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Remarks On Safety

Air Safety Week, Oct 31, 2005

At the FAA's second annual international safety forum Oct. 20-21, the following comments came to the forefront:

* FAA Administrator Marion Blakey: "If you're serious about aviation, you have to be serious about safety." She propounded the "broken window" theory, which is borrowed from studies of urban decay and crime, in which a broken window, left unrepaired, invites more criminal activity. "Things start out small," she said, and without oversight, worsen. The objective, then, is to treat aviation safety like broken windows, catching them and fixing them before the situation progresses to truly unsafe dimensions.

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* Robert Sturgell, FAA deputy administrator: "The public accepts nothing less than a declining accident rate."

* Yuanyuang Yang, minister, General Administration of Civil Aviation of China: The goal in China is to reduce the fatal accident rate by 80 percent between 2001 and 2010 (note that the goal in the U.S. is to reduce the fatal accident rate by 80 percent over 10 years, ending in 2007). In China, this goal must be achieved at the same time the air transport fleet is expanding. Presently numbering 840 transport-category aircraft, about 600 aircraft will be added during the period 2006-2010. One of the tools to achieve the 80 percent improvement, he said, will be through implementation of safety management systems (SMS), first with a pilot project at one carrier, and expanding the program from there. Note that SMS is not required by the FAA, but is being mandated by Transport Canada (see ASW, June 20).

* Bruce Gemmel, deputy chief executive officer, Civil Aviation Safety Authority of Australia: "We have to stop talking about safety and begin talking about risk and risk management," he said, adding that this involves "moving to a model of SMS" with "much greater responsibility for the operator."

* Ken Mead, Inspector General, Department of Transportation: Among the emerging issues is "where maintenance is performed on aircraft." More than 50 percent is now conducted at contractor facilities. "The issue is whether the oversight system is adequate," he said.

* Will Ris, senior vice president for government affairs, American Airlines: He spoke of a counterintuitive trend in the airline industry. "The pressure to keep airplanes in service has contributed to safety," he said. Less downtime means taking actions to minimize glitches or problems that, for example, lead to precautionary landings and costly unscheduled maintenance.

* Duane Woerth, president, Air Line Pilots Association: Fuel costs have eaten up the labor cost savings the airlines have recently negotiated with their pilots. On top of which, work rules are tending to the regulatory minimums. "Flight time/duty time now are closer to the bare bones," he said.

* Michel Wachenheim, Director General, Directorate General of Civil Aviation of France: A recent poll in France showed that 40 percent of men and 50 percent of women were afraid of flying. "To the passenger, [flying] is a miraculous event" in which the individual "has weak knowledge of the risks and what is being done to control the risks."

* David Ropeik, instructor in risk communications, Harvard School of Public Health: Addressing the factors that worry people about flying, and those that tend to predispose people to fly, he concluded, "Risks have personality traits that we use to judge how afraid to be."

He provided several factors that make people more worried about flying:

1. Any risk that is catastrophic. For example, 200 die in a single airplane at one time, as opposed to 2,000 people dying from heart disease. The air crash, he said, "Affects the tribe all at once."

2. The nature of the death. To wit, a fiery plane crash versus death from heart disease. As we have said in this publication before, aviation accidents all too often involve two of man's primal fears, that of burning to death and falling in the same grim experience.

3. The lack of control. "We are always looking for things that give us control," he said, which is not the case with passengers. He noted that from October to December of 2001 more people died in motor vehicle crashes than the year before, as contrasted by the 659 passenger fatalities in 2005 (see ASW, Oct. 10). "People have more control of driving than flying," he said. Therefore, he pointed out, even though the risk of driving as greater, the feeling of being in control makes people feel more safe behind the wheel.

4. Proximity. "When we think it can happen to us versus someone else," we feel less safe. This perception translates into perceived risk of air travel.

On the other hand, Ropeik pointed out, three factors tend to make us want to fly:

1. The risks are familiar. New risks inject an air of unfamiliarity and hence anxiety.

Government Industry

Remarks On Safety

Air Safety Week, Oct 31, 2005

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