Pilot Error Declines as Factor in Airline Mishaps

The number of airline mishaps attributed to pilot error significantly declined between 1983 and 2002, according to an analysis conducted by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. While the overall rate of airline mishaps remained stable during that time, the proportion of mishaps involving pilot error decreased 40 percent.

The rate of mishaps related to a pilot’s poor decision-making declined 71 percent. The researchers attribute the decline to better training and improvements in technology that aid pilot decision-making. The findings are published in Aviation, Space, and Environmental Medicine.

“A 40 percent decline in pilot error-related mishaps is very impressive. Pilot error has long been considered the most prominent contributor to aviation crashes,” says the study’s lead author, Susan Baker, a professor with the Johns Hopkins Center for Injury Research and Policy and the Bloomberg School’s Department of Health Policy and Management.

The study examined 558 airline mishaps between 1983 and 2002. Baker and her colleagues also looked at the circumstances of pilot error, which they characterized as carelessness on the part of the pilot and crew, flawed decision-making, mishandling of the aircraft or poor crew interaction.

Other key findings of the study included:

• Mishaps related to bad weather—the most common decision-making error—dropped 76 percent.
• Mishaps caused by mishandling wind or runway conditions declined 78 percent.
  Mishaps caused by poor crew interaction declined 68 percent.
• Pilot error was most common during taxiing, takeoff, final approach and landing of the aircraft.
• The mishap rate increased the most when aircraft were being pushed back from the gate or standing still, but pilot error was least common in such mishaps.
• Mishaps during takeoff declined 70 percent.
• While the overall rate of pilot error mishaps declined, the reductions were offset by increases in mishaps that did not involve error by pilots; some involved errors by air traffic control or ground crews. The researchers also noted that there is a need to improve safety during the times when the aircraft is motionless on the ground or being pushed back from the gate. The study found that mishaps during these times more than doubled from a rate of 2.5 to 6 mishaps per 10 million flights.

“Trends indicate that great progress has been made to improve the decision-making of pilots and coordination between the aircraft’s crew members. However, the improvements have not led to an overall decline in mishaps. The increase in mishaps while aircraft are not moving may require special attention,” says Baker.

Watch more breaking news now on our video feed:



Bookmark http://universeeverything.blogspot.com/ and drop back in sometime.

FAA Sees Drop In Number of Air Traffic Controllers

Air traffic controllerstaffing levels have dropped for the third straight year, to a new low of 14,206, according to the most recent Federal Aviation Administration "Administrator's Fact Book."

Despite the FAA's public claims that it hired more controllers than it lost to retirement and other factors over the past year, the agency's own fact book reports that the overall total number of controllers working inits 300-plus facilities dropped from 14,227 at the end of fiscal year 2005 to 14,206 in fiscal year 2006, according to the air traffic controllers' union.

The figures are listed as being current asof Oct. 31, 2006, taking into account hiring and attrition statistics a full month into the current fiscal year.

Controller staffing totals reached as high as 15,386 as recently as September 2003. But a year later, in October 2004, the FAA reported that total had fallen to 14,736 as the long-expected controller retirement wave began to increase in size. The total fell again, to 14,227, a year later, the FAA reported.

"This is the most definitive proof yet, from the FAA's own reported figures, that the agency simply cannot get ahead of the retirement wave, no matter how many people they say they are hiring and trying to rush into thesystem," National Air Traffic Controllers Association President Patrick Forrey says. "The agency is now rapidly losing its most veteran,experienced controllers -- the people who it was counting on to train its new generation of controllers -- at a far higher rate than it expected and is continuing to force more veterans to retire early with its demoralizing, distracting and authoritarian imposed work rules."

Veteran controllers are currently retiring at a rate of more than three per day since the start of the current fiscal year: Oct. 1, 2006. This follows a 2006 fiscal year in which 734 controllers retired, eclipsing the FAA's projection to Congress by 57 percent. At the current pace, the number of fiscal year 2007 retirements will clear the FAA's projection of 643 by Memorial Day at the latest; a full four months before the end of the fiscal year. Overall, the FAA has missed its retirement projections for three straight fiscal years, by an increasing margin each year, the union says.

Controllers can retire before the mandatory age of 56 if they have metone of two criteria: Reach age 50 and have 20 years of service; or have 25 years of service at any age.

"Rather than 'staffing to traffic' as the FAA states publicly is its new mission, the agency appears to be following a new policy; 'staffing tobudget,'" Forrey says. "And the scary part is no amount of new hires the agency has made over the past two years or will make over the next 2-4 years is going to fix the current staffing problem. That's because it takes 2-4 years to train a new controller before that professional is fully certified.

"That gap, from the day a veteran controller retires to the day their replacement reaches full certification level, is where we have the most reason to worry about the agency's continued ability to maintain the margin of safety in the system by ensuring there is redundancy," he adds. "Our greatest challenge today, besides the distraction of the imposed work rules, ismaintaining the margin of safety knowing the level of redundancy has been whittled away to its bare minimum. We need more eyes watching the skies."

Bookmark http://universeeverything.blogspot.com/ and drop back in sometime.

Enter your Email





Preview Powered by FeedBlitz