A friend has just given me a copy of the original DCA Aviation Safety Digest No 1. Date is July 1953. What a marvellous piece of work by it's editor Mac Job. Of course, his name never appears. The cover says that it was prepared by the Accident Investigation and Analysis Branch of DCA. Mac Job and Dick McLean set up the magazine.
The foreword by the editor states, among other things, that the original news-sheet called Aircraft and Incident Summary seemed to be viewed with distrust by certain sections of the pilot community - hence the production of a new look presentation re-named Aviation Safety Digest. Now read the next bit carefully:
The foreword states that the main reason for the lack of confidence in the earlier news-sheet was the "long delay in completing investigation of many incidents, and that work is proceeding on this problem, and an improvement in this regard should be made in the near future".
Well, it seems that after 53 years (the near future?) things haven't changed in that regard. A glance at page 51 of the current style crash comic called Flight Safety Australia - March-April 2003, gives a list of recently completed investigations. Note the time between the incidents and the completion date of the resulting investigation.
For example:
Tiger Moth crash on 16 Feb 2002 - investigation completed one year later 27 Feb 03.
Boeing (3) Loss of separation standards on 31 Jan 2002. Investigation completed 23 Jan 2003.
Cessna 340 - fuel flow fluctuations on 9 March 2002. Investigation took 10 months! 22 January 2003.
Aerostar and Airtrainer loss of separation standards at Tamworth on 24 June 2002 - investigation took eight months to complete!
One excellent aspect of the Aviation Safety Digest series was the reporting and full description of many overseas accidents. Digest No 1 for instance published a three page edited version of a landing accident to a C46 Curtiss Commando at Grand Island, Nebraska. The captain had feathered an engine for a practice Radio Range approach (us Oldies will recall those -you had to know your morse code in those days) and then lost height due high density altitude. Then there was the take-off accident of a De Havilland Comet at Rome on 26 October 1952. That was a 4 page report. The captain over-rotated and then aborted at a late stage in the take off run and pranged..
The parts of Aviation Digest No 1 were:
!. Aviation News and views.
2. Overseas Accidents.
3. Australian Accidents.
4. Incident reports.
There were no illustrations- just 29 pages of full on text of specially selected accidents and incidents. No advertisements or promos. Interesting to compare this with the current format of Flight Safety Australia which has 62 pages, including 87 illustrations, advertisements, quizzes, classifications, and lists of Airworthiness Directives. Personally, I would rather forego all the fancy coloured artwork, glossy advertisements and feel good CRM articles in favour of the straight no-nonsense formula of the Digests.
The Digest called a spade a spade. There was no political correctness. Example: "Training accident -Tiger Moth..The aircraft spun and crashed during a training flight which involved forced landing practice in an approved training area...the pilot suffered serious injury...the primary cause of the accident was poor technique on the part of the pilot in that he failed to effect an immediate recovery from an incipient spin which resulted from a poorly executed side-slip...a contributory cause of the accident was the pilot's limited flying experience".
Or: "An Auster took off across the landing path of several aircraft and then made a climbing right hand turn from 100 ft. The pilot of the Auster displayed a serious lack of airport discipline resulting in other aircraft being placed in a hazardous position...the pilot has been severely reprimanded for his carelessness in failing to keep a proper look out". Now that's telling 'em!!
Nowadays the pilot would hire an ambulance chasing lawyer and go the magazine for damages to his professional reputation and lack of respect for his right of privacy!
In my younger days, I learned more about flight safety from Mac Job's crash comics than from any of the flashy artwork filled safety magazines that are produced today.
