2004: A Nonpareil Year for Safety

“Series of ‘good’ years is largely a product of normal distribution rather than a new trend.” – Airclaims

The year just completed “was the safest ever for commercial transport,” according to the annual assessment of Airclaims, a UK-based consultancy. Only 11 fatal accidents to passengers occurred worldwide, out of 27 fatal accidents overall (e.g., cargo) in which 439 passengers and crew were killed.

The toll includes Eastern as well as Western-built jets and turboprops. Airclaims’ final count for 2003 was 13 fatal accidents and 693 passengers and crew killed.

In the United States, aviation officials hailed 2004 as ending on a positive note the safest three-year period ever recorded for airline travel, with 34 deaths over that period. The worst single event was the Jan. 8, 2003, crash of an Air Midwest twin turboprop, in which all 21 aboard were killed (see ASW, May 26, 2003).

Ellen Engleman Conners, chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), declared 2004 “a great year for aviation safety” but cautioned that not all sectors are equally safe. She cited the more than 1,500 general aviation accidents occurring annually that are keeping NTSB investigators busy. In addition, the NTSB has continuing safety concerns about air cargo operations and, based on a spate of recent accidents, the hazard of ice contamination during takeoff.

Airclaims’ Dec. 31, 2004, Special Bulletin #346 puts the situation in context, offering guarded optimism for the future. To cite the bulletin’s key points:

• “The series of ‘safe years’ starting in 2001 is unprecedented.”
• “The number of passenger fatalities in 2004 [347] is more than 60% down on the 970 a year average for the 1990s. No other year has come close to such a good result. The closest in number was 1955, when 409 passenger fatalities were recorded.”
• “The long term trend is to fewer fatal accidents, with the number expected each year roughly having halved from the 40 or 50 a year in the late 1940s/early 1950s down to around 25 a year in the 1980s and 1990s. However, in the two decades up to 2001, this improvement in the number of fatal accidents had ‘stalled.’ There was no improvement during the 20 year period from 1981 to 2000, rather there was a gradual trend towards increasing numbers of fatal accidents.” (Emphasis in original)
• “Although the number of fatal accidents each year was not decreasing during the 1980s/1990s, the number of flights was increasing. Therefore, aviation was still continuing to get safer but … the frequency of accidents … forms the public’s view of air safety.”
• “These recent series of good results have come despite the difficult financial climate experienced by the airline industry.”
• “It is probably unrealistic to expect this recent high rate of improvement to continue indefinitely and, unfortunately, 2005 may well produce a worse result.”
• “Reluctantly, this series of ‘good years’ is largely a product of normal distribution rather than a new trend.”

Nonetheless, ASW contributing editor John Sampson raises a number of factors on the still-evolving safety situation:

• Airframe manufacturers are providing more direct and pertinent online support for both maintenance and operations. This support can positively impact achievable safety levels.
• The circumstances of (and lessons learned from) accidents are filtering through more rapidly (and clearly) to a larger sampling of airline pilots worldwide. The Internet is playing a positive role for safety. Bluecoat, PPRuNe, Airliners.net, usaviation.com (and many others) are providing forums where accidents and incidents are being actively and intelligently discussed. This activity will have had an educational impact, particularly where the new technology is concerned. That became obvious soon after the mid-air collision over South Germany. Even the regulators read into the confusion levels and smartly began publishing official interim notes to ensure that all concerned were aware of facts that hadn’t been widely disseminated (see ASW, May 31, 2004). Pilot attitudes have also changed. The Swissair Flight 111 crash rapidly switched 100 percent of pilots away from any mindset of tolerance of smoke or fumes. Land ASAP (as soon as possible) has become a scrupulous compunction. Trouble-shooting while airborne? After the TV re- enactment of the Alaska Airlines Flight 261crash, forget it. Hard lessons are being remembered, reducing the likelihood of repeats.
• Pilots are realizing more than ever that their job security depends upon a safe and profitable operation. Flight Data Monitoring (FDM, a.k.a. FOQA) has convinced pilots of the virtues of being skilled professionals – and de-rated the shortcut approach to getting the job done. There is nothing as praiseworthy as induced virtue. If it translates into fewer human error accidents through less risk-taking, then the era of the true professional will have arrived.
• The next limitation to overcome may be the man-machine interface. If pilots can feed deadly all up weight (AUW) data into a keyset, or set too low a power to get airborne, or allow an aircraft to suck them into thinking it was under autopilot control and take them on a hay-ride, that interface needs re-examination (see ASW, Jan. 26, 2004). The perennial question of “Who’s driving the bus?” was always an unintended consequence of automation – but one needing more monitoring than it’s getting.
• Safety awareness, and action, is improving globally. The old Soviet bloc states still have a way to go but they appear to be turning the corner. Korean Airlines has undergone a major safety overhaul and has been accident-free for five years. The Chinese appear to have a very rational and up-to-date thought process regarding “safety first.” Their rapid grounding response to their CRJ200 accident would’ve been considered a heresy by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), but the Chinese doggedly allowed “better safe than sorry” to prevail. In Taiwan, the Aviation Safety Council (ASC) has established a high standard for accident postmortems, with a positive effect on airlines coming under its investigative eye.
• The hardware and human infrastructure impact safety. The FAA is looking down the barrel of en masse retirements of experienced air traffic controllers. Berms, light poles, other obstructions and inadequate runway overrun areas present latent hazards. If crews make a mistake it shouldn’t have to be a lethal penalty awaiting them just off the bitumen at the far end.
• There are red flags up on turboprop icing, on-ground de-icing, bird strike potentials, pilot chronic fatigue, outsourced maintenance, non-precision approaches and the like, not to mention the band aids applied to the in-flight fire threat. Over the horizon looms the inbuilt conflict between aircraft climb/descent rates and TCAS Resolution Advisories under the new DRVSM 1,000 ft. vertical separation rules coming into force January 20 (see ASW, Nov. 3, 2003). The elastic band for ETOPS (extended range operations) keeps stretching and may one day fly back to hit in the eye (see ASW, Jan. 13, 2003). In summary, everything in the garden appears rosy, but behind and beneath each rose thorns lurk – and the potential for many pricks.

All in all, the Airclaims’ caution about complacency seems justified. Three “good” years don’t necessarily mean the future will continue on the same positive path as the past. As the saying goes, whenever one thinks a trend is going to continue forever, that’s right about the point where it is most likely to reverse.