Aerosafety World December 2011-January 2012
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AeroSafety WORLD LANGUAGE HINDERS INVESTIGATIONS English issues reach beyond operations REPORT FROM SINGAPORE Highlights of the 64th IASS IMPROVING HELICOPTER SAFETY Past decade shows progress CALCULATING YOUR SAFETY BENEFITS New spreadsheets provide guidance FATALLY MISCONFIGURED LIFT DEFICIT THE JOURNAL OF FLIGHT SAFETY FOUNDATION DECEMBER 2011–JanuARY 2012 Registration Open CASS APRIL 18–19, 2012 57TH ANNUAL CORPORATE AVIATION SAFETY SEMINAR SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS For details, visit our Web site at flightsafety.org. To advertise in AeroSafety World Magazine, contact Emerald Media. To register or exhibit at the seminar, contact Namratha Apparao, Cheryl Goldsby Kelly Murphy tel.: +1.703.739.6700, ext. 101, [email protected]. [email protected] [email protected] To sponsor an event, contact Kelcey Mitchell, ext. 105, [email protected]. tel: +1 703 737 6753 tel: +1 703 716 0503 To receive membership information, contact Susan Lausch, ext. 112, [email protected]. EXECUTIVE’SMESSAGE Great Expectations spent a couple days in a seminar in Dubai dis- programming. To monitor something, a person cussing the future of training in our industry — has to have expectations of what should be hap- a session dominated, like most recent meetings, pening, and compare what he or she is seeing by discussions of “the Air France 447 problem.” against those expectations. I have a feeling that IOf course, people have been talking about the chal- “expectation” may be an insufficiently developed lenge of automation dependency and its impact part of the puzzle. on training for years, but that crash of an Airbus Years of relying on automated systems dulls A330 over the South Atlantic two years ago has our sense of expectation. When numbers are moved people to act. always calculated by dispatch, we lose a sense of a I was amazed to hear the response already normal range for takeoff weights, which allows us in place at some Middle East airlines. Emirates, to punch in a takeoff weight that is 100 tons off. for example, has added a two-day manual flying If we have not manually calculated top-of-descent session to its training syllabus, and substantially data for a decade, it is difficult to notice that some- revised its policies on the use of automation. Those thing is wrong in the automation and we should changes represent a big shift in training philosophy be starting down. If we have always flown with and a big commitment of cash. Other airlines in autothrottles, it is more difficult to know when the region are going down the same path. the engines are not spooling back up on approach I applaud the renewed emphasis on manual as they should on capturing the glide slope. If we flying skills. Studies show that some crews lack never have to manually establish cruise power confidence in their ability to fly the aircraft. When settings, it is more difficult to understand what the airplane starts to head the wrong way, crews is going on when a sensor breaks in the middle often go “heads-down” to troubleshoot the auto- of the night. mation instead of punching it off and pointing the As we revise our training programs over the aircraft in the right direction. next few years, I believe this point will have to Only good things can come from a healthy be central. Somehow we have to find a way to dose of manual flying, but it seems that a lot more continuously reinforce in pilots’ minds a sense has to be done to bring our training in line with the of what is normal — establishing the correct new realities of the job. We still train as if flying the expectation — so they will be able to notice airplane is the primary job. But when recent acci- quickly when things are not right. Right now, dents are examined, it seems like today’s vital skill our procedures erode that capability. It is time is the ability to recognize early when something to reverse that. isn’t right. When a crew figures out what is going wrong, it doesn’t usually take much in the way of refined skills to fix it. The life-or-death moment seems to be in the detection of the problem, not the recovery. This brings us to the subject of monitoring William R. Voss versus watching. My dog watches television, President and CEO but I don’t think I can say he is monitoring the Flight Safety Foundation WWW.FLIGHTSAFETY.ORG | AEROSAFETYWORLD | DECEMBER 2011–JANUARY 2012 | 1 AeroSafetyWORLD December 2011–January 2012 contents Vol 6 Issue 10 features 11 SafetyOversight | Public Aircraft Forum 14 Cover Story | Spanair MD-82 Takeoff 11 19 StrategicIssues | Safety Cost Worksheets 22 StrategicIssues | Brazilian Midair Linguistics 28 SeminarIASS | Reworking Systems 32 FirstPerson | A Black Swan Event 34 HelicopterSafety | U.S. Accidents Decline 40 HelicopterSafety | Disorientation After Dark 14 44 SafetyReview | ICAO Monitors Safety 46 InSight | Curbing Spatial Disorientation departments 1 Executive’sMessage | Great Expectations 32 5 EditorialPage | Essential Skills 7 SafetyCalendar | Industry Events 2 | FLIGHT SAFETY FOUNDATION | AEROSAFETYWORLD | DECEMBER 2011–JANUARY 2012 40 46 44 AeroSafetyWORLD telephone: +1 703.739.6700 8 InBrief | Safety News William R. Voss, publisher, FSF president and CEO [email protected] 48 DataLink | Thai Score J.A. Donoghue, editor-in-chief, FSF director of publications 52 Info Scan | Measures of Countermeasures [email protected], ext. 116 Mark Lacagnina, senior editor 56 OnRecord | Head-Down at a Hot Spot [email protected], ext. 114 Wayne Rosenkrans, senior editor [email protected], ext. 115 64 SmokeFireFumes | Selected U.S. Events Linda Werfelman, senior editor [email protected], ext. 122 Rick Darby, associate editor [email protected], ext. 113 Karen K. Ehrlich, webmaster and production coordinator [email protected], ext. 117 Ann L. Mullikin, art director and designer About the Cover [email protected], ext. 120 Failure to configure for takeoff caused the loss of this aircraft and death or injury of all aboard. Susan D. Reed, production specialist © Thomas Desmet/Airliners.net [email protected], ext. 123 Editorial Advisory Board David North, EAB chairman, consultant We Encourage Reprints (For permissions, go to <flightsafety.org/aerosafety-world-magazine>) William R. Voss, president and CEO Flight Safety Foundation Share Your Knowledge If you have an article proposal, manuscript or technical paper that you believe would make a useful contribution to the ongoing dialogue about aviation safety, we will be J.A. Donoghue, EAB executive secretary glad to consider it. Send it to Director of Publications J.A. Donoghue, 801 N. Fairfax St., Suite 400, Alexandria, VA 22314-1774 USA or [email protected]. Flight Safety Foundation The publications staff reserves the right to edit all submissions for publication. Copyright must be transferred to the Foundation for a contribution to be published, and payment is made to the author upon publication. Steven J. Brown, senior vice president–operations National Business Aviation Association Sales Contact Emerald Media Barry Eccleston, president and CEO Cheryl Goldsby, [email protected] +1 703.737.6753 Airbus North America Subscriptions: All members of Flight Safety Foundation automatically get a subscription to AeroSafety World magazine. For more information, please contact the Don Phillips, freelance transportation membership department, Flight Safety Foundation, 801 N. Fairfax St., Suite 400, Alexandria, VA 22314-1774 USA, +1 703.739.6700 or [email protected]. reporter AeroSafety World © Copyright 2012 by Flight Safety Foundation Inc. All rights reserved. ISSN 1934-4015 (print)/ ISSN 1937-0830 (digital). Published 11 times a year. Suggestions and opinions expressed in AeroSafety World are not necessarily endorsed by Flight Safety Foundation. Russell B. Rayman, M.D., executive director Nothing in these pages is intended to supersede operators’ or manufacturers’ policies, practices or requirements, or to supersede government regulations. Aerospace Medical Association, retired WWW.FLIGHTSAFETY.ORG | AEROSAFETYWORLD | DECEMBER 2011–JanuARY 2012 | 3 Let AeroSafety World give you Quality and Quantity Chances are, you’re reading this magazine because Number of copies each issue Annual rate for you want to be up on everything that matters in (11 issues per year) each recipient (plus shipping) aviation safety. 25–149 US$38.50 Why not order it in bulk for your front-line 150–299 $33.00 employees? 300-499 $27.50 500 or more $22.50 That way, you can be sure there’ll be enough copies to go around, and crewmembers will have more opportunity to read AeroSafety World when it best suits their schedule. We offer annual bulk subscriptions at attractive rates. Shipments can be sent to one location or multiple locations. For more information or to order, contact Susan Lausch, [email protected], +1 703.739.6700, ext. 212. EDITORIALPAGE ESSENTIAL Skills raining is a topic for endless discus- divided up assignments and worked James] Reason admits it was not de- sion in the aviation community, to understand, contain and ultimately signed to be scalable.” and for good reason. Accidents of- control the situation to achieve a happy What does survive seemingly un- ten point out gaps in training cur- ending that really was outside the realm survivable situations is not the result of Triculums that allow hazards to grow with of experience, or reasonable expectation. simple rote repetition of scripted train- fatal consequences. Then, in a seemingly “By any measure, QF32 was a success ing routines but “stress-proofing prac- endless cycle of repetition, the act of clos- because of teamwork,” de Crespigny tice. [You] have got to be bullet-proof, ing those gaps develops new inadequacies said, extending his praise to all involved, not gun-shy. Teamwork, CRM [crew as priorities are shifted to accommodate including cabin crew, air traffic control, resource management], experience with the existing training footprint. airport crash fire rescue personnel and a level command gradient, now we truly Some aviation dangers, however, can even passengers.