WSJ article: On Asia’s flights, potentially dangerous mistakes go unreported

[airman1900]

From the Wall Street Journal, July 14, 2015, front page(A1) article titled "On Asia’s flights, potentially dangerous mistakes go unreported" :


On Asia?s Flights, Potentially Dangerous Mistakes Go Unreported - WSJ (http://on.wsj.com/1O8rTxx)

[Airbubba]

No surprise that the aviation region with the largest number of flights has by far the lowest number of fatalities.

We're doing something right in 'North' America. :ok:

[SeenItAll]

To be fair here, Europe is probably defined to include eastern countries like Russia and Ukraine. If only western Europe were measured, I suspect their results would look quite similar to those from North America.

[MrDK]

If only western Europe were measured, I suspect their results would look quite similar to those from North America.

Maybe so.
US/Canada is coming up on 14 years since a single passenger life was lost on any mainline flight (domestic or international).
Western Europe?

[TBSC]

"US/Canada is coming up on 14 years since a single passenger life was lost on any mainline flight"

Which was nothing else but pure luck in at least 4 landing incidents (AA, Delta, Air Canada, Hudson)...

[ohnutsiforgot]

Over run Midway 1 dead

[EverythingWeMake]

The story here is about a gross under-reporting in Asia. It is the lessons of the developed aviation nations that a Just Culture and a Reporting Culture leads to a reduction in incidents and accidents.
Asia is going the opposite way. Not reporting almost any incidents or accidents (or near-incidents) thus leading to a false impression of safety.

I posit that by and far the primary reason for this under-reporting is the unfettered rise in the punishment culture. Almost all airlines are party to the ICAO documents encouraging reporting culture and decrying punishments for unintentional or non negligent behaviour yet they punish staff regardless.
International training and regulatory organizations have turned a blind eye to this and the resulting effects.

I have first-hand experience of this culture and it is now becoming difficult to hide the statistically backed results of breeding such a culture.

http://www.pprune.org/terms-endearment/525792-china-fear-punishment.html

Ever more advanced and accessible QAR/FDR/CVR/FDM/FOQA systems are helping drive this boom in a quick and easily disguised as scientific method of supporting such practices.

Pilot groups need to stand up to this abuse and confront these nation's regulators in our international forums regarding punishment and safety.

[Flytdeck]

Which was nothing else but pure luck in at least 4 landing incidents (AA, Delta, Air Canada, Hudson)...

Hudson, luck, really? So in your definition, every SUCCESSFUL flight is purely luck? We often discuss the swiss cheese model to envision how we ARRIVE at an accident but the model can be extended to arrive at FATAL accidents. There are several slices of cheese between accident and fatal accident the very last, possibly, being LUCK. I would suggest that airframe design, training, experience, and ability to recover had much more to do with the outcome of these accidents than LUCK.

Reference the Hudson incident, colliding with the geese was a result of risk management policies. North American pilots are all aware of the migration paths of birds. There is inherent risk in operations during certain seasons of the year. Risk managers recognized that collisions were inevitable but that the risk of both engines being rendered inoperative was negligible. Sully found the "negligible" part of the analysis and responded in a manner than all of us can only hope to emulate if we encounter an extreme situation.

We all make errors (anyone who does not acknowledge this should NOT be aircrew). Errors lead to various consequences, some more serious than others. Identifying and mitigating these errors is an important part of our job, even after the commencement of a disastrous sequence of events. Leave trusting in luck to the gamblers and stay away from those carriers that include it as part of their operations policy.

Fly safe.

[Lonewolf1507]

I think the reference to luck and the Hudson River accident was that there was no loss of life, not the amazing airmanship shown by the crew.

Any landing that doesn't quite fall into a "standard" category has the potential to cause a death just by the varying ages and abilities of the passengers on board.

[TBSC]

Said nothing about the execution but e.g to have the Hudson itself around was luck. Any suggestion how the superior risk management policies of North American operators prevented having fatalities in case of the succesful landing of the Air Canada aircraft?

[JammedStab]

There have definitely been some close calls in the two northern North American countries. in the past few years. And 1 fatal 737 crash as well about 4 years ago. But, I think there have been close calls in every area.

I do appreciate the reports that regularly get published in places like Australia that allow us to read and learn from errors that are made. It appears that some countries are not publishing reports to any great extent.

Find me one accident report from mainland China. It is too bad as this could prevent other accident. I can think of a couple of MD-11 accidents(Korean and Avient) both foreign carriers yet no report for us to read and learn from.

[Centaurus]

Find me one accident report from mainland China. It is too bad as this could prevent other accident. I can think of a couple of MD-11 accidents(Korean and Avient) both foreign carriers yet no report for us to read and learn from.

Of course not. It is the culture of shame or loss of face in those societies. and it will never ever change.

[susier]

'US/Canada is coming up on 14 years since a single passenger life was lost on any mainline flight (domestic or international).'


Asiana 214? Or doesn't that count?

[barit1]

Asiana 214? Or doesn't that count?

Per ICAO, a US/Canadian operator's accident outside home territory DOES count.

A foreign operator's accident within US or Canada DOES NOT count. (unless possibly it was the result of our ATC or other system failure. . . Someone help me out here!)

[J.O.]

'US/Canada is coming up on 14 years since a single passenger life was lost on any mainline flight (domestic or international).'


Asiana 214? Or doesn't that count?

Asiana's AOC wasn't issued by the FAA.

[LLuCCiFeR]

Asiana's AOC wasn't issued by the FAA. I don't want to be nitpicking, but weren't the victims overrun by a firetruck on an FAA regulated airport?

Anyway, congrats to the US! :ok:

In Europe the authorities are too busy to throw out the baby with the bathwater; killing off the unions, forcing pilots to work as 'independent' contractors, and instilling a fear and mobbing culture.
All in the name of "safety" of course! :rolleyes:

[barit1]

To be fair:

There is a huge volume of seagoing passenger ferry traffic between islands in SEA. What is their safety record in comparison to like ferries on Europe or North America?

And how does that comparison stack up against the equivalent air safety statistics?

[rottenray]

Hudson, luck, really? So in your definition, every SUCCESSFUL flight is purely luck? We often discuss the swiss cheese model to envision how we ARRIVE at an accident but the model can be extended to arrive at FATAL accidents. There are several slices of cheese between accident and fatal accident the very last, possibly, being LUCK. I would suggest that airframe design, training, experience, and ability to recover had much more to do with the outcome of these accidents than LUCK.

Reference the Hudson incident, colliding with the geese was a result of risk management policies. North American pilots are all aware of the migration paths of birds. There is inherent risk in operations during certain seasons of the year. Risk managers recognized that collisions were inevitable but that the risk of both engines being rendered inoperative was negligible. Sully found the "negligible" part of the analysis and responded in a manner than all of us can only hope to emulate if we encounter an extreme situation.

We all make errors (anyone who does not acknowledge this should NOT be aircrew). Errors lead to various consequences, some more serious than others. Identifying and mitigating these errors is an important part of our job, even after the commencement of a disastrous sequence of events. Leave trusting in luck to the gamblers and stay away from those carriers that include it as part of their operations policy.

Fly safe.


One of the most polite, succinct posts I've ever read on Pprune.

Thanks!

[LGW Vulture]

So we ignore the Colgan Air Buffalo and the Comair Lexington CRJ crashes?

[MrDK]

"So we ignore the Colgan Air Buffalo and the Comair Lexington CRJ crashes? "

Yes and one more that you must have missed among commuters.
My original statement was specific: "passengers on any mainline US/Canadian carrier".

Regardless of how anyone wants to skin that cat it is quite impressive.
I remember the (not so far distant) days where two biggies a year was about the norm and even the flying was the safest form of transportation.

As far as luck, luck (good or bad) is part of most equations in life, but to even hint that neat 14 years has luck as any appreciative factor is Ludacris.

Good work by crews, controllers and frame makers is the answer :D
Remarkable statistics and some the Asian region is far from, but hopefully will rise to someday.

[J.O.]

I don't want to be nitpicking, but weren't the victims overrun by a firetruck on an FAA regulated airport?

Um, no. The coroner's report stated that the passenger who was unfortunately struck by the fire truck was in fact already deceased. Regardless, she'd never have been in a position to be struck - nor would the fire truck have been there - had someone remembered how to fly their airplane.

[barit1]

Good work by crews, controllers and frame makers is the answer

Well, it's a bit deeper than that; engines, avionics, gps, . . .

[Naali]

EWM at dash 7,would be worth a second reading. Substituting Asia with the country you are flying in,and thinking again. Safe is never a possible situation,and never a battle that has been won. Just an ongoing fight,to find ways to do things better.

[physicus]

With major events being as rare as they are in NA/WEU/AU, the outcome of those events has to be considered small sample statistics. Keep that in mind when you judge by the number of lives lost. That simply doesn't say anything about air safety. As others have pointed out, there were plenty of incidents and accidents in NA over this time period where it was down to pure luck nobody died.

[MrDK]

With major events being as rare as they are in NA/WEU/AU, the outcome of those events has to be considered small sample statistics. Keep that in mind when you judge by the number of lives lost. That simply doesn't say anything about air safety. As others have pointed out, there were plenty of incidents and accidents in NA over this time period where it was down to pure luck nobody died.

You must be joking.
It speaks volumes about air safety.
Number of flights are up hugely in the past couple of decades and fatal accidents are way down.
Does that qualify as small sample statistics?
To me it points to very conclusive statistics.

[etudiant]

Maybe the paucity of accidents in Asia is a reflection of the more widespread use of automation by Asian flight crews.
In effect, we are getting first hand experience operating a near fully automated air transport system and it is working astonishingly well.
Seen in that light, P2F makes a lot more sense, it is 'rent seeking' people aspiring to an annuity that has a high entry barrier.

[physicus]

@MrDK, yes, jet transport accidents are all small sample statistics, fortunately. I agree with you it says something about air safety, namely that it got a lot safer since the 1960's. Also, that part of the statistics where you look at how many accidents occur per million departures, is obviously NOT small sample statistics. But anything to do with the accidents themselves, is.

Since about 2000, the statistical sampling is simply insufficient to provide trend information, and the occurrence of accidents takes on the stochastic character of randomness.

Look at page 18 in this report: http://www.boeing.com/resources/boeingdotcom/company/about_bca/pdf/statsum.pdf

NOTE: these numbers take the increasing traffic into account, i.e. these are accident rates per million departures.

You can see that from 2000 onwards, just about the only information that can be deduced from those numbers is that the accident rate over several years in the US is non-zero. For the rest of the world, it is still higher than in the US initially, and that's where a trend can be seen, but from 2009 onwards, it appears to have reached similar levels as in the US.

Extending from this to taking lives lost in an accident as a safety indicator is misleading at best. You cannot take lives lost as a safety indicator when such small numbers of accidents are occuring, as the outcome will be random.

[A Squared]

Over run Midway 1 dead

Ahhhh, but the fatality in that accident was in a car on the ground it wasn't a "passenger" fatality. It all depends on how you word your claim.

[A Squared]

It seems very disappointing but this thread so quickly is descended into a who is better than whom debate.

Uhhh, the thread is based on a news article exclusively about safety problems that ate specific o a certain region. The thread was already there when the OP hit "post".

[A Squared]

Yes and one more that you must have missed among commuters.
My original statement was specific: "passengers on any mainline US/Canadian carrier".

IN an age whee "commuters" are flying aircraft heavier than, and with more seats than the early "mainline" DC-9's, between fairly large cities like Denver and St Louis, (just for example) the "mainline"-"commuter" distinction has become pretty much meaningless.

[roulishollandais]

When we read about statistics in public media and in highest level works too, it is very seldom that the distribution law is refered to.
Pure nonsense for the whole work.

If random is refered to in such works, we see another mistake in stats'use : non only we suppose without demonstration that the distribution is Gaussian , but the number of similar observations is often to low.

Everyday I'm angry listening on radio/TV the met forecast, ie :"Temperature is 5°c lower than normal (Gaussian) in that season " (temperature and season undefined and shifting everyday...).

Trusting in stats applied in respect of the stats'rules, I understand the stats'bashing but false "you may let stats say everything you want".

[Piltdown Man]

I think PPRune history shows there is no point in inferring U.S. manufactured aircraft, politics, safety or companies are in any way inferior to anything else in the world (probably the universe as well). These guys don't and won't listen to any argument listen, no matter what the facts are. Maybe it's ignorance. Maybe it's insecurity. Who knows.

But moving on... as has been pointed out earlier, the punitive culture of these countries means that anything potentially detrimental to a person, organisation or system will get buried and wholly denied. There will have to be thousands of deaths before an amazing discovery will found locally. I'll even predict that it will look like a just culture; one where the messenger does not always get shot. Until then, just hope they don't take out anybody you care about.

While I'm here I'll also suggest that a lack of union strength makes Eastern operations less transparent than Western ones. When an operation is only comprised of a bunch of individuals then very few will stick their heads above the parapet. Remember that in Britain it took nearly 100 years after the start of the Industrial Revolution for unions to be decriminalised. This part of the world has a few years to go yet.

PM

[MrDK]

PM:
What year do you live in?
... please use the Gregorian calendar as a reference

[armchairpilot94116]

I live in the Bay Area and the Asiana crash was big news for us here.
The young lady was killed by the truck, she was ALIVE when she was run over.
Your info is incorrect.

quote from J.O.
Um, no. The coroner's report stated that the passenger who was unfortunately struck by the fire truck was in fact already deceased. Regardless, she'd never have been in a position to be struck - nor would the fire truck have been there - had someone remembered how to fly their airplane.
unquote


Coroner: Asiana Flight 214 victim killed by fire truck, not plane crash - NBC News (http://www.nbcnews.com/news/other/coroner-asiana-flight-214-victim-killed-fire-truck-not-plane-f6C10688904)

There is little doubt though that the crew totally messed up the approach. They couldn't handle a visual in good weather and daylight. Weren't "trained" to be able to. And/or didn't fully understand the workings of the 777.