Asiana, UPS og andre - Weekend lektyre

Pilots' focus in the cockpit under scrutiny Safety experts have advocated better pilot training to monitor  complex cockpit technology, but the fatal Asiana Airlines  crash is focusing attention on how to keep pilots attentive  to equipment. Automated equipment fails so rarely that pilots could be  lulled into complacency. NTSB has long warned of inadequate monitoring of  equipment by flight crews. Distraction may be a factor in  recent crashes in San Francisco and Birmingham, Ala. Automated flight controls in airline cockpits have become so  reliable that safety experts say pilots could become  inattentive to rare malfunctions that can lead to crashes. Problems monitoring equipment have been cited for decades  in crashes and could have played a role in two recent fatal  crashes. Mechanical problems weren't immediately found as  causes. An Asiana Airlines passenger jet struck a seawall and  crashed July 6 on the runway in San Francisco, killing three  passengers. A United Parcel Service cargo jet crashed Aug.  14 short of the runway in Birmingham, Ala., killing both pilots. Besides the stick-and-rudder skills of steering a plane,   commercial pilots routinely set automated instruments that  govern an airliner's direction, speed and altitude, then check  throughout the flight to ensure the systems are performing  as expected. "We get lazy, we get complacent, we get tired," said Jack  Panosian, a former Northwest pilot who teaches at Embry- Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, Ariz. "What  happens when we see something work correctly 99 times?  What do we do on that 100th time? Are we monitoring it  with the same level? The answer is no." The National Transportation Safety Board has long noticed  problems. A 1994 study of 37 crashes found that 31  involved inadequate monitoring. NTSB findings in several   accidents since then: Asiana This photo provided by the "San Francisco Chronicle"  shows an image from the helmet-mounted video camera  of a San Francisco fire battalion chief at the scene of the  crash of Asiana Flight 214 on July 6, 2013. *On July 26, 2002, a FedEx 727-200 approaching  Tallahassee at night crashed and seriously injured three  crewmembers who failed to monitor controls when landing  lights warned that the plane was too low. *On Nov. 22, 2004, a Gulfstream G-III sent to Houston to  pick up former president George H.W. Bush for a trip to   Ecuador crashed and killed three crewmembers after they  failed to cross-check instruments during the approach. *On Feb. 16, 2005, a Cessna Citation 560 crashed in Pueblo,  Colo., killing eight people. Besides distractions during the   approach, one cause was the pilot's "failure to effectively  monitor" the equipment before stalling. The board recommended after the crash in 2005 that the  Federal Aviation Administration "require that all pilot  training programs be modified to ... teach and emphasize  monitoring skills." That recommendation was repeated after a Colgan Air  crash in Buffalo killed 50 people in 2009 and an American  Airlines 757 overran a runway in Jackson Hole, Wyo., in   2010. "This is really an area that is ripe for improving safety,"  said Robert Sumwalt, an NTSB member and a former 24- year airline pilot. The FAA hopes to complete a rule in October for "improving  pilot training and qualifications to reduce or eliminate the  types of errors that caused the Colgan accident," the agency  told USA TODAY in a statement. Helena Reidemar, the Air Line Pilots Association's director of  human factors, said pilots must remain as active in  monitoring controls as in actually flying the plane. "The brain is not wired to reliably monitor instruments that  rarely fail," Reidemar said. "We're not robots. We can't just  sit there and stare at the instruments for hours on end." In addition to continually checking controls, flight crews  must avoid distractions such as those cited in an incident  in 2009 in which two Northwest pilots using laptop  computers overshot their scheduled landing in Minneapolis  by 100 miles.   Back to Top

Pilots urged to learn limitations of glass-cockpit  technology Pilots shouldn't rely solely on in-cockpit avionics such as multifunction displays to keep them out of severe weather or temporary flight restrictions. The avionics systems and subscription services have limitations and may not show real-time weather and temporary flight restriction information. Accidents caused by delays of up to several minutes in datalink weather have been well documented. The FAA and Air Safety Institute have reached out to educate pilots on the dangers of relying on their in-cockpit weather without understanding the delay in the images appearing on the devices. Now, pilots are running into a problem that could put them not only in the crosshairs of the FAA, but also in jeopardy of penetrating TFRs. As the wildfire season rages across many western states, AOPA has received reports of pilots violating firefighting TFRs. And pilots are reporting that their avionics did not display the TFRs. "Pilots need to understand the limitations of their specific equipment," said Melissa McCaffrey, AOPA senior government analyst of air traffic services. "The TFR graphics, whether for natural disasters or VIP movements, on avionics displays might not be in real time." Further, McCaffrey explained, the FAA's TFR website might not be displaying the notams and TFRs in real time. AOPA recommends that pilots call flight service before each flight to specifically check for TFRs and note the location, either mentally or noted on a chart. This could help the pilot steer clear of the TFR even if it isn't depicted by a graphical display.