Issues in Safety Aviation Technology - Case Study Example

Issues in Safety Aviation Technology (Name) (Institution) (Course) (Instructor’s Name) Date of submission Introduction Aviation is one of man’s most ingenious discoveries and an icon of human advancement. It has advanced to be the safest mode of transport but the infrequent accidents are usually highly publicized by the media (Cobb & Primo 2003). By definition, aviation is the design and development of aircraft of all types ranging from military to civilian or commercial flight. Since the invention of aircraft by the Wright Brothers, the issue of safety has preoccupied the development, production and design process. While aircraft manufacturers are responsible for installing safety measures and controls in the machines, air operators have a responsibility too in terms of the airports and routes and as they conduct their business. Pilots and cabin crew also have a critical role to play. The safety of aviation is compromised by accidents which often destruction of property and loss of lives. As such, safety is a critical issue which has guided the technology in aircraft manufacture and design. It is the aim of this paper to explore air safety issues in the last fifty years. The paper will highlight the causes of aviation accidents, the role of technology in averting or causing such and also the issue of human error. The paper will draw information form a relevant books, journal articles and online articles. Discussion Since the commencement of commercial airlines in 1920, millions of people and tons of cargo have been transported by aircraft. Deregulation of the industry has seen a fall in air fares (Cobb & Primo 2003) but competition has seen some safety measures overlooked to cut costs in the face of competition (Cobb & Primo 2003). In the process, numerous accidents have occurred. While technology and experience has allowed improvement in safety measures, accidents are still common. Roelen (2008) argues that the current situation in aviation safety cannot be improved unless better ways of addressing safety are developed. One of the new methods, other than safety rules and regulations that have been introduced in the industry is the development of causal risk models. The conventional models in use are regulatory authorities by various governments. These authorities are responsible for defining and ensuring airworthiness of aircraft, inspection of airports, licensing of airmen, licensing of airlines and creation and enforcement of air traffic rules among other roles. The International Civil Aviation Organization is the umbrella body. Past aviation accidents around the world have inspired development of safety measures in regulations, manufacturing and design of aircrafts. Each accident is thoroughly investigated by the manufacturer and the regulatory body in each country plus also the airline operators in order to understand the cause (FAA, 2011; Wells & Rodrigues 2004). Some accidents reveal new issues hitherto unknown while others reveal a sequence of events that have been witnessed elsewhere in the past. However, an accident rather than the knowledge that such an event could happen is the one that triggers a remedial action by the parties involved. For instance, the Concorde had experienced a number of tyre bursts which causes damage to fuel tanks before any correction measures taken. After a number of accidents, the fuel tanks were covered with Kevlar to protect them from damages caused by tyre bursts (Roelen 2008). This shows that quite a number of developments in aviation safety are responses to accidents. However, the rarity of aviation accidents limits learning opportunities. In the 1960’s, the level of aviation technology and engineering was relatively lower when compared to the present day. However, such lower levels of technology and engineering knowledge did not lead to higher than normal aviation accidents related to mechanical errors (Weiggman & Shapell 2003). The table below indicates that over the years, the number of aviation accidents (commercial private and military) caused by mechanical failure have increased in the 21st century considerably as compared to the 1960’s. The frequency of human error in accidents has however reduced over the years indicating increased knowledge and safety guidelines awareness. The figures are gathered from 1300 accidents that have been reported since the 1950’s. The table might give a biased idea of the rends in causes of aviation accidents given that over the years, there has been a steady increase in the number of flights hence a higher probability of aviation accidents. The government through NASA plans to reduce the current rate of aviation accidents by 80% in 10 through three major ways; “accident prevention, accident mitigation and aviation system monitoring and modeling” (NASA ¶). Causes of Fatal Accidents by Decade (percentage) Cause 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s All  Pilot Error 40 32 24 25 27 26 29  Pilot Error  (weather related) 11 18 14 17 21 17 16  Pilot Error (mechanical related) 7 5 4 2 4 3 5  Total Pilot Error 58 57 42 44 53 46 50  Other Human Error 0 8 9 6 8 8 6  Weather 16 10 13 15 9 9 12  Mechanical Failure 21 20 23 21 21 28 22  Sabotage 5 5 11 13 10 9 9  Other Cause 0 2 2 1 0 1 1 Source: http://www.planecrashinfo.com/cause.htm Safety Board investigations attribute aircraft accidents to multiple causes. Oftentimes, the cause of a single accident is caused by more than one factor (Dilligham 2009). Unclear cause of accidents habitually leads to speculation which does little to advance aviation safety. In fact, the number of causes for aviation accidents is higher than the number of accidents ever reported in the US (OTA 1988). The report indicates that around 78% of pilots involved in accidents were identified as the cause of the accident through errors. In fatal accidents, where at least one life is lost, 87% of the pilots are to blame. The weather (terrain, weather etc) causes 41% of all accidents and 39% of fatal ones. Another analysis of US domestic airlines between 1987 and 1996 showed that on average a fatal accident kills 44% of the occupants. From these figures, if a person was take a flight each day, the he would on average experience a fatal accident after 13 700 years with the chances of survival being higher than death (Roelen 2008) The fact that pilots are blamed for majority of the accidents emanates from the interaction with technological safety measures or an overlook on the rules and regulations. Given that more planes are more advanced technologically, pilots and engineers have had to keep up with these changes through training. The FAA has also had to advance its aircraft test abilities. Wells and Rodrigues (2004) identify fours main areas that the FAA has had to advance in flight testing; new flight-test techniques, improved accuracy of instrumentation, improved data recoding systems and real-time monitoring and data analysis. In matters pertaining to instrumentation, the FAA ruling calling for inclusion of Cockpit Voice Recorders (CVR) and Flight Data Recorder (FDR) in all flights in 1987 have proved to be of immense help in improving aviation safety. Prior to this, foil type versions were in use. This ruling was triggered by the Detroit Metro Airport accident on 4th of March same year. The ruling also called for inclusion of CVR’s on newly manufactured turbo-propeller commuter aircraft carrying six of more passengers. Older jets were also required to replace the foil type recorders with the new ones. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is commissioned to make rules and regulations to guide the industry. It is also mandated to oversee the inclusion certain technological features on aircraft in order to improve safety. Such technologies are expensive for aircraft manufacturers and airline firms. The demand for such technologies and the support by law has fuelled innovation in air safety and control technologies. Some times back, the former Office of Technology Assessment liaised with these firms to develop technologies that are useful in preventing aviation accidents. Among the many technologies that have been incorporated and required by law is the inclusion of Terminal Doppler Weather Radar (TDWR), Traffic Alert/Collision Avoidance System (TCAS), Automatic Dependant Surveillance Broadcast (ADS-B) and Terminal Radar Approach Control (TRACON). Most of these technologies are updated regularly. With improvement in such, training aviators on how to use such additions on aircraft is necessary (Roelen 2008). Although much of these systems are automated, they require human input. Technology user interface greatly determines its efficacy in accident prevention in aviation. It is this interface that often results in human errors either due to attitudes, poor training or technology malfunction. As aforementioned, most aviation accidents are attributed to human error. Forgarty and Buikstra (2008) cite a number of studies that have explored the aviators’ behavior in response to safety climate measures on aircrafts. One of the major findings in the research was that aviators perceive various organizational processes and practices differently which impacts on their attitudes towards aviation and response to threatening situations. This implies that pilots may be unable to utilize technologies fitted in aircrafts well when faced with difficult situations due to the perception they have of the airline or the employer. In short, safety climate helps foretell safety behaviors. Human error can be caused by response to warning from safety systems installed in an aircraft. Safety systems such as the TCAS often give a warning for which aviators are supposed to act on. According to Colvin and Funk (cited in Newlin, Bustamante & Bliss 2008), pilots should prioritize tasks based on their importance as they are faced with many tasks. The aviate, navigate, communicate, and systems management (ANCS) ideology stipulates that pilots should consider aviation related tasks before embarking on navigation tasks. The research by Newlin, Bustamante and Bliss (2008) also indicates that not all alarms indicate genuine problems. False alarms attributable to engineering problems which cannot be detected after an accident influence accident investigations to direct the blame on human error. The authors therefore argue that there is need to develop safety systems whose record in identifying problems in aircraft is fully certified. Conclusion The future of aviation safety lies in technology that is capable predicting accidents rather than using the learn fix concept where aviation accidents spur and direct technology. The current situation implies that unforeseen causal factors of accidents are hardly detectable but wit technological systems installed in aircrafts detecting known causal factors. Furthermore, there is need to address the issue of human error. Weiggman and Shapell (2003) point to the importance of this by saying that pilots are even more dangerous than the aircrafts that they fly. Therefore, as technology advances, attention should also be directed towards eliminating human error in aviation to enhance safety. There are two major possible ways of achieving this; increasing automation levels in aircrafts to minimize human control and therefore reduce human error and secondly to enhance the mechanical abilities of modern aircraft with proper maintenance of operating ones. References Cobb, R. & Primo, D. (2003). The plane truth: airline crashes, the media, and transportation policy. New York: Brookings Institution Press Dillingham, G. (2009). Aviation Safety: Better Data and Targeted FAA Efforts Needed to Identify and Address Safety Issues of Small Air Cargo Carriers: New York: Diane Publishing Forgarty, G. and Buikstra, E. (2008). A Test of Direct and Indirect Pathways Linking Safety Climate, Psychological Health, and Unsafe Behaviors. International Journal of Applied Aviation Studies. 8(2), 199- 210 Newlin, Bustamante & Bliss (2008). Alarm Relevance and Reliability: Factors Affecting Alarm Responses by Commercial Pilots. International Journal of Applied Aviation Studies. 8(2), p.337-357 NASA (2011). NASA Aviation Safety Program. Retrieved from, http://www.nasa.gov/centers/langley/news/factsheets/AvSP-factsheet.html Official FAA website. http://www.faa.gov/ Official ICAO website. http://www.icao.int/ OTA. (1988). Safe skies for tomorrow: aviation safety in a competitive environment. New York: OTA Roelen, A. (2008). Causal risk models of air transport: comparison of user needs and model capabilities. Houston: Pro Universitate Statistics (2011). Retrieved from, http://www.planecrashinfo.com/cause.htm Wells, A. & Rodrigues, C. (2004). Commercial aviation safety, 4th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill Professional Wiegmann, D. & Shappell, S. (2003). A human error approach to aviation accident analysis: the human factors analysis and classification system. New York: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. Read More