White House Safety Commission announces new Safer Skies initiative

Citation

(1999), "White House Safety Commission announces new Safer Skies initiative", Disaster Prevention and Management, Vol. 8 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/dpm.1999.07308bab.001

White House Safety Commission announces new Safer Skies initiative

White House Safety Commission announces new "Safer Skies" initiative

Vice President Al Gore, joined by Transportation Secretary Rodney E. Slater and Federal Aviation Administrator Jane F. Garvey, announced last week that the FAA, based on a comprehensive review of the causes of aviation accidents, had adopted a focused priority safety agenda designed to bring about a five-fold reduction in fatal accidents.

The FAA will concentrate its resources on the most prevalent causes of aircraft accidents and use special teams of technical experts to zero in on the leading causes of aviation disasters and recommend safety advances.

In partnership with industry, Safer Skies will use the latest technology to help analyse US and global data to find the root causes of accidents and determine the best actions to break the chain of events that lead to accidents.

Under the leadership of Vice President Gore, the White House Commission on Aviation Safety and Security undertook an intensive investigation into improving aviation safety.

Effort

Both the White House Commission and the National Civil Aviation Review Commission last year recommended a concentrated effort to reduce accidents five-fold over the next decade. The NCARC also recommended that the FAA and industry work jointly on safety data analysis.

Last autumn, Garvey made a commitment to develop a five-year plan to focus FAA resources on the accident prevention steps that hold the most potential.

"The steps we are announcing today will make the safest skies in the world even safer," Vice President Gore said. "By targeting and preventing the leading causes of fatalities and injuries, by expanding engine inspections and by improving pilots' warning and detection systems, we will significantly reduce the number of aircraft crashes and save hundreds of lives," he said.

"Safety is our highest priority at the Department of Transportation. This initiative goes even beyond past efforts in that it takes a proactive approach toward safety, emphasising the need to fix problems before they cause accidents," Secretary Slater said. "The beneficiaries will be the 600 million US citizens who fly every year." "Aviation is growing rapidly and the Clinton Administration is committed to eliminating aviation tragedies as best we can" Garvey said.

"More and more Americans are travelling both here and abroad, and they deserve the highest level of safety possible. We're going to look at historical data to prevent accidents before they happen."

Garvey added that teams with expertise in commercial aviation, engines, light aircraft and helicopters were being dedicated to the safety program.

The FAA will focus on a limited number of safety areas:

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  The commercial aviation initiative will focus on controlled flight into terrain (CFIT), loss of control, uncontained engine failures, runway incursions, approach and landing, and weather.

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  The general aviation initiative will focus on pilot decision-making, loss of control, weather, CFIT, survivability and runway incursions.

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  The cabin safety initiative will focus on passenger seat belt use, carry-on baggage, child restraints and passenger interference issues.

Agendas

Garvey noted that the FAA, NASA and aviation groups had worked together to develop safety agendas that for the first time complemented each other, rather than having competing priorities. She noted that NASA was committing $500 million in research efforts to enhance aviation safety. "The flight crews, operators, manufacturers and the FAA are now headed in the same direction," she said, praising on-going industry initiatives begun in cooperation with the FAA.

The Safer Skies agenda will spotlight the leading causes of accidents or incidents in three areas ­ commercial airlines, general aviation, and cabin safety. The first efforts for commercial airlines ­ to reduce uncontained engine failures and instances in which aircraft are flown into the ground ­ are nearing formal completion.

Directive

A directive to order more focused checks of critical engine parts is expected by June. By this summer, the FAA expects to build on a joint initiative with major airlines by issuing a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking requiring all aircraft with turbine engines and six or more passenger seats to carry a terrain avoidance warning system, using a computer database which displays terrain ahead of an aircraft's path and warns of an impending accident.

Garvey added that in the cabin, the best rule is the rule of common sense ­ keeping your seat belt fastened to protect against turbulence, don't put anything in an overhead bin you don't want hitting you on the head, making sure infants travel in safety seats, and listening to the flight crew. Major data sources will be the FAA and NTSB databases as well as corporate and international databases. The FAA will also embark on major general aviation data improvements including quality, collection and analysis. Safer Skies will also use partnerships between the FAA and the aviation industry. Partnership programs will include ongoing analytical programs with industry to determine the root causes of accidents. Once root causes are understood, the intervention strategies will be evaluated to determine which are the ones that can make the biggest impact on safety.

Causal

As the interventions are initiated, progress and effectiveness will be tracked. Therefore, the initiative will use data in new ways which allow flight crew members, operators, manufacturers and the FAA to focus on breaking causal chains and taking action before an identified chain of events leads to an accident. Garvey said that the rapid development in software tools and data processing, plus the effort to build partnerships between the FAA and industry, gave the FAA analytical tools and institutional relationships that did not exist just a few years ago. She added that the FAA and industry had a new way to prevent accidents, including accidents with new scenarios that cannot be reasonably anticipated with previous analytical tools.(Lloyd's Casualty Week, Vol. 312 No. 4, 24 April 1998)