Airport worker killed in “freak accident”

By Dave English

The Daily Express newspaper reports today that an airport worker was killed in a “freak accident.” He was sucked into a jet engine. Or as human factors professionals calls it, a “normal accident”.
An Air India official told The Hindustan Times:
At the moment, we are absolutely clueless on how this person was near the aircraft. Only an inquiry can establish whose negligence it was and whether the engine should have been switched on at that time.
 
Comforting to know the negligence witch-hunt has started. Someone must be at fault. Wonder if any management or regulatory people will get blamed for designing bad systems?
Be careful out there folks.
Air-India

Harrison Ford talks (some) flying

By Dave English

“When the engine quit, my training had prepared me to deal with it in a way. I really didn’t get scared. I just got busy. I knew what I was going to do, and I knew how to do it.

The mantra aviators carry around in our heads is: Fly the airplane, first thing. Fly the airplane — even if it doesn’t have an engine, fly. Don’t give up that ship, matey. And even though I don’t remember the details of it, I guess I was able to do that, because the way I landed, the wings were level. I didn’t stall it. I’m here.”

Interview of Harrison Ford in Men’s Journal, Jan/Feb 2016, has some good flying stuff. Harrison is by all accounts, public and private, a solid aviator. He flies helicopters, and owns a Cessna Citation Sovereign, a de Havilland DHC-2 Beaver, and a replica of a 1929 Waco biplane. Cool stuff.

Ford

“I love the machinery. I love the process. I love the ritual — there’s a protocol to follow that keeps you safe, the checklists and so on. There’s a combination of freedom and responsibility, especially when you start carrying passengers.”

 

 

1955 safety film: What’s changed and what’s not

By Dave English

Youtube has a great AOPA safety film for GA pilots called The Flight Decision. It’s a little dated. Like sixty years dated. (Yep, 1955.)

It’s fun to see what has changed—and what has not. Flight line fashion has changed. But the planes in this film (remember film?) are probably still flying. Some of the safety stuff is simplistic. But many of the human issues we are still trying to solve today.

The Flight Decision

Take a look, and share what you think about sixty years of change.

“We’ll get that straight when we get airborne”

By Dave English

It’s better to look a little stupid now, than a lot stupid later.

The US NTSB has released full investigative notes on last year’s crash of US Airways flight 1702, an A320 taking off from Philadelphia International airport. We can learn a lot from this crash of a fully airworthy Airbus. It actually got into the air, and then the captain decided to force it back onto the runway. There was substantial damage. It departed the runway. I’m glad all 149 passengers and 5 crew exited the aircraft via emergency exits with no serious injuries. But the jet didn’t look good:

1702

Airline management suggested afterwards that maybe a tire had burst at high speed, and the crew saved the day. That was not the case. The tires, indeed the whole nosegear assembly, was broken by the unusual high-speed post-rotation ‘reject’. The reasons for the accident were, as usual, multiple. The end case was that the takeoff performance speeds were not set in the computer, the A320 didn’t know what V1, Vr or V2 were. This was caused by a complex series of non-optimal machine/human interfaces, computer software, human/human interaction, operational pressures, and possibly medical issues. (The captain reported for duty without allowing the FAA recommended time to pass after taking two prescription medications: midazolam, a sedating drug, and fentanyl, a narcotic used as part of medical procedures.) There is a lot to study here, especially for Airbus pilots.

But the overriding lesson is simple. If jolly hard to do. It’s better to look a little stupid now—reject the takeoff at low speed, taxi back, enter the V speeds, try again—than it is to look a lot stupid later. Like maybe crash.

At the start of the takeoff roll, when the airbus spoke up its warning about the lack of V speeds, the audible alarm saying “Retard” [the thrust levers], the pilots decided to ignore it. From the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) transcript:

retard

retard

“What did you do? you didn’t load. we lost everything.”

retard

retard

retard

“No”

retard

retard

retard

“We’ll get that straight when we get airborne.”

retard

retard

“Wh*. I’m sorry.”

retard

retard

retard

Within the next fraction of a second, the CVR captured the ‘sound of decreased background noise, similar to power reduction’ and then the ‘sound of first impact’.

1702 2

Ouch.

The pilots knew something was not right at the start of the takeoff. But it would look bad to admit error to ATC, the flight attendants, the passengers and the company. They might have to go back to the gate to get more fuel. They might have to fill out paperwork. They might have to talk to the chief pilot. Never mind that the errors are all wrapped up in system design, training, operational practices, and more. They would look bad. Stupid pilots. So they pressed on. Until the captain got so scared he forced the just about airborne jet back onto the end of the runway.

So while Airbus, the FAA, American Airlines training and many more busy suits work on fixing the software and procedures that led to the situation, us pilots can take away an important lesson: It’s better to look a little stupid now, than a lot stupid later.

But good luck always following through on my motto. In the real world, it’s easy to say it, but tough to do it.

Like really tough.