The Final Reserve Fuel is based on data which is about 50 years old. With increased traffic and complexity of aircrafts as compared to earlier generation aircrafts, the pilots will not be able to handle a technical malfunction without nearing fuel exhaustion.
United Kingdom’s second largest airport, Gatwick has been closed for the second day due to the presence of a rogue drone flying in the vicinity of the airport. Do the Indian airports have a contingency plan? Busy airports like Mumbai and Delhi with a vast geographical area and airspace do not have the capability to detect and capture rogue drones. The impact of an airport closure on thousands of traveling public and economy is unimaginable.
There have been over 105 incidents of fire and/or smoke on board commercial airlines in the year 2018. Crew members are protected since they have smoke hoods but passengers do not have any equipment o save them selves from the toxic fumes.
https://www.bluetoad.com/publication/?i=548479#{%22issue_id%22:548479,%22page%22:14}
Among the key findings of the work, 51 per cent of pilots surveyed reported that fatigue was not taken seriously by their airline, and 28 per cent of pilots felt that they had insufficient numbers of staff to carry out their work safely.
A total of 7,239 pilots from across European nations participated in the European pilots’ perceptions of safety culture in European Aviation survey, approximately 14 per cent of Europe’s total commercial pilot population, in the largest ever survey of commercial pilots on safety culture.
Safety culture is the way things are done in an organisation. There has to be a good working relationship between the management and the employees in order to establish a good safety culture which can be in the generative stage at the highest level, thus being a win win situation for both.
Back to basics is about revisiting the foundation. The need for conceptual knowledge and risk perception. We are able to have better understanding of the situation based on our knowledge and perception. The new age method of gamification help in learning by motivating the learner intrinsically. The learner initiative brings about a deeper understanding and higher order thinking skill.
Landing on an unstable approach or failure to go around when runway is not in sight is a weakness that humans have. Humans deal with tasks sequentially. The failure to switch tasks even though the second task is more important is known as Cognitive Lockup. Read my view on this aspect which is a factor in unstable approach and runway excursions.
Humans are social animals and we like to conform to what others do or say. The Captain had made an error but not the Co-Pilot, yet she changed her behaviour to conform to the Cpatains.
2018 has been a dismal year in terms of flight safety. Subjectivity in training and checking is the root cause of failure of the system. The data entering the system is incorrect.