Ian;
FWIW, and there are so many very good contributions which express thoughts very well on this issue, specifically I think the contributions by Capot and TURIN are well worth considering in terms of pointing where you might look, and possible take the story you're working on. There are others here too who provide solid grains of truth but I think these two posts are good advice. I agree wholeheartedly with posters who highlight the issues with security and the attitude towards and the inappropriate treatment of crews - at times it is about power, not effective security measures - at other times it is simply about processes which assume the guilt of professional airline crews sometimes combined with the occasional opportunity to embarass or even harass crews - 'nuf said.
Specifically to both TURIN's and Capot's post in terms of the issues raised, in the U. S. and Canada the FAA and Transport Canada are handing over the responsibility of flight safety to the airlines and stepping back from their traditional regulatory and oversight roles. This is called "SMS" - Safety Management Systems". Most airline managements are still badly confused about how it works. Essentially, airline managements from the CEO down must, under the current business model, keep both commercial and safety priorities balanced. This is not always successful as the experience in the United States reveals; - there have already been a number of high profile incidents where airlines were caught not doing the safety job when no regulator was looking. You might examine this phenomenon in relation to American Airlines, Southwest Airlines and United Airlines. In my view it is only a matter of time before the same issues emerge in Canada. Whether "SMS" and the regulator's approach to safety oversight is the same in Britain I cannot say - you'll have to determine that for yourself. That said, where they obtain at all, the principles are the same regardless.
I strongly agree with other posters, especially the engineers and maintenance people who have offered their important view. I see enormous integrity within the dispatch, maintenance and middle flight ops management ranks - the notion of commercial compromise at those levels within most organizations does not have either broad or solid foundation. What I see in senior and executive management ranks is an inability to "talk safety" or to "talk technical" - the processes which keep the enterprise that they are leading, safe, are not the least bit understood, nor in my experience do they seem even mildly interested, leading one to ponder if these leaders know that they're in the aviation business first and all the rest, second.
The question you raise is an important one but you might consider stepping back from the specific aspect of "dispatching with bald tires" etc, (which, see above), to what is perhaps a less sexy, less easily conveyed, less easily understood perspective of organizational accidents - those kinds of accidents which occur when everyone is doing what they think is exactly the right thing - accidents/incidents which occur not because people are negligent, careless or lacking in professional or personal integrity but which occur because of a social/organizational phenomenon known as the "normalization of deviance" - legitimating a violation of what had been heretofor an established normality within an organization.
It is these kinds of factors which make possible the fact that good people with the highest/best intentions can make poor decisions when circumstances permit. A simple example can be reducing standards of safety because such reduction 'has been demonstrated by studies, etc' to have nil effect upon levels of safety, (ie, no recorded incidents) but has a measurably positive effect upon 'the bottom line' - ergo, the process is normalized, (instituionalized within the organization) and soon becomes "invisible" because of it's normalcy, until an accident occurs. A specific example might be the use of a fork-lift to raise an engine into te mounting bolts when the AMM (Aircraft Maintenance Manual) specifies special tools/machinery. The thinking is, 'the process worked many times without failure or result', so it becomes "normal". - Until an engine breaks away from the wing, breaking hydraulic lines causing the retraction of the LEDs, the crew follows legitimate SOPs and reduces speed to V2 and the slatless wing stalls, rolling the aircraft to 90degrees right after takeoff. Of course many will recognize this accident as the 1979 American Airlines DC10 at Chicago.
There are dozens of other examples; we might examine recent accidents such as the Spanair MD83 at Madrid, where everyone normalized the abberant behaviour of the TAT probe and resultant cockpit indications, ostensibly under the usual time pressures we all experience in this industry, (iow, I'm not saying time/commercial pressures caused the accident - but such were part of the circumstances we experience in every departure, not just that one).
The Challenger and Columbia space shuttle accidents are precise cases in point, and are well worth studying (lots of literature available) to bring this point home - and these accidents (other than the shuttle) occured in a far more robust regulatory environment than we have today - we have today the "privatization of flight safety" where the government is stepping back from it's normal role.
I understand you're not researching for a paper but for perhaps an article or a series of articles. I think the public in general, would be interested in these processes because they occur to them in everyday life - we all normalize deviance to some extent and think nothing of it - that is why such processes can have such serious consequences in high-risk environments but not, usually, in everyday life.
Anyway - just some thoughts...thanks for coming here to consult.
PJ2
Last edited by PJ2; 29th Apr 2009 at 17:45.