Measuring Safety

Measuring Safety

“The safety of the nation's flying public depends, in large part, on the aviation industry's compliance with safety regulations and the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) enforcement of those regulations when violations occur. FAA attempts to gain the industry's compliance through enforcement tools, including levying fines and suspending or revoking operating certificates, and partnership programs that allow participating companies or individuals to self-report violations of safety regulations and mitigate or avoid fines or other legal actions. GAO was asked to assess how FAA uses its enforcement options to address noncompliance and what management controls are in place to ensure that enforcement efforts and partnership programs result in compliance with aviation safety regulations ( Aviation Safety: Better Management Controls are Needed to Improve FAA's Safety Enforcement and Compliance Efforts GAO-04-646 July 6, 2004).”

How can we measure safety? NASA and the FFA have ways they do it along with the military. Every aviation asset has some way they measure safety either through accidents or incidents. Look at NASA’s program, The Aviation Reporting System, where you tell on yourself or someone else for having an incident with no repercussions to yourself or the other person or party. The reason for any data that is collected either by the voluntary or mandatory system is to help future pilots or ground personnel and to see if any trends are happening in the industry. If they can determine that a trend is developing or in one particular area there are problems they can try to figure out a way to solve it or educate the masses about it.

When you think about aviation safety most of us immediately think of the FAA or NTSB, but NASA should also come to mind. Before NASA became NASA in 1958 they were the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics (NACA), which had been researching flight technology for more than 40 years. Here are some of the things that NASA has accomplished in aviation safety. These are copied and pasted of the NASA web site.

Airborne Wind Shear Sensors Technology Provides Advance Warning: A 10-year collaboration among NASA, FAA and industry has developed, demonstrated and implemented the technology for effectively conquering the wind shear aviation hazard. On November 30, 1994, Continental Airlines Flight 1637 became the first commercial flight with an airborne detection system capable of providing pilots up to 90 seconds of advance warning of wind shear activity to prevent future wind shear accidents.

Aging Aircraft Studies Help Ensure Structural Soundness: Aircraft aging is a safety concern throughout all classes of aircraft. NASA, in conjunction with the FAA, Sandia Laboratory and the University of Idaho, is developing nondestructive evaluation methods, metal fatigue analyses and structural modeling to help operators ensure that older aircraft are as structurally sound as new ones. NASA is also developing new airframe manufacturing techniques which will add strength to composite materials and monitor the "health" and safety of aircraft structures.

Stall/Spin Improvements Slash Accident Rate for General Aviation: NASA's 10-year program to improve the control of aircraft stall and spin characteristics of general aviation aircraft has produced knowledge and techniques which allow development of spin-resistant designs. New aircraft designs are incorporating these technologies to reduce the occurrences of maneuvering accidents which have accounted for a significant portion of past pilot-related accidents. This technology could reduce total general aviation accidents by nearly 20 percent. At the same time, because of these advances, the complex process of aircraft certification has been vastly simplified and the related costs have been drastically reduced.

Propulsion Control System Provides Emergency Maneuverability: NASA has demonstrated the viability of an advanced propulsion control system recently successfully flight-tested on an MD-11 transport aircraft. This system is designed to prevent future accidents such as the one in Sioux City, Iowa, where the aircraft control system was damaged and the pilot did a heroic job of controlling and crash-landing the airplane by manual operation of the engine controls. This technology is now available for appropriate application by the major aircraft manufacturers.

Human Factors Training Saves Hundreds of Lives: NASA has developed many of the key human factors concepts underlying cockpit resource management and has played a pivotal role in coordinating the efforts of industry and the military to develop effective training programs. A senior United Air Lines executive has credited NASA's Cockpit Resource Management program with saving "hundreds of lives" in "in-flight emergencies . . . Flight 811 out of Honolulu that lost the cargo door, and Flight 232 at Sioux City that suffered an uncontained failure of the #2 engine. The teamwork exhibited by both . . . flight crews was directly attributable to the training they received as a result of the efforts of many [NASA personnel]. [What NASA does] does indeed contribute to aviation safety."

Icing Hazards Are Being Reduced: Research is being conducted to develop analytical and experimental icing simulation tools to support aircraft design and certification, and to develop advanced ice-protection concepts to improve aircraft productivity, operational capability, and safety. NASA conducts tests for all major U.S helicopter and airplane manufacturers to determine typical icing buildup patterns on rotors and wings.

New Air Traffic Control Tools Improves Air Transportation System: Just as information technology has entered the cockpit, it is becoming vitally important to air traffic controllers who must deal with an increasingly complex air traffic management situation. NASA has been working with the FAA to design and implement safe automation tools for use in air traffic management. These tools, now being tested at the new Denver International and the Dallas-Fort Worth airports, will increase air traffic precision and ensure safety under crowded conditions. In conjunction with these efforts, NASA is also developing computational models to predict vortex hazard in order to enable proper sequencing, scheduling and controlling of aircraft on final approach.

General Aviation Safety Improvements To Reduce Fatalities by 90 Percent: Several ongoing NASA efforts (including the Advanced General Aviation Transport Experiments (AGATE), the General Aviation Propulsion Program (GAP) and the Advanced Aircraft Transportation Technologies (AATT) Program) will combine to reduce the fatality rate for general aviation accidents by as much as 90 percent within the next 15 years. These programs are improving such critical safety factors as weather situational awareness, crash worthiness, engine reliability, systems and displays, maneuvering control and traffic control management.

Helicopter Controls, Sensors and Displays Permit Safer Advanced Maneuvers: Military Nap-of-the-Earth flight represents one of the most demanding low-altitude, near-terrain flight operations, wherein the pilot flies below tree-top levels for concealment. NASA is working with the rotorcraft industry, avionics manufacturers, FAA, and the Army to develop forward-pointed sensors, both passive (cameras, infrared) and active (radar, lidar), to produce three-dimensional terrain/obstacle maps ahead of the aircraft to increase the pilot's awareness of the situation and to reduce accidents resulting from controlled flight into terrain.

Safety from Lightning and Stray Electromagnetic Radiation: Current NASA research is developing techniques for assessing the effects of high-intensity radiated fields around ground-based transmitters and lightning on the digital electronics aboard aircraft. Once developed, these techniques will provide tools that can be applied to safety certification of aircraft systems installed on today's aircraft.

Aviation Safety Reporting System (ASRS) Provides Critical Safety Insights: NASA manages and operates the FAA-funded ASRS system. It is America's aviation safety reporting system. This enormous data base and the resulting research are critical to identifying and solving safety problems. Reports are confidential, yet critical, to timely problem identification. In addition to this program, NASA and FAA are working with airlines to develop systems to use flight data recorder information for safety research in a program titled Aviation Performance Monitoring System.

New Situational Awareness Methods Will Help Reduce Accidents: In the Aviation Performance Measuring System (APMS) program, FAA and NASA have joined forces to develop methodologies and tools for converting flight-recorded data on aircraft operational characteristics and practices into a form valuable to the commercial airline flight crews, the airlines and FAA. This new system will be a key factor in a timely, accurate feedback process of "situational awareness" essential for managing and improving the safety of the aviation system. In October 1995, the first U.S. air carrier joined with NASA to collaborate on the development of the suite of APMS tools and for operational testing of the system. Responding to a growing recognition of the potential value of this system, the most recent major airline participant joined the program in December 1996.

Aviation Safety in Automation Facilitates Future Air Traffic Control System: Automation technology holds the key to allowing a pilot to handle more complex and varied responsibilities, more safely and easily. In fact, new automated cockpit displays are critical to implementing the future air traffic system known as "Free Flight." A NASA team of experts, in disciplines as varied as psychology and software engineering, is currently developing methods to ensure that aviation automation technology development has the foundation it needs for safe implementation.

Safety Management

Safety managers are need throughout the aviation industry to help promote a safe work environment and help keep the company in compliance with OSHA, the EPA and ISO compliant, and they keep up with developing trends and practices.

One of the big things a safety manager needs is to have direct reporting access to the CEO of the company or the accountability manager. He must also maintain the respect of all levels of management within the company in order to implement and execute the objectives and goals of their safety program. Another aspect of a good safety program is that the employees also have to be held accountable for their actions and the front line supervisors and middle managers have to enforce the program by making sure there workers abide by the rules and regulations.
Some of the responsibilities of a safety manager are they have to manage the safety plan, (that’s pretty obvious), hazard management and risk assessment, advise management on safety matters, they are responsible for emergency response plans, they train the staff in safety, control company safety documents, and they do investigations on incidents and accidents. They also deal with the human factors and the potential problems that will occur.

When you talk about safety, you can hear the grumblings of the group but it is unavoidable aspect of the business if you will. If you have been in the military for more than a minute, you know what I am talking about, safety stand down days. Mandatory safety briefing throughout the day sometimes even multiple days. Most of the guy's in the crowd are thinking of beer thirty during the whole thing, others are thinking of the girl there going to call for a date later that day, almost everyone is wishing they were somewhere else at that moment. There boring and nobody’s paying attention to whoever is speaking unless he utters the words time to go or you’re released.

However, without the safety managers of yesterday and today where would we be in the aviation world today? Still flying by firelight or people with flashlights on the runway. I would say that while we might groan and moan about safety, it has helped people in aviation and the aviation world as a whole.

OSHA and the EPA

OSHA AND THE EPA IN AVIATION

We need to look back before we can look forward. When aviation was in its infancy and pilots were landing and taking off from corn fields or any straight away that could be used for a runway. When they had to do some maintenance or even refuel the aircraft, did they use approved drip pans to catch whatever leaked out or spilled over? I think we all know the answer to that question is NO. What about when they painted the airplane, what happened to all the left over paint, mixes, and thinner? They probably just left it or poured it back into the paint can and ether let it dry or put the lid on and threw it in the trash. Just look at where we are today compared to then, it’s like a night and day difference. If the EPA caught you doing the practices they used back then, the question wouldn’t be if you got fined but how much. Now the EPA regulates things like aircraft noise in the surrounding areas of the airports, fuel and oil spills, POL collection points, really everything that might affect or harm the environment. We have come a long way from the Wright Brothers first flight to the modern age aviation that persists today.

The United Flight in the Hudson. How much oil and fuel leaked into this river.

What happens to the ground when all the fuel and oil don’t burn?

For me when I think of OSHA the first thing I think of is safety boots or steel toe boots I know OSHA has nothing to do with them its ANSI that rates the boots, but that’s what I think of. Any way back to OSHA, they are responsible for regulating the work place and to make sure that both the employee and employer are responsible for a safe work place. Like the EPA if you look back to the industrial age in America and the building of all the skyscrapers from NYC to San Francisco people were falling off and dying on a daily basis because they had no safety harnesses to secure them to the beams. You see old footage of the workers from way back building the empire state building or the golden gate bridge and they are cruising along on the steel beams without a care in the world. Now days you even get 10 feet above the ground and you have to be secured in a harness and tethered to a secure point.

Hey, this looks like a good place to eat lunch

Today harnessed in cleaning and painting

Then just hanging out taking pictures

The FAA

ever since the first flight was made by Orville and Wilbur Wright in 1903. Their twelve-second flight on December 17 led to the development of the first practical airplane in 1905 and launched worldwide efforts to build better flying machines. Early aviation was a dangerous business there were no rules for any one to follow, except the ones that the pilots made up themselves. Most pilots only flew from 200 to 500 feet of the ground so they could navigate by the roads and railways that were there. Low visibility and night landings were made using bonfires on the field as lighting. Fatal accidents were routine.

In 1921 the Post Office Department installed ten radio stations along the New York-San Francisco air route to transmit weather forecasts for their airmail pilots.
Two years later, the department began work on a transcontinental airway of beacons placed on towers. Spaced ten miles apart, the beacons were bright enough to be seen for 40 miles in clear weather.

The Air Mail Act of 1925 authorized the Post Office Department to contract with airlines to carry the mail. This legislation facilitated the creation of a profitable commercial airline industry, and airline companies such as Pan American Airways, Western Air Express, and Ford Air Transport Service began commercial passenger service.

Leaders of the fledgling aviation industry believed the airplane could not reach its full commercial potential without federal action to improve and maintain safety standards. At their urging, President Calvin Coolidge signed the Air Commerce Act in 1926. This landmark legislation charged the Secretary of Commerce with fostering air commerce, issuing and enforcing air traffic rules, licensing pilots, certifying aircraft, establishing airways, and operating and maintaining aids to air navigation.

While the Department of Commerce worked to issue civil air regulations to improve aviation safety, a number of high profile accidents called the department’s oversight responsibilities into question. The 1931 crash of a Transcontinental and Western Air Fokker trimotor airplane that killed all on board, including popular University of Notre Dame football coach Knute Rockne, elicited public calls for greater federal oversight of aviation safety. Four years later a DC-2, also flown by Transcontinental and Western Air, crashed and killed U.S. Senator Bronson Cutting of New Mexico.

Members of Congress believed the bureau worked too closely with the commercial airlines and aircraft manufacturers to be objective when investigating accidents. These critics pointed out that bureau employees divided their time promoting commerce through aviation and investigating the causes of accidents. To ensure a focus on aviation safety, President Franklin Roosevelt signed the Civil Aeronautics Act in 1938. The legislation established the independent Civil Aeronautics Authority (CAA), with a three-member Air Safety Board that would conduct accident investigations and recommend ways of preventing accidents back to the main body. This is also when the Government got involved in regulating airline fares and routes.

In 1940 President Roosevelt split the CAA into two agencies, the Civil Aeronautics Administration which went back to the Department of Commerce, and the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB). The CAA retained responsibility for ATC, airman and aircraft certification, safety enforcement, and airway development. CAB responsibilities included safety rulemaking, accident investigation, and economic regulation of the airlines.

The Federal Aviation Act on August 23, 1958. Taking a comprehensive approach to the federal role in fostering and regulating civil aeronautics and air commerce, the new law repealed the Air Commerce Act of 1926, the Civil Aeronautics Act of 1938, the Airways Modernization Act of 1957, and those portions of various presidential plans dealing with civil aviation. The legislation assigned the functions exercised under these repealed laws to two independent agencies — a new Federal Aviation Agency (FAA) and a Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB).

Agency Order 1, issued on January 15, 1959, established FAA’s basic organizational structure. Three staff offices headed by assistant administrators for management services, personnel and training, and plans and requirements (shortened to “plans” on July 10, 1960) assisted the administrator and his deputy. Other staff officials reporting to the administrator included the general counsel, the civil air surgeon, and the heads of the offices of public affairs, congressional liaison, and international coordination. Four bureau directors ran the agency’s major programs: research and development (testing and development of new equipment); flight standards (certification of airmen, aircraft, and air carriers); air traffic management (planning and operation of the airspace system); and facilities (acquisition and maintenance of air navigation facilities and related equipment).
Now there are over 40,000 employees of the FAA.

Human errors in aviation accidents

When you Google human errors in aviation accidents or aircraft accidents you get a whole lot of stuff to sift through. The one thing or statement that is usually with-in the first paragraph is human error causes more than half of all aviation accidents. Actually human error has been documented as a primary contributor to more than 70 percent of commercial airplane hull-loss accidents. So what does this really mean to us? When you read a report and it usually says that pilot error of some sort caused the accident, the question has to be asked, did it really? Or were there other factors involved.
What are human factors? The term "human factors" has grown increasingly popular as the commercial aviation industry has realized that human error, rather than mechanical failure, underlies most aviation accidents and incidents. If interpreted narrowly, human factors are often considered synonymous with crew resource management (CRM) or maintenance resource management (MRM). However, it is much broader in both its knowledge base and scope. Human factors involves gathering information about human abilities, limitations, and other characteristics and applying it to tools, machines, systems, tasks, jobs, and environments to produce safe, comfortable, and effective human use. In aviation, human factors is dedicated to better understanding how humans can most safely and efficiently be integrated with the technology. That understanding is then translated into design, training, policies, or procedures to help humans perform better.
Despite rapid gains in technology, humans are ultimately responsible for ensuring the success and safety of the aviation industry. They must continue to be knowledgeable, flexible, dedicated, and efficient while exercising good judgment. Meanwhile, the industry continues to make major investments in training, equipment, and systems that have long-term implications. Because technology continues to evolve faster than the ability to predict how humans will interact with it, the industry can no longer depend as much on experience and intuition to guide decisions related to human performance. Instead, a sound scientific basis is necessary for assessing human performance implications in design, training, and procedures; just as developing a new wing requires sound aerodynamic engineering.
As in the pictures below, weather you’re the mechanic performing the maintenance or the pilot flying the plane, is it going to be your fault for what went wrong. As Smoky the Bear say’s only you can prevent forest fires, you can also help prevent aviation accidents by doing things the right way.

Learing objective 4 blog

Identifying the many safety procedures for ground operations is not as easy a task as one might think. Besides the Army I have held two jobs in the aviation community and at both places the safety climate and accountability of personal tools are on two totally different planes. After life in the Army I got a job with a company in Nashville Tn., doing A,B, and C checks on ATR-72's. I have found a 3 cell Mag Lite under the floor boards that I still currently use, and a couple screwdrivers to go with it. Obviously there was no tool accountability from wherever that light or screwdrivers came from, and where I worked in Nashville there wasn't any either. We were responsible to keep track of our own tools, there was no inventory book that had all your tools on it for inspectors to come by and check and verify that your tools were in there at the end of the day. If I found those tools it leads you to think where do people leave other tools, and what might be the outcome of the plane or helicopter if one was left in the flight control area or engine compartment. The second job that I have had is for CSC a contractor on Ft. Campbell doing helicopter maintenance, and am currently at is very strict on tool control. One of the first things you do when you get hired and in your shop or hanger is to shadow all your tools in Styrofoam sheets that you cut out to fit the drawers of your tool box, then you cut out individual holes for all your tools so each one has it's own place. At the beginning of every day the mechanic signs out the tool box and at the end of the day he signs it in, and an inspector comes behind and verifies that all the tools are there. If the mechanic notices that a toll is missing he stops what he is doing and looks for the tool. If he can't find it several other mechanics and the inspectors look for the tool until it is found. This could take a few minutes to several hours to retrace all the areas he might have been in with that tool . If you don't find your tool and you happened to be working on an engine or some kind of hydraulic component, (that's what we work on in my shop) this is what might happen to the helicopter that, that part went on.

Picture is from www.worldwide-military .com

Aviation maintenance is a serious business with sever consequences, lets do our best to be safe.