ANNUAL US AVIATION ACCIDENT STATISTICS

NTSB released the annual aviation accident statistics for 2011 for US Civil Aviation.

Salient features are as follows:

NO fatalities in air carrier operations and in scheduled commuter operations.

Fatalities increase in on demand Part 135 operations from 6 to 16 and accidents from 31 to 50 in 2011 as compared to 2010

INQUIRY AND ADVOCACY IN THE COCKPIT

 Inquiry is “A search for knowledge, or an instance of questioning” and Advocacy is “Active support of an idea or cause etc.” as per Webster dictionary.Inquiry and advocacy has been jointly addressed by Human Factors experts and lets examine its importance in the cockpit.

INTER-COCKPIT

There is a dire need for inquiry in the cockpit and the need for crew to be in the loop and only way is for either crew to communicate and inquire. Typically, Captain must encourage inquiry from the fellow crew member to enhance safety and make the fellow crew comfortable in doing so without any fear of  reprisal or retribution.

TAIL STRIKE ON TAKEOFF

A tail strike is deemed to have occurred when the tail of an aircraft touches the runway during takeoff or landing. Long aircraft are more prone to this and this would result in significant structural damage to the aircraft and jeopardise the safety of the flight.Statistically, there are more tail strikes during landing than at takeoff.(Airbus)

RUSH SYNDROME

In this modern age, life is full of hectic activity and managing time efficiently is become a necessity. As pilots, whether in general aviation or in airline environment, we are subject to pressures of various sort. One of them I would like to deal with in this post, is about the pre-flight rush, which all of us are subjected to while carrying our flight activity.

TEN YEARS AFTER

It has been ten years since that fateful day when the World Trade Centre towers were brought down in a bizarre out of the box planning by a group of fanatics. The world aviation security underwent a sea of change following this and billions of dollars are being spent today on aviation security. There has been a huge increase in investment into screening technologies, a global audit spearheaded by ICAO and its regional offshoots and a demand for ever exacting model of the 21^stcentury’s Aviation Security program.