Opening up to safer skies

It is fairly common knowledge that no aircraft accident can be attributed to a single cause. However, historically, whenever the safety system comes under pressure from commercial considerations, margins are eroded, and the probability of an accident, rises significantly.

Prof. James Reason from UK, an acknowledged figure in research in safety systems management, used the analogy of a ‘Swiss cheese’ model to describe the barriers and safeguards in a system approach to safety. Applied to aviation, his model likens the slices of cheese to safety barriers such as high technology safety systems, maintenance procedures, crew training etc.

A failure in one barrier, such as a maintenance lapse, or inexperienced crew, is like a hole in one slice of cheese. In the perfect world, each of these slices, or safety barriers, would not have any holes in them. In reality, errors are committed, and often a combination of errors line up, i.e. the holes in the cheese line up, and a hazard passes through. The outcome is an accident.

When this model is applied to the operational and technical aspects of the current Indian aviation environment of exponential growth, some interesting facts emerge.

• The total number of aircraft operated by scheduled airlines in 2000-01 was 118. In 2004-05 this figure had risen by 56 per cent to 184.

The total number of aircraft movements through Indian airports in 2000-01 was 489,700. By 2004-05, this figure was 730,000, an increase of 50 per cent.

Such increases in aircraft numbers will raise the potential for an accident if appropriate measures are not introduced. One mitigation strategy is modernisation of the air traffic control system through an air traffic management system; unfortunately, the improvements here haven’t kept pace with the increase in air traffic. For example, radar controllers still do not have the capability to sequence arriving air traffic efficiently with minimal horizontal separation, and there are insufficient high speed exit taxiways at airports to enable arriving aircraft to vacate the landing runway expeditiously. This causes increased runway occupancy time, and builds up air traffic backlog both in air and on ground; finally resulting in stressed controllers, more aircraft, and impatient pilots holes in the slices of the cheese model.

• Airlines are starved for both captains and co-pilots. Indian Civil Aviation limits the employment term for foreign pilots. Consequently, Indian carriers are unable to attract experienced captains; hence, airlines are hiring whosoever is available, resulting in foreign pilots with dubious English speaking skills and questionable expertise.

This urgency has created yet another problem. In most airlines worldwide, a co-pilot needs at least 5000 hours before commencing upgrade training to captain, which takes about 6 to 7 years. In India, many airlines have reduced this requirement to 2500 hours or less. The implication is that a young co-pilot who joins the airline at age 18-19, will be in command of a jet airliner by the age of 22-23 — not much time to gain maturity through experience!

Possibly more holes developing in our slices of cheese, and beginning to line up?

• There is a cliché in aviation, “The best safety device in any aircraft is a good co-pilot”. Currently, in India experienced co-pilots are in short supply. Lured by the promise of astronomical salaries, the number of aspirants for commercial pilot’s licences (CPL) in India has tripled during the past year. Young 17 year-olds rush overseas, procure a CPL in six months, return to India, convert their licence and are snapped up by airlines. In another 3 to 6 months, they are operational as co-pilots on modern jet aircraft.

It does not take long for permutations of crew scheduling to place either a foreigner with low experience and poor communication skills, or perhaps a young inexperienced captain in the left seat, and a low-experience first officer in the right.

Yet another hole in our slice of cheese begins to line up…

• High technology airborne equipment is only as good as the supporting ground based landing aids at airports. Of the 68 airports in India, only about 31 are equipped with an Instrument landing system (ILS), most of them with an ILS available in one runway direction; and only eight airports offer radar service.

A requirement for night operations is a good approach lighting system. The basic lighting system is a simple approach lighting system. However, for jet operations it is desirable to have at least a Category I approach landing system. Of the 36 airports that are equipped for night operations, only seven have Category I approach lighting, again in only one runway direction. Category II & III lighting, meant for precision approaches in poor weather, is available only at 2 airports.

One more hole in the cheese lines up.

• Aircraft maintenance is well controlled by regulation, and invariably, with newer aircraft, maintenance issues are minimal. However, with increasing competition, and higher aircraft utilisation, it becomes critical for airlines to ensure on-time performance. While not publicly acknowledged, maintenance engineers are all too familiar with the management pressures to ‘sign off’ on defect rectification as quickly as possible.

As Indian skies fill up with aircraft, and competition drives airlines to operate with slimmer profit margins, the holes in the slices of cheese inexorably line up. The Indian Civil Aviation department is often reduced to the role of a nearly helpless bystander, with inadequate financial and human resources, and often buckling under political pressures.

The laws of probability apply to aviation as surely as they do to the roll of dice; regrettably the outcome, as we all know, is disastrously different. Can this be redressed? Yes, it possibly can, if the government takes immediate steps to ensure a quality-controlled growth, rather than unbridled expansion.

An open skies policy is needed and desirable for the Indian economy; but unsafe skies may well ring the death knell for many unfortunate mortals, and not just for the open skies.

The writer is general manager and chief executive, Massey University School of Aviation, New Zealand. He has over 12,500 hours of airline flying experience