Accident Probes

At this writing, its impossible to know what ongoing investigations will determine, and whether either the flight crew or the controller will face consequences. This and other incidents, however, highlight a longstanding problem: air traffic control is designed by and comprised of humans, and its therefore imperfect. Controllers make mistakes just like the rest of us, pilots included. The challenge is to recognize those mistakes when they happen and take action appropriate to resolve the issue. A recent encounter I had at a towered airport reinforces the old, bad joke that the controller likely will feel really bad after an accident. The pilot likely wont feel a thing.

On December 16, 2016, shortly after takeoff at 0119 local time, an EVA Air Boeing 777-300ER apparently came well within 1000 vertical feet of mountainous terrain after departing the Los Angeles (Calif.) International Airport (KLAX). While a formal investigation reportedly is underway at the FAA and the carrier, unofficial transcripts and aircraft tracking data make it clear this event was a very near thing. The publicly available information depicts confusion and uncertainty in the 777s cockpit. It also suggests non-standard phraseology on ATCs part may have contributed to the event. The sidebar on the opposite page explores it a bit more, based on unoffocial sources.

By now, U.S.-based flight instructors and training organizations should be fully up to speed on last years formal implementation of the airman certification standards (ACS), which is designed to eventually replace all practical test standards (PTS). For now, only the private pilot and airplane instrument rating checkrides employ the ACS, but more are coming. The new standards went into effect June 15, 2016-if youre in the primary training environment and dont know about the ACS, you havent been paying attention.

Winter is upon us. This doesnt mean we have to strike a baleful note of doom, though it should remind many of us that winter generally brings more cloudy skies to North America. In 2015, an Alaska-based climate blogger, Brian Brettschneider, examined cloud coverage data from selected weather stations in the National Climate Data Center’s (NCDC) Global Historical Climatology Network (GHCN). He created a series of maps showing the cloudiest parts of the U.S., the distribution of cloud cover by month and the cloudiest months for each first order reporting station.

The FAA December 16 released its long-awaited final rule making significant revisions to small aircraft certification standards. The new FAR Part 23 rule addresses how airplanes weighing up to 19,000 pounds can be certified and implements performance-based airworthiness requirements instead of the prescriptive design requirements it replaces. It apparently offers little regulatory relief to owners or operators of existing or aging aircraft. Given the scope of the rule changes, the FAA is delaying its implementation eight months, to August 30, 2017.

According to the pilot, about 10 minutes into an otherwise-normal the flight, the engine began to run rough. The pilot adjusted the power controls, but the engine started to backfire and continued to lose power. He made a spiraling descent from about 1000 feet agl and maneuvered the airplane to land on a paved area of a driving track. During the landing roll, the airplane struck a fence. The pilot stated the engine continued to operate throughout the landing and landing roll until the airplane struck the fence.

Kudos to Robert Wright on achieving 50 years of accident/incident free flying and receiving the FAAs Master Pilot Award (On Getting To 50, September 2016). I too have reached that milestone, but not without accident nor incident in my 6100-plus hours of private pilot flying, most of which has been recreational. My incidents occurred despite what I believed to have been reasonable risk management.

Lately, the general aviation community has focused, quite correctly, on the very preventable loss-of-control in-flight type of accident (LOC-I). Too many people somehow manage to bend an airplane-or worse-each year basically because they forget to fly it. Its a broad category, and includes a mix of accident causes, from low-level maneuvering, to VFR-into-IMC and to multi-engine training operations. As complex and dynamic as the LOC-I category is, it most assuredly doesnt include the full range of things pilots do to make the accident reports. For example, a look at the other category of pilot-related accidents, as broken down by the AOPA Air Safety Institute (AOPA ASI) in its 25th Nall Report, highlights some other areas where pilots regularly make contributions to the aviation-accident records. Here are five of them, not related to LOC-I.

One of the downsides of automation is that the pilot often is removed from the control feedback loop. In other words, he or she isnt sensing what the airplanes control feedback is saying. When manually making a certain control input, the pilot receives instant feedback-through the control system and the instruments-on whether the airplane is responding as expected. All that is lost when Otto is flying, even though the instruments may tell us everything is nominal.

At about 0925 Central time, the airplane was destroyed after impacting trees and terrain during final approach. The pilot and the child passenger were seriously injured. Visual conditions prevailed. Initial reports showed the airplane experienced a complete loss of engine power when about one-half mile from the runway. During the accident sequence, both wings were separated at the wing root and the fuselage came to rest upright about 20 feet beyond initial impact with trees. The airplane was immediately involved in a fire. The pilot removed the child passenger, exited the airplane and walked to a nearby rural residence.