Cutting corners: Cowboy Operators

[fox niner]

The last few months we have seen the following three airliners crash for reasons that are beyond belief:

Lamia fuel starvation in Colombia
Aerosucre 727 that hit the fence on takeoff
ACT airlines that tries a 9 degree glideslope autoland.

Is this a trend? How many other cowboy outfits are there with which we have to share the world's airspace?
This has to stop. Clearly some governments are not able, or willing, to commit to some proper oversight. You can hardly blame the pilots for this, although at least partly, it borders on criminal negligence.

What other "airlines" are there that should be grounded?

[ZFT]

In the 3 cases you cite, with what (limited) formal information we currently know, it is somewhat difficult not to apportion much of the blame on the operating crew I would suggest?

[fireflybob]

But what regulatory "system" (or lack of it) has allowed those people to be there in that role?

[IcePack]

As seen on another thread. Their is not much oversight here in the U.K. Either.

[ZFT]

But what regulatory "system" (or lack of it) has allowed those people to be there in that role?

All of them. Until there is meaningful accountability, all this talk is just that, talk!!!!

[LGW Vulture]

As seen on another thread. Their is not much oversight here in the U.K. Either.

I'll add EASA to that as well. Make no mistake, what I see that goes on, makes my hair curl at times.

[BESTGLIDESPEED]

Thank you waffler

Most illustrative

As for the AI procedure to try those wax crystals not to get into the fuel lines, maintenance Is telling me they are getting concerned with all these flights doing the OUTR TK XFR to INNR and thus leaving the tips bending for longer than they think they've been designed for.

Conclusion :

AI recommends to lower FL and Increase M# ( although there's a graphic in Getting To Grips with Cold WX Ops where it show the latter is a much more expensive option than the first one ) but, finally, as we reach our fuel type freezing point, recommends to XFR the problematic TKS into the inner ones.

I believe they must have the wing tips structural problem more than very well sorted out
Even if this happens daily, as it does in our company in northern winter.

I guess they would have sent a tech notice or something otherwise

The least we are now, is legally covered

Maint. Will confirm if we are technically too ...

[safetypee]

F9, #1, your argument is flawed.
As yet none of the accident investigations have issued a formal report, so there are no hard facts to debate.
The outcomes of a single accident should not be used to infer the behaviour of the operator; there is little or no evidence of what these operators do, or have done in daily operations.
You fail to consider alternative views; could an aircraft physically achieve a stable 9 deg approach.

It is very dangerous to base safety on such thin data. Reactive over-action might disturb the current state of safety.
Whilst you might exclude 'errant' operators from EU airspace, that would not improve their safety record, nor the safety performance in the overall industry which the travelling public may be more concerned with.

Improvements in an already very safe industry require cautious thought in considering a wide range of views and data, and the evaluation of many potential contributing factors before choosing a course of action.

P.S. I considered the possibility of a troll or fishing journalist; without evidence you have the benefit of doubt.

[Tu.114]

Another point for consideration.

An airline is not a monolithic block formed of like-minded people marching in step. It is formed of individuals, and there is a spectrum. Even the most respectable airline that has its employees requested in no uncertain terms to operate by the book and in case of doubt make the safe call without thinking about costs must have some people in it that do so only grudgingly and like to cut a corner or two when nobody is watching. Also in some shoddy outfits, there are surely people who value their integrity and possibly their life too high to have them bowto the commercial pressure applied to them, and work to the rules or in absence of proper ones, apply common sense and operational prudence.

Operational oversight by authorities can only go so far. Adherence to rules, sensible operation of aircraft and the refusal to take unnecessary risks (for there are some inherent ones involved in aviation) are not primarily a result of sufficient regulatory and supervisory pressure applied by anyone, but they all come from within each individual, be his workplace ground or air, be it cabin or cockpit, involved in the system.

[Frosch]

Looks like this is just the beginning. Management thinks they will get away with constant cost cutting and outsourcing, but they won't - and neither will the SLF. Aviation had a large buffer-zone built in its system, but that is almost gone. Adding to this the "if-you-pay-peanuts-you-get-monkeys" (or Guard-Tarzans if you like)-Problem, then the ice will become very thin. So stunts like the red-nose take-off in Norway :\ will be happening more frequently, a completely new quality of accident is just around the corner.

It might have been a long time for this to surface, but once visible and causing accidents, it will also take a long time to get rid of all this insanity.

Funny thing is that it will not and cannot be stopped until the pain is almost unbearable, but for that there is still some way to go. Hopefully that point will be reached before aviation hits the working conditions of the merchant shipping.
If they were allowed, we would have that tomorrow. :ouch:

[oldchina]

Ok so let's all go back to the good old days and high wage legacy carriers like Air France?
I won't mention their pathetic safety record, we all know.
The professional disciplined low cost carriers know where to cut costs and stay safe.

[Tu.114]

Frosch, as hard as this is to swallow when one is in this industry, this is simply not true. There is no relation between the working conditions in a company and its safety profile.

Compare Ryanair, who I think we agree tends to provide unenviable working conditions to its crews, on the one hand and legacy carriers like Turkish, Air France, LH, BA and whatever carrier you like to include here on the other. FR has as far as I know only lost one single aircraft to a multiple birdstrike at CIA a while ago since their beginnings. The safety statistics of TR and AF in the same timeframe are well known. LH has lost the occasional aircraft, most recently a cargo MD-11 in Riyadh, BA has put a 777 on its belly at LHR, and so on.

And yes, I am aware that aircrew had not much influence in many of those accidents; a flock of birds does not care any more for the livery of an aircraft than some ice that may come adrift in the fuel system and clog up vital parts in there. That most of those accidents took no or next to no casualties is a testament to the capabilities of the aircrews, whatever colour their tie might have.

Try not to divert on such a tangent when discussing safety, please.

[BCAR Section L]

It seems current logic is that there are few fatal accidents so everything is safe. The opening text to most occurrence reporting schemes however contains text similar to that below:

Experience has shown that accidents are often preceded by safety-related incidents and deficiencies thereby revealing the existence of safety hazards.

So what absolute facts do we have about incidents?
are incidents also as few as accidents?
Are incidents cause/repetitiveness properly and openly managed?
Do we actually have any idea at all of how safe the industry really is?
Shall we just respond to the headline fatal accident statistic?

[safetypee]

BCAR, a problem in a 'very safe' industry is if incidents really do preceded accidents (not just our view with hindsight), but if so, how often is 'often', particularly if there are fewer related incidents.

Your questions are very pertinent;
Facts, few; incidents, few and questionable if they relate to accidents.
Management; from self reporting, with hindsight, data driven, counting numbers, and highly questionable relevance to the issues in accident reports.
How safe is the industry; depends on the definition of safe. If safety is considered as 'what is done' vs 'what we have', then there is always room for improvement.
We need to move away from the headline fatalities, but not forgetting this is more likely to influence public opinion.
Do not use body count as it is unrelated to accident rate (onboard fatalities page 16 (http://www.boeing.com/resources/boeingdotcom/company/about_bca/pdf/statsum.pdf)).

We should place greater emphasis on non fatal accidents where the risk of fatality might be the same or greater than in the fatal accidents; (we need to look and think beyond numbers (http://www.airbus.com/company/aircraft-manufacture/quality-and-safety-first/?eID=maglisting_push&tx_maglisting_pi1%5BdocID%5D=108528)).
Also, look beyond accident reports and consider those unreported issues because they were not 'factual'; human factors, influences on human behaviour, SOPs and management pressure.
We need to question our assumptions about safety.