THE US FEDERAL Aviation Administration, is beginning a yearlong study, of modern airliner cockpit-design following concerns raised by recent accidents.
It says that, in the light of "several [unspecified] accidents", it is creating a team "...to evaluate current-generation transport-category airplane-cockpit design".
The review is to focus on "systems dealing with [pilot] flight-mode awareness" in large airliners, says the FAA's Transport Airplane Directorate in Seattle, Washington.
It names the aircraft types to be studied. They are: all Airbus types, except the old, traditional-cockpit A300s; Boeing 737s from the -300 onward, and the 757, 767 and 747-400; McDonnell Douglas' MD-11, MD-80 and MD-90; and the Fokker 100 series.
There have been accidents in which pilot flight-mode confusion is known, or believed to have been a contributory factor. These include the 20 January 1992, Air Inter A320 crash on approach to Strasbourg, France (in which there were 88 fatalities) and the 26 April 1994, China Air Lines A300-600 accident at Nagoya, Japan, in which 264 people died.
Several serious, but non-fatal incidents involving various types have also been judged by investigating authorities to be attributable to mode-confusion.
The review team expected to include, representation from the European Joint Aviation Authorities, will issue reports and is due to complete its work within a year.
The FAA intends the team to identify problems on individual types, and review the modern-cockpit man/machine interface.
Source: Flight International
