A poor year for civil-aircraft accidents in 1996 has helped to pave the way for further international pressure to be applied during 1997 on those areas of the world where air-safety standards are seen to be in need of improvement.
The argument is that the law of diminishing returns dictates that safe airlines/nations can make only small improvements in safety by employing progressively more sophisticated methods. Those nations which suffer a disproportionate number of serious accidents relative to their air-transport activities, could make far greater improvements by the application of relatively simple measures.
Momentum towards this is now developing as individual pressure groups at national and international level recognise that their efforts, often aimed at specific areas of weakness, are together reaching a critical mass. This year is likely to see the combination become an irresistible force, even if its target will remain an immovable object for longer than a year.
This need, long recognised but ignored for lack of a strategy, has been accentuated by 1996 accident figures: the number of commercial air-transport accident fatalities is about double the annual average for the last decade.
The pressure to force safety improvement on the low achievers began in 1992 with the US Federal Aviation Administration International Aviation Safety Assessment Programme (IASA). Europe is now following suit, although its incipient programme looks likely to focus on operators directly, while the IASA targets states and their national safety-oversight systems.
The operators will not be the sole targets of this new effort. In October 1996, the International Federation of Airline Pilots Associations published a devastating report, which obtained widespread publicity, documenting in detail the "dangerous" state of en route air-traffic-control (ATC) services over three-quarters of the African continent.
The publication was designed to send a wake-up call to African states and international agencies, arguing that the lack of mid-air collisions has had less to do with ATC than with the region's relatively empty skies, a situation which has already changed following South Africa's re-emergence on the world stage.
Finally, there have been calls from Capt Amjad Faizi of Pakistan International Airways, a respected observer of aviation safety in third-world and developing nations, who has compiled a comprehensive list of the collective shortcomings of many such countries. He observes that the countries in need of a better safety culture are not going to be able to change overnight, and they cannot do it individually. Faizi recommends regional action, with guidance from those with the necessary means and expertise, provided preferably through the International Civil Aviation Organisation.
Source: Flight International
