Niche accidents

David Learmount/LONDON

Despite a worldwide campaign to reduce it, controlled flight into terrain (CFIT) increased in 1998 for the second year running, both among jet and non-jet flights, confirming the reversal of a previously favourable trend. There were five jet CFIT accidents and eight involving propeller-driven commercial aircraft. This - and continuing discrepancies in the levels of safety achieved in different regions of the world - will reinforce the now established policy of attacking the niche areas of safety weakness.

Also sad to report is the ending of a run of commendable safety achievements, with Western Europe's major airlines suffering their first fatal jet crashes since 1993. The worst accident - involving a Swissair Boeing MD-11 - killed all 229 people on board, the most fatalities in any crash in 1998. PauknAir of Spain also suffered a fatal jet accident, though on a smaller scale (see accident tables starting P28).

The overall figures for 1998 are unremarkable, having hit the averages for the decade almost exactly (see bar chart P29). Encouraging, however, is the fact that numbers of fatal accidents and of fatalities have been falling for three successive years, and the decade's upward trend in simple numbers has tilted almost imperceptibly the other way. If the world can sustain the improvement, it will confound the doom-mongers who predict a major crash every week in about 10 years' time.

Figures already reveal nearly one fatal accident a week - there were 48 - but only nine of these involved large jets on passenger flights, and only seven of those were operating scheduled civilian services. Nevertheless, out of a total of 1,244 fatalities for all categories in 1998, more than half (794) occurred in the scheduled jet accidents.

Most fatal accidents involved non-passenger flights. There were 21 fatal accidents and 71 fatalities in this category, which includes cargo, commercial positioning or ferry flights, and airline crew training or post-maintenance flights by airlines. These totals were far worse than in the previous year (12 accidents and 59 fatalities).

A total of 17 fatal accidents and 239 fatalities in 1998 involved regional and commuter airliners. This sector, however, is showing the largest proportional improvement: 1997's comparative figures show 29 accidents and 391 fatalities.

Asia Pacific suffered another dismal year, with three out of seven of the world's major scheduled jet fatal accidents occurring in the region. Taiwan's China Airlines lost its second widebodied aircraft since 1994, with all on board killed. On both occasions, the aircraft crashed while carrying out go-around manoeuvres. Now the same thing has happened to Thai Airways International. In all three incidents, the pilots lost control of the aircraft. Back in 1992, Thai lost an Airbus Industrie A310 during a missed approach procedure at Kathmandhu, Nepal, but that was CFIT, not loss of control.

Taiwan also suffered a Saab 340 fatal accident last year, and since it occurred within a month of the China Airlines go-around tragedy and involved regional carrier Formosa Airlines - no stranger to serious accidents in the 1990s - it sparked a mass rejection of air travel by the Taiwanese. Those who did continue to fly chose rival airlines. Finally Taiwan has set up a new accident investigation and safety oversight agency.

Action at airline and national level may be desirable in Asia Pacific, but the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) wants to see the region set up a joint safety council. This is based on the concept that the operating experiences of each region are unique, so operating problems are best identified and solved locally.

Last year saw the reversal of the previous downward trend in CFIT accidents. Three of the seven scheduled jet accidents were CFITs, as were two of the crashes involving non-scheduled jet flights. This compares with a total of four in 1997. Non-jet CFIT events, meanwhile, rose from three in 1997 to eight last year.

Enhanced GPWS will play its part in reducing CFIT, but for many existing fleets the 1998 CFIT figures emphasise the continuing need to preach the traditional, procedural methods for CFIT avoidance, which agencies all over the world have been doing under the co-ordination of the Flight Safety Foundation.

CFIT remains the biggest killer. There were 387 deaths in CFIT accidents last year. That catch-all category "flight crew error" killed more, but that is because pilot error is almost always one of the several causal factors in CFIT accidents, and frequently in others.

Next to CFIT, loss of control (LOC) was the most deadly causal factor in 1998's accidents. There were 13 LOC accidents last year, in which 364 people died, which compares with 1997's respective figures of nine and 257. Many agencies, including the International Federation of Airline Pilots Associations, have voiced their concern about a gradual, but undeniable, increase in the number of LOC crashes as a proportion of all accidents during the last decade or so. The cause of this phenomenon has not been agreed, but some ascribe it to lower "stick-and-rudder" skills in pilots who fly highly automated aeroplanes.

One of the most hopeful safety events in 1998 was the US Federal Aviation Administration's successful completion of its flight operations quality assurance test programme, and the announcement of its launch (Flight International, 9-15 December, 1998, P15). Although many non-US airlines have been using data downloaded from flight data recorders as an operational and engineering diagnostic tool for years, the USA's conversion will advance the concept in the world as a whole. The data-based knowledge of risk levels is a powerful tool in accident prevention.

Source: Flight International