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Partners and Programs:

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Podcasts

Welcome to the Foundation’s podcast page. Below you will find interviews with safety experts from around the industry on a range of topics of interest to aviation safety professionals. New podcasts will be added as they are recorded. The views expressed in the podcasts are those of the speakers, and not necessarily those of the Foundation.

If you have a topic that you believe would be of interest to the aviation community, please get in touch with Vice President, Global Programs, Greg Marshall at marshall@flightsafety.org. Interviews can be conducted in-person at our head office or via Skype.

News, Accident/Incident Investigation, Safety Review

LOC-I Is Most-Cited Causal Factor in 2017 U.K. Fatal Crashes

Some 708 aviation occurrences were reported in 2017 to the U.K. Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB), which deployed investigators to 38 accident sites, including the sites of 16 fatal accidents, the AAIB said in a report released today.

The Annual Safety Review, 2017 said that the 16 accidents resulted in 28 fatalities.

Most of the fatal accidents involved general aviation aircraft, the report said, adding that the most frequently cited causal factors were loss of control–in flight (LOC-I) and weather-related issues.

The report noted the worldwide absence of fatal accidents involving passenger jet airliners in 2017, but Crispin Orr, the AAIB’s chief inspector of air accidents, cautioned that two fatal crashes in February of this year provided a “reality check” that fatal crashes “are not a thing of the past.”

Those two accidents were the Feb. 11 crash of a Saratov Airlines Antonov An-148 near Stepanovskoye, Russia, that killed all 71 occupants and the Feb. 18 crash of an Iran Aseman Airlines ATR 72 near Yasuj Airport in Iran that killed all 66 passengers and crew. The report was prepared before the March 12 crash of a US-Bangla Airlines de Havilland Canada Dash 8 in Kathmandu, Nepal, that killed 51 of the 71 people on board.

“The need to learn from accidents is as pressing as ever,” Orr said. “But so, too, is the need to learn from serious incidents (which, by definition, were nearly accidents) to establish why safety margins were compromised and promote action to address any weaknesses in the system.”

FSF Editorial Staff. March 14, 2018

News, Accident Investigation

U.K. AAIB Faults Commander, Operator for Late Incident Report

The U.K. Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) has chastised an aircraft commander, the aircraft operator and a tour group operator for failing to promptly report to the AAIB a July 21 event in which a Boeing 737 operating with a lower-than-required thrust setting struck a runway approach light during takeoff from Belfast (Northern Ireland) International Airport.

“In slightly different circumstances, this event could have resulted in the loss of the aircraft with multiple fatalities,” the AAIB said in Special Bulletin S2/2017, issued earlier this week. “The seriousness of the potential outcome, and the lack of barriers remaining to prevent it had the event escalated, persuaded the AAIB that this was a significant event requiring an in-depth investigation.”

None of the 185 passengers and crew was injured, and the only damage was to the light, the AAIB bulletin said. The aircraft operator — not named in the bulletin — reported the event to the Transportation Safety Board of Canada, and air traffic controllers filed a mandatory occurrence report and submitted information to the NATS Aeronautical Fixed Telecommunications Network.

The AAIB saw the NATS information three days after the event and subsequently began its investigation. Because of the delay, recorded data, including data from the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder, were unavailable to investigators.

“This has been detrimental to the investigation and may hinder the identification of all the safety issues,” the AAIB said. “It was considered necessary, therefore, to use this special bulletin to highlight reporting obligations within the U.K. for accidents and serious incidents.”

The AAIB bulletin said the 737’s flight management computer (FMC) showed an N1 of 81.5 percent was used for takeoff rather than the required setting of 93.3 percent, which was “calculated by the operator and shown on the preflight paperwork.” As a result, the thrust setting was significantly lower than required, the AAIB said.
The AAIB added that “the only credible way to achieve a grossly low N1 setting was to enter an extremely low value into the outside air temperature (OAT) field” during FMC programming.

Updated software would have identified a data entry error, the AAIB said, but the software had not been installed in the airplane.

As a result of its preliminary investigation, the AAIB issued two safety recommendations calling on the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration to require use of the updated software in 737 Next Generation airplanes and calling on Boeing to ensure that all 737 operators are aware of the information contained in the special bulletin.

FSF Editorial Staff. September 21, 2017