As written for Wings Magazine . . .
This year has without question not been a good one for aviation incidents (the polite term used for crashes). Within Canada alone, the Transportation Safety Board folks must be swamped with all the activity that has occurred since June alone. Float planes, helicopters, recreational aircraft and chartered/commercial aircraft have had a horrendous summer with far too many fatalities.
Outside of Canadian airspace the same seems to be true. Not one, but two commercial airline incidents and double digit deaths on the same day in August alone. If you add it all together, some would see it as carnage. The web site PlaneCrashInfo.com tracks this sort of thing (morbid I know but heck I guess someone has too). Tracking major, international data, they show 28 separate incidents by late August for the year. The fatalities numbered 673 at this point. A total of 12 of the incidents occurred between June and August alone and accounted for 278 fatalities. Remember – these are just the commercial operations rated incidents. The GA count is outside of this. You have to admit; it is a staggering number and certainly gives credibility to the Fear of Flying contingent.
We have been promoting aviation as safe and reliable for decades now. The majority of us really do believe it to be true. As an industry, we have collectively made spectacular advances in flight safety, enhancements, modern training programmes, plus the introduction of Safety Management System (SMS) protocols. But if this year is anything to measure the success or failure of these by, it would be apparent to some that failure is the result.
Now for sure someone is going to come back and say well there was a reason for this incident and another for that. They are not related. While that may be true, the fact remains that they all occurred and have an apparent common factor – the human one. Even the recent crash of a costly military UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) was blamed on guess what – human error. As a race we say “to err is only human”. It seems to be an accepted element of society today. Make a mistake – cheat on your wife – bilk elderly folks out of their hard earned savings – lie – crash a car while you are drunk and kill someone – you can just apologize and move on. It was after all - human error. So sub standard it acceptable. Forget excellence.
Our modern, instant communication tools of the day are not helping. Instead they sensationalize the whole thing. Case in point, we see videos of a ballistic parachute lowering a wingless aircraft safely to the ground and say “great thing that”. The pilot lived. But hang on, what about the report that he was flying the aircraft in a manner that it was not intended to do? Well – that was human error on his part. Good thing he had the parachute. Or did the parachute give him the false sense of security to go ahead and push the limits? Hard to say – we are not him.
And then there is the one of the RC aircraft being allowed to operate in the middle of a runway at an airport hosting a special aviation day. Clearly there is no crowd control, safety line and just one fellow with a handheld radio and sticker on his shirt naming him Air Boss. So guess what – the Air Boss is watching the RC guy doing his stunt work and misses the real airplane in the pattern (heck the real airplane even had a smoke system going so it was sort of hard to miss him) and guess what - a collision between the two occurs. The RC is destroyed and the real airplane manages a landing with reasonable damage to the wing – but nobody got hurt. So it was human error and that was ok.
In both cases the videos go “viral” on the internet and become something we all pass around. But they point to a bigger concern and that quite frankly is - what the heck is going on? What were these people thinking? Where was the safety element (yet alone common sense)? Or do we once again just chalk it up to – you got it – Human Error.
Maybe it’s just me but something has to change – and soon! It’s great to fly. We know that. But we need collectively to be sensible and smart and most of all – SAFE! The odds are against us otherwise.
RS
Outside of Canadian airspace the same seems to be true. Not one, but two commercial airline incidents and double digit deaths on the same day in August alone. If you add it all together, some would see it as carnage. The web site PlaneCrashInfo.com tracks this sort of thing (morbid I know but heck I guess someone has too). Tracking major, international data, they show 28 separate incidents by late August for the year. The fatalities numbered 673 at this point. A total of 12 of the incidents occurred between June and August alone and accounted for 278 fatalities. Remember – these are just the commercial operations rated incidents. The GA count is outside of this. You have to admit; it is a staggering number and certainly gives credibility to the Fear of Flying contingent.
We have been promoting aviation as safe and reliable for decades now. The majority of us really do believe it to be true. As an industry, we have collectively made spectacular advances in flight safety, enhancements, modern training programmes, plus the introduction of Safety Management System (SMS) protocols. But if this year is anything to measure the success or failure of these by, it would be apparent to some that failure is the result.
Now for sure someone is going to come back and say well there was a reason for this incident and another for that. They are not related. While that may be true, the fact remains that they all occurred and have an apparent common factor – the human one. Even the recent crash of a costly military UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) was blamed on guess what – human error. As a race we say “to err is only human”. It seems to be an accepted element of society today. Make a mistake – cheat on your wife – bilk elderly folks out of their hard earned savings – lie – crash a car while you are drunk and kill someone – you can just apologize and move on. It was after all - human error. So sub standard it acceptable. Forget excellence.
Our modern, instant communication tools of the day are not helping. Instead they sensationalize the whole thing. Case in point, we see videos of a ballistic parachute lowering a wingless aircraft safely to the ground and say “great thing that”. The pilot lived. But hang on, what about the report that he was flying the aircraft in a manner that it was not intended to do? Well – that was human error on his part. Good thing he had the parachute. Or did the parachute give him the false sense of security to go ahead and push the limits? Hard to say – we are not him.
And then there is the one of the RC aircraft being allowed to operate in the middle of a runway at an airport hosting a special aviation day. Clearly there is no crowd control, safety line and just one fellow with a handheld radio and sticker on his shirt naming him Air Boss. So guess what – the Air Boss is watching the RC guy doing his stunt work and misses the real airplane in the pattern (heck the real airplane even had a smoke system going so it was sort of hard to miss him) and guess what - a collision between the two occurs. The RC is destroyed and the real airplane manages a landing with reasonable damage to the wing – but nobody got hurt. So it was human error and that was ok.
In both cases the videos go “viral” on the internet and become something we all pass around. But they point to a bigger concern and that quite frankly is - what the heck is going on? What were these people thinking? Where was the safety element (yet alone common sense)? Or do we once again just chalk it up to – you got it – Human Error.
Maybe it’s just me but something has to change – and soon! It’s great to fly. We know that. But we need collectively to be sensible and smart and most of all – SAFE! The odds are against us otherwise.
RS
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