Originally Posted by
Fareastdriver
The North Sea got its act together in 1975. Over the years I daresay there has been about ten landings a night during weekdays, less at weekends. That's about 1,500/year over 40 years which adds up to 60,000 landings.
How many accidents can be attributed to it being dark as opposed to incorrect procedures or techniques and especially pilot's skill. One or two??
They would probably be be as a result of disorientation and if a pilot is going to get disoriented he will get disoriented no matter how much gubbins you put in front of or on him/she.
I have not flown with modern NVG but my suspicion would be that they, somewhere, sometime, are going to miss something that is going to lead to a major incident.
Eyeballs may have their drawbacks but technically they are light years ahead of goggles.
A quick look at my annual logbook summaries show 287 night Brent landings in 1977 and 278 in 1978, as one of 8 or so pilots on site: we managed, but the concept of NVG use would be a great addition to improve the lot of the current offshore pilot.
But (and a big
but) if night landings are now seen as a major safety issue, why wasn't this the case 35 years ago? Culture, training, expectations?
Has there been a change and if so, what is it and how should it be addressed.
Automation seems to have reached a degree of perfection that nothing should go awry, yet here we are discussing exactly such a situation.
I still have that niggling concern that airmanship and basic skills are taking a backseat to systems management, and there has to be a proper melding of the two.