I believe that the issues identified by the NTSB are in fact significant problems. If the issues were small and did not put people in jeopardy of losing their life then the NTSB would have never issued a "Most wanted list" for safety improvements for 2015. The number one goal in aviation is safety. General Aviation seems to be more of a problem when it comes to fatal accidents than commercial aviation. As stated in the NTSB article "over 40 percent of fixed wing GA fatal accidents occurred because pilots lost control of their airplanes" (Prevent Loss of Control in Flight, 2015). With that being said there needs to be a solution to drastically decrease this number. Currently GA pilots have to complete a flight review, consisting of 1 hour of ground training and 1 hour of flight training, every 24 months. In my opinion that does not seem like enough training. Since GA pilots are typically not flying everyday they might fly on weekends once in a while when the weather is right. It may be encouraging for the NTSB to monitor GA pilots a little more closely to determine which pilots are not flying regularly and those who don't should spend more than two hours every 24 months as a refresher course to safely maintain their skills as a pilot. The NTSB however suggests that airplane owners "should consider installing an Angle of Attack (AOA) indicator, which, coupled with pilot understanding and training on how to best use it, can enhance situational awareness during critical or high-workload phases of flight" (Prevent Loss of Control in Flight, 2015). That is a step in the right direction and this could decrease the number of fatal accidents in GA that resulted in pilots losing control of their aircraft.
The greatest factor negatively impacting safety for the general aviation community would be the lack of training. Pilots going through the training/education of obtaining their pilots license are not taught several of the problems that may occur while flying such as stall/spin. With more training this could lead to better situational awareness in the cockpit. The NTSB recommended procedural improvements, including "requiring pilots to conduct landing distance assessments, revising the procedures for handling thrust reverser lockout after landing, and in non-precision approaches, discontinuing so-called dive-and-drive approaches in favor of continuous descent final approaches" (Strengthen Procedural Compliance, 2015). With those three issues addressed this would contribute to safe operations as well. The NTSB has made some great recommendations to both preventing loss of control in flight in general aviation and strengthening procedural compliance. The industry can implement these recommendations by training and providing better education to pilots which would lead to a decrease of fatal accidents.
Resources
Prevent Loss of Control of Flight in General Aviation. (2015, January 1). Retrieved February 7, 2015 from
http://www.ntsb.gov/safety/mwl/Pages/mwl7_2015.aspx
Strengthen Procedural Compliance. (2015, January 1). Retrieved February 7, 2015 from
http://www.ntsb.gov/safety/mwl/Pages/mwl10_2015.aspx
St
I agree that there needs to be a greater emphasis on recurrent training. Pilots are taught a massive amount of information to start flying but once they receive their certificates it drops to once every two years. I think that the FAA should also bring back spin training. They decided against doing it because so many people were crashing in training accidents. Not doing it in training just makes more accidents happen in the real world.
ReplyDelete