AF Asks DL to Assess Safety Issues

[RobertS975]

This is in no way a knock on AF... but this Wall Street Journal article notes that there are apparently significant tensions within the company. And several years back, the top to bottom review that Delta did for Korean Air (which has been published on the web) was a fascinating read, especially in the way the review dealt with cultural differences in CRM.


Air France Asks Delta to Help Assess Safety Practices - WSJ.com (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125303614325112753.html)

The full article requires a paid suscription so here is the majority of it:

"PARIS -- Air France has taken the unusual step of asking U.S. partner Delta Air Lines Inc. to help assess its internal safety practices following the crash of an Air France jetliner in June that killed 228 people.

"We have asked our American partner to conduct an external analysis," said Véronique Brachet, a spokeswoman for the French carrier. But she said talks with Delta, which has a marketing alliance with Air France, haven't been finalized.

A Delta spokeswoman declined to comment.

Air France Chief Executive Pierre-Henri Gourgeon said in a recent interview that the Air France-KLM SA unit would commission outside analysts to review its safety practices, in part because the crash remains unsolved. Mr. Gourgeon wants these analysts to do a top-to-bottom review and come up with a handful of big ideas to help Air France improve its long-term approach to safety.

"Safety is a dynamic thing," he said. "The risk is to say, 'We've done our work, so let's stop.'"

French search teams have been unable to locate wreckage of the Air France Airbus A330, which plunged from high altitude into deep waters about halfway between Brazil and Senegal. As a result, it remains unclear what role various factors played in the crash. Bad weather, technical problems and pilot error are all suspected of having contributed, but without more evidence, the airline and regulators are stymied in efforts to prevent a recurrence.

The crash has focused attention on Air France's safety record and pilot training. The carrier has had four significant accidents since 1999. Mr. Gourgeon said that before the crash, Air France's accident record was better than the global airline-industry average but now is average.

Mr. Gourgeon said the crash has been traumatic for employees and has increased tensions within the airline. He said that since the accident, Air France has seen a slight uptick in absenteeism among long-haul flight attendants. He acknowledged the airline has been repeatedly criticized by some of its smaller pilots unions for perceived safety lapses.

Gérard Arnoux, head of SPAF, one of those small unions, said: "There is a problem with our safety culture. Our ranking is not good."

Mr. Gourgeon said he hopes the planned analysis will address such concerns. He said the cause of the crash may never be known, so Air France is addressing a broad range of possible problems behind it. "Even if we don't know the reason, people must be certain that no stone has been left unturned," he said.

Delta has a strong safety record. Its namesake carrier hasn't had an accident or significant safety incident since 1998, according to the Aviation Safety Network, a Web site that tracks such events. But Delta's Comair unit had a fatal crash in 2006.

In the late 1990s, Korean Air, then plagued by safety lapses, tackled those problems in part by enlisting Delta's aid; Delta, which had refused to sell tickets on Korean Air flights, conducted a safety audit for the carrier. But rarely, if ever, has a major Western airline like Air France turned to another for safety recommendations.

Since the June crash, Air France has already increased pilot training and altered some of its safety routines, Mr. Gourgeon said."

[WHBM]

Interesting that they wouldn't turn to KLM for this. Too many internal boardroom issues for that to happen ?

[Me Myself]

Mr. Gourgeon said that before the crash, Air France's accident record was better than the global airline-industry average but now is average.


This promises a lot of very interesting encounters !!!! A DL captain auditing a french cockpit ??? I definitly want to be there. LOL in perspective.
This............let's call it an audit has been called by the...........yeah........small unions as the magic bullet and I think this is a farce.
What isn't however, is Mr Gourgeon's quote. If I were a victim's relative, I'd have my blood boil instantly and I think the man simply put his foot into his mouth and makes me very embarassed.
All the last years major incidents have had nothing to do with a so called faulty in house safety culture. It had to do with people screwing the pooch, plain and simple and it happened to me too.
I am not taking 447 into account as there is definitly more than meets the eye on this one and we know close to nothing.
For the life of me, I can find no quote in our manuals that says, " Thou shall land midrunway in the middle of storm and over run it so you can end up a mess in front of CNN " and so forth as I do not wish to list the freak show we've witnessed these last few years.
I think what we lack is both discipline and plain boring right there in the manual common sense. Screw flamboyance and pig headed minded.
As President Bush senior once said " What's wrong with being boring ? "


Interesting that they wouldn't turn to KLM for this. Too many internal boardroom issues for that to happen ?


You may have a very valid point there.

[V1... Ooops]

Interesting that they wouldn't turn to KLM for this. Too many internal boardroom issues for that to happen ?

Although that might be a concern, I doubt if it is the primary reason why Delta was chosen. If you want a truly objective and independent audit (of anything) done, you generally don't ask your neighbor to do it... you find someone who is unquestionably at arm's length.

[Otterman]

The audit will be for external consumption. A few minor recommendations, satisfying any public concerns. And back to business as usual. Having an owned carrier (like KLM) do this audit would negate the purpose of it.

[WHBM]

Well I've done plenty of "external independent consultancies/audits/reports" over time. The key aspects to get into such a study are nothing to do with the facts of the situation, but are :

1. Facts and opinions that the client who commissioned the work and will be signing the cheque is comfortable with, rather than uncomfortable with.

2. Something that will ensure repeat business in this area.

3. Maximum revenue/billing to the project.

This is generally known as "Project Management".

It may be that what you say to the board is a bit different to the public version, but it still has to comply with the above. If you want to tell the board that their managers are incompetent then you have to know that the board will go along with that rather than argue against it with you.

[cessnapuppy]

I've seen similar 'audits' too (though not in the Airline field) - the now defunct 'Accounting firm' Arthur Anderson used to do those kinds of audits* all the time :(
But wouldnt Delta's be different?

Can anybody find any paperwork from Delta's interaction with a similar job done with Korean airlines?





*Arthur Andersen LLP, based in Chicago, was once one of the "Big Five" accounting firms among PricewaterhouseCoopers, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, Ernst & Young and KPMG, providing auditing, tax, and consulting services to large corporations. In 2002, the firm voluntarily surrendered its licenses to practice as Certified Public Accountants in the United States after being found guilty of criminal charges relating to the firm's handling of the auditing of Enron, the energy corporation, resulting in the loss of 85,000 jobs. Although the verdict was subsequently overturned by the Supreme Court of the United States, it has not returned as a viable business.

[vovachan]

It's one thing to hire some little guy consultant - whoever pays the piper picks the tune.

It would be a major disaster for DL to issue a whitewash report like some here are implying, and if another AF crash happens - then what? A lot of AF flights are code shared with DL, and lawyers would rip DL to shreds - and they'd be right. The Arthur Andersen scenario is pertinent. It used to be a $9bln company. It's gone.

[Me Myself]

Can anybody find any paperwork from Delta's interaction with a similar job done with Korean airlines?


This report was in part on Prune then and I hope we never get the same kind of feed back. It was very scary.

[sleeper]

The Delta audit of Korean has been removed from the net but is still in th PPRUNE archives:

http://www.pprune.org/pub/tech/korean.html

[cessnapuppy]

Thanks Sleeper! I appreciate it!

I'll be mulling over this for a while....

[cessnapuppy]

WOW! ...holy ****...now THAT was a read!

[Airbubba]

We've discussed it here many times before but the findings in this so-called 'Delta' audit document were the inputs of a later fired Australian training captain, not the work of a Deltoid.

Some of it is very good procedure, other parts delve deeply into technique and opinion.

[Bigmouth]

Amazing.
And no paying passenger would ever read this. Or would have cared to, as long as he/she got the lowest fare.

[cessnapuppy]

..were the inputs of a later fired Australian training captain, not the work of a Deltoid

ah, thats a relief then - I thought they were true!

[Two's in]

All the last years major incidents have had nothing to do with a so called faulty in house safety culture. It had to do with people screwing the pooch, plain and simple and it happened to me too.

I thought the very idea of an in house safety culture was to ensure that the sloppy link between the yolk and the throttles did not screw the pooch on the day. It's simply cause and affect in its rawest form.

[RobertS975]

Sleeper, thanks for finding the Delta safety audit done a decade ago on Korean. I haven't read it for many years, but it is still an exhaustive but fascinating document. I believe that it was probably this audit that in part led to the AF board to seek DL's help on their possible safety issues. DL's last passenger fatalities occurred in a 1996 MD88 uncontained engine explosion on the takeoff roll in Pensacola. Two passengers seated adjacent to the engine lost their lives.

Here is a 2001 article briefly dealing with the DL safety program:

Safety Strategy Focuses on Little Things to Prevent Big Catastrophe | Air Safety Week | Find Articles at BNET (http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0UBT/is_11_15/ai_71627523/)

[vapilot2004]

We've discussed it here many times before but the findings in this so-called 'Delta' audit document were the inputs of a later fired Australian training captain, not the work of a Deltoid.


Indeed.

I thought it odd that a Delta report would contain the word torch.

[grizzled]

Me Myself:

You wrote, " . . . Thou shall land mid-runway in the middle of storm and over run it so you can end up a mess in front of CNN"

I'm not sure if you are saying that you think the crew on that day (AF358, YYZ) were "screwing the pooch", but if so, you are wrong. That accident -- like most -- was the result of many factors, including everything from AF SOP's, ATC procedures, YYZ Airport Authority procedures, Wx, comms, training (including AF, Nav Canada, and YYZ Airport Authority training). Holes were lining up in that particular cheese long before that day. A lot more started lining up in the 30 mins before the accident. By the time the aircraft was on final, dozens of holes were lined up and ready . . .

Grizz

[sleeper]

Fact remains, they did land halfway with not enough remaining runway available. A simple go-around would have saved the day.

[Mr Optimistic]

but it doesn't read like a normal audit report which are usually in pc management speak eg

'None of the aforementioned statements are intended to be disrespectful or antagonistic to the management. They are real facts and perception expressed by the crew in the hope of opening up communications.'

[xetroV]

Fact remains, they did land halfway with not enough remaining runway available. A simple go-around would have saved the day.
Yeah, and pulling the speedbrakes would have prevented the AA accident in Little Rock, but such simple-minded conclusions do nothing to improve safety. On the contrary: real lessons can only be learned by identifying all holes in the cheese, as well as their interrelationships. That includes, but is certainly not limited to, crew performance.

[grizzled]

Sleeper

Almost every accident that has ever occurred could have been avoided by one simple action. In the case of AF358 there were at least 5 actions that, if taken by others (ie not the flight crew), would have also prevented the accident. As XV says, we need to look at every weak link (cheese hole).
If you are interested -- in this particular accident or in aviaiton safety in general -- read the report, then feel free to PM me if you want to discuss it.

grizz

[sleeper]

Yes offcourse there is always , the swiss cheese. And yes there always are mitigating circumstances. However to say that other, not flightcrew, actions would have prevented the accident is blinding oneself to your own responsibility. You , and me, as flightcrew are responsible for the safe excecution of the flight. If this crew had no other options left then you are right. Whatever the reason for ending up high and fast, you can always make a go around. It is not the responsibility of say ATC to make you do one.

[Bus429]

Not knowing the politics of AF or KLM (and respective governments), perhaps one could say this reflects a healthy culture within AF; realising there may be issues and an independent review would be helpful.

[Caudillo]

That Korean audit that was linked earlier makes for very interesting reading.

Some points I feel are highly pertinent and could do with being looked at today whereas others seem woefully old-fashioned and dogmatic.

[mermoz92]

Hi brothers and sisters,

AF358 was THE beginning of the end for Air France safety image.

Hard to resume it in a few words, but knowing absolutely everything from the first minutes this crash happened till the publication of the ashamed TSB/BEA report, I will say that among all the numerous swiss cheese holes which did exist at that time, one was by far the biggest one: lack of airmanship and, above all, lack of hand flying skills of the (ex Air Inter) flight deck crew.

Not blaming them at all for that, but really angry against the same political serial killers who, since Toronto crash, are still in command of Air France, BEA, DGAC, etc...

[RatherBeFlying]

Fact remains, they did land halfway with not enough remaining runway available. A simple go-around would have saved the day.I was observing a line of thunderstorms extending from the Bruce Peninsula to CYYZ and beyond just before leaving my office and hearing the news of the crash a few km. away. The traffic on the expressway had slowed to a crawl; in fact, many cars had stopped.

That was the CB AF358 would have flown into had the crew chosen to go around -- and would probably have impacted on Hwy 401 between Dixie and 410.

There is no guarantee that a windshear escape maneuvre will succeed every time.

Now had they decided to divert at the OM, they could have avoided the beast.

[robertbartsch]

Since DL and AF have a partnership, will any findings by DL likely be suspect? Audit independence is the cornerstone of compliance testing and, apparently, DL does not meet this test; right?

[RobertS975]

DL and AF have business relationships and joint ventures. And they are two of the founding members of the Skyteam alliance. But DL had relationships with KE as well, and KE is a member of Skyteam as well. Indeed, DL withdrew all of the codesharing with KE until the safety issues got resolved.

So if the KE report and scrutiny were any indication, I would expect a similar degree of thoroughness. Also, I have no first hand knowledge, but I would not expect the issues (if any) at AF to be anything close to the issues that existed in the 90s at Korean Air.

[Squawk7777]

Fact remains, they did land halfway with not enough remaining runway available. A simple go-around would have saved the day.

Fact remains, it was a long-haul flight: crossing multiple time-zones, possibly circumnavigating CBs enroute and then dealing with wx issues at the destination. Maybe just bad luck, maybe issues with SOPs, fatigue etc. One thing I realized at my old job (multi-sector days) is that fatigue creeps up on you silently. You know when you're fatigued when ... :ooh:

Not blaming them at all for that, but really angry against the same political serial killers who, since Toronto crash, are still in command of Air France, BEA, DGAC, etc...

Mermoz, you'll be surprised how this applies to the rest of the world as well. Brace yourselves when you start scratching the surface! :eek:

[stilton]

I found it very unusual that the 'Delta' consultants for Koreans safety audit seemed to have such extensive knowledge of B747 operations since they had not operated any at the time for decades !


And of course, at that time had never operated the 744.

[australiancalou]

above all, lack of hand flying skills of the (ex Air Inter) flight deck crew.
It's somewhere easier to think that the main reason of safety issues is directly linked to the fact that the accidents occured with ex Air Inter crews on flight stick...or most probably in the crew rest for the last one...
This could not have happened to a pure AF product...
Delta guys have to work on this: Has the proudiness to be in an AF cockpit to contribute to poor safety figures?
Nothing can happen because we are AF pilots working for the best airline with the best maintenance and ground staff.
Isn't the good sense and proper judgement altered by such a brain wash?:rolleyes:

[Squawk7777]

Isn't the good sense and proper judgement altered by such a brain wash?

You'll be surprised how many times I have come across this attitude at various "other" places ...

Bottom line is if you (or your company) think that there's no more need for improvement, then you have started to regress.

[mermoz92]

@ australiancalou:

Let me say that "ex Air Inter" pilots does not mean for me it could not have happened to pure AF pilots. They only have a much higher percentage of incidents/accidents quite explainable by cultural differences. They were short-haul pilots becoming all at once long-haul pilots in a merge opening doors for serious safety problems, as everywhere.
This has never been adressed by an AF management whose biggest head was Mr Spinetta former Air Inter President coming with his own staff of directors.
Brain washing is the very true word to say when examining how things work in this company. It has always been since it was created. In the old days one had to "passer au moule" in the sense of moulding or casting. Since the 10+ last years, this process has become perversed by a constant weekly or daily internal communication to all employees.
Among them all pilots, or supposed to be, would I say.
Because pilots costs are here in the center of the debate: selection, formation and trainig........

[LEXAN]

Autraliancalou, you are absolutely right.

Just like President Chirac said, the house is burning and we are looking elsewere.

I never read any attempt by the AF unions or AF pilots to recognize any responsabilities in the awful crash rate we have.

It’s easier to accuse Air Inter pilots who had during 35 years a far much better safety standard than AF.

We receive a lot of training, we have new aircraft, good maintenance and we crash an aircraft every four years.

Sure, the management is faulty, but we also have to admit that we are strongly involved in this mess.

And by the way, when I was FO, I flew with “pure AF pilots” that disregarded my missed approach suggestion or were in the bunk while we were avoiding CBs.

[Airbubba]

I found it very unusual that the 'Delta' consultants for Koreans safety audit seemed to have such extensive knowledge of B747 operations since they had not operated any at the time for decades !


Yep, it's obvious that this was never written by Delta types or even Americans for that matter. We don't nickel and dime over the use of armrests and when to return the gear handle to off.

This document was for a while published on Alex Patterson's website, he mainly has views on the AFAP debacle of 1989 posted there.

Somehow the 'audit report' achieved urban legend status and was touted in some quarters as the actual summary of Delta's findings.

Delta did operate a couple of 747's in the 1970's as I recall. Were they leased from Pan Am, perhaps?

[Spooky 2]

Leased from and returned to United at the end of the lease.

[cessnapuppy]

..well, has anyone a link or copy of the Real Delta Report?
been searching for a while but no luck

[Paul Wilson]

Having read many a contract, and numerous business letters the first line of the "report" says it all.

These findings are a detailed description of observations made during the Delta Audit program over a number of flights

What it does NOT say is

These are the findings of the Delta audit program

[Airbubba]

Were they leased from Pan Am, perhaps?

Leased from and returned to United at the end of the lease.

After a little online research, looks like they were not leased, five B-747-132's were delivered new from Boeing directly to Delta.

None were ever owned or operated by United or Pan Am as far as I can tell, not sure where we got that idea.

See:

FlyerTalk Forums - View Single Post - Boeing 747 Aircraft and Delta Air Lines (http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/520830-post9.html)

Photos: Boeing 747-132 Aircraft Pictures | Airliners.net (http://www.airliners.net/photo/1985/)

Of course, with the NWA 'merger', Delta now operates all of the major aircraft types in AF livery except the A340 and A380, right?

[Spooky 2]

I stand corrected. Those were DC10's not 747's. Should'a known better!:}