possible ground ing for reworking of— many freight-con verted jet airliners. The FAAs complaint is that many of these air craft have been con verted using invalid structural calculations: die Administration's fear is that as a result many of diem are too weak to be safe. Such fears strike at a sector of the industry which—despite the apparent boom in air-cargo traffic — may be the least-prepared and least- resourced to cope with them. Comparatively few air-cargo operators are able to buy new, ded icated, cargo aircraft: most of diem (even, in part, high-profile ones like FedEx) still buy and con vert older airliners which no longer pass the pas senger-acceptability and operating-economics tests for the front-line airlines. Because of the low yields on cargo (and the generally low utilisation rates of the aircraft in this business), freight companies tend to not be the biggest payers in the business. Could it be that their crews are eidier older (retired from front-line duties with the big airlines, but still capable of of doing many years of useful flying) or younger (those who have not—or not yet— made die grade) than those of the big airlines? Could it be mat while many of these pilots have undoubted skills and experience, they do not get the same training quality as their counterparts in the mainstream passenger airlines? Or is the problem a psychological one: aircrew flv partic ularly smoothly and carefully when passengers are on board to keep their custom. Pallets or containers do not judge the pilots. Whatever the truth, it needs to be known. There seems to be little evidence yet that die FAAs fears about the standards of conversion in "Far more freighter accidents are attributed to failings in the cockpit than in the aircraft structure." the jet-freighter sector can be directly translated into the disproportionately high accident rate there. Most of the 1996 freight-aircraft acci dents which can be ascribed to technical prob lems centred on engine failures or fires. Far more seem to be attrib utable to failings in the cockpit than in the air craft structure. The UK Civil Avia tion Authority has recently determined that, globally, freight ers have a "far higher" accident rate man pas senger airliners, and its new Accidents Analysis unit is to examine the evidence to try to un cover common factors. A significant prob lem in the freight mar ket^ with airline safe ty as a whole) seems to centre on die develop ing world, with a par ticular problem in the use of aircraft from the former Soviet Union in those markets. Again, it seems not to be an issue just of the aircraft them selves, but of the way they are operated. It is axiomadc among aircrew diat, if you like a life of long duty-hours and night-operations, flying freighters is for you. This is as true of Beech 90- and Cessna Caravan-type overnight parcels-delivery as it is of large cargo-jet opera- dons which, reasonably enough, tend to use busy airports when they are least busy—late at night. Until recently, accident investigators have been hesitant to ascribe crew fatigue as a prima ry or even contributory cause of accidents. Significandy, the only two airline accidents where aircrew fatigue has been described either as the cause, or one of the primary causes, have been to freighters: the American International Airways DC-8-60F crash at Cuantanamo Bay, (Aiba, in August 1993, and the December 1994 Air Algerie Boeing 737-200F accident on approach to Coventry Baginton Airport, UK. Luckily, in neither of these cases were there third-party fatalities (although it was a close-run thing at Coventry), but in both accidents the air crew displayed the kind of reckless "get-home-it is" which is one effect of fatigue. Nonetheless, freighter accidents are killing more and more third parties, (and a frightening- ly higher number of "crew" than could ever legitimately be needed to operate these aircraft). On those grounds alone, action is needed now— and not just in the USA and UK. • FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 15 - 21 January 1997 3
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