TWA 800 - the acceptable cost of accidents.
Cunning Artificer
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: The spiritual home of DeHavilland
Age: 76
Posts: 3,127
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Well T Shirt, I never said "industry standard" just "typical for the industry." For the first item on my list, a mandatory SB is one that has been made mandatory by a recognised means. If the FAA make it mandatory then the SB is mandatory on everybody in the USA plus everybody outside the USA that automatically mandates ADs from the "country of origin"
Item 1 on my list is a normative decision taken by the individual engineer assessing the SB. Sometimes he will refer to his colleagues or even (heaven forbid) his boss. We are practical engineers, with a view of safety moulded by healthy scepticism arising from our constant exposure to the faulty reliability predictions so excellently explained above by Lu Zuckerman (By the way Lu, I work for 'Royal Bumdung' in the far east. We're just as good at maintaining aircraft as any US outfit and better than most... Just so you know...
)
My post simply pointed out that invisible though we may be, there are a bunch of hard nosed sceptical and experienced engineers hiding in the back rooms of most airlines. We are skilled, experienced, dedicated to safe engineering and we are not easily talked out of our decisions as to what is or is not safety related. Having said that, being practical people, we do recognise that the aim can never be safety at any price. One of my major worries though, is the degree to which standards are coming under pressure these days. More amazingly, some of that pressure is now coming from the regulators themselves.
**********************************
Through difficulties to the cinema
[This message has been edited by Blacksheep (edited 27 May 2001).]
Item 1 on my list is a normative decision taken by the individual engineer assessing the SB. Sometimes he will refer to his colleagues or even (heaven forbid) his boss. We are practical engineers, with a view of safety moulded by healthy scepticism arising from our constant exposure to the faulty reliability predictions so excellently explained above by Lu Zuckerman (By the way Lu, I work for 'Royal Bumdung' in the far east. We're just as good at maintaining aircraft as any US outfit and better than most... Just so you know...
)My post simply pointed out that invisible though we may be, there are a bunch of hard nosed sceptical and experienced engineers hiding in the back rooms of most airlines. We are skilled, experienced, dedicated to safe engineering and we are not easily talked out of our decisions as to what is or is not safety related. Having said that, being practical people, we do recognise that the aim can never be safety at any price. One of my major worries though, is the degree to which standards are coming under pressure these days. More amazingly, some of that pressure is now coming from the regulators themselves.
**********************************
Through difficulties to the cinema
[This message has been edited by Blacksheep (edited 27 May 2001).]
Guest
Posts: n/a
225,
The post was not aimed at teaching anybody's granmother to suck eggs, but many people only have to work in one sphere of legislation and this was just to highlight major difference in methodology for those unlike yourself who may not be familiar.
I can show you FAA DAR's that do not even know what UK Special Conditions are!
Blacksheep, I apologise if it came across wrongly ! (see above.)
Your reply was exactly my point that the decision Mod. or not to Mod. is being taken more and more by beancounters !!
I also think we will see more and more of this pressure as the industry competitiveness increases.
As I mentioned there is a growing attitude of "if it was needed it would be an AD "!
I am old enough to remember when Engineering made all the engineering decisions!
The post was not aimed at teaching anybody's granmother to suck eggs, but many people only have to work in one sphere of legislation and this was just to highlight major difference in methodology for those unlike yourself who may not be familiar.
I can show you FAA DAR's that do not even know what UK Special Conditions are!
Blacksheep, I apologise if it came across wrongly ! (see above.)
Your reply was exactly my point that the decision Mod. or not to Mod. is being taken more and more by beancounters !!
I also think we will see more and more of this pressure as the industry competitiveness increases.
As I mentioned there is a growing attitude of "if it was needed it would be an AD "!
I am old enough to remember when Engineering made all the engineering decisions!
Guest
Posts: n/a
Advisory Circulars not mandatory -
The ACs are often fantastic information which should have the effect of a regulation; but they simply don't.
Conversely, if the FAA decides to violate someone, they will resort to ACs as thier main evidence.
If you look to the evolution of regulations & such, you find that the FAA is a vassal to the ATA membership. Despite undeniable and obvious FAA complicity in mass fatalities, even the FBI won't touch them.
Between the Federal Law relieving the FAA of it's safety mandate and Presidential Executive Order 12866, government & regulation are economically selective, in favor of the inside corporations.
It's just that simple.
The ACs are often fantastic information which should have the effect of a regulation; but they simply don't.
Conversely, if the FAA decides to violate someone, they will resort to ACs as thier main evidence.
If you look to the evolution of regulations & such, you find that the FAA is a vassal to the ATA membership. Despite undeniable and obvious FAA complicity in mass fatalities, even the FBI won't touch them.
Between the Federal Law relieving the FAA of it's safety mandate and Presidential Executive Order 12866, government & regulation are economically selective, in favor of the inside corporations.
It's just that simple.
Guest
Posts: n/a
How safe is 'safe enough'? As we are not god, every thing we do has some, hopefully small, element of risk. But the problem is ensuring that this risk remains within acceptable limits. In aviation, as elsewhere, I would suggest that 'safety' is driven by public perception of safety. So foget about accident rates and concentrate on accident frequency.
This is well known - in 1943 a study carried out by the Curtiss Wright Corp for the US Government warned that, once commercial aviation began to expand after the war, if accident rates remained at the same level as in the 1930s the increase in the number of accidents would not be acceptable to the public and would limit growth. This argument has been regularly repeated ever since and, with traffic due to double again in the next 10 to 12 years, if the current frequency of accidents is more or less acceptable to the public, then accident rates will have to halve over the same period.
But how to ensure that the accident rate keeps going down. Many times in the past (eg in 1960, see FSF) it has been argued that the cost of driving the rate down further is no longer cost effective (it would cost too much and passengers would then no longer afford to fly). CBA is looked to for the answer.
But, as human life is beyond price, any value placed on it in CBA (eg VOSL) introduces moral problems. There will always be a problem if it looks like you are putting a price on a life but we all want to fly and we want to do so as cheaply as possible.
Can anyone suggest a way round this conflict.
This is well known - in 1943 a study carried out by the Curtiss Wright Corp for the US Government warned that, once commercial aviation began to expand after the war, if accident rates remained at the same level as in the 1930s the increase in the number of accidents would not be acceptable to the public and would limit growth. This argument has been regularly repeated ever since and, with traffic due to double again in the next 10 to 12 years, if the current frequency of accidents is more or less acceptable to the public, then accident rates will have to halve over the same period.
But how to ensure that the accident rate keeps going down. Many times in the past (eg in 1960, see FSF) it has been argued that the cost of driving the rate down further is no longer cost effective (it would cost too much and passengers would then no longer afford to fly). CBA is looked to for the answer.
But, as human life is beyond price, any value placed on it in CBA (eg VOSL) introduces moral problems. There will always be a problem if it looks like you are putting a price on a life but we all want to fly and we want to do so as cheaply as possible.
Can anyone suggest a way round this conflict.
Guest
Posts: n/a
The solution is in the element of taking the first step. That doesn't include mathematical analysis that says it's more cost effective to do nothing.
When major problems are clearly identified and NOTHING is done to protect anything but corporate profits, the controlling agency deserves to be burned at the stake - prior to lying about the reality.
Going to such issues as CRM and the crew-rest regulations, cost effectiveness has nothing to do with it. You may as well prohibit missed approaches.
Or, at least post a public notice that states that due to a change in the U.S. law, aircraft safety is not cost effective and let the passengers decide whether or not to get on a plane.
This nonsense of the USA maximizing aircraft operations at any cost - versus safety - is beyond ridiculous.
Rationalizing why human life has a dollar figure on it is in the league of Hitler's crowd - seriously. We're talking about transporting human beings, not robots.
When major problems are clearly identified and NOTHING is done to protect anything but corporate profits, the controlling agency deserves to be burned at the stake - prior to lying about the reality.
Going to such issues as CRM and the crew-rest regulations, cost effectiveness has nothing to do with it. You may as well prohibit missed approaches.
Or, at least post a public notice that states that due to a change in the U.S. law, aircraft safety is not cost effective and let the passengers decide whether or not to get on a plane.
This nonsense of the USA maximizing aircraft operations at any cost - versus safety - is beyond ridiculous.
Rationalizing why human life has a dollar figure on it is in the league of Hitler's crowd - seriously. We're talking about transporting human beings, not robots.
