Senior Seminar class winter 2014
Saturday, January 25, 2014
NTSB Most Wanted list
two of the items on the most wanted list for the year are: address unique characteristics of helicopter operations and identifying and communicating hazardous weather to GA aircraft.
The statistics show that in GA accidents, between 1 and 5 and 1 and 6 accidents are fatal. In IMC 2/3 accidents are fatal. The majority of these accidents have to do with hazardous weather. The NTSB is examining the dissemination practices of weather to GA pilots. The weather information needs to be made available and properly understood by the pilots flying.
This problem is not the most serious problem that the NTSB should be going after. The recent near-tragedy of the Southwest flight that stopped a mere 40ft short of a cliff, along with the multiple other instances of wrong airport landings, should be a glaring warning to those involved in the industry. There is clearly not enough being done to prevent aircraft from landing at the wrong airport. with the number of these wrong landing incidents being reported, we are already overdue for a fatal one. If that 737 had gone over the edge, you would have seen a number of fatalities from one accident that equaled a quarter of the GA deaths each year.
With the Most Wanted list citing GA weather protocol and helicopter operations has things to be aware of on the 2013 list, new jobs could be created. The first that come to mind are new positions in helicopter operations if new regulations come about and force new departments, procedures, etc. The first job I can think of for GA weather would be some new specific weather service that is designed specifically for GA pilots that is better than the current weather services.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I agree that we could use a specific weather crew for GA. It seems like out of sight, out of mind. We all learn on the smaller planes, you would think we would have more people looking out for us.
ReplyDeleteI think a new, easier to understand weather service would be extremely helpful for GA pilots. The current services aren't exactly easy to understand for pilots that don't use it regularly. Of course there's also the issue of some GA pilots feeling like they can fly in anything, so maybe a regulation for ATC to have the power to restrict flight based on experience could be helpful. There would be some logistics to work out there, but it could prevent a lotaccidents/incidents.
ReplyDeleteI have to disagree with you regarding the GA not being high priority. There are more instances of GA aircraft crashing due to hazardous weather conditions than the number of "reported" aircraft landing at the wrong airport. But I do agree with you that there will be more regulation jobs associated with helicopter operations.
ReplyDeleteWhile I don’t know that there is much of a difficulty of Wx being available to GA pilots, I do feel that sometimes GA pilots don’t properly understand Wx. It’s a boring a relatively complex topic that and I think education toward Wx should be increased in the GA world.
ReplyDeleteI agree, some GA pilots are just private pilots and don't fully understand weather and the hazards that come with it. They should increase the concentration of weather theory into the PTS and examiners should be instructed to ask certain go/no-go scenarios.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that the wrong airport landings are a big issue right now. Especially since it seems to have been happening "a lot" more recently. These wrong airport landings certainly have the potential to cause a lot of harm. Lately, these pilots whom have made this mistake have been very lucky. I believe that the NTSB will not make it a "big issue" until some great tragedy happens. That is very unfortunate, but in the past that is what it took to make the "decision makers" really see that they had issues to address. Hopefully the NTSB can see the huge potential harm wrong airport landings can have and that they are taking large measures to fix the problems specifically related to this.
ReplyDelete