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Aviation History
2003
2003 - 2932.PDF
Controlled flight into terrain remains a major cause of accidents lines, both directly through improving reli ability and indirectly through diagnostic maintenance systems. Increased use of ground proximity warning systems (GPWS) have had a significant effect, and finally the increased availability of hard data from quick access recorders and digital flight data recorders has enabled the industry to become more focused in identifying and tackling the underlying causes of accidents. Challenges identified The industry began to be able to identify its challenges and, led by the Flight Safety Foundation, set up working groups to study accident category data in detail and began to come up with solutions or strategies. Meanwhile, the enhanced GPWS (EGPWS) has virtually terrain-proofed a large percentage of the world's heavy air line fleet, mostly in North America and western Europe, where it is compulsory, but also for many major carriers elsewhere. No aircraft fitted with EGPWS has ever been involved in a CFIT accident, and that includes inadvertent collisions with flat terrain when aircraft get too low on a run way approach without the crew realising it. If these events - which can be disastrous - occur close to the runway's end they are usually known as undershooting, and are often not thought of as CFIT although the generic circumstances and causal factors are identical. But they are CFIT, and the EGPWS has stopped those too. The combined revelation that no EGPWS-fitted aircraft has ever had a CFIT accident, and that CFIT has continued to be the main cause of air accident fatalities over the last two years, contains the clue as to where future improvement may come from: the unequipped fleet which remains. Meanwhile, all new aircraft manufactured by Airbus and Boeing are fitted as standard with EGPWS - now generically known as a terrain awareness warning system (TAWS), so gradually the proportion of the world's TAWS-equipped large jet fleet is increasing. But there is more to be done. Research by Honeywell's Don Bateman, known in the industry as the father of EGPWS, shows that the CFIT risk to the western European and North American large air liner fleet is now down to one CFIT acci dent per 91 million flights and still reduc ing, whereas the figures for the world excluding those two regions is one in 16 million and "stagnant". Bateman says that the standard GPWS and the TAWS have together been a major factor in reducing CFIT as a cause of fatality to a 50th of the risk that existed in 1991 and 100th of the risk in 1975. But, he adds, "the risk has hardly changed in many parts of Asia, South America and Africa since 1975". The other big cause of fatal accidents in 2003 has been technical failure of compo nents. In two cases - both US-registered Raytheon Beech 1900Ds - the cause was mis-rigging of the pitch control system. The mistake in each case was not identical. The two aircraft were in different airlines, and the second event happened more than six months after the first, which had by then been publicised by the National Trans portation Safety Board. Maintenance cuts It is just enough to stir a concern that main tenance investment cuts at this time of air line financial hardship may be influencing safety. The same concern might arise over pilot training quality. Two Boeing 737 fatal accidents followed an engine failure, but if an engine failure is found to have been the only causal factor, the question would arise as to why the pilots failed to maintain con trol of the aircraft. The industry should look at the kind of accidents that happened in 2003 and won der whether something is going wrong. Because it would be a pity if, after such a commendably safe year overall, the airlines were beginning to lose their concentration in a couple of vital areas. For a more detailed accident analysis, see Flight International's annual world airline safety review to be published in the 20-26 January 2004 issue 34 23 DECEMBER 2003 - 5 JANUARY 2004 FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL www.fliqhtinternational.com
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