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David X
Joined: 10 Jan 2006
Posts: 154
Location: Princeton, NJ, USA
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 Posted: Fri Nov 24, 2006 10:22 am Post subject: Be a good aviation ambassador - don't speculate on accidents |
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Folks - I appologize to those who I've flamed lately on this post. It's not so much a flame as a sense of urgency that people stop speculating. It hurts us all.
The article below came from the AOPA archive. I've quoted it here for those who are not AOPA members.
http://www.aopa.org/members/files/pilot/2003/speak0311.html
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Speak No Evil
Helping nonpilots understand aviation accidents
BY CHIP WRIGHT (From AOPA Pilot, November 2003.)
Every year, more than 40,000 people die in auto accidents in the United States. At some point in your life, you will probably know at least one of those people. Less than 1 percent of that number will die in airplane accidents. As a certificated pilot, you may or may not eventually know one of them.
When it comes to explaining a car accident, people understand such things as brake failures, icy or wet roads, dangerous curves, failure to stop for a light or a sign, even drunk driving. The fact that most people in this country either drive or ride in cars makes automobile accidents something we can all relate to. When an accident happens, we may not understand why the people involved behave the way they do (such as driving when they've been drinking), but we can all understand the how or why of a driver losing control. Even if you have never lost control of a car, you have probably been in one that slipped a little on a wet road, or accidentally driven through a red light or a stop sign. Your heart jumps, and you might imagine how the situation could have been a lot worse.
Aviation is different. Airplanes are involved in far fewer accidents than cars. Airliners are involved in the fewest accidents of all, so when they do occur, it is indeed news. Unfortunately, because of the rarity of such accidents, they garner a lot of attention, and almost from the minute the media arrive, they start to speculate on the cause.
Those of us who are pilots tend to get a lot of phone calls from our friends and family when an airplane is involved in an accident or incident. People who are not intimately familiar with aviation often want a quick and understandable answer to the question of what caused a particular accident. As people who only fly as passengers, and who fly only on occasion, they want some kind of reassurance that airplanes, and pilots, really are safe. How you answer these questions can have a strong impact on the impression of aviation you leave with your friends and family.
Dealing with questions
The most important thing you can do is immediately counsel the need for patience as the investigation process goes on. In the rush to gather information and report the facts, the mainstream news media often do not have as much information as they need in order to accurately report what happened. They may know that a single-engine plane crashed near a road. They may even speculate that the airplane was trying to land on the road because an eyewitness said the airplane "appeared" to be having engine trouble, and was looking for a place to land. Furthermore, they may report that the witness said the airplane stalled prior to landing.
There are several problems with this particular statement. For starters, investigative bodies, including the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), which is responsible for investigating aviation accidents, have long known that eyewitness reports in such circumstances are often of questionable value. The sequence of events occurs so fast and at such a distance that it can be difficult to accurately restate what happened. Furthermore, the word stall means different things to pilots. For pilots, a stall is the result of a wing losing lift. We don't tend to refer to engine problems as stalls like we do in a car. In this case, it is unclear whether the witness means the wing stalled or the engine stopped operating. The difference is significant. A failed engine does not necessarily have to lead to an accident, whereas a stall of the wing at low altitude probably will. As for speculating about the pilot's intent, none of us can yet read minds.
After preaching the need to wait for the relevant facts to emerge, it is important that you yourself do not start to speculate on exactly what caused an accident. This can be difficult because if the airplane is one with which you are familiar, it can be tempting to try and tie the loose ends together and reach a conclusion about what happened. You may be right. But more important, you may be wrong.
In January 1997, there was a crash of an Embraer Brasilia in Detroit. The Brasilia was a common turboprop commuter aircraft that was popular in the 1980s and 1990s. It also had a history of propeller overspeed problems that led to several accidents. In the immediate aftermath of the accident, there was a lot of speculation on what role the propeller may have played in the accident, as well as what role weather might have played, as the airplane was making an approach through icing conditions.
Problems with the propellers were ruled out fairly quickly, but not until after a lot of intense media coverage. The weather, however, had everyone's attention from the beginning, particularly in light of the Roselawn, Indiana, accident involving an American Eagle ATR 72 a few years prior. In most weather accidents, the crew is put under intense scrutiny, almost to the point of being guilty until proven innocent. This accident was no exception. But like a good mystery novel, there was a twist. In the end, the Brasilia crew was found to have operated the airplane in full accordance with the airplane flight manual. The problem was that they had not received information that could have helped them take corrective action to avoid the accident. The NTSB determined that the probable causes of the accident were the FAA's failure to establish adequate aircraft certification standards for flight in icing conditions, the FAA's failure to ensure that an FAA/CTA-approved procedure for the accident airplane's deice system operation was implemented by U.S.-based air carriers, and the FAA's failure to require the establishment of adequate minimum airspeeds for icing conditions, which led to the loss of control when the airplane accumulated a thin, rough accretion of ice on its lifting surfaces. All 29 people on board were killed. The moral of the story: Wait until the investigation is complete.
The pilot
As investigations proceed, and stories about what actions the pilot or pilots took come out, it is fair to assume that your nonflying friends will ask you how you would have responded or why the actions taken occurred. This is a bit of a loaded question, and it definitely puts you in the position of being a Monday-morning quarterback. The best way to handle this is to explain that in learning to fly, a lot of emphasis is put on handling various in-flight emergencies: loss of an engine, failure of the flaps, loss of electrical power. If you can, show a copy of the Federal Aviation Regulations or the Private Pilot Practical Test Standards to illustrate the level of training involved. The goal is not to scare people even more, but to make the point that in a car a mechanical problem is first dealt with by pulling over to the side of the road. In a plane, that just isn't an option. Because of that, aircraft are built with a high level of reliability as well as redundancy. But if that reliability or redundancy should fail, it is critical you be able to handle it.
But again, you can't read the mind of the pilot involved. If the accident was in a typical general aviation airplane, it means there won't be any kind of voice or data recorder involved. The NTSB is pretty good at determining the cause of an accident based on the condition of the wreckage. While the cause may turn out to be easy to determine, the reason for the accident may not be. It isn't fair to speculate, but if people insist on asking you questions, you may be able to at least provide some information about the cause of the accident that is not provided by the media. For instance, if the media reports that an airplane crashed during the turn to the final approach to landing because of a stall, you can explain how an inadvertent cross-controlled stall occurs. What you can't do is just say, "Well, he didn't know what he was doing; everybody who flies knows to avoid that kind of accident." That's a blanket statement, and it may not be fair to blame the pilot outright. While it may have been poor airmanship, other undetermined factors may have been involved.
In the case of an accident involving an airplane with voice and/or data recorders, you are almost always better off to deflect questions about the cause until the investigation is complete. The NTSB often finds some clues on the tapes regarding the cause of the accident. As I write this, the investigation into Air Midwest Flight 5481 in Charlotte, North Carolina, the Beech 1900 that hit the hangar after takeoff, is still ongoing. However, the loading of the airplane has come into question, specifically concerns about the weight of the cargo and the fact that cargo is loaded in the back of a 1900, shifting the center of gravity aft.
This has been of sufficient concern to the FAA that it has implemented surveys of passenger weights as the average American gets heavier. Because the airlines all use "average" weights for passengers and their bags, the concern is that it is time to update — and up — those numbers to reflect our collective weight increase. This is even more critical on smaller airliners where weight and CG are more critical and/or sensitive. For the past several months, the FAA has been asking the airlines to survey the passengers at random in order to try and pinpoint realistic weights. Passenger weights in a few instances have already been adjusted. Also affected are the weights of the luggage we all carry — as we get fatter, our clothes grow and get heavier. The airline that I fly for recently increased the average bag weight by five pounds.
As always, a compromise will be sought, because a decrease in load-carrying capability will lead to a decrease in revenue-producing capability.
Does all this mean that the Air Midwest flight crashed just because of an aft CG? Absolutely not. The NTSB is pretty good about keeping its cards close to the vest, and if there are further developments that indicate other contributing causes, they will be made public only when the board has confidence in its findings. History tells us that this accident will be the result of a number of things going wrong at the wrong time and the wrong place.
Terminology
One of the biggest problems that the media and the public have with aviation is getting the terminology straight. Stalls, as described previously, are a great example. The definition of, cause of, and effect of carburetor ice is another one that has gotten people tongue-tied. Hydraulic failures in a car usually mean that you lose the brakes, and nothing more. In an airplane, it may mean the inability to lower or raise the landing gear, or in a jet, the actuation of all the flight controls.
Vertigo is another misused term that got tossed around a lot after John F. Kennedy Jr. crashed. For most people it means some form of dizziness. In flight, it is usually induced by a loss of control. If a pilot is not capable of flying on instruments, a loss of control may be caused by spatial disorientation or vertigo. This is not the same as someone who is having dizzy spells from an ear infection.
When people ask you to explain what certain things mean, it is critical that you be certain you can answer the question as clearly and accurately as you can. If you aren't sure, or don't recall, take the time to look up the definition of the term. Don't make it worse by guessing. As a pilot, you have a responsibility to accurately and honestly represent aviation to avoid aggravating the negative feelings people may already have.
It is important to be as honest as you can when answering questions about an accident. Embellishments, guessing, and early blame games don't help anyone. People you know who don't fly are trusting you because you are familiar with something that they are not. If you don't know the answer, say so. If you are unsure, do your homework before making the situation worse. Be knowledgeable, firm, and unemotional. This is one time when you really are an ambassador of aviation, and you need to act like it.
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Charles "Chip" Wright, AOPA 1086994, of Hebron, Kentucky, is a CRJ captain for Comair. He has accumulated 5,700 hours in 13 years of flying and is currently building a Van's Aircraft RV-8.
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paulrod36(at)msn.com
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| Posted: Sat Nov 25, 2006 3:02 pm Post subject: Be a good aviation ambassador - don't speculate on accidents |
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<?xml:namespace prefix="v" /><?xml:namespace prefix="o" /><![endif]--> David, good post. It's important that we keep speculation down, particularly in an open environment, where the uninitiated, and the sansation-seeking may twist our words into what they want to use for their benefit. (circulation, audience share, whatever.) If I hear another vidoedoofus describe how the engine stalled, I may barf. I intentionally maintained your entire post, to drive home the attached words of wisdom.
Paul Rodriguez
601XL/Corvair
[quote] ---
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naumuk(at)alltel.net
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| Posted: Sat Nov 25, 2006 4:08 pm Post subject: Be a good aviation ambassador - don't speculate on accidents |
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I think I told this sad but true story before.
There was a fatal crash at one of the airports in our area. The local TV talking head asked an airport bum if the cause was engine trouble. The local said "Absolutely". The next shot was of the wreck, an old Schweitzer 2 place training glider.
do not archive
Bill Naumuk
HDS Fuselage
Townville, Pa
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