Air Safety Plan Aims to Identify Problems Before Crashes Occur
Pilots, mechanics and airline workers will be able to report everyday errors and problems without risking disciplinary action under a safety plan announced Friday by the government and the airline industry.
“This is a completely different way of looking at safety,” President Clinton said in announcing the plan at the White House. “Everyone must focus on fixing problems, not fixing blame.”
The initiative, called the Aviation Safety Action Program, addresses a dilemma that arises from the success and popularity of modern commercial aviation. With passenger flights projected to more than double in this decade, the only way to hold down the number of accidents is to achieve continual improvements in safety.
Throughout aviation history, many problems have only been discovered and corrected after there has been an accident. But the goal of the new program is to identify potential problems and resolve them before they reach the critical stage of compromising safety.
The Federal Aviation Administration, the airlines and their pilots and other employees have been negotiating over the details of the plan for more than two years. It is modeled after a program that American Airlines undertook more than four years ago that has resulted in some 18,000 reports on an estimated 11,000 incidents.
FAA officials said the reports typically involve such things as confusing runway markings that might cause pilots to make a wrong turn, miscommunication among pilots and controllers and a variety of in-flight glitches. The reporting at American has led to better signs and lighting at some airports and some new procedures.
In one case, said the officials, pilots reported inadvertently turning off a jet engine while transferring fuel from one tank to another during flight. The crew safely restarted the engine and their reports led to a recommendation for additional training. But the pilot was not disciplined.
The program “has been beneficial to American in that is has provided for a safer environment where we fly and it has established better relations with the pilots and mechanics unions,” said airline spokesman John Hotard.
Nick Lacey, the FAA’s director of flight standards, said the aim is to find day-to-day lapses and oversights that could easily be forgotten--those that do not start the adrenaline flowing.
“In aviation safety, most of our experiences are driven by what we have learned through tragic events,” said Lacey. “What we want to do is increase safety through identification of the precursors of accidents.”
The FAA said that 18 passenger airlines and cargo carriers already have submitted proposals to institute their own programs.
“The industry is going to take this and run,” said Bill Bozin, director of safety for the Air Transport Assn., an umbrella organization. “This encourages pilots to report on problems that would otherwise go unreported. We will not have to wait until there is an incident.”
The reporting from pilots and other workers will fit in with another joint government-industry program that has begun gathering and analyzing information from data recorders on routine flights to look for indications of problems.
One thing the program will not do is provide amnesty for reckless behavior. It specifically exempts violations of air safety rules, criminal behavior and problems that result from alcohol and drug use. A pilot who buzzes downtown will not be able to escape punishment by turning himself in. Moreover, close calls and many other safety lapses are supposed to be reported now.
