David Learmount/AMSTERDAM
In a visible break with tradition, the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) is set to make mandatory the use of flight data analysis (FDA) and enhanced ground proximity warning systems (EGPWS) even though they have not yet been declared requirements in any member state. Previously, the organisation has followed industry initiatives, rather than led them.
ICAO has drafted an addition to its operations annex (Annex 6), recommending FDA - often called flight operations quality assurance - be adopted as standard. The proposal could reach the ICAO Council for approval next year.
FDA is the use of information from flight data or quick access recorders to enable airlines to monitor the quality of their flight operations. For example, the system would highlight the fact that approaches to a particular airport were consistently being flown too low or too fast, enabling the carrier to discover why, and to take corrective action before a flightpath deviation became an accident.
Given the time it will take to win consensus among ICAO's 185 member states, its accident investigation and prevention chief, Milton Wylie, estimates that the proposal could become recommended practice by the end of 2004.
Wylie says that the resources of small regional airlines would not realistically allow FDA administration, so it is anticipated that the requirement would be limited to aircraft weighing more than 27t.
ICAO has also announced its intention to amend Annex 6 to require commercial aircraft to be fitted with "a predictive terrain hazard warning function" such as EGPWS. New aircraft above 15-passenger capacity would be required be fitted from 2001, and retrofits would be required from 2003, says Wylie.
The world's larger airlines and corporate operators seem to be embracing EGPWS with enthusiasm, in advance of a rule requiring it (although the US Federal Aviation Administration has published an intention to require it). AlliedSignal's chief engineer for safety systems, Don Bateman, says that the company's EGPWS is being fitted at the rate of 15-20 sets a day and that, by year-end, it estimates 4,600 units will have been installed, 8,000 systems will have been delivered and 9,500 sold, at a price of about $40,000 a unit.
Source: Flight International
