A fixation with fatals ?
Thread Starter
Joined: Nov 2006
Posts: 439
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From: UK
A fixation with fatals ?
We're strange creatures. Look at the fixation with the CM crash on this forum. That same weekend another 2 fatalities didn't happen 24 hrs later when the Prodrive EC135 ended a flight on its side in a field. Hardly a word of enquiry here.
Shouldn't we - as an industry, as professionals - be concerned with EVERY unexplained incident ? Not just the fatals. The obsession with fatals here, when they happen, is bordering on the disturbing. It seems to be the same mentality that drives the press who get scorned upon by so many here.
Our regulators, too, seem obsessed with only recording data on accidents that kill people. If you ask the CAA for accident data, it's all fatal accidents - not all accidents - that they send.
Bearing in mind that the actual difference between a fatal and non-fatal can be something that is nothing to do with the actual flight or the cause of the accident, shouldn't we lose this obsession ?
Shouldn't we - as an industry, as professionals - be concerned with EVERY unexplained incident ? Not just the fatals. The obsession with fatals here, when they happen, is bordering on the disturbing. It seems to be the same mentality that drives the press who get scorned upon by so many here.
Our regulators, too, seem obsessed with only recording data on accidents that kill people. If you ask the CAA for accident data, it's all fatal accidents - not all accidents - that they send.
Bearing in mind that the actual difference between a fatal and non-fatal can be something that is nothing to do with the actual flight or the cause of the accident, shouldn't we lose this obsession ?
Avoid imitations
Joined: Nov 2000
Aviation Qualifications: ATPL
Posts: 15,110
Likes: 1,083
From: Wandering the FIR and cyberspace often at highly unsociable times
Possibly another of those missing rubber main gearbox drive belts, you know, the one that wasn't actually fitted to the helicopter.
"Exclusive- Helicopter accident caused by missing rubber belt".
Examination of the aircraft was made by a local farmer, who spoke to someone in the pub and was overheard by someone's aunty's cousin, and passed it on to a chap in Woolworth's, who knows our aviation correspondent. There was no sign of a rubber belt between the engine and the transmission. Safety experts are now to call for rubber belts to be fitted to all helicopters
Seriously, I hope Dave and his good lady have recovered from their fright.
P.S. No doubt there will be an official announcement soon.
"Exclusive- Helicopter accident caused by missing rubber belt".
Examination of the aircraft was made by a local farmer, who spoke to someone in the pub and was overheard by someone's aunty's cousin, and passed it on to a chap in Woolworth's, who knows our aviation correspondent. There was no sign of a rubber belt between the engine and the transmission. Safety experts are now to call for rubber belts to be fitted to all helicopters
Seriously, I hope Dave and his good lady have recovered from their fright.
P.S. No doubt there will be an official announcement soon.
Joined: Apr 2003
Posts: 3,012
Likes: 1
From: USA
JimBall,
You are absolutely right, and accident professionals do categorize and pursue all failures, esp those the lead to major accidents. Fatalities have their own reporting niche, but the recognition at any bent metal could have been fatal is not lost on the pros. It does seem to miss ppruner's radar scopes, I agree.
The chain, as explained to me once by a HOMP professional:
10,000 operational anomalies (LOW ALT, HIGH g, RAPID MANEUVER)
100 Operational near misses (near mid-air, red line breach, hard landing)
1 accident
You are absolutely right, and accident professionals do categorize and pursue all failures, esp those the lead to major accidents. Fatalities have their own reporting niche, but the recognition at any bent metal could have been fatal is not lost on the pros. It does seem to miss ppruner's radar scopes, I agree.
The chain, as explained to me once by a HOMP professional:
10,000 operational anomalies (LOW ALT, HIGH g, RAPID MANEUVER)
100 Operational near misses (near mid-air, red line breach, hard landing)
1 accident
Joined: Jan 2005
Posts: 376
Likes: 0
From: Grand Com f'Ort
the recognition that any bent metal could have been fatal is not lost on the pros
Barry Sweedler had it right: "We regulate by counting tombstones"
Joined: May 2003
Posts: 921
Likes: 30
From: Europe
JimBall,
I agree with your sentiment but not your premise.
Just because there is a fascination with celebrity on PPRune doesn't mean that the professionals don't record or analyse incidents and accidents. The requirement to record is enshrined in ICAO and in a State's regulations. The reported data is used to understand the population of accidents and incidents - the recent thread on the CAA paper "2007-03 - Helicopter Flight in Reduced Visibility" is one example.
The ratio of incidents:serious incidents:accidents is taken from Heinrich's Triangle; he postulated that the ratio is: 330 incidents; to 29 serious incidents; to one accident. It is accepted that if trends can be spotted at at the incident stage, interception strategies can be employed to prevent a serious incident or accident.
As Nick has pointed out, this is exactly the strategy that is used in HOMP; however with HOMP, the aim is to work below the 'incident' threshold by mapping the operational envelope into 'normality' and 'abnormality'. This mapping is not easily done and is the real expertise of HOMP and similar systems. At the simplest level, this mapping provides 'alerts' - which are normally investigated. At the most complex level, analysis using neural net algorithms can spot 'clusters' - a good example of a cluster would be a pilot who always makes a fast approach to a rig; if these (abnormal) approach speeds are below the alert threshold they would not trigger an alert even though the trend might be significant. HOMP data is internal and not reported to the Authority (and sometimes not even to management except in a de-identified form); if an alert (or a series of alerts) comprises an incident, it is expected to be reported by the usual method (MORS) by the pilot.
The CAA hold data that has been reported by the MORS system - that includes some incidents that are below the threshold required to be reported. They are also the recipient of questions from the board of CHIRP - the voluntary and anonymous reporting scheme. (Most questions from CHIRP trigger analysis of the data held by the Safety Data Analysis Unit (or whatever it is called today).)
Authorities (and other organisations) do not just report fatal accidents; for example engine reliability (failures per 100,000 hrs) is required to be examined as part of the Approval for Exposure. A number of organisations collect data for their own safety management systems - an example often used in PPRune is that collected by OGP in production of the yearly oil industry reports; part of this data comes from the HSAC who also collect and analyse data in a continuing bid to improve safety.
Jim
I agree with your sentiment but not your premise.
Just because there is a fascination with celebrity on PPRune doesn't mean that the professionals don't record or analyse incidents and accidents. The requirement to record is enshrined in ICAO and in a State's regulations. The reported data is used to understand the population of accidents and incidents - the recent thread on the CAA paper "2007-03 - Helicopter Flight in Reduced Visibility" is one example.
The ratio of incidents:serious incidents:accidents is taken from Heinrich's Triangle; he postulated that the ratio is: 330 incidents; to 29 serious incidents; to one accident. It is accepted that if trends can be spotted at at the incident stage, interception strategies can be employed to prevent a serious incident or accident.
As Nick has pointed out, this is exactly the strategy that is used in HOMP; however with HOMP, the aim is to work below the 'incident' threshold by mapping the operational envelope into 'normality' and 'abnormality'. This mapping is not easily done and is the real expertise of HOMP and similar systems. At the simplest level, this mapping provides 'alerts' - which are normally investigated. At the most complex level, analysis using neural net algorithms can spot 'clusters' - a good example of a cluster would be a pilot who always makes a fast approach to a rig; if these (abnormal) approach speeds are below the alert threshold they would not trigger an alert even though the trend might be significant. HOMP data is internal and not reported to the Authority (and sometimes not even to management except in a de-identified form); if an alert (or a series of alerts) comprises an incident, it is expected to be reported by the usual method (MORS) by the pilot.
The CAA hold data that has been reported by the MORS system - that includes some incidents that are below the threshold required to be reported. They are also the recipient of questions from the board of CHIRP - the voluntary and anonymous reporting scheme. (Most questions from CHIRP trigger analysis of the data held by the Safety Data Analysis Unit (or whatever it is called today).)
Authorities (and other organisations) do not just report fatal accidents; for example engine reliability (failures per 100,000 hrs) is required to be examined as part of the Approval for Exposure. A number of organisations collect data for their own safety management systems - an example often used in PPRune is that collected by OGP in production of the yearly oil industry reports; part of this data comes from the HSAC who also collect and analyse data in a continuing bid to improve safety.
Jim
Joined: Feb 2006
Posts: 102
Likes: 0
From: Australia
Nice post!
JimL,
Great post mate. Really interesting and informative stuff. If only all the posts on this forum were so...
I understand JimBall's concern but the perception of 'news' is a fascinating one. By definition, 'news' must be 'newsworthy' or no one would watch or read it.
Just sit down and try and watch some local news in a regional area and you'll see what I mean. Often the news goes into the mundane or everyday and therefore doesn't constitute news as we understand it.
Consequently, to make the news, an item must be out of the ordinary normally speaking. Because so many incidents occur, and because the result of these are for the most part (thank goodness!) resolved without significant injury to personnel or damage to aircraft, they become less newsworthy perhaps, but no less important in terms of lessons learned or safety systems requiring implementation to prevent a reoccurrence.
Instead, we should be glad that the number of 'newsworthy' accidents is relatively low as these accidents represent something other than the everyday. As soon as we start having accidents at the rate we have car accidents for instance, air related accidents will cease to be of interest to anyone, including the press, and yet the real consequences in terms of injury or loss of life will far greater.
Someone once said (and I paraphrase here), "If it makes the news, it's not something one should be concerned with as it rarely happens. It's all the stuff that doesn't get mentioned we should be worried about!"
Perhaps then it's for the best that the stuff we should be really concerned with is handled by experts a la JimL and not the press (or some of our not so well informed PPRuNer's).
Papa68
Great post mate. Really interesting and informative stuff. If only all the posts on this forum were so...
I understand JimBall's concern but the perception of 'news' is a fascinating one. By definition, 'news' must be 'newsworthy' or no one would watch or read it.
Just sit down and try and watch some local news in a regional area and you'll see what I mean. Often the news goes into the mundane or everyday and therefore doesn't constitute news as we understand it.
Consequently, to make the news, an item must be out of the ordinary normally speaking. Because so many incidents occur, and because the result of these are for the most part (thank goodness!) resolved without significant injury to personnel or damage to aircraft, they become less newsworthy perhaps, but no less important in terms of lessons learned or safety systems requiring implementation to prevent a reoccurrence.
Instead, we should be glad that the number of 'newsworthy' accidents is relatively low as these accidents represent something other than the everyday. As soon as we start having accidents at the rate we have car accidents for instance, air related accidents will cease to be of interest to anyone, including the press, and yet the real consequences in terms of injury or loss of life will far greater.
Someone once said (and I paraphrase here), "If it makes the news, it's not something one should be concerned with as it rarely happens. It's all the stuff that doesn't get mentioned we should be worried about!"
Perhaps then it's for the best that the stuff we should be really concerned with is handled by experts a la JimL and not the press (or some of our not so well informed PPRuNer's).
Papa68
