Flight Safety DIGEST SEPTEMBER 2004 Charts Raise Pilot Awareness of Minimum Vectoring Altitudes Flight Safety Digest Flight Safety Foundation For Everyone Concerned With the Safety of Flight Vol. 23 No. 9 September 2004 www.fl ightsafety.org OFFICERS AND STAFF Chairman, Board of Governors Hon. Carl W. Vogt President and CEO Stuart Matthews In This Issue Executive Vice President Robert H. Vandel Treasurer James S. Waugh Jr. Charts Raise Pilot Awareness of ADMINISTRATIVE Minimum Vectoring Altitudes Manager, Support Services Linda Crowley Horger At least 158 paper charts published by 34 civil aviation FINANCIAL authorities currently provide advisory information about minimum vectoring altitudes to pilots. Newly released data Director of Finance for 374 U.S. MVA charts should encourage development of and Administration Crystal N. Phillips electronic versions that will help to prevent controlled fl ight Accountant Millicent Wheeler 1 into terrain. MEMBERSHIP Director, Membership Approach-and-landing Accident and Development Ann Hill Severity Decreases in 2003 for STATS Membership Services Coordinator Ahlam Wahdan Large Commercial Jets Although approach-and-landing accidents (ALAs) continued to PUBLICATIONS be the largest accident category for the worldwide commercial jet Director of Publications Roger Rozelle fl eet, ALAs produced a smaller percentage of total fatalities and a 29 Senior Editor Mark Lacagnina smaller percentage of total hull-loss accidents than in 2002. Senior Editor Wayne Rosenkrans Senior Editor Linda Werfelman Crew Resource Management Is Associate Editor Rick Darby Called a ‘Human-tech’ Success Story Web and Print Production Coordinator Karen K. Ehrlich Advanced technology, says The Human Factor, is often poorly Production Designer Ann L. Mullikin LIBRARY designed for the people who work with it. The author fi nds Production Specialist Susan D. Reed that, although aviation has its man vs. machine confl icts, the Librarian, Jerry Lederer 34 industry has made progress in taming them. Aviation Safety Library Patricia Setze TECHNICAL Leaking Fuel Tank in Boeing 777 39 Director of Technical Programs James M. Burin Prompts Return to Airport Technical Programs Specialist Joanne Anderson The report by the U.K. Air Accidents Investigation Branch said Managing Director of that the purge door for the center fuel tank was not installed. Internal Evaluation Programs Louis A. Sorrentino III BRIEFS Q-Star Program Administrator Robert Feeler Manager, Data Systems and Analysis Robert Dodd, Ph.D. Manager of Aviation Safety Audits Darol V. Holsman Founder Jerome Lederer 1902–2004 Flight Safety Foundation is an international membership organization dedicated to the continuous improvement of aviation safety. Nonprofi t and independent, the Foundation was launched offi cially in 1947 in response to the aviation industry’s need for a neutral clearinghouse to disseminate objective safety information, and for a credible and knowl- edgeable body that would identify threats to safety, analyze the problems and recommend practical solutions to them. Since its beginning, the Foundation has acted in the public interest to produce positive infl uence on aviation safety. Today, the Foundation provides leadership to more than 910 member organizations in more than 142 countries. Cover photo: © Copyright 2004 Matton V ECTORING ALTITUDES © Copyright 2004 Getty Images Inc. Charts Raise Pilot Awareness of Minimum Vectoring Altitudes At least 158 paper charts published by 34 civil aviation authorities currently provide advisory information about minimum vectoring altitudes to pilots. Newly released data for 374 U.S. MVA charts should encourage development of electronic versions that will help to prevent controlled flight into terrain. — FSF EDITORIAL STAFF lthough the use of minimum vectoring Radar vectoring is common during IFR opera- altitudes (MVAs) by air traffi c control tions in terminal areas within the vicinity of one (ATC) facilities has been familiar to or more major airports, and increases as more Apilots for decades, civil aviation au- aircraft are equipped to conduct area-navigation thorities vary as to whether they publish this infor- (RNAV) operations off the routes published on mation to enable pilots to anticipate assignment IFR charts. During normal fl ight operations, pilots of altitudes below those depicted on instrument may be told by the radar controller — or may not fl ight rules (IFR) navigation charts. Various terms be told — that the MVA has been offered to them and defi nitions are used for these predefi ned alti- during approach or departure.1 tudes. Charts that depict these altitudes also have been offered as a method for pilots to cross-check During the past 35 years, civil aviation authorities assigned altitudes during radar vectoring under increasingly have published paper charts in their IFR in controlled airspace. aeronautical information publications (AIPs)2 so FLIGHT SAFETY FOUNDATION • FLIGHT SAFETY DIGEST • SEPTEMBER 2004 1 V ECTORING ALTITUDES that controllers and pilots have the same informa- global positioning system (GPS) and fl ight man- tion about MVAs. Some contain procedures to be agement system (FMS), it is now possible to display used for loss of ATC–pilot communication during MVA information in an electronic form on the fl ight radar vectoring. deck. The one missing action is for ATC to make this information available to pilots who want or need Paper charts depicting MVAs are available to pilots it. The [working group] strongly recommends that from Belgium; Bosnia and Herzegovina; Botswana; MVA information be made available for use.”3 Chile; Colombia; Costa Rica; Czech Republic; Ecuador; Egypt; France; Germany; Greece; India; The working group said that its conclusion and Indonesia; Iran; Israel; Italy; Jordan; Malaysia; recommendation were based on the following Mexico; Oman; Panama; Philippines; Poland; reasons: “Currently there is a hazardous discon- Portugal; Russia; Slovenia; Spain; Taiwan, China; nect between the vectoring charts used by the Tunisia; Turkey; Ukraine; United Kingdom; and air traffi c controller and those available in the Uruguay, according to August 2004 information cockpit. The pilot has minimum-sector-altitude compiled in a Jeppesen database (Appendix A, (MSA) charts that provide the lowest usable al- page 23). The three countries with the largest titude in a sector surrounding an airport. These number of such charts in this database were France charts are centered around radar-antenna sites, (29 charts), Mexico (nine charts) and the United which in most cases are different from the center Kingdom (41 charts). point of the MSA charts. As the MSA and MVA charts are based on different criteria, a pilot can Since the 1990s, aviation safety specialists, includ- become confused when vectored at an altitude ing the Flight Safety Foundation (FSF) Approach- that is below the MSA charted altitude. The pilot and-landing Accident Reduction (ALAR) Task is not sure whether [he/she] is being radar vec- Force, have said that the most important reason tored at an approved MVA altitude or whether for shared awareness of MVAs is to help prevent a mistake has been made concerning the MSA. controlled fl ight into terrain (CFIT). This is especially critical in high-density traffi c areas where radio congestion may preclude fur- CFIT occurs when an airworthy aircraft under the ther and immediate clarifi cation with ATC. This control of the fl ight crew is fl own unintentionally is a classic ‘latent situation’ or ‘enabling factor’ in into terrain, obstacles or water, usually with no the potential error chain.” prior awareness by the crew. This type of accident can occur during most phases of fl ight, but CFIT is The risk of CFIT during ATC radar vectoring is more common during the approach-and-landing minor but not negligible, said Don Bateman, a phase, which begins when an airworthy aircraft member of the FSF ALAR Task Force and chief under the control of the fl ight crew descends below engineer, Flight Safety Avionics, Honeywell 5,000 feet above ground level (AGL) with the in- International. His worldwide CFIT-accident data tention to conduct an approach for transport category aircraft and reports of terrain and ends when the landing is warnings help to shed light on the value of MVA complete or the fl ight crew fl ies charts to pilots.4 the aircraft above 5,000 feet AGL en route to another airport. “The probability of an incorrect altitude assign- ment in a radar vector, an incorrect aircraft posi- Absence of vertical situation tion or ATC radar-vectoring the wrong airplane awareness — i.e., when pilots do seems very low, but these errors continue to not know the relationship of the happen — close calls occur every year,” he said. “I airplane altitude to the surround- would be very surprised to fi nd that an MVA chart ing terrain, obstacles and intended was wrong, however.” (See “CHIRP, ASRS Reports fl ight path — has been identifi ed Suggest Value of MVA Awareness,” page 5.) as a signifi cant causal factor dur- ing analysis of global CFIT acci- In some reported incidents, pilots have said that dents. In 1997, one working group they received questionable radar vectors and that of the FSF ALAR Task Force said, they avoided terrain either on their own or by “With the implementation of the receiving a terrain warning. 2 FLIGHT SAFETY FOUNDATION • FLIGHT SAFETY DIGEST • SEPTEMBER 2004 V ECTORING ALTITUDES “In one example, an MVA chart would have been better ways for terrain aware- very helpful to a captain who refused a radar