lame
12th Apr 2004, 22:34
Close calls point to air safety time bomb
Chris Jones, national political reporter
13apr04
MORE than 1000 potentially serious incidents involving commercial aircraft have been reported to Australia's air safety investigators in the past four years.
In many cases passengers had no idea anything was wrong.
The alarming frequency of such incidents is revealed in Australian Transport Safety Bureau reports.
The federal government body determines the causes of incidents and recommends ways to prevent them happening again.
According to ATSB reports, the vast majority of the incidents were considered to pose no immediate danger to passengers but if left unchecked had the potential to become much more serious problems.
Investigators considered 23 to be "serious incidents" where the problem had the potential to lead to an accident if it happened again.
Three were considered so serious they received the second-highest rating, which is reserved for incidents where there was a serious risk of multiple fatalities in unluckier circumstances.
However, 18 of the incidents were classed as "accidents", which together resulted in more than 20 people being injured and eight killed.
Last year alone there were three serious incidents a near-miss over Tasmania, a large airliner running off the runway on landing in Darwin, and one instance where both pilots on a Boeing 737 were overcome by smoke caused by an electrical fault in the cabin.
Two other aircraft last year veered off the runway after landing at Australian airports.
One aircraft aborted a landing after air traffic controllers realised it was off target upon its final approach for landing at Mackay, in north Queensland.
Another had descended for landing through low clouds over Melbourne when its alarmed pilot discovered he was 150m higher than the instruments had indicated, forcing him to urgently pull out of the landing.
Other incidents included an Airbus taking off from Sydney while a vehicle was on the runway, and air crew having to manually lower the landing gear after the hydraulics failed.
But with hundreds of thousands of flights in Australia each year figures show flying in commercial aircraft is much safer than in general aviation.
According to the ATSB, there were 134 accidents in general aviation last year, leaving 34 people dead.
The most dangerous flights were those for private or business use (50 accidents and eight deaths), ahead of charter flights (25 accidents, eight deaths), training flights (19 accidents, seven deaths), and crop-dusting (17 accidents).
Since 1994, the ATSB says there had been almost 2000 accidents and 372 fatalities in general aviation.
Over the same period there were only 41 accidents involving commercial airliners 28 of which were regional flights on smaller aircraft.
These accidents resulted in 10 deaths eight of them when a Whyalla Airlines Piper Cherokee plunged into South Australia's Spencer Gulf in May 2000.
Separate ATSB figures reveal there were 459 birdstrikes reported last year at Australia's 10 major airports the worst result in four years.
Chris Jones, national political reporter
13apr04
MORE than 1000 potentially serious incidents involving commercial aircraft have been reported to Australia's air safety investigators in the past four years.
In many cases passengers had no idea anything was wrong.
The alarming frequency of such incidents is revealed in Australian Transport Safety Bureau reports.
The federal government body determines the causes of incidents and recommends ways to prevent them happening again.
According to ATSB reports, the vast majority of the incidents were considered to pose no immediate danger to passengers but if left unchecked had the potential to become much more serious problems.
Investigators considered 23 to be "serious incidents" where the problem had the potential to lead to an accident if it happened again.
Three were considered so serious they received the second-highest rating, which is reserved for incidents where there was a serious risk of multiple fatalities in unluckier circumstances.
However, 18 of the incidents were classed as "accidents", which together resulted in more than 20 people being injured and eight killed.
Last year alone there were three serious incidents a near-miss over Tasmania, a large airliner running off the runway on landing in Darwin, and one instance where both pilots on a Boeing 737 were overcome by smoke caused by an electrical fault in the cabin.
Two other aircraft last year veered off the runway after landing at Australian airports.
One aircraft aborted a landing after air traffic controllers realised it was off target upon its final approach for landing at Mackay, in north Queensland.
Another had descended for landing through low clouds over Melbourne when its alarmed pilot discovered he was 150m higher than the instruments had indicated, forcing him to urgently pull out of the landing.
Other incidents included an Airbus taking off from Sydney while a vehicle was on the runway, and air crew having to manually lower the landing gear after the hydraulics failed.
But with hundreds of thousands of flights in Australia each year figures show flying in commercial aircraft is much safer than in general aviation.
According to the ATSB, there were 134 accidents in general aviation last year, leaving 34 people dead.
The most dangerous flights were those for private or business use (50 accidents and eight deaths), ahead of charter flights (25 accidents, eight deaths), training flights (19 accidents, seven deaths), and crop-dusting (17 accidents).
Since 1994, the ATSB says there had been almost 2000 accidents and 372 fatalities in general aviation.
Over the same period there were only 41 accidents involving commercial airliners 28 of which were regional flights on smaller aircraft.
These accidents resulted in 10 deaths eight of them when a Whyalla Airlines Piper Cherokee plunged into South Australia's Spencer Gulf in May 2000.
Separate ATSB figures reveal there were 459 birdstrikes reported last year at Australia's 10 major airports the worst result in four years.