David Learmount/LONDON
An airline industry-feared rise in air transport accidents is not happening. A marked flight safety improvement has occurred in the first half of this year, compared with the same period last year, despite the fear that the number of accidents would grow as the size of the industry increased.
Meanwhile, there is renewed regulatory interest in pilot fatigue as a safety issue. One airline - Korean Air (KAL) - has been ostracised by business partners for not being safe enough.
Fatal accident data for the January-June sector of the past 10 years reflect an almost horizontal trend in both the absolute figures and the three-year moving average for a period in which passenger traffic has grown by nearly 50% and freight tonne kilometres flown have almost doubled, according to the International Civil Aviation Organisation.
The number of fatal accidents is absolutely level for the decade, whereas if there is a trend in the number of fatalities, it is moving almost imperceptibly downward.
At 219, this year's first half shows the second lowest total of fatalities for the decade. There were 22 fatal accidents, but ranking this in the 10-year period is almost meaningless because the figures have varied only between 16 and 26.
The fatality figures' volatility year by year is emphasised by a comparison between the figures for this year and last year, when there were four fewer accidents overall (18), but almost three times the number of fatalities (591), a phenomenon largely dependent on whether or not a big jet crashes. So far this year, the accident that killed the largest number of people involved a narrowbody: a Tupolev Tu-154M in China, on which 61 died. In January-June last year a widebody crash killed 196 (a China Airlines Airbus A300-600), but there were also more jet accidents involving scheduled and non-scheduled major carriers - six last year, compared with three this year - the categories in which larger aircraft operate. This year so far, however, regional and non-passenger operations have suffered more fatal accidents than usual.
An American Airlines Boeing MD-80 fatal accident on 1 June has relieved the US Federal Aviation Administration of the burden of deciding which airline to visit first with its new operations oversight programme for airlines. This plan, hatched last October, is meant to be more than just the usual check for regulatory infringements. It is intended to give the airline a complete operational health check, examining training practices and operational performance, seeking areas of weakness that may be "accidents waiting to happen".
Fatigue back on the agenda
The American accident - a runway overrun on landing - resulted from a fatal cocktail of factors: it was a dark night with high winds and rain; the aircraft had been delayed by more than 2h, partly because of the weather; and the crew were flying their third and final leg of the day, having been on duty for 13.5h. Although the latter did not infringe on crew duty time regulations, the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) used the opportunity to restate its views that the USA's flight time limitations are outdated and "unscientific".
The NTSB has called for the FAA to establish, within two years, scientifically based regulations on duty hours and crew rest, taking into account the effects of time zones and circadian rhythms. The FAA has reacted by announcing that it intends to impose existing regulations more rigorously for the time being and to press the Aviation Rulemaking Advisory Committee, which had already been charged with producing recommendations on the subject, to report as soon as possible.
So, pilot fatigue is back on the FAA's agenda after an abortive attempt five years ago to agree a new set of standards with the industry. That previous attempt died in a barrage of opposition from the US Air Transport Association. Meanwhile, the European Joint Aviation Authorities has still not finalised its proposed ruling on flight time limitations.
It is a contentious subject because all of the agencies, including NASA, have found that it is more difficult than expected to meet the NTSB demand for "scientific" evidence on the effects of fatigue in the aviation context, and setting standards involves agreeing what constitutes an acceptable level of risk, which is subjective. In the American Airlines accident, however, the crew faced difficult conditions at the end of a long day and could well have been afflicted with "get-home-itis" - known to be exacerbated by tiredness - following delay.
If the NTSB's investigation concludes that pilot fatigue was a causal factor, it will add to the growing number of recent accidents in which investigators have named pilot fatigue as a primary cause. Cases in point include the August 1993 American International Airways McDonnell Douglas DC-8 accident at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; the Air Algerie Boeing 737 accident at Coventry, UK, in December 1994; and the February 1995 Air Transport International DC-8 crash at Kansas City.
The commercial imperative
In the last six months, KAL has suffered another two serious accidents, one of them fatal (a Boeing MD-11 freighter on 15 April). Last year, two KAL runway overruns seriously damaged aircraft and 228 people died in 1997 when a KAL Boeing 747 crashed into a hill on approach to Guam's international airport. A nightmare for this airline - already infamous for having lost two of its aircraft (1978 and 1983) to hostile fire when gross navigation errors took them into USSR airspace - reached its climax this year.
Before the two latest events, the airline had promised that it would undergo a safety review by its then codeshare partner Delta Air Lines. Meanwhile, it had been fined and removed from some routes by the South Korean Government for safety lapses. But, since it admitted receiving an explicit internal audit, spelling out a chilling list of operational shortcomings - which had made no difference to its operational practices - industry confidence in what an audit could do for the airline failed.
Delta, Air France and Air Canada suspended codeshare agreements with KAL, the US Department of Defense banned its employees from flying on its services and the carrier acknowledged that any plans it may have had to join one of the global airline alliances would have to be shelved until it had proved that it could set its house in order. Now, FlightSafety Boeing has been called in on a five-year contract (with a two-year opt-out option) to take charge of Korean's training organisation (Flight International, 21-27 July).
The situation is unprecedented. The international industry has effectively ostracised an airline for not being safe enough. This is a unique example of a force that is more powerful than regulators, showing the potentially beneficial effects of at least one form of direct commercial pressure. All airlines acknowledge that accidents are bad for business, but many have relied on travellers' short memories and typically short-lived press interest in a crash.
Now, however, with airlines worldwide positioning themselves carefully for membership of global alliances, a commercial force has the potential to force the lowest common denominator upward, reducing the massive regional differences in safety standards which have always existed.
Source: Flight International
