FREE ESSAY ON AIRLINE SAFETY

AIRLINE SAFETY

Airline Safety
Many people travel by airplane all around the world. For some people it is the only way
they can get to where they are going. On a daily basis, averages of 28 to 30,000 seats
are filled on airplanes (Bear, Stearns Co. URL www.hotelonline.com). At each airport,
there are hundreds of arrivals and departures worldwide. Even though airline officials
say flying is safe, accidents kill many people because airlines neglect to prevent human
error or repair faulty equipment. 
Sometimes I think the only reason an airplane could crash is if something on the plane
were to break. However, most of the time that is not the case. A survey conducted by
Boeing found that flight crews were responsible for at least seventy-three percent of all
fatal airplane accidents. (Gray 17). Forty-one percent of these accidents occurred during
landing because of unstable approaches. Also an investigation by the National Aeronautics
and Space Administration on the causes of airline accidents revealed that more than
eighty percent of all airline accidents involved some degree of human error (Helmreich
62). This is very alarming when people are putting their lives in the hands of flight
crews. Forty-four passengers died aboard a new British Midland 737 after its crew shut
down the wrong engine after the other one malfunctioned (Greenwald 40). Do you really
think that flying on an airplane, over which you have absolutely no control is very safe?

Reasons for flight crew error can be explained by the conditions under which they are
flying. Flight crew fatigue is a largely increasing problem on many of the jumbo jet
flights today. Although there are laws that prohibit cockpit crews from sleeping in
flight, there have been many weary pilots that have been known to nod off on occasion
during some of their seventeen hour, non-stop flights (Urquhart 15). Perhaps laws should
regulate the number of hours a flight crew is in the air instead of prohibiting sleep in
flight. Another condition, alcohol abuse, has been found to inhibit the abilities of some
flight crews. A northwest crew flying from North Dakota to Minnesota was found to be
intoxicated on the job (Air Safety 61). Some people refuse to drive at night because of
the number of drunk drivers on the road. Would passengers want a drunken pilot to be
responsible for their lives while 20,000 feet up in the air? 
Another reason for flight crew error is pressure to meet flight time schedules. Some of
these flights take place during hazardous weather conditions. When I was younger, I saw
an airplane crash at the St. Louis Airport after the pilot was ordered to take off even
though the plane had ice on its wings. The airplane skidded off the runway because the
pilot could not control the steering mechanisms on the icy runway. Other incidents have
occurred solely because of bad weather and an urgency to stay on schedule. When flight
803 came in to land at Tripoli, the pilot decided to land the plane even though a dense
fog covered the runway. One hour earlier a Soviet jet scheduled to land at the same
airport detoured to another to avoid the fog. There were no mechanical malfunctions of
the plane; however, it missed the runway by more than a mile, cartwheeled, and slammed
into two farmhouses (New Qualms 20). Another accident, which killed most of the
passengers on board, occurred when an Air Florida Boeing 737 crashed into the Potomac
River near Washington, D.C. in 1982. The speed gage for take off was covered with ice
which caused the takeoff acceleration to be miscalculated (Helmreich 62). 
The most avoidable reason for an airplane to crash is faulty equipment that could have
been repaired or replaced. A cargo door and part of the outer layer covering tore away
from a nineteen year old Boeing 747 shortly after leaving Hawaii, sucking nine people out
of the plane and sending them to their deaths over 20,000 feet to the sea (Greenwald 40).
Investigators determined that the cause of this disaster was a single faulty door lock.
This insignificant door lock could have been replaced many times so that such a disaster
and loss of life could have been avoided. Who is taking responsibility for these
problems? Where are the maintenance crews and safety inspectors whose responsibility it
is to prevent these accidents by repairing and maintaining the airplanes? In 1979 shortly
after take off from a Chicago, Illinois airport, American Airlines DC-10 lost its
left-wing engine (see picture next page: URL
http://www.tstonramp.com/-kebab/w79052.5htm). The engine smashed against the plane,
tearing out the hydraulic lines that connect to the rudder that steers the plane.
Ultimately the plane crashed killing all 273 passengers and flight crew aboard. All
DC-10's were then ordered to be inspected, but five weeks later the planes were sent
aloft without the inspections ever taking place (New Qualms 20). 
There have been many incidences in the past of certain models of airplanes that seem to
keep having mechanical malfunctions. Despite events that have caused suspension of faulty
equipment in two recent crashes of the Boeing 747, nobody has penned the mainstay of
International Air Transportation- the 747- as unsafe (Nelan 52). One eight-year-old 737
had one engine completely fall off the plane after leaving Chicago O'Hare Airport
(Greenwald 40). The plane did return safely. 
The average age of an airplane fleet is thirteen to fifteen years with close to 20,000
flights. Because of the need to replace these worn out planes, many airline companies are
buying new planes as fast as they are being manufactured. This means that the large
manufacturers that build airplanes are trying to produce more planes faster so that
airlines can buy planes from them. In a race to meet the demands of the airline
companies, manufacturers are not checking or testing their planes for faulty equipment
before sales take place. Boeing, one of the largest jet-building companies in America,
has been fined for more than $245,000 in quality control errors. They were found to be
putting faulty parts in exit doors and using self-locking nuts that were defective
(Greenwald 40). 
Safe or not? Although there are a lot of examples of flight disasters caused by human
error and faulty equipment each year, there has been an eighty percent decline in the
number of fatal airplane accidents since the 1960s (Shrontz 40). Getting to some places
throughout the world depend solely on air travel; therefore, people must trust their
lives to flight crews, safety inspectors, and maintenance crews and believe that all
problems are being addressed and corrected.
Bibliography
Bibliography 
1. Bear, Stearns, Co. Internet Connection. URL www.hotelonline.com
2. Air Safety. Time Magazine. Compact Publishing, Inc. Business Notes. 26 March 1990:
61.
3. Gray, Paul. Our Regularly Scheduled Crash Time Magazine. Compact
Publishing, Inc. Grapevine. 20 August 1990: 17.
4. Greenwald, John. Tarnished Wings. Time Magazine. Compact 
Publishing, Inc. Business Notes. 13 March 1989: 40.
5. Helmreich, R.L. Managing Human Error in Aviation. Scientific
American. May 1997:62.
6. Nelan, Bruce W. Are 747s Safe To Fly. Time Magazine. Compact 
Publishing, Inc. Europe. 19 October 1992: 52.
7. New Qualms about the DC-10. Time Magazine. Compact 
Publishing, Inc. Nation. 7 August 1989:20.
8. Urquhart, Sidney. This is Your Captain Snoring Time Magazine. 
Compact Publishing, Inc. Grapevine. 7 October 1991: 15.