December 1999 was an unhappy month for airline safety in a year which has been better than most. In the last four weeks of 1999 there were eight fatal accidents involving airlines as diverse as small regional operators flying twin turboprops to majors flying widebodies.
With Korean Air's Boeing 747 fatal crash, the month worsened the safety nightmare through which Korean Air has been sleepwalking for the whole of the 1990s - trailing an undistinguished record before that. The accident was Korean's second fatal crash and third hull loss of 1999. Cubana added two serious fatal accidents within a week to prove that it, also, has some kind of systemic problem that needs serious attention, following the airline's Tupolev Tu-154 fatal accident the previous year.
Earlier in the year, but in the same vein, China Airlines with its spectacular - but thankfully not catastrophic - Boeing MD-11 accident at Hong Kong demonstrated that it has yet to prove that it is benefiting from the safety programmes which it and Taiwan's Government say are being implemented.
If an airline has embedded safety culture problems they will not be solved in a year, because people's attitudes cannot be changed by flicking a switch. They have to be convinced that change is needed, then guided through it.
Korean, however, has supposedly been subjected to improvement regimes for more than a year now, some internally applied and others using external expertise. So has China Airlines. If they believe in what they are doing, the safety improvements must show soon or the improvement programmes will lose credibility.
All three of these airlines are the product of different national cultures with their various strengths and weaknesses. There is, however, one cultural characteristic which they all - for different reasons - hold in common, and it is one which is incompatible with a strong safety culture: reluctance to admit to the existence of a problem or to be open with safety information, enabling it to be shared with other airlines for mutual benefit.
Korean has already lost its codeshare with Delta Air Lines. The US Federal Aviation Administration is prescribing safety standards to be met by codeshare partners, and other nations will follow. A poor safety record is fast becoming the greatest commercial liability that an airline can have, and that affects the economy of the country for which the airline carries the flag.
But air safety will only improve when airlines and governments stop worrying about loss of face or loss of national prestige and start caring about loss of lives.
Source: Flight International
