Aviation safety

Table of Contents

1.

Introduction...................................................................................................... 3

2.

Human factors................................................................................................. 4 2.1.

Pilot fatigue................................................................................................ 4

2.2.

Controlled flight into terrain.......................................................................5

2.3.

Electromagnetic interference.....................................................................5

3.

Navigation aids................................................................................................ 6

4.

Air traffic control.............................................................................................. 7 4.1.

Airport control............................................................................................ 7

5.

Conclusion........................................................................................................ 8

6.

Key words......................................................................................................... 9

1. Introduction There is a legend of the pilot who bid passengers farewell after landing with these words: “The safest part of your trip is now over.” That isn’t just one pilot’s boast, it’s a truth most air travelers take for granted. Next time you climb into a taxi to make the trip from the airport to your final destination, consider this: What do you know about the cabbie in whose hands you have placed your life? How well has that car been maintained? Look out the window—are all the signal lights working? Is the road in good shape? What about the other motorists? Where did they learn to drive? How conscientious have they been about getting enough sleep and avoiding alcohol? Safety is an accumulation of knowledge about risk converted into practice, and no other mode of transportation has been as expansive as flying in incorporating what we know about the fallibility of humans and machines. As a result, the act of hurtling through the air at 500 mph six miles above the ground is less likely to result in your demise than almost any other type of travel. From the plane seats to the cabin air to the course and altitude of the flight, every decision in commercial aviation comes after careful consideration of its impact on safety. Aviation safety is a term encompassing the theory, investigation, and categorization of flight failures, and the prevention of such failures through regulation, education, and training. It can also be applied in the context of campaigns that inform the public as to the safety of air travel. There are three important things in aviation safety that will be discussed in this paper: human factors, navigation instruments and air traffic and airport control.

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2. Human factors Human factors, including pilot error, are potential set of factors, and currently the factor most commonly found in aviation accidents. Much progress in applying human factors analysis to improving aviation safety was made around the time of World War II. However, there has been progress in safety throughout the history of aviation, such as the development of the pilot's checklist in 1937. CRM, or Crew Resource Management, is a technique that makes use of the experience and knowledge of the complete flight crew to avoid dependence on just one crew member. Pilot error and improper communication are often factors in the collision of aircraft. This can take place in the air (1978 Pacific Southwest Airlines Flight 182) (TCAS) or on the ground (1977 Tenerife disaster) (RAAS). The barriers to have an effective communication have internal and external factors. The ability of the flight crew to maintain situation awareness is a critical human factor in air safety. Human factors training is available to general aviation pilots and called single pilot resource management training.

2.1. Pilot fatigue The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) defines fatigue as "A physiological state of reduced mental or physical performance capability resulting from sleep loss or extended wakefulness, circadian phase, or workload." Fatigue is particularly prevalent among pilots because of "unpredictable work hours, long duty periods, circadian disruption, and insufficient sleep". These factors can occur together to produce a combination of sleep deprivation, circadian rhythm effects, and 'time-on task' fatigue. Regulators attempt to mitigate fatigue by limiting the amount of hours pilots are allowed to fly over varying periods of time. Experts in aviation fatigue often find that these methods fall short on their goals. Human factors incidents are not limited to errors by pilots. Failure to close a cargo door properly on Turkish Airlines Flight 981 in 1974 caused the loss of the aircraft – however, design of the cargo door latch was also a major factor in the accident. In the case of Japan Airlines Flight 123, improper repair of previous damage led to explosive decompression of the cabin, which in turn destroyed the vertical stabilizer and damaged all four hydraulic systems which powered all the flight controls.

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2.2. Controlled flight into terrain Controlled flight into terrain (CFIT) is a class of accidents in which an aircraft is flown under control into terrain or man-made structures. CFIT accidents typically result from pilot error or of navigational system error. Failure to protect ILS critical areas can also cause CFIT accidents. Another anti-CFIT tool is the Minimum Safe Altitude Warning (MSAW) system which monitors the altitudes transmitted by aircraft transponders and compares that with the system's defined minimum safe altitudes for a given area. When the system determines the aircraft is lower, or might soon be lower, than the minimum safe altitude, the air traffic controller receives an acoustic and visual warning and then alerts the pilot that the aircraft is too low.

2.3. Electromagnetic interference The use of certain electronic equipment is partially or entirely prohibited as it might interfere with aircraft operation, such as causing compass deviations. Use of some types of personal electronic devices is prohibited when an aircraft is below 10,000', taking off, or landing. Use of a mobile phone is prohibited on most flights because in-flight usage creates problems with ground-based cells.

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3. Navigation aids One of the first navigation aids to be introduced (in the USA in the late 1920s) was airfield lighting to assist pilots to make landings in poor weather or after dark. The Precision Approach Path Indicator was developed from this in the 1930s, indicating to the pilot the angle of descent to the airfield. This later became adopted internationally through the standards of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). In 1929 Jimmy Doolittle developed instrument flight. With the spread of radio technology, several experimental radio based navigation aids were developed from the late 1920s onwards. These were most successfully used in conjunction with instruments in the cockpit in the form of Instrument landing systems (ILS), first used by a scheduled flight to make a landing in a snowstorm at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1938. A form of ILS was adopted by the ICAO for international use in 1949. Following the development of radar in World War II, it was deployed as a landing aid for civil aviation in the form of ground-controlled approach (GCA) systems, joined in 1948 by distance measuring equipment (DME), and in the 1950s by airport surveillance radar as an aid to air traffic control. VHF omnidirectional range (VOR) stations became the predominant means of route navigation during the 1960s, superseding the low frequency radio ranges and the non-directional beacon (NDB). The ground based VOR stations were often co-located with DME transmitters. With the proper receiving equipment in the aircraft, pilots could know their radials in degrees to/from the VOR station, as well as the slant range distance. Ground-based navigation aids are being supplanted by satellite-based aids like Global Positioning System (GPS), which make it possible for pilots to know their position with great precision anywhere in the world. With the arrival of Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS), Satellite navigation has become accurate enough for vertical (altitude) as well as horizontal use, and is being used increasingly for instrument approaches as well as en-route navigation. However, because the GPS constellation is a single point of failure, on-board Inertial Navigation System (INS) or ground-based navigation aids are still required for backup.

4. Air traffic control

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Finally, The pilots and the airplanes may be the stars of the show in commercial aviation, but behind the scenes, a new, almost Star Wars–like air traffic system is being built where airplanes guided by GPS will fly self-programmed routes, communicating with each other and with the ground. This is very different from the days when maps, blackboards and pencil and paper calculations were used to direct airplanes. With more than 28 million flight departures last year, it takes a pretty sophisticated process to safely and efficiently manage a huge and still growing number of aircraft. Air traffic control (ATC) is a service provided by ground-based controllers who direct aircraft on the ground and through controlled airspace, and can provide advisory services to aircraft in non-controlled airspace. The primary purpose of ATC worldwide is to prevent collisions, organize and expedite the flow of air traffic, and provide information and other support for pilots.

4.1. Airport control

More visibly, profound improvements in safety can be seen right on the airport property. Movement-detection monitors show every vehicle on every runway, taxiway and terminal gate, and controllers receive warnings of potential collisions. It is safer now than it ever has been.

5. Conclusion

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There are a bunch of good reasons many of us remain wary of air travel. For one, it is not so long ago that air travel was indeed pretty dangerous. For many decades air travel really wasn't so safe. Second, studies of various types of fear have largely concluded that the fear of any activity or possibility is rarely overcome by reading statistics and lots of rational thought. Rather, our deep inclination toward self-preservation takes over, and it can be nearly impossible to turn that off. Even if we know that flying is safer than taking a bath, and even if we're aware of some of the stats and the effect of media amplification, it is still hard not to wonder if it's really safe to fly. Cabin crew choose to do this every day, as their job. They get up early, put on work clothes, have a quick breakfast, commute to work -- and then, as routinely as many of us go to the office and boot up the computer, get on a long-haul plane. Look at their faces. They are not scared or nervous -- it's just another day on the job. If they're not worried that their 19,000 years are up, why should we be? Now there is thousands of people working on aviation safety with modern technology and with greatest navigation instruments. And as I mentioned before, it is safer now than it ever has been.

6. Key words

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Safety- the condition of being safe from undergoing or causing hurt, injury, or loss. Human factors- human factors refer to environmental, organizational and job factors, and human and individual characteristics which influence behavior at work in a way which can affect health and safety Fatigue- weariness or exhaustion from labor, exertion, or stress Interference- the mutual effect on meeting of two wave trains (as of light or sound) that constitutes alternating areas of increased and decreased amplitude (as light and dark lines or louder and softer sound) Aid- to provide with what is useful or necessary in achieving an end Airfield- an area of land from which aircraft operate Aviation- airplane manufacture, development, and design Radar- a device or system consisting usually of a synchronized radio transmitter and receiver that emits radio waves and processes their reflections for display and is used especially for detecting and locating objects (as aircraft) or surface features (as of a planet)

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