ATSB calls on GA pilots..........

[farri]

ATSB calls on GA pilots to improve safety | Flight Safety Australia

[Ultralights]

i call on CASA to reduce the regulatory burden, so GA pilots can actually understand how to be safe!

 

 

[dutchroll]

The key areas of concern published in the report are:

 

1) Low flying

 

2) Wire strikes (involving already known wires)

 

3) Poor management of partial power loss

 

4) Visual flight into instrument conditions

 

5) Fuel management

 

6) Over-reliance on experience to compensate for high risk activity

 

7) Visual flight at night

 

If the only way pilots can understand how to address these safety issues is to reduce the regulatory burden, then we are in a lot of trouble!

 

My opinion is that a lot of the regulatory burden is imposed because too many pilots are incapable of addressing these safety issues, or just unwilling to. Why else would we have high accident statistics in these areas? They have nothing to do with regulation, and everything to do with practicing sound airmanship and getting quality training.

 

 

[Geoff13]

Most of them seem to be common sense which is becoming increasingly less common.

 

 

[kaz3g]

The key areas of concern published in the report are:My opinion is that a lot of the regulatory burden is imposed because too many pilots are incapable of addressing these safety issues, or just unwilling to. Why else would we have high accident statistics in these areas? They have nothing to do with regulation, and everything to do with practicing sound airmanship and getting quality training.

There is no doubt that each of these areas of activity occurs contrary to common sense, good training and sound airmanship.

 

The real question is whether onerous regulation written in copious quantities in language that can't be understood by most including me imposing horrendous penalties whilst denying the basic premise of our Westminster system laws that one is innocent until proven guilty will turn the accident rate around.

 

The data and that article strongly suggests that it's not!

 

What we need is an ongoing education campaign building on the individual and collective responsibility of each and everyone of us. There needs to be a real sense of trust between the Regulator and GA pilots, and legislation that fosters rather than discourages aviation by those of us who provide so many benefits to our country's economy.

 

Kaz

 

PS. Just for the pedants...I deliberately omitted punctuation in para 2 because it came out in a rush!

 

 

[dutchroll]

The real question is whether onerous regulation written in copious quantities in language that can't be understood by most including me imposing horrendous penalties whilst denying the basic premise of our Westminster system laws that one is innocent until proven guilty will turn the accident rate around.The data and that article strongly suggests that it's not!

Agreed. Although just as the regulatory burden is not solving the problem, it's not the cause of it either.

 

What we need is an ongoing education campaign building on the individual and collective responsibility of each and everyone of us.

Agreed.

 

 

[M61A1]

After having a read, I'm more confused than before....

 

Not sure if they mean Low Flying is the No1 killer or it just happens to first on the list, but out of 147 fatal accidents only 6 were due to "low flying". They then go on to say that of the wire strikes in Ag Flying, 63% were aware of the wire when they started, just how do you fix that? We have 9 fatalities because of poor management of partial power loss, all of these stats over 9-10 years, yet in 5 years we have 74 reported occurrences of VFR into IFR and 14 fatalities. It would appear that "low flying" is not the big killer, yet seems to get most of the focus.

 

With the inconsistent way the stats are presented, it may be difficult to work out anything at all.

 

 

[dutchroll]

The list just is presented in the order of the ATSB publication series on "avoidable accidents".

 

So the first publication they released happened to be the one on low flying. There could've been any particular trigger for drafting things in that publication order, but the publications are not in order of "percentage of accidents". It's just that those happen to be the 7 which are most concerning to the ATSB.

 

 

[facthunter]

Then they should have mentioned that. One normally expects the order to be in importance. Re the regulation rather than education, IF the regulation is excessive or not directly related to safety, or appears to be it's a NEGATIVE.

 

All Enquiries cite excessive regulation as part of the way things are done that must be changed. And then also WHO understands all the regs? The format is written by Lawyers for Lawyers who are experts in Aviation Law. Nev

 

 

[poteroo]

My take on this bit of unhelpful advice from ATSB is that it just might be in the 'order' that CASA perceive is important? (Do they still talk after Norfolk Is??).

 

CASA have made a big deal of low level in Part 61 - upgrading it from a 'course-of-training' under CAO 29.10, to a full blown Rating which requires instructors to hold the appropriate 'training endorsement' and the test and renewals must be done by a LL rated ATO/Flight Examiner. All wildly overkill of course. If they had actually thought before drafting - they'd have revised the syllabus and upskilled it well above what it had been. They chose not to. What we look like getting is a prohibitively costly LL course, no instructors to offer it, and less pilots actually seeking LL training for safety reasons.

 

My written advice to CASA has been - change your ridiculous Part 61 LL rating to a flight activity endorsement along with formation and aerobatics. Make LL training more accessible, and perhaps include some in the PPL course itself.

 

All of this activity in the absence of any safety case - because the accident data just don't support the 'official' view that Aussie pilots are flying low and creating great danger to themselves. Neither do the data support any indication of lack of competency at LL by instructors - or those pilots who have undertaken LL training. It also ignores the fact that most of the miscreants had never done LL training, had a scant regard for competency training, and were of a nature to break every rule in the book - including low flying. No amount of tightening up on the LL course will stop these people from doing whatever they feel like. Survival of the 'fittest' is a very real concept.

 

So, having vented my frustrations with CASA's tinkering with training where the course wasn't 'broke', I will cease.

 

happy days,

 

 

[facthunter]

Low level flying WAS part of the PPL course. To cover bad weather reduced vis circuits from non precision approaches it was done in heavies in the airline I worked for. (Very compact circuit at low level)

 

ALL pilots fly low level landing when taking off or doing a critical go around particularly. Why would they not be trained in LL? Nev

 

 

[dutchroll]

My take on this bit of unhelpful advice from ATSB.......

How is the publication of flight safety information articles on the primary causes of concern in GA accidents by transport safety investigators "unhelpful"?

 

Regarding the order: it is specified on the first page that the order of this list is the same as the order of publication of the ATSB articles. I guess if people want to read something more into it they're welcome to, but I don't see why anyone should.

 

 

[pmccarthy]

The precautionary landing training covers most of what is needed as it is the only time people should be flying low level. Is it still in the RAA or PPL syllabus?

 

 

[M61A1]

How is the publication of flight safety information articles on the primary causes of concern in GA accidents by transport safety investigators "unhelpful"?Regarding the order: it is specified on the first page that the order of this list is the same as the order of publication of the ATSB articles. I guess if people want to read something more into it they're welcome to, but I don't see why anyone should.

I wouldn't say it's "unhelpful", but I would say that it's nowhere near as helpful as it could be. With the first article (low flying) stating 147 fatalities, with 6 being low flying, then mentioning a few others in subsequent reports, there is a large hole in the numbers. It might be helpful to know what killed the majority, rather than focusing on the few, or if it's not, how about telling us why.

 

 

[rage83]

Seems like aviation is suffering from similar problems as other industries. Over regulation comes from one thing. People not admitting liability, be it from fear or from arrogance.

 

If people stick there hand up and say i screwed up or i was being a dick. Yeah the idiot might lose his job but the industry would be better for it.

 

Thats something that i have seen from personal experience and reading the comments here it appears like it is true in aviation.

 

 

[jetjr]

Proactive industries actually believe its better to keep and retrain people even after screw ups because they are likely to have learned more from it than any training can teach.

 

 

[dutchroll]

Seems like aviation is suffering from similar problems as other industries. Over regulation comes from one thing. People not admitting liability, be it from fear or from arrogance.If people stick there hand up and say i screwed up or i was being a dick. Yeah the idiot might lose his job but the industry would be better for it.

 

Thats something that i have seen from personal experience and reading the comments here it appears like it is true in aviation.

Not all aviation.

General Aviation, yes perhaps that's true for various reasons and we could have a never-ending debate! However I don't think it applies to all Australian aviation. I know in my "iconic 95 year old Australian aviation company" (no I'm not allowed to mention its name or I get in trouble!) we have a very positive self-reporting culture. I suppose it would be easy to blame the QAR system (QAR = "Quick Access Recorder", a black box which flags and automatically reports a gross exceedance including company-imposed limitations) however this general culture has always been around in my experience. The company encourages a system where self-reporting inadvertent violations, which includes errors of judgement but not flagrant/deliberate gross violations, results in no sanctions. The incident is merely added to a database for trend monitoring and might end up being reported in a safety newsletter, or even being included in a simulator session for everyone's education & training. An example was when I once over-banked a B767 being a bit exuberant and distracted when popping out of a cloud layer while hand-flying, resulting in the "bank angle" GPWS master warning, a QAR flag, etc etc. Self reported. Called them on the phone the next day to explain what happened and Flight Safety Department said "yeah no probs - watch out next time - have a nice day". I never heard anything after that.

 

My experience in the RAAF was similar. If you screwed up, you reported it. At worst, if it was a gratuitous stuff-up, you might have to give a briefing to everyone on the next training day about the lessons learned and how not to do it again.

 

So the flight safety reporting culture is around. Just depends where you're looking! For the record, I think CASA handles the "no blame" culture badly however the ATSB are an independent agency and I think they're quite well intentioned. During a recent investigation in which I was involved (indirectly), they were very clear in general discussion about not wanting to assign blame for anything, but simply trying to determine the root causes of the accident.

 

 

[djpacro]

An example was when I once over-banked a B767 being a bit exuberant and distracted when popping out of a cloud layer .....

with CASA's new definition of aerobatics clearly a breach of a variety of sections of Part 61.

 

Just depends where you're looking! For the record, I think CASA handles the "no blame" culture badly .....

despite fine words from time to time, CASA is obligated to comply with the law. What was that: aerobatics in an airliner, etc etc etc not VMC - lots and lots of penalty points = $$$$$ per degree of overbank?

[dutchroll]

......well I do have an aerobatics endorsement.

 

 

[facthunter]

That doesn't over rule the ops manual, but I think it helps your skills as long as you don't do it at work.

 

A recall an incident ( I wasn't there) where a smart ar$e student noting that the instructor had consistently failed the left side engine on take off, with previous students, assumed that he would continue to do so when HE got in the seat. The instructor didn't but SA applied full rudder the wrong way and the plane rolled past vertical bank, very rapidly (as it will) at a few hundred feet. This would normally be a ball of fire and total write off but our cool instructor just continued the roll, but controlled and recovered it . Nice work. Nev

 

 

[M61A1]

......well I do have an aerobatics endorsement.

Just wondering which definition of "overbank" are you using? Overbank; greater than 90 deg, CASA overbank: more than 60 deg, or company policy for passenger comfort overbank?

 

 

[facthunter]

I understand for airline ops 30 degrees is the maximum permitted in "Normal" ops. and I think it was 18 degrees of pitch up on climb out as well. This is probably in the AOC and Company ops manual so is binding on pilots working for that Company.. At cruise level 30 degrees of bank will probably put you into stall buffet or close as the margin above stall is not a lot % wise. Nev

 

 

[dutchroll]

An overbank is one which sets the GPWS bank angle warning off because it then becomes flagged on the quick access recorder as an exceedance and is reportable.

 

On the B767 the automatic voice warnings occur at 35•, 40• and 45• angle of bank. We got to 40. That might not look particularly bad in a small plane but in a big jet you go "oh sh**" It's enough for the passengers to notice. Classic human factors. Eyes on the clocks while I was hand flying after departure in cloud, but we exited into bright sunshine and a dead flat cloud top stretching as far as you could see while still in the climbing turn and I took my eyes off the clocks for about 2 seconds. That was all it needed.

 

If it was an Airbus it wouldn't let you go past 67 degrees no matter how hard you hold the stick to one side or the other (assuming the flight control computers are all functioning). If you went past 33 degrees and released the stick, it would return to 33 degrees bank automatically and stay there.

 

 

[Guest SrPilot]

......well I do have an aerobatics endorsement.

Well, hey, dr, you're good to go! Aerobatics endorsement and all. Why didn't you just take it on around for a roll?

 

Tex Johnson proved long, long ago that Boeings will just keep on going (over).