Organfreak;
Caution is advised in interpreting these remarks.
The industry's record speaks for itself and it is a superb record overall.
It is critical to an understanding of these remarks that they emerge from and dwell within a context of significant and even spectacular success. They do not portray an industry "coming apart at the seams" about which we must then ride off in all directions regarding skies and the falling thereof. Rather, if I may, these remarks represent a distillation of ongoing issues which have been "in process" for many years and with which most pilots and certainly all safety specialists are familiar. We know that the character of accidents is changing. Many interested parties will interpret these changes in terms of their own specialties, which is a good thing because nobody is capable of seeing and then communicating well, the whole picture, while keeping in mind the industry's successful record and extremely safe state of affairs.
This is pretty open stuff. Our industry is, because of its high-risk nature, pretty open itself because we value learning and prevention of untoward trends and events, above all.
No other industry or endeavour demonstrates this willingness quite so strongly and so such frankness requires a reserved and contemplative approach. These are not sudden trends or sudden events. We should be even more willing to discuss some of the less attractive aspects of the business but over-reaction is what stops many. Yes, there are always politics involved; -we need only take a look at
what is happening in Nigeria* at the moment to know that there remains an enormous misunderstanding about how our industry makes itself so safe.
These kinds of things discussed in the post must be taken with some forebearance and perspective - millions and millions of hours of safe and unremarkable passenger transport, decade after decade. Such events as AF447 are vanishingly-rare. Whether perfection is achievable or not is not the quest - the attempt is what examination of these aspects of our industry is about.
Such frankness and openess can result in a form of "autoimmune" disease, if you will. The very characteristics of frankness and a willingness to look at the nasty bits, all of which make our aviation transportation system safe, (our "immune system") also at the very same moment in time, has the capacity to damage or even destroy that which makes it so safe.
In short, that which makes us successful also equally has the power to harm. The key to our industry's health (and therefore its continuing high levels of safety) is in how "the immune system" is treated.
*Nigeria’s chief aviation regulator, recommended for suspension after the nation’s deadliest accident in almost 40 years, defended his record as several safety advocates said he may become a scapegoat.
“Would you please wait for the accident investigation to complete, to have seen the black boxes, before we start judging?” Harold Demuren, director general of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, asked in a phone interview yesterday.
Demuren appealed for patience during the investigation into the Dana Airlines Ltd. crash on June 3. All 153 people on board and an unknown number on the ground were killed when the Boeing Co. (BA) MD-83 jetliner crashed and burst into flames in a Lagos suburb while approaching the airport on a domestic flight.
Nigeria’s aviation industry had one of the world’s worst safety records in 2006, a year after Demuren took his job. Four years later, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration gave Africa’s largest oil producer a Category 1 rating, which allowed its domestic carriers to fly to the U.S.
“We have become one of the safest places in Africa,” Demuren said, speaking from Nigeria.
Nigeria’s Senate voted June 5 to recommend that Demuren be suspended. The minister of aviation, Princess Stella Adaeze Oduah, will convene a panel June 11 to review the nation’s