Aviation Accidents

The airline industry is one of the largest global industries in the world. Airline companies in the airline industry have gone through challenging obstacles in the past decade. Many changes have occurred within the industry and increased regulations have driven up cost for the industry. The attacks on 9/11 left the industry in shock when planes were used in terrorist attacks in the United States. These attacks changed the mentality of the industry and shifted the focus towards safety. Safety was also a major concern in the industry with the breakout of SARS in 2003 and the H1N1 flu in 2009. The airlines had to ensure that public health and safety of the travelers were

September 11, 2001, was a horrific event that rocked the world and the way people viewed the safety of airline travel. The airline industry was hit the hardest after that day and it was uncertain if they could regain their customer’s

Ever since September 11th, 2001 airport security efforts have been under the microscope. Rightfully so, because that day changed a lot on how people viewed safety in terms of flying. On that day, nearly 3,000 people were killed in a series of coordinated terrorist attacks in New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. It’s long been said that flying is the safest transportation mode amongst the varying models there are. According to www.journalistsresource.org, from 2000-2009 the average annual death of aviation fatalities was 548, compared to 26, 678 in regards to cars and light trucks. “A person who was in a motor vehicle for 30 miles every day for a year faced a fatality risk of about 1 in 12,500. Relative to mainline trains, buses and commercial

Everyday millions of people fly on airplanes. It is an easy and fast way of traveling for work, vacations or to see family members. Statically air travel is safer than traveling by car, airplanes have higher fatality accidents. The reasons airplanes crash vary and can happen during takeoff, landing or during flight. “August 1985 witnessed more passenger and crew deaths on commercial airlines than any other month.” [http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-33931693.]

“You haven’t seen a tree until you have seen its shadow from the sky.” Amelia Earhart, the first woman to fly a solo nonstop trans-Atlantic aircraft, spoke these words about the joys of flight in 1932. She and others, such as Orville and Wilbur Wright, Charles H. Lindbergh, and Frank Whittle, recognized early on how aviation would change our view of the world. Since these early discoveries of aviation, society has relied on flight as a primary means for safe transportation. This feeling of security was challenged on September 11, 2001, when nineteen hijackers took control of four commercial airliners and aimed the planes at targets in the United States. These terrorists’ attacks, referred to as 9/11, created the need for improved airport and airline security and reformed the United States Government’s entire security strategy and infrastructure.

“The report reviews several practices whose evidence came from the domains of commercial aviation, nuclear safety, and aerospace, and the disciplines of human factors, engineering and organizational theory. Such practices include root cause analysis, computerized physician order entry and decision support, auto-mated medication dispensing systems, bar coding technology, aviation-style preoperative checklists, promoting a ‘culture of safety,’ crew resource management, the use of simulators in training, and integrating human factors theory into the design of medical devices and alarms.”

This report explains issues regarding pilots’ health, their effects on flying safely, and measures to avoid catastrophes and jeopardising the life of the pilot, their crew and the passengers.

Airplanes are considered the safest way to travel with the odds of crashing being one in every 1.2 million flights. Flight is a movie based off of the Alaskan Airlines Flight 261 incident that occurred on January 21st, 2000 on route from Puerto Vallarta, Mexico to Seattle, Washington which crashed into the Pacific Ocean killing two pilots, three cabin crewmembers and eighty-three passengers. (Goodman & Priscilla Pg. 1) However, in Flight SouthJet Flight 227 on route from Orlando, Florida to Atlanta, Georgia has a different outcome with only six deaths out of 102 persons two of which were cabin crewmembers and four passengers. According to the National Transport Safety Board (NTSB)

On June 1st, 1999 American Airlines flight 1420 experienced a tragic accident that claimed many lives and made an impact on aviation worldwide. The event and it subsequent investigation shed

The movement of millions of passengers over distances thought impossible decades ago is symbolic of the modern air transportation era that is characterized by speed, comfort and personal convenience. The commerce of aviation, both the operation of commercial aircraft for profit and the development of aeronautical systems, is also an important symbol of national prestige and a powerful economic force. Safety in air transportation is therefore a matter of significant national importance.

Nearly 3000 people were killed during the terrorist attacks on 11 September 2001 and the coming months the media were filled with interviews, profiles and terrible stories of loss. Fear of more terrorist attacks spread the nation. As a reaction, the American population massively abandoned airports and chose to travel by car instead, which had a great impact on the airline business. But what no one mentioned –nor the media or politicians- is that air travel is dramatically safer than driving. The safety gap is so large, that planes would still be safer than cars even if the threat of terrorism were unimaginably worse than it actually is. According to research, 1595 people lost their lives because of the major shift from air travel to a much less safe way of traveling: by car. That is six times as many as the people who where on board of the doomed flights on September 11.

The NextGen Air Transportation System is a complex, revolutionary redevelopment of the broad U.S. air traffic control system that includes many challenging and interrelated components and concepts, including a fundamental transfer from a RADAR, ground-based system to a GPS, satellite-based system. Its multi-year implementation, touches virtually every aspect of aviation operations. As such, it presents many potential human factors challenges that can potentially directly affect aviation safety. Next, I will creatively apply the knowledge of human factors and aviation safety that I have developed over the

The 2012 crash of Convair N153JR is a text book example of how human error and the absence of crew resource management can result in the unnecessary loss of life. This accident involves a transport company named Fresh Air Inc. that transported cargo between the Caribbean islands using vintage 1953 Convair aircraft. The co-owner of the company, who was also the primary pilot, established and nurtured an environment of relaxed rules and desultory aviation operations. The primary pilot consistently flew the Convair aircraft outside its operational parameters by disabling key aircraft systems needed for safe operations. Additionally, the captain filled Fresh Air with incompetent personnel that could not maintain safe and airworthy operations. To further exacerbate an already dangerous situation, assigned Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) inspectors were derelict in their duties and performed only superficial inspections on the company. Numerous and serious violations were overlooked by the inspectors and this removed the last remaining barrier for accident prevention. The captain’s insouciant approach to flying and company operations coupled with inept FAA oversight directly led to the crash of Convair N153JR.

Long after Leonardo da Vinci, human factors research originated with aviation (Salas et al., 2010). Once the pioneers of aviation began taking to the air, the quest for safety and efficiency began with an ever-increasing fervor. Aviation accidents have long been viewed as spectacular and with the spectacle of an accident comes the public outcry over safety. While not all human factors research deals with accidents, the majority of money put into the

According to Rodrigues and Cusick (2012) humans are accountable for approximately 70-80% of aviation accidents (p.156). A majority of these are caused by the different variables associated with human performance. Psychological factors have a key role in a pilot’s everyday responsibility. Some of these traits include: perception, memory, attitude, judgment and decision making, as well as ego (Rodrigues & Cusick, 2012, p. 158-160). These qualities can have drastic effects in commercial aviation if they are not recognized and adjusted accordingly. In this paper I will respond to some questions that are raised in aviation safety: