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Safety + Air Traffic Management
Last updated 2019
For passengers the most concerning aspect of flight is safety. The worst accidents in aviation history occurred during the jet age, due to the growing size of airliners. In the 20th century the most horrible disasters with more than 300 casualties had been: - the crash of a THY DC-10 after takeoff at Paris in 1974, caused by a freight door not properly closed and the non-existence of a warning-system; - the ground collision of a KLM and a Pan Am 747 in 1977 at Tenerife after a traffic deviation due to ETA terrorism, killing 580 people; - the emergency landing of a Saudi Arabian TriStar at Riyadh International in 1980 due to fire, when the doors could not be opened; - the crash of a short-range JAL B.747 over Japan in 1985, reportedly a result of an improper repair, killing 520 people; - the collision of a Saudi Arabian 747 with an IL-76 after takeoff at New Delhi in 1996, caused by antiquated radar and communications confusion. Statistics by Aviation Safety Network (Ta Nea, Oct01, 2005) showed for the 1960s as well as for the 90s constantly 45% of all accidents being caused by human error, 13% to 14% by equipment failure and 7% to 6% by unfavorable weather conditions. Not a list and description of accidents (see the relevant publications), but some aspects concerning safety should be dealt with this chapter.
Human Error A Boeing 737 of Air Florida, already two hours late, is due to depart from Washington National Airport on January13, 1982. The copilot, First Officer, warns the Captain of the ice on the wing. A second warning, then the last, “it’s a lost battle”. The plane takes off, crashes into the Potomac River and 78 people die, among them the Captain and the First Officer … That was the media report of a tragic event. When the 9/11 crunch had been over, IATA announced that the industry would need some 17,000 new pilots annually over the next decades to keep up with the traffic demand. Top airlines, e.g. Lufthansa, have their own pilots’ training instead of hiring crews quickly from elsewhere, an advantage. For all the airlines, the crews’ working hours on long-distance flights are a problem. The EASA was quoted having found that on flights of more than 13 hours the accident rate is 5.6 times higher than on short flights. About the tragedy after the traffic deviation at Tenerife on March27, 1977, the worst airliner accident in the 20th century, a later TV report pointed out the overburdened small airport, the lack of a ground control radar, the dense fog, misunderstandings and finally the start of the KLM B.747 without permission, possibly under pressure. Sometimes the pilots are simply accused of human error and it proved a lie. In August 1972 the IL-62 DM-SEA of the East German state carrier Interflug crashed on a flight Berlin – Burgas, killing all the 156 people aboard. West German papers accused the pilots having crossed the cloud of released kerosene and Soviet officials of Ilyushin simply declared the pilots guilty. Both statements were lies. The true cause, fire at the bottom of the tail fin on account of a technical defect, had to be kept secret. And an official commemoration was not allowed. Sometimes the industry’s rules caused a disaster: A Swissair MD-11 on a New York – Geneva flight in 1998 crashed into the Atlantic after smoke had filled the cockpit. The pilots could have made an emergency landing at Halifax, but they obeyed the rule which demanded first to fight the fire and then to land. About the pilots of certain low-cost carriers, working often on a stressing six-month contract, the Athens News (Sep02, 2005) reported after the Helios crash in Greece: “A key component (…) is the company’s inclination to encourage its flight-deck captains to take ‘risks’ during their flights, because the option of an emergency landing after the first warning signs of a malfunction is considered a luxury these companies cannot afford (…). This is why ‘human’ error is a convenient tag to pin on the coffins of the crew…” The story of pilots being fired for they refused starting with a defect plane could be continued. “Hundreds of pilots are waiting for taking your job”, was the answer given to one of them. After the Spanair MD-82 inferno at Madrid, in which 153 people died when the plane crashed seconds after takeoff, the Daily Mail (Aug22, 2008) reported: “Relatives of one victim said he tried to leave the plane after finding there was a fault – but the crew would not allow it. (A passenger) sent his wife a text message reading ‘My love, there’s a problem with the plane”. On April10, 2010 the Polish government Tu-154 no.101 went down while trying to land in dense fog at Smolensk airport in Russia. All aboard were killed, including President Lech Kaczynski. The reason for the flight was his visit to the site of the Katyn massacre, where 20,000 Polish officers had been executed by Stalin’s secret police. Traffic controllers advised the pilot to land elsewhere. The voice recorder confirmed that before the crash the pilot said that landing is not possible. Ten minutes later the representative of the Foreign Office was recorded saying: “The president has not yet decided what to do” (Sueddeutsche Zeitung, June02, 2010). The Russian final report, confirming that the traffic controllers were not guilty, was disliked in Poland. Heroism of pilots who saved the life of passengers in almost hopeless situations became immortalized by TV documentaries or press reports. When in 1996 an Ethiopian Airlines B.767 was captured in Africa by rebels who wanted to escape to Australia, and the engines ran out of fuel, the captain landed in the sea near the Comores and 50 among the persons aboard survived. Already in 1963 the pilot of a Tu-124 saved all his 52 passengers by an emergency landing on the river Neva near St. Petersburg.
On the other hand there may be unforeseen human reactions. About Egyptair flight 990, crashed into the Atlantic in 1999, the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board believed to have found one plausible theory, that the copilot deliberately put the plane in a fatal dive. Egyptian authorities did not accept this suicide theory, neither a terrorist theory. After the crash of a Korean 747 at Seoul Gimpo in 1980, the captain and the co-pilot voluntarily had chosen to “die with their plane”. Headlines were made by the Germanwings A320 D-AIPX crash in the French Alps on March24, 2015. The blackbox showed that the copilot made a nose-dive, killing 150 passengers and crew, while the captain had left the cockpit and could not enter it. “Systems that lock a cockpit door have existed since the 1980s and strict procedures became standard after September11, 2001”, reported the Times. Media informed that the copilot, an enthusiastic glider-pilot, suffered under a psychosomatic insanity, suicide was assumed and the question about his permission arose. EASA demanded stronger 2-man cockpit rules. Equipment and Maintenance Equipment failure is considered the second important cause of accidents. Of course the worst statistics had the Comet 1, replaced however by better series. Statistics published in 1995 showed 2.52 accidents per million departures for the DC-10, 1.73 for the A320 and 321, 1.21 for the DC-9 and only 1.19 for the B.747-400. The disaster of the THY DC-10 in 1974 could have been avoided if the producer would have obeyed the advice of an employee to equip the freight door with a warning system. When in 1998 half of an Aloha Airlines old 737’s upper fuselage skin had town away in flight, technical failure and faulty control was remembered as a danger. Of course there is a steady development of the aircrafts’ safety standard. In 1984 NASA made a crash test with an unmanned B.720 equipped with a new fuel additive AMK, aimed to reduce the danger of explosions, unfortunately without success. In 1996 a TWA B.747 exploded off the coast of Long Island, killing all the 230 people aboard, after a spark had set off a flammable mixture of gases in the nearly empty central fuel tank. The military already has used systems to reduce the chance of tank explosions. Later the FAA developed a system sorting nitrogen from oxygen and pumping it into tanks not filled with fuel. A proposal of 2004 was delayed by the White House, as the International Herald Tribune reported in 2008 (July17), continuing: “The airlines have opposed the change”. Finally a Federal Aviation Regulation required that all airliners must be upgraded with a nitrogen fuel tank inerting equipment by 2017. When in 2001 an American Airlines A300-605R crashed because the carbon composite stabilizer snapped off, the quality of composites was investigated, however without any evidence of a typical failure. The computerized control and navigation devices of the Airbus A310, A300-600 and A320 were considered the main cause of an initial series of fatal accidents (see Frank Littek: Technik und Sicherheit von Verkehrsflugzeugen). Finally the electronic autopilot devices, further advanced, were accepted by all the Airbus buyers and by others as an initiative to cope with the traffic growth. After in 2003 equipment failure once again had caught up with CFIT (controlled flight into terrain) as a main cause of fatal accidents, it was considered being a result of faulty maintenance and control in co-incidence with human error. The crash series caused the widespread suspicion that safety in many cases was sacrificed in order of low cost. “There is a multitude of tiny companies that operate under questionable management and haphazard practices… Maintenance siphons off about 50% of an airline company’s operating costs, but becomes considerably cheaper when performed by lower-paid mechanics working for outsourcers based in El Salvador or airports in the Far East”, wrote I. Siakantaris in Athens News (Aug19, 2005) after the Helios crash. It had been caused by oxygen deficiency, an omnipresent danger in many cases. In Italy a mafia-like business with spare parts for exclusive motorcars became known, but also dealing with illegitimate spare parts for airliners caused scandals in Italy, Spain and Africa. In 2006 Airbus started an aircraft dismantling project, whereupon Flight Intl (April03) commented: “Airbus will then be able to prevent materials being sold on the black market…” For any departure, planes must fulfill the requirements of the Minimum Equipment List (MEL), and renowned standard carriers have always aircraft in reserve for the case of a defect.
Airlines In Nigeria the old BAC-111s were withdrawn from passenger services in 2002 after a series of accidents. ICAO forced Liberia to change its prefix (from EL to A8) with the purpose to sort out illegally registered unsafe aircraft. In February 1996 the B.757 TC-GEN of Turkish charter carrier Birgenair, which had operated for Caribbean Airways and was to be leased by STAF (Argentina), replaced a B.767 of Birgenair’s subsidiary Alas Nacionales on a charter flight Puerto Plata – Berlin – Frankfurt and crashed into the sea, killing 176 German tourists. A speed sensor’ blockage was supposed. In Germany, travel agencies got much criticism when they hired planes from airlines such as Birgenair and then the “Subcharter Kodex” was to stop that practice. Germany had locked out 9 foreign airlines due to concerns over safety, 5 of them being from Turkey. When in 2000 the German carrier Hapag-Lloyd had almost a crash, people however seemed to turn a blind eye to the event: After takeoff at Crete island, the running gear of the A310 did not retract. The company recommended to fly to Stuttgart, Athens control warned, near Budapest the plane ran out of fuel and at Vienna it made a forced crash landing. Nevertheless German charter airlines, which turned more and more into regular carriers, are among the safest. After a series of accidents by small Egyptian carriers killed French and German tourists, the German magazine Focus (03/2004) questioned the effectiveness of the Safety Assessment of Foreign Aircraft (SAFA) program. “Ownership of Egyptian companies changes so often and quickly, that a control is nearly impossible”, described an insider that market. The emotional report continued: “Worldwide nearly 2,000 used jets are waiting for clients eager to fly on dumping prices”. In November 2016 the football team Chacepoense had to travel from Chacepo in Brazil to Medellin in Colombia for the South America cup final against Atletico Nacional. The Avro RJ85 of Bolivian newcomer LaMia ran out of fuel and crashed on mount Cerro Cordo, killing 71 people, almost the entire team. And the series of fatal accidents due to equipment failure, lack of control or faulty maintenance continued. As fatal crashes are singular events, published accident statistics do not say very much about the safety standard of an airline. According to Sueddeutsche Zeitung (Aug19, 2005), the Swiss “Bureau d’Archives des accidents aeronautique” found that the risk of being killed on a charter flight is 17 times greater than on a regular flight. Though between 1994 and 2003 60% of all flights were regular flights, they had less than one third of all accidents. After the Helios crash, Athens News (Sep02, 2005) quoted the chief aircraft engineer of Olympic, stating: “Matters are made worse by the preponderance in recent years by the so-called low-cost charter airlines.” Low-cost, but also some standard airline’s planes using only half the runway at the expense of safety could have been watched. And for some LCC a lack of pilots was reported. At least in countries with rapidly developing airlines in economically backward regions there is a widespread lack of control. The crash series in playgrounds for newcomers is well known. Accidents of the pilgrims’ Hadj flights had been reported almost every year. One of the worst accidents in the year 2003 has occurred when the B.727-200 3X-GDO of Lebanese-owned UTA de Guinee crashed during takeoff at Cotonou on a flight Conakry – Freetown – Cotonou – Beirut – Dubai. The old plane was overloaded, the captain wanted to refuse the takeoff, but reportedly he got order to try it. At least 145 passengers, mostly Lebanese on Christmas trip, were killed. The aircraft’s registration with Lebanon had been ruled out due to its technical condition. The worst reputation in Africa got the numerous old Antonov An-12 and An-24 planes, though they are robust aircraft. “In Moscow one can buy such a vigorous prop already for $30,000”, wrote Der Spiegel (22/2005). In 2010 many Tu-154 planes were excluded from Iran, reportedly not on political reasons. Old Soviet planes were confined more and more to Africa, and mysterious flights happened. Years ago, friends have told their story of a trip to Tunisia, but the plane was replaced by an ex-East German aircraft. During a flight with turbulences she saw something spit out from the wing, cautiously she told it to the staff only after a successful landing and the stewardess expressed her thanks for not having told it to the people during the flight, for then panic would have arisen. After August 2005 had become the deadliest month for plane disasters since years, the media published an ICAO “black list”, casting suspicion on certain airlines in the following countries (according to Ta Nea, Oct01, 2005): 11 states in Africa, 9 countries in the Asia-Pacific region, 8 countries in Europe, including Russia, and 2 countries in Central and South America. In the meantime the situation has ameliorated in many cases – compare the newest statistics, scarcely published. USA The Grand Canyon disaster, when in June 1956 a DC-7 and a Constellation collided in the air, spurred to create the Federal Aviation Agency or FAA in 1958. In the new century the FAA focused on countries rather than airlines, using safety standards set by the ICAO. The FAA excluded numerous countries from providing flights to the USA. In 2005, 26% of the 189 countries connected to the ICAO did not meet its standards. Astonishing is the number of only two countries in Central and South America (Belize and Guyana), listed by the ICAO “black list” of 2005. Not only in exotic countries, but also in the USA safety lacks of airlines were stated. “The largest penalty the FAA has ever imposed against an airline was $9.5 million about 20 years ago, against Eastern Airlines”, wrote The Washington Post (March07, 2008). Europe After the fatal August 2005, the EU announced to publish a “black list” of unreliable airlines and to ban them. At that time, France had banned Air Koryo and 5 other carriers and Italy had listed 8 rather unknown airlines. The United Kingdom did not admit planes registered with Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Swaziland and Tajikistan (information by Ta Nea, Oct01, 2005). But leased planes can be registered anywhere. The EU’s “black list” banned e.g. in 2010 the airlines of 17 countries, except some flag carriers. But also Europe came under criticism because of the nationally split air traffic controls. For the horrible midair collision near Lake Constance in 2002 the official report (and a preliminary BBC documentary) blamed the Swiss ATM organization Skyguide for “lack of emergency training, staff shortages and organizational failings”. The tragedy continued when a father, who lost his family by the accident, killed the air traffic controller. Officials then announced they were cutting traffic through Swiss airspace by 20%. A German court decided that it was illegal to source out air traffic control to those firms. After in 2006 the German parliament decided to privatize the Deutsche Flugsicherung (DFS), doubts concerning safety were published and the government proclaimed to stop this initiative. In Italy a prosecutor had asked to sentence 36 air traffic controllers in jail after they were spotted playing soccer instead of working at Milan airport. German noise restriction demands at the expense of safety were criticized already by Lufthansa pilot (and writer) Rudolf Braunburg. In 2001, 24 people were killed at Zurich, when a Crossair Avro due to the noise abatement rules from neighboring Germany had to land on a runway not yet ILS-equipped. Already in the 1960s Eurocontrol was created with the difficult task of coordinating air traffic in a multitude of different countries. A dangerous region always has been the south-east with the busy Europe – South Asia route (the midair collision near Zagreb is well remembered). In 2004 Eurocontrol managed to finance upgrading in the most backward countries around ex-Yugoslavia. Flights over the continent were estimated to double by 2020 and most of the growth was expected in Eastern Europe on account of rising incomes and a boom in low-cost services. A common “Single European Sky” (SES) became the key to a more efficient European air traffic management, but initially France, Portugal, Greece and Turkey had raised concerns about supposed “sovereignty”. Finally Eurocontrol moved ahead. Russia, CIS and China Newsweek wrote in 1994 (May16): “Aeroflot boasted a safety record that surpassed the global average. All that fell apart with the Soviet Union in December 1991… The chance of dying in a plane crash in the former Soviet Union is now 10 times greater than the global average.” In November 1993 a British and an All Nippon jet were heading on a collision course in Far Eastern Khabarovsk region. Only the on-board equipment and the pilots’ immediate reactions saved the 700 passengers. Among the many accidents, the loss of a Sibir Tupolev on an Istanbul – Moscow flight on 4 October 2001 over the Black Sea was uncommon, reportedly caused by a missile during Ukrainian manoeuvres. In Russia the civil aviation authority GSGA undertook safety measures including the withdrawal of licenses for Russian carriers, when overloading and faulty maintenance was discovered. According to the book “Russian Airlines”, Aerofreight Airlines, AT Aerotex, Eurasia, IRS Aero, Moscow Airways, Rus (Roos), JSC, Tretyakovo and Voronezhavia lost the license due to safety concerns, most of them after a crash. Sueddeutsche Zeitung (Jan09, 2012) has reported 6 fatal accidents in Russia e.g. in 2011, with 118 victims, quoting Ascend Consulting, stating: “In relation to the traffic volume, the number in casualties and accidents in Russia during the year 2011 surpassed that in less developed problematic countries such as Congo or Indonesia.” Then Putin dealt with the problem and at least a dozen airlines in Russia lost the license in order to ameliorate the safety standard. China in past years was reported to have an even worse record in comparison with Russia. Then the above-mentioned SZ report of 2012 of Andreas Spaeth stated: “China, ten years ago still with a frightening accident rate, is now one of the safest countries.” The series of crashes in India was well known. Africa The chance of dying in an airplane crash in Africa has been estimated 14 times greater than elsewhere. Aviation Week considered the danger of being killed flying in sub-Saharan Africa even 16 to 25 times bigger than in Europe. Skyjet of Belgium with old DC-10s appeared in African countries, in Brazil and finally they were registered with Antigua. In 2003 Africa shared 28% of all fatal accidents. In 2002 the Swedish CAA revoked the certificate for Transjet, operating old 747-2 Jumbos on Africa flights, whereupon the company was reported changing to Swaziland registration. That’s only an example and planes from many African countries were banned from entering Europe. Coordination between air traffic controls in Africa, except in the north and in the south, was described as non-existent. During a flight to South Africa aboard an A330 of LTU, the co-pilot said that they could choose their airtrack freely. Already in 1998 ICAO’s Universal Safety Oversight Audit Programme (USOAP) was mandated. At a conference in 2006, only eight of the 189 ICAO states have not audited, “having security situations so poor that the USOAP teams could not work there” (according to Flight Intl, March28, 2006). The magazine demanded: “In return for this transparency, the mature nations must provide aid and expertise. After all, their own airlines fly to these countries”. In 2011 however, “Africa came off better by 73% compared to the year before, and Latin America and the Caribbean advanced by 33%”, according to IATA deputy Guenther Matschnigg (Sueddeutsche Zeitung, Jan09, 2012).  Rio de Janeiro, a TAM A319 approaching Santos Dumont, 2010 (Anton Soelch) Dangerous Airports Safety of course varies also from airport to airport. The non-parallel runways on many traditional hubs are a latent danger. In June 2005, at Boston 381 people almost were killed when two airplanes simultaneously got permission for takeoff at two crossing runways. Not even a month later more than 250 people escaped a disaster at JFK, when a B.767 crossed a runway where a freighter took off. Its crew estimated that it missed the 767’s fuselage by about 45ft or 14m. After in 2008 once again two planes missed a crash at JFK, “the controllers’ union has argued that the FAA practice of simultaneously using two runways at right angle is unsafe” (International Herald Tribune, July09, 2008). In June 2011 a Lufthansa crew of an A340, rolling to the runway, avoided a catastrophe – and the latent danger at airports with non-parallel runways continued. In the first years of the new century, among the top-ten hubs New York JFK, Tokyo Haneda, Frankfurt, Amsterdam and Chicago O’Hare (then ameliorated) had crossing runways, and at London Heathrow the two parallel runways were overcharged.
Today a runway length of c.4km is standard for modern hubs. But even ‘Jumbo’ jets landed regularly at airports which had a runway length of only around 2km, such as the old airports Munich Riem or Athens Ellinikon, both later replaced by new hubs. At Munich in 1958 a plane with a Manchester United team crashed into the city (and the admired schoolmate Amanda told that she was almost hit by the crash). On safety reasons, the size of aircraft landing at airports with short runways should have been limited from the beginning. According to an n-tv report, years old, very dangerous airports have been Tegucigalpa in Honduras, St Maarten, Gibraltar and many secondary airports, not mentioned here. Among the airports listed, St Maarten, Gibraltar, Funchal on Madeira island and San Diego in California were used by full-size jet aircraft. The danger is caused e.g. for St Maarten by the runway situated immediately at the Caribbean beach or on Madeira by the runway extension resembling a bridge, both close to a mountain range. It was rumored that an existing air force base on a neighboring island would have been more suitable. Also other airports require a difficult approach or ascend, e.g. Kathmandu in Nepal, Paro in Bhutan, Rio Santos Dumont, Latacunga, Merida, Quito and Arequipa in the Andes, Innsbruck surrounded by Alpine mountains, Sarajevo in Bosnia, the Greek islands Corfu (Kerkyra) or Skiathos, remote Unalaska Island, Rarotonga on the Cook Islands and many other places. La Paz and Lhasa are infamous due to their high altitude, requiring higher speed. Delhi, Jakarta, Manila and other airports had become criticized for poor air traffic control systems. On certain hubs, dangerous approach procedures obviously are required by a nearby air force base. On some remote African airport night landings were prohibited due to cattle on the runway. The secondary Mattala Rajapaksa in Sri Lanka had to be fenced against elephants from the National Park. And at Utqiagvik airport in Alaska, traffic had been interrupted on 27 Oct 2017, for a seal slept on the runway. But the best-known among the dangerous airports had been Hong Kong Kai Tak, abandoned in 1998. Captain Rudolf Braunburg described how they watched other airplanes’ approach: “One Boeing opened the flaps too early, a DC-10 approached flying too high, touch-down too late … passengers will be hurled …” Fortunately we did not suffer the “Kai Tak heart attack” when we landed safely aboard a Cathay Pacific TriStar.
Exciting is the approach to Cuzco in Peru, tightly surrounded by the mountains of the Andes, and the pilot has no chance if he misses the touch-down. The most dangerous airport is Lukla in the Himalaya, confined however to small regional planes.
 Cuzco in the Andes, Aero Continente B.727, departing for Arequipa – Juliaca, 1996 (WS) Weather and Nature A relatively small percentage of the accidents is caused by weather conditions, though there are regions with continuous hazards. In the center of a “twister”, the wings of a jetliner could break away. Tropical thunderstorms are raging with clouds up to an altitude of 46,000ft or 14,000m in the Caribbean, on the South Atlantic, in Africa or with the monsoon in the Asia-Pacific region. When on 28 December 2014 an AirAsia A320 on a Surabaya – Singapore flight with 162 people on board disappeared, hazardous weather conditions were assumed being the cause of an emergency landing. On June17, 2015, a Delta Airlines B.747-400 crossed China on the way to Seoul, it was hit by a thunderstorm and hail, the turbulence shocked the passengers and the plane was damaged. The pilots would have circumvented the turbulences – but authorities forbade it (so reported it by LJ, July 2015). The “Elkton accident” was described by Rudolf Braunburg: On December08, 1963 an immense cold front with thunderstorms and tornadoes, coming from Canada, crossed Pennsylvania. At New Castle five planes already had entered the waiting space. Suddenly one of them, Pan American’s first Boeing 707 on flight 214 San Juan – Baltimore – Philadelphia, crashed like a fireball, hit by a flash of lightning. Later it was reported that the N707PA had not yet been equipped with a lightning conductor system. Captain Braunburg preferred to circumvent tropical thunderstorms in a greater distance than usual. On June01, 2009 an Air France A330-200 on flight AF447 Rio de Janeiro – Paris disappeared four hours after takeoff, when it was passing through a broad band of thunderstorms, on the radar hidden away by mellow tempests. The plane’s computers sent automated messages signaling problems with electrical systems, a stall occurred and the plane crashed into the South Atlantic with 228 victims. It was the deadliest accident in the history of renowned Air France. The daily Le Figaro was among the first proclaiming the speed sensors being the cause of the catastrophe, whereupon Airbus announced a lawsuit against the newspaper. Two years later, in May 2011, the aircraft’s black boxes were recovered from the ocean floor. A report from the Bureau d’Enquetes et d’Analyses, released on July29, 2011, was published and investigations continued. When the author waited in 1996 at Bogota for boarding an Avianca B.767 for a flight to Frankfurt, departure was delayed by three hours on account of hazardous weather conditions. Nothing happened, but suddenly a white flash of lightning came out of the clouds in a straight line down to the runway. After the weather had calmed down, the plane departed, but the Captain announced an additional refueling stop at Cartagena on the Caribbean coast, for Central Europe and even Paris and London were covered with snow and it was uncertain where we could land. And the passengers were grateful for these precautionary measures. Another danger is caused by clear-air turbulences (CAT), accompanying polar or subtropical jetstreams. They occur without any warning, mainly on the usual flight level of jet aircraft. Pilot reports were the only help. Then NASA started to develop advanced weather radar and computer systems. Electromagnetic ‘fog’ is rumored as another danger, neither proven, nor refuted. Icing continued to be a danger. When in March 2007 heavy storms and snowfalls pelted the East Coast of the USA, a Virgin Atlantic flight from London to Boston was diverted to New York JFK, but there the plane with 200 passengers sat on a taxiway for around six hours before it could take off again. Passengers of a Cathay Pacific jet were kept sitting in their plane from midnight until 9:30 in the morning until the flight to Vancouver finally was cancelled. A shortage of deicing fluid was supposed by the media. The Miami Herald (March18, 2007) criticized: “The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates the metropolitan area’s airports, said airlines – not the airport – are responsible for supplying and maintaining terminal deicing equipment.” An omnipresent danger (pointed out by astrophysicist Harald Lesch) is the ‘space weather’, caused by the cycle of sunspots, influencing the wireless network. A simple danger is the birds’ flight around airports. In January 2009 an A320 of US Airways after takeoff at New York LaGuardia was hit by birds, both engines failed and the pilot made an emergency landing on the icy Hudson River. All the 154 people aboard survived and New York was bewared of a catastrophe thanks to the masterly performance by Captain Chesley Sullenberger. “That’s my job”, he said. At Torino airport, falcons were trained to chase away swarms of birds. Dubai International had been closed temporarily in 2015 due to a drone, encroaching on the airport’s airspace, as the Gulf News (March17, 2015) reported it, concluding: “Federal regulations for unmanned aerial vehicles, also known as drones, will be released next month.” Another danger are cyber attacks. In 2011 a perpetrator in Germany was sentenced only to some fine, though the law allows a ten-year prison sentence. A simpler way to endanger aircraft was found by an airport neighbor at Burbank, USA: He fed pigeons in such a number that air traffic had to be interrupted – and he was jailed.
Further Development An important achievement was the US order of 1993 to equip all standard planes with the Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance System (TCAS). Its development had been ordered by the FAA already in 1981. It started to check the sky around the plane for other aircraft by tracking the transponders which the planes carry. Ameliorated ACAS, controlling separation, gives the pilots an optical overview of the traffic situation and in the case of emergency a resolution advisory. The Terrain Awareness Warning System (TAWS), the Ground Proximity Warning System GPWS and then the enhanced EGPWS, an On-board Airport Navigation System (OANS), a Turbulence-Auto-Pirep System (TAPS) and other developments were further steps. When the “loss-of-control” (LOC) events were accounting for more of 40% of the fatalities, NASA-Langley started to develop technologies belonging to the Single Aircraft Accident Prevention (SAAP) project. According to Aerospace America (March 2003) they formed a “part of the government’s five-year, 500-million Aviation Safety Program, aimed at creating technology innovations that can help to cut the overall commercial aviation accident rate by 80% of 1997 levels by 2007, a goal initiated by the Clinton administration.” An additional danger in vast parts of the globe was a poor level of spoken English – the universal language of air transport. And there is the muddle of meters, feet, kilometers, miles, nautical miles, km/h, mph, knots, liters, barrels, pounds, tons – grotesque in an epoch of globalization. In 1983 the Air Canada B.767 C-GAUN ran out of fuel on account of a confusion, and the pilots absolved a masterly glider flight, landing at Gimli, an abandoned air force base near Winnipeg (so reported by ‘Free Fall’, MavenPress). The Soviet Union had a standardized system, but in the Western World possibly it would hurt national pride … Fortunately, the announcement of a foreseeable crash on a London – Hong Kong flight in 2010, scaring the daylights out of the passengers, had been only a failure of the on-board information system. On Feb16, 2017 the Czech air traffic controllers lost contact with a Jet Airways flying from Mumbai to London, they informed their German colleagues, who alarmed the air force and two jet fighters accompanied the plane which then landed correctly at London Heathrow (so reported by SZ). Generally the accident rate in relation to the number of departures is published. But in comparison to other means of transport with much less revenue passenger kilometers (RPK) per departure, the fatalities in relation to RPK would be of interest. For 1960 a number of 1,266 fatalities and 142 billion RPK were listed, resulting in 8.9 fatalities per billion RPK. For the year 2000, the registered 1,101 fatalities and the immense number of 3,017 RPK resulted in less than 0.4 fatalities per billion RPK. ICAO’s Annual Report of the Council 2011 listed for the year 2010 a number of 900 fatalities and for 2011 only 526. Compare the number of fatalities with the World Health Organization’s estimate of roughly one million people a year being killed on the roads! Flight Procedures The passenger is waiting for his trans-oceanic flight. That hasn’t changed. But the procedures he doesn’t know are changing steadily with the evolution of the integrated Air Traffic Management (ATM). Still at the turn of the century the flight may have gone like this: The pilots coordinated meteorology and flight operations data and the chosen route, in Europe with Eurocontrol, and fixed it by the Flight Management System (FMS) computer aboard. FMS controls the flight, but not unforeseen events. The ground control in the tower gives clearance to taxi to the runway, then permission for takeoff is given. At a speed of nearly 160 knots (300km/h), depending on the aircraft type, the plane takes off, under surveillance by the local Air Traffic Control (ATC). It climbs to an altitude of 35,000-41,000 feet. Above FL200 or FL300 (20,000-30,000ft) an air route traffic control center takes over and an airtrack is assigned. During the prop age, the shortest route could have been chosen, but with rising traffic the airtracks have become a necessity. In the late 70s the rules mandating accurate centerline flying were written when the tracks were moved closer to accommodate traffic growth. After a head-on collision in Brazil in 2006, Flight Intl (Feb20, 2007) however commented: “If each of the crew of those two aircraft had chosen to offset their aircraft just 100m (330ft) to the right of the airway centerline, all the people who died in the collision would still be alive.” Generally the pilot relies on the FMS-connected autopilot, but exceptions may occur. Frank Littek described a Lauda Air flight to Bangkok, when over troubled Afghanistan due to Air Force operations the FL had to be changed and AWACS aircraft maintained control. Nearing its destination, the plane is flying down a corridor, supervised by the ATCs, into the control zone of the airport. The plane is fed into a slot for landing, like for takeoff, by the ground control in the tower. On crowded hubs, incoming aircraft often need to enter waiting spaces and outgoing ones must wait until clearance of a runway. Those delays and the circuitous traffic system have caused losses in the USA of estimated $3.5 billion annually. Remote Air Control Tower technology was tested by Saab Sensis, described by Aerospace America (May 2016), commenting: “It needs to be ramped up into a more real-world scenario…” And passengers surely would feel safer with a direct control tower.
The computerized “glass cockpit” and internet-connected “paperless-cockpit” appeared with the Airbus A320, which entered service in 1988. With the A320, Airbus had definitely replaced the control stick with a passive sidestick, while Boeing continued to prefer the traditional control yoke. Nevertheless the “glass cockpit” became standard for Boeing as well as for Airbus -- quite different from the look just a few decades before: Liquid crystal displays, cursor control devices and data links have replaced the instruments of the bygone epoch. Checks are made by electronic check lists, which replaced the paperwork of the past. With the Airbus A380, the A320 flightdeck was further upgraded, without abandoning the principal layout: Navigation Displays (ND) and multifunctional Primary Flight Displays (PFD) for the captain on the left and for the copilot on the right-hand side and the Engine Display (ED) in the center of the upper row, a System Display (SD) and Multi Functional Displays (MFD) on the lower row, the Keybord and Curser Control Units (KCCU) with a trackball below. MFD replaced previous FMS displays and to the ND was added a Vertical Display (VD), giving information about terrain. Additional displays for the Onboard Information Terminal (OIT) were added, flanking the main panel on the left-hand and the right-hand side of the cockpit. Cockpit automation has advanced safety, but worries have arisen. Aerospace America (July 2015) informed: “Airbus focuses more on avoiding pilot error (…) by allowing automation to at times overriding the pilot …” Then Boeing realized it with the automatic anti-stall system of the 737-8MAX. In Oct 2018 such a plane of Lion Air crashed into the sea, after warnings had been ignored, and in March 2019 another one of Ethiopian crashed into the ground, causing altogether 346 victims. The 737-8 had been upgraded faster than developing an envisioned new series. The Wall Street Journal was surprised at Boeing CEO Muilenberg and asked: “Why not acknowledge that Boeing had screwed up with its now-notorious MCAS software that contributed to two fatal crashes of its new 737 Max jets?” Air Traffic Management - ATM Radio detection and ranging, known as radar, was developed mainly by the British, clearly ahead of Germany, and has become decisive for naval warfare during WWII. In Greece, Pavlos Santorinis is honored for his early researches in the 1930s. In air traffic management, the USA became the leader. Its Civil Aeronautics Authority (C.A.A.), created already in 1938, tightened up regulations for blind flying. In 1957 the Airways Modernization Board (A.M.B.) established three transcontinental “airways” or airtracks. In 1958 the new FAA absorbed C.A.A. and A.M.B., right in time for the beginning of the jet age and since then the number of air corridors had multiplied. Traditional navigation devices still at the beginning of the 21st century since decades were the VOR (Very High Frequency Omnidirectional Range) navigation beacon, DME (Distance Measuring Equipment) and VORTAC, a combination with military’s TACAN system. For landing at reduced sight, the Instrument Landing System (ILS) became standard, to be replaced by GBAS. A first radical change in navigation had occurred during the ‘70s with introduction of the Inertial Navigation System (INS), using on-board gyroscopes, a military development by the USA. It enabled also to introduce the three-man, then the two-man cockpit. New preconditions were created with the satellite-based Global Positioning System (GPS). Its development had been launched by the U.S. Defense Department in the late 1960s and it was declared operational in a 24-satellite constellation in 1995. Bill Clinton’s new policy ended its military-only use - but the USA can close it down at any time on military reasons. The fundamental importance of satellite systems was pointed out by an ICAO statement for 2009: “Through the NextGen Air Transportation System Implementation Plan, air traffic control will be transformed from a ground-based system of radars to a satellite-based system. Development of the global navigation satellite system GLONASS in Russia had started in 1976 under Soviet rule, but it stagnated. In 2007 Sueddeutsche Zeitung (April05) reported: “The Russian military is dependent on the US navigation system GPS – a disgrace, no longer bearable.” Europe decided in 1999 to develop the competing civil Galileo system. In 2014 the media (e.g. Die Welt, Aug23) could report that the first two Galileo satellites were launched by a Russian ‘Soyuz’ rocket from Guyana to the space. Air&Space informed: “China instead has developed its own regional satellite navigation system, called Beidou. India and Japan are also building regional systems.” Information technology is not confined to navigation. It became a key to streamlining operations and business. This progress would be unthinkable without the development started in 1968 by the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) for the Pentagon and continued in 1973 by DARPA. It evolved into the Internet, accessible to everybody in civilized countries. After the globe had been wired, next revolution has become Wi-Fi, the wireless transformation. A wireless communications architecture was developed in order to provide aircraft crews and passengers with access to all the networks during flight. In 2014 The Wall Street Journal (April02) reported: “The disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 is prompting leaders of the airline industry to warm up a safety measure they long have resisted as too expensive: real-time satellite tracking of practically all airliners”, quoting IATA chief executive Tony Tyler: “In a world where our every move seems to be tracked, we cannot let another aircraft simply disappear (…). Flight 370 was capable of transmitting such messages, but investigators believe the system was disabled or deactivated.”  Sunset over Munch Coordinated Universal Time Real-time has been defined by UTC, described (via Google): “Universal Time (UT) was created at the International Meridian Conference in 1884. This is the basis for the 24-hour time zone we know today. (…) Coordinated Universal Time is based on cesium-beam atomic clocks, with leap seconds added to match earth-motion time, whereas Greenwich Mean Time is based upon the Earth’s rotation and celestial measurements.” Einstein’s theory of relativity has revolutionized physics and famous astrophysicist Stephen Hawking stated (in ‘The Grand Design’, 2010): “In fact, if general relativity were not taken into account into GPS satellite navigation systems, errors in global positions would accumulate at a rate of about ten kilometers a day!” ‘NextGen’ In 1992, after the USA and Russia had announced to make GPS and GLONASS free of charge for the next ten years, Flight Intl (March25) informed: “The eventual solution will be the introduction of satellite-based automatic dependent surveillance (ADS), which is the cornerstone of ICAO’s global future air navigation system … The FAA started also developing the dynamic ocean tracking system (DOTS) to create `flex tracks`…”. The Times (Nov05) commented: “One of the most hotly contested new ideas is that of a `free skies` policy where pilots can use technology to take an optimal flight route rather than having to stick to a flight corridor as at present.” The United Airlines systems manager Bill Cotton is considered the “father of free flight”. The Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) system on this way was implemented in several regions and also Europe became engaged in joining together its research programs. In the United States, NASA’s Small Aircraft Transportation System (SATS) technology showed the way towards ‘NextGen’, the Next Generation Air Transport System (NGATS), directed by the Joint Planning and Development Office (JPDO). Flight Intl has written in 2005 (Aug02): “Today, air traffic is worked in real time with each flight individually controlled, says the JDPO. Controllers are handling an average 1.2 flights, but the busiest are serving 10-14 (…). Precision navigation, on-board sensors and the ability of the cockpit and controller to share the same picture of the situation will allow the ‘Maintain separation’ function to be delegated to the aircraft within the next-generation system”. The report of Aerospace America (May2010) described the activities of RTCA, the task force on NextGen: “The big focus is on RNAV.” Eurocontrol was founded in 1960, targeting to create a single multinational block of upper airspace. However, the plan failed and it was not before 2006 that a new effort was started by the SESAR (Single European Sky ATM Research) consortium to deliver “a detailed roadmap for the entire Single European Sky (SES) programme …” (Flight Intl, April11, 2006). Future applications would see a transfer of the separation task from controller to pilot, using an ADS-B-enabled cockpit display of traffic information (CDTI). However, in 2010 Aerospace America quoted Patrick Ky, the executive director of SESAR, stating: “The real difficulty is finding the right compromise (…). In Europe we have 27 member states, and that means 27 regulators, 27 air navigation service providers (ANSPs) and 27 air forces.” Nevertheless in 2011 Lufthansa CEO Christoph Franz told his passengers (in ‘Welcome Aboard’): “So along with ‘blue skies’ always I hope you will soon enjoy a Single European Sky.” And what will be after half a century? The chief scientist at NASA Langley, Dennis M. Bushnell, stated (in Aerospace America, Sep 2012): “There are emerging technologies potentially capable of providing triply redundant fail-safe communications, navigation, sensors, and computing. They include ‘atom optics’ (inertial navigation systems improved by many orders of magnitude), and passive location/navigation using TV tower signals with signal amplitude that improves enormously on GPS.” A report by Philipp Butterworth-Hayes in Aerospace America (July2013) described “The trials aimed to transfer quantum data between an aircraft in the air and a ground station. It was the first stepping stone in a data revolution that could allow aircraft and satellites one day to operate global information networks wherein vast amounts of data are transferred almost instantaneously and entirely securely. And beyond the transfer of data lies the promise of quantum computers (…).” In 2017 Financial Times (July11) reported: “China made another research breakthrough last month when its quantum satellite – the first in the world – sent a message to Earth on a quantum communication channel.” Information technology is developing further and all the steps cannot be described here, as future always is ‘open’…
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