A pattern on the rise...? Your thoughts

[downwindabeam]

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Does more people like myself recognize an uprise in the incidents/accidents within the CONUS lately? Do you recognize a pattern happening...

Can anybody speculate if the F(atigue) word has anything to do?

Think FAA is gonna change duty/rest regulations any time soon ?

-downwindabeam

[The Sandman]

Methinks you are a victim of selective perception, ie: seeing (or hoping to see) what you are looking for or want to see. Don't hold yer breath pardner!

[sevenstrokeroll]

Fatigue is part of the equation, but it boils down to money.

money means working harder and longer and taking shortcuts and and and and

bam

[pacplyer]

Better get used to it if we don't start breaking up these powerful :mad::mad: oil companies and banks.

Without working capital, (credit) and affordable fuel, the management mantra is "productivity!"

And that means skinny maintenance spares on the shelves too.

It's going to start raining aluminum if oil goes back up and stays there.... :sad:

[NotPilotAtALL]

Hi,

Think FAA is gonna change duty/rest regulations any time soon ?

What was the duty/rest regulations in the fifties ?
Just curious.

Cheers.

[ExSp33db1rd]

NotPilotAtAll

[What was the duty/rest regulations in the fifties ?]

Try: London - Shannon- Gander- New York on a Strat. or a Connie departing London at around 9.00 pm

You work it out !:ok:

The introduction of Flight Time Limitations were hard fought by BALPA in the 5O's (regret - can't quote the first limits obtained. )

[Bruce Wayne]

In reality, accident figures are lower in the year end Jul 2008, compared to the previous year end.

You can't really determine specifically "Continental US" as the jurisdiction will cover US Regulated Airspace, so you would have to account for *all* figures under that authority.

Why would the FAA change the duty / flight time limits and rest periods?

Are they not appropriate under Parts 91/121 or 125?

If crews are going to face commercial pressure to extend duty periods, that doesn't require a change in the regs, but an enforcement of the regs.

If the duty periods were reduced that would lead to a further increase of commercial pressure to extend duty periods. Or operations have to employ additional crew adding to increased operating costs and increasing financial constraints.

... or are you supposing that crew duty periods be increased rather than decreased?

[Rainboe]

The pattern on the rise is of obscure aviation acronyms! CONUS:
The conus medullaris is the terminal end of the spinal cord.
Acronym finder has
CONUS Continental United States
CONUS Contiguous United States
CONUS Conterminous United States
I guess it's the second. Bit like SOCAL (I like that one). This is an international bulletin board and those are a little obscure for many here.

Are you implying only domestic US pilots get tired?

[SNS3Guppy]

Does more people like myself recognize an uprise in the incidents/accidents within the CONUS lately? Do you recognize a pattern happening...

Can anybody speculate if the F(atigue) word has anything to do?


The mere suggestion is more than just a bit of a leap. I don't recognize a pattern and I certainly don't see any reason to expect nor approach a reoranization of duty and rest regulations.

You're taking wild shots in the dark...which have missed the mark.

[Bruce Wayne]

Are you implying only domestic US pilots get tired?

Not as tired as those regulated by the JAA/EASA:E ... Perhaps next it will be the "Aviation Regulation Symposium Europe" or ARSE for short.

[Bruce Wayne]

The mere suggestion is more than just a bit of a leap. I don't recognize a pattern and I certainly don't see any reason to expect nor approach a reoranization of duty and rest regulations.

You're taking wild shots in the dark...which have missed the mark.

or missed the dark !

[Huck]

A friend of mine works in United training.

He said their number of runway incursions has doubled every year for three years.

I would place the blame on stress about money and the future. Pensions gone, salaries slashed, and first officers just got another five years to wait on upgrade.

I wouldn't be surprised to see another pilot error accident (a la Comair Lexington) soon. (By the way, those guys were recorded on the CVR talking about leaving Comair and working overseas....)

[ExSp33db1rd]

Further to my post #6.

From my logbook ........ 13th Dec. 1959, Bristol Britannia - 312, G-AOVO
Dep. London @ 21.05 GMT ( UTC for the Yuppies ) to Manchester, Prestwick, Boston, New York. Arr. New York 12.36 GMT next day.

Total = 15hrs. 31 mins + 1 hr. reporting time before scheduled dep. and 30 mins. post flight duty = a Duty Period of 17 hrs, 01 min. for 4 sectors starting late at night.

3 pilots, 2 flt. engineers but only 1 navigator - guess who ! No GPS, FMS or INS or text messaging, and HF comms. most of the way - hard work for all, and the Brit. was high speed, cutting edge technology compared to the Strats. and Connies, as well.

on arrival in Manhattan the crew would decant to some slightly sleazy bar on 3rd Ave. to unwind before attempting sleep, despite the hour, and our 'agreement' allowed 2 local nights rest before returning to London,so the rest of that day, all the following, and leave on the evening of the 3rd day, again late at night. $10.oo U.S. per day allowance - total, + 25c for the baggage porter - even if one carried ones' own bag to the lift ( elevator ! )

It was legal, tho' I think they'd stopped sending little boys up chimneys at that time.

But there were no crew 'security' checks ! and I recall once driving a slightly late stewardess in my own vehicle right to the bottom of the aircraft steps, didn't have a flashing light, and wasn't wearing a yellow jacket, either ! She heaved her un-x-rayed suitcase to a loader to place in to the hold and climbed aboard. :ok: Good old days, best of luck.

[pacplyer]

Yes,

Yes you spoke to me on this post .......

The days that morons where not in charge and everybody was accountable...

A distant memory indeed........

A day when men were men and sheep were nervous, (not to discount gay cabin crew which were part of the team.)

A day when we all pulled together and made the flight happen regardless of our politics or personal beliefs.

What a sad departure today's sorry operations are indeed......

Things are so f*cked up in today's government aviation you're damnn lucky if you don't have a midair (and if you had a near miss, you wouldn't dare tell anybody or you would be subject to management second guessing or atc gov retribution)

Yes, it's better today that you just make it to your hotel room without a conflict.

Eddie Richenbacbh, Bob Prescott, Bob Six, Charles Lindberg, Juan Tripp, Sir Freddie Laker and others are probably rolling in their graves right now.....

What ever happened to REAL aviators????????????????????????????????

[safetypee]

If you wish to look at real patterns then see the recently revised CAP776 Global Fatal Accident Review 1997–2006. (www.caa.co.uk/docs/33/CAP776.pdf) Note the dominance of flight crew related causes.
Fatigue does not rate particularly high (Appx 5 Table 1); however, the report does not dismiss it – “… care should be taken not to dismiss particular factors as being irrelevant to accident risk as there could have been an element of incomplete data. This was particularly true of flight crew related factors such as CRM and fatigue, which may have been subject to under-reporting by some agencies, not actually apparent to the investigators, or simply not thought to be worthy of inclusion in a summary report.” (Appx 1 page 3).

There might be greater benefit in getting crews to take the correct action, and improve flight handling and situation awareness, than looking for work or duty time regulations to cure safety problems.

[Al Fakhem]

Quote

Does more people like myself recognize an uprise in the incidents/accidents within the CONUS lately? Do you recognize a pattern happening...

Unquote

No, I does not.

[mark sicknote]

Well done Al Fakhem (http://www.pprune.org/forums/members/151203-al-fakhem) for contributing so well to this discussion. Good to know that someone at EDTY has received a primary education...


F.I.

[PJ2]

pacplyer, safetypee;

Re your posts, (with which, it should be no surprise, I strongly agree):

There are two major trends emerging in the industry at present - the twin trends towards the de-regulation of safety, (under the notions of SMS and the "internal audit" process) and the trend towards the criminalization of accidents, (aimed not at "the accountable executive(s)" but at the front-end crew). I suspect many in the industry see this but I haven't seen the two connected in discussion yet.

In other words, at precisely the moment that regulatory authorities are moving towards SMS which is based upon data-collection (with little or no legal protections for same), the judicial authority of some countries like France but which now includes Canada, are moving towards the criminal investigation as priority, with the possibility of criminal prosecution.

While at present it is a stretch to state that collecting flight safety information under the requirements of SMS but not providing suitable and appropriate legal protections for same is like forcing the collection of evidence for the prosecution, if these twin trends continue, this statement will seem mild once "the public interest" notion takes hold and politicians cave to the resulting pressures to prosecute rather than investigate and prevent accidents.

And in all this, the leading-edge "chill" which will be sent by the first case to use CVRs and historical FOQA data to prosecute rather than learn will have long-since killed data-collection programs which are the very stuff of SMS, (despite executive illusions that having the right documentation in place is sufficient - see this month's FSF's "AeroSafety World" editorial by Bill Voss (http://www.flightsafety.org/asw/aug08/asw_aug08_p1.pdf).

And, as it was in Canada and elsewhere, (Brazil, Italy, now France), it is crews and other frontline people who will be the 50,000A fuse for organizational failure and failures in executive leadership in SMS.

Those are the patterns now unfolding.

[mercurydancer]

Unless you say what the patterns are then its hard to define. Just saying "Fatigue" is about as useful as saying that there are "weather" factors that affect safety. Its hard to deny that weather or fatigue has an effect as they are always present but in what pattern? and what is it about these "patterns" that make them ominous? Not seen any post that gets close to a "pattern"

[PJ2]

mercurydancer;
Not seen any post that gets close to a "pattern"
Why repeat what is on almost every other thread at least in the R&N section? All you have to do is read.

Not to single them out (because I can assure you there are others, presently "dark" who deserve the same close examination and may..), take a good look at the threads on the QANTAS electrical failure here and on the D&G thread, as well as the O2 bottle explosion incident for starters.

The idea isn't to look at the actual occurences but to absorb the sense of the commentary on how airlines are handling their safety responsibilities, (note that I said "commentary on...", and not that IS how they are doing...a sense of something may or may not be the truth).

Many are concerned about how SMS is being implemented. Many are concerned about how costs are being controlled - by who, where and how much. Flight Safety Departments, always viewed by most airline executives backwaters and career-enders even in the best of times, are under threat yet they take the airlines' temperature, hopefully on a daily basis. Is the information being used or is it "inconvenient" in the face of dramatically higher costs? These are the concerns; the patterns are both perceived and observed results, and like any ad-hoc enterprise, are partly true (because employees are keenly observant but rarely asked their thoughts) and partly not true.

These issues abound throughout PPRuNe. They're the patterns. No need to repeat them here.