Cyclic Hotline
10th Jul 2001, 09:43
Alaska skies are risky frontier in aviation safety
By Don Phillips
The Washington Post
JUNEAU - On May 30, 1998, a single-engine Cessna 172 was descending for a landing down the scenic Gastineau Channel just as a sightseeing helicopter crossed the channel at the same altitude. The collision killed both occupants of the small plane.
Great leaps forward in aviation safety often occur after crashes. It's called "tombstone regulation." Usually the crash involves an airliner with dozens or hundreds of deaths. Small-plane crashes get less attention.
But the 1998 crash here was different. One of the casualties was Dan Trusdale, an official of the Federal Aviation Administration who was flying into Juneau to promote a fledgling FAA-sponsored satellite navigation system called Project Capstone.
"Our literature was floating on the water," said Gary Childers, an FAA official with Project Capstone who knew Trusdale well.
To understand the urgent need to improve aviation safety in Alaska, one need only look at the statistics: On average, 11 of every 100 pilots will die in a crash over a 30-year flying career, and there is an aviation fatality every nine days.
In the Lower 48, interest in aviation safety peaks after each fatal crash of a commercial airliner. But in Alaska, where thousands of people live isolated from any road, the small plane is commercial aviation. If there were a fatal commercial-aviation crash every nine days in the Lower 48, people would be up in arms about safety.
In a way, that's exactly how Alaskans feel.
The Trusdale crash added to the determination of local FAA officials to improve aviation safety and in particular to bring Project Capstone to Juneau, where a thick mix of small planes, Alaska Airlines jets, sightseeing helicopters, commuter planes and floatplanes fly without radar coverage below 10,000 feet because of the mountainous terrain.
"It's sort of sad testimony that we can't drag this out of the closet. Let's get going," Childers said, referring to what Alaskans see as the glacial pace of FAA decision-making in Washington, D.C., to bring Capstone to Juneau.
Even FAA veterans who come to Alaska seem to catch the sense of frustration that not enough is being done soon enough to stop the state's aviation carnage.
"Our job is to harvest the safety technology as soon as we can," said Patrick Poe, regional FAA administrator for Alaska. Poe arrived from a post in Brussels in 1998 and said he is fast becoming a "native Alaskan."
Project Capstone, already being used in the vast Yukon-Kuskokwim delta of western Alaska, gives pilots satellite-guidance capability and a video screen with moving terrain maps, weather maps, messaging capabilities similar to e-mail and other information. For the first time, the system allows air traffic controllers to see aircraft in areas with no radar coverage.
"It's a quality-of-life issue," said John Hallinan, who heads Project Capstone. "There's no reason the people here can't get on an airplane with the same kind of confidence as a person getting on a plane in Kansas."
Many things make for unsafe flying in Alaska — poor weather, poor radar coverage, rugged terrain and a large pool of young, inexperienced pilots. Capstone cannot solve all of the problems because an element of human judgment becomes critical in Alaska, where many pressures encourage pilots to fly even when conditions are dangerous.
"Corporate management of air taxis appears to be valuing the bottom line more than safety," said Thomas Wardleigh, chairman of the Alaskan Aviation Safety Council.
He said almost two decades of programs and pressures to improve the risk-taking nature of some managers and pilots have made "not a dime's worth of difference."
Wardleigh said some Alaska operators are responsible and safe, but many others will push pilots beyond their abilities. Studies and anonymous pilot surveys confirm Wardleigh's opinion.
A survey of 100 pilots in the fall 2000 Northern Pilot magazine found that 82 had experienced or had firsthand knowledge of management pressure to fly in conditions they considered unsafe. Seventy-three percent said pressure from passengers can lead to unsafe flying.
Wardleigh said pilots can pressure themselves to fly because they know they're the only lifeline to remote villages. If they don't fly, someone may die awaiting hospital care. Or schoolchildren won't get to school. Or the village will run short of supplies.
Only 5 percent of Alaska has access to roads. For the rest of the state, the plane is often the only way to go or to get anything made or grown elsewhere. The state even subsidizes "school planes" that fly village children to a central school in the morning and home in the afternoon.
Despite the danger, having "Alaska" on a résumé wins respect around the hangar. Test pilots generally are considered No. 1 in this unofficial hierarchy, followed by carrier fighter pilots, all other fighter pilots and Alaska pilots.
"A lot of us get killed, but the rest of us are damned good," said Skip Nelson, vice president and chief operating officer of Yute Air in Anchorage.
Nelson said part of the problem is that few young pilots stay in Alaska more than a year. The ones who do stay usually are running from something or someone, Nelson said, making Alaska sort of "an open-air witness-relocation program."
Then there are the older pilots, the ones who like Alaskan flying and the state's simple life. That means most Alaska pilots are either young and inexperienced or grizzled veterans.
"The average tenure of a pilot is about six months in rural Alaska," said Wardleigh, who racked up more than 34,000 hours of Alaska flight time before retiring from commercial and government flying.
By Don Phillips
The Washington Post
JUNEAU - On May 30, 1998, a single-engine Cessna 172 was descending for a landing down the scenic Gastineau Channel just as a sightseeing helicopter crossed the channel at the same altitude. The collision killed both occupants of the small plane.
Great leaps forward in aviation safety often occur after crashes. It's called "tombstone regulation." Usually the crash involves an airliner with dozens or hundreds of deaths. Small-plane crashes get less attention.
But the 1998 crash here was different. One of the casualties was Dan Trusdale, an official of the Federal Aviation Administration who was flying into Juneau to promote a fledgling FAA-sponsored satellite navigation system called Project Capstone.
"Our literature was floating on the water," said Gary Childers, an FAA official with Project Capstone who knew Trusdale well.
To understand the urgent need to improve aviation safety in Alaska, one need only look at the statistics: On average, 11 of every 100 pilots will die in a crash over a 30-year flying career, and there is an aviation fatality every nine days.
In the Lower 48, interest in aviation safety peaks after each fatal crash of a commercial airliner. But in Alaska, where thousands of people live isolated from any road, the small plane is commercial aviation. If there were a fatal commercial-aviation crash every nine days in the Lower 48, people would be up in arms about safety.
In a way, that's exactly how Alaskans feel.
The Trusdale crash added to the determination of local FAA officials to improve aviation safety and in particular to bring Project Capstone to Juneau, where a thick mix of small planes, Alaska Airlines jets, sightseeing helicopters, commuter planes and floatplanes fly without radar coverage below 10,000 feet because of the mountainous terrain.
"It's sort of sad testimony that we can't drag this out of the closet. Let's get going," Childers said, referring to what Alaskans see as the glacial pace of FAA decision-making in Washington, D.C., to bring Capstone to Juneau.
Even FAA veterans who come to Alaska seem to catch the sense of frustration that not enough is being done soon enough to stop the state's aviation carnage.
"Our job is to harvest the safety technology as soon as we can," said Patrick Poe, regional FAA administrator for Alaska. Poe arrived from a post in Brussels in 1998 and said he is fast becoming a "native Alaskan."
Project Capstone, already being used in the vast Yukon-Kuskokwim delta of western Alaska, gives pilots satellite-guidance capability and a video screen with moving terrain maps, weather maps, messaging capabilities similar to e-mail and other information. For the first time, the system allows air traffic controllers to see aircraft in areas with no radar coverage.
"It's a quality-of-life issue," said John Hallinan, who heads Project Capstone. "There's no reason the people here can't get on an airplane with the same kind of confidence as a person getting on a plane in Kansas."
Many things make for unsafe flying in Alaska — poor weather, poor radar coverage, rugged terrain and a large pool of young, inexperienced pilots. Capstone cannot solve all of the problems because an element of human judgment becomes critical in Alaska, where many pressures encourage pilots to fly even when conditions are dangerous.
"Corporate management of air taxis appears to be valuing the bottom line more than safety," said Thomas Wardleigh, chairman of the Alaskan Aviation Safety Council.
He said almost two decades of programs and pressures to improve the risk-taking nature of some managers and pilots have made "not a dime's worth of difference."
Wardleigh said some Alaska operators are responsible and safe, but many others will push pilots beyond their abilities. Studies and anonymous pilot surveys confirm Wardleigh's opinion.
A survey of 100 pilots in the fall 2000 Northern Pilot magazine found that 82 had experienced or had firsthand knowledge of management pressure to fly in conditions they considered unsafe. Seventy-three percent said pressure from passengers can lead to unsafe flying.
Wardleigh said pilots can pressure themselves to fly because they know they're the only lifeline to remote villages. If they don't fly, someone may die awaiting hospital care. Or schoolchildren won't get to school. Or the village will run short of supplies.
Only 5 percent of Alaska has access to roads. For the rest of the state, the plane is often the only way to go or to get anything made or grown elsewhere. The state even subsidizes "school planes" that fly village children to a central school in the morning and home in the afternoon.
Despite the danger, having "Alaska" on a résumé wins respect around the hangar. Test pilots generally are considered No. 1 in this unofficial hierarchy, followed by carrier fighter pilots, all other fighter pilots and Alaska pilots.
"A lot of us get killed, but the rest of us are damned good," said Skip Nelson, vice president and chief operating officer of Yute Air in Anchorage.
Nelson said part of the problem is that few young pilots stay in Alaska more than a year. The ones who do stay usually are running from something or someone, Nelson said, making Alaska sort of "an open-air witness-relocation program."
Then there are the older pilots, the ones who like Alaskan flying and the state's simple life. That means most Alaska pilots are either young and inexperienced or grizzled veterans.
"The average tenure of a pilot is about six months in rural Alaska," said Wardleigh, who racked up more than 34,000 hours of Alaska flight time before retiring from commercial and government flying.