08-05-2016, 08:09 PM
Solemn reflections while out walking in the forrest
What is interesting is that the 70's was the decade for CFIT. The GPWS was introduced. It made an incredible difference and improved safety. Problem identified and problem solved, mostly.
The 80's was the decade of midair crashes. TCAS was introduced in the late 80's into the early 90's and again with outstanding results. Problem identified and problem solved, mostly.
The 80's and early 90's was also quite a popular time for weather related accidents, particularly windshear, and Windshear, Detection and Alerting Systems underwent a technological improvement that has seen countless accidents avoided. Problem identified and problem solved, mostly.
The 2000's has seen two trends. Firstly runway overruns became more popular than a Politician at a trough. Very popular. The second has been runway incursions and accidents. Asiana's 777 at San Fran landing short in 2013 is memorable, FlyDubai earlier this year eating pavement was truly disturbing and now the EK crash. It's too early to fully speculate on the EK crash although some likely causes are starting to shine through. I will leave that to other discussion threads. No two accidents are the same, so you can't necessarily group all of these airport/runway accidents together under one root cause, however my observations indicate that there could be two causes or contributing factors to numerous airport/runway accidents in the past 15 years;
1) Growth in air traffic and airport usage at select airports and their associated airpsace.
2) Operational pressure;
- Budgets budgets budgets! Pilots pressured to remain on schedule and not cause 'financial penalties' due to performing go-arounds, hence pushing the envelope.
- Pilot fatigue due to companies squeezing more out of them.
- Poor and/or degrading airport infrastructure due to a lack of dedicated finances.
- High oil costs for many years and tight profit margins which in turn puts pressure on pilots to save costs.
- Cutbacks to training program's, SIM time, even some Pilots lack of flight hour experience in the larger commercial jets.
Anyway, that's my two-bob worth. I could be wrong, and after all I am just an ageing old man. But I do know one thing - unless the EK aircraft was in a really really unstable config it is a brave crew who hit the joystick while sinking at a reasonable rate of knots over very low altitude right above the piano keys in 50 degree weather.
"Safe sandpits for all"
#bringbackalan
What is interesting is that the 70's was the decade for CFIT. The GPWS was introduced. It made an incredible difference and improved safety. Problem identified and problem solved, mostly.
The 80's was the decade of midair crashes. TCAS was introduced in the late 80's into the early 90's and again with outstanding results. Problem identified and problem solved, mostly.
The 80's and early 90's was also quite a popular time for weather related accidents, particularly windshear, and Windshear, Detection and Alerting Systems underwent a technological improvement that has seen countless accidents avoided. Problem identified and problem solved, mostly.
The 2000's has seen two trends. Firstly runway overruns became more popular than a Politician at a trough. Very popular. The second has been runway incursions and accidents. Asiana's 777 at San Fran landing short in 2013 is memorable, FlyDubai earlier this year eating pavement was truly disturbing and now the EK crash. It's too early to fully speculate on the EK crash although some likely causes are starting to shine through. I will leave that to other discussion threads. No two accidents are the same, so you can't necessarily group all of these airport/runway accidents together under one root cause, however my observations indicate that there could be two causes or contributing factors to numerous airport/runway accidents in the past 15 years;
1) Growth in air traffic and airport usage at select airports and their associated airpsace.
2) Operational pressure;
- Budgets budgets budgets! Pilots pressured to remain on schedule and not cause 'financial penalties' due to performing go-arounds, hence pushing the envelope.
- Pilot fatigue due to companies squeezing more out of them.
- Poor and/or degrading airport infrastructure due to a lack of dedicated finances.
- High oil costs for many years and tight profit margins which in turn puts pressure on pilots to save costs.
- Cutbacks to training program's, SIM time, even some Pilots lack of flight hour experience in the larger commercial jets.
Anyway, that's my two-bob worth. I could be wrong, and after all I am just an ageing old man. But I do know one thing - unless the EK aircraft was in a really really unstable config it is a brave crew who hit the joystick while sinking at a reasonable rate of knots over very low altitude right above the piano keys in 50 degree weather.
"Safe sandpits for all"
#bringbackalan