Today I’m writing to you about some news reports from the world of aviation that have left me shaking my head. I’ve seen a lot over my decades in aviation—starting as a teenager pulling bodies out of Boston Harbor after the crash of Eastern Airlines Flight 375, a Lockheed Electra that hit a flock of starlings, and through my years with the airlines as a union member and later as an NTSB member on scene for far too many fatal crashes—but I still manage to be dismayed at times by what I read and see that goes on. Some of the things I see are as a safety consultant, but what I will focus on here is what I see in media or other public reports.
The first comes from news reports involving a Spirit Airlines Airbus A320 that flew from Akron, Ohio to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on January 28. According to an FAA statement to the news media, the crew made an emergency landing after reporting fumes in the cockpit. The Aviation Herald reported additional detail from its sources:
"[The flight] was en route at FL380 about one hour before estimated landing, when a passenger began to complain about an abnormal smell on board. Cabin crew attending to the passenger confirmed the unusual smell, which became stronger and stronger until the cabin air became nearly 'not breathable.' The flight crew was informed, informed ATC about the fumes on board, and began to descend the aircraft early. About 20 minutes before landing the captain confirmed the odor in the cockpit, too, [and] the flight crew donned their oxygen masks. Flight attendants felt increasingly nauseated, a number indicated they nearly passed out over the odor. Below 10,000 feet the captain depressurized the aircraft, [and] the cabin air improved. The aircraft landed on Fort Lauderdale's Runway 10L about one hour after the first passenger complaint. Emergency services needed to treat flight and cabin crew still on board of the aircraft, all cabin crew and flight crew were taken to hospitals."
Whatever the cause of the fume event, what caught my eye in the article was a statement that after the aircraft landed, maintenance personnel boarded the aircraft, did not detect any odor and were about to return the aircraft to service when the captain interceded. The aircraft was then kept out of passenger service for approximately 28 hours. The FAA investigation is continuing and now includes an emergency landing by the same aircraft a week later involving an engine shutdown in flight for excessive vibration.
While the incidents themselves may not be related, I hope the FAA looks closely at whether the reported exchange between maintenance and the captain is accurate. If it is, it raises questions about the maintenance safety culture at the airline. Unfortunately, my experience with FAA investigations is that inspectors all too often rely on paper records and do not probe an airline’s safety culture. Maybe this time will be different.
Another report in the news that caught my attention was the NTSB’s accident report on the Oct. 28, 2016 uncontained engine failure and subsequent fire on an American Airlines Boeing 767. The cause of the uncontained engine failure, according to the report, was "a high-pressure turbine (HPT) stage 2 disk rupture. The HPT stage 2 disk initially separated into two fragments. One fragment penetrated the inboard section of the right wing, severed the main engine fuel feed line, breached the fuel tank, traveled up and over the fuselage, and landed about 2,935 ft away. The other fragment exited outboard of the right engine, impacting the runway and fracturing into three pieces.”
My concern is the emergency evacuation that followed the uncontained engine failure. The NTSB has called out several concerns about American’s procedures and crew actions during the evacuation, but my specific concern here is with the continuing problem of passengers stopping to take their carry-on bags with them during an emergency. Passenger cellphone and other on-scene photos for innumerable survivable accidents over the last few years have recorded this phenomenon. In this accident, media pictures clearly showed passengers with all manner of carry-ons, including a number of what appeared to be roll aboards. The problem of passengers retrieving their bags during an emergency evacuation continues, and I have not seen much action by the FAA or the airlines to deal with it.
So, I was heartened to see the Board's report specifically call out the problem of passengers taking their carry-on bags during an emergency evacuation. In its enumerated Findings, the Board stated: "Evidence of passengers retrieving carry-on baggage during this and other recent emergency evacuations demonstrates that previous FAA actions to mitigate this potential safety hazard have not been effective."
Among the Board's new safety recommendations to the FAA:conduct research to (1) measure and evaluate the effects of carry-on baggage on passenger deplaning times and safety during an emergency evacuation and (2) identify effective countermeasures to reduce any determined risks, and implement the countermeasures.
On this particular flight, the flight attendants decided trying to stop passengers from retrieving their bags would further impede the evacuation. It’s clear from this and other accidents that control of carry-on bags cannot be left to shouted crewmember instructions, arguing with passengers at the emergency slides, and certainly not getting into a tug-of-war with them while a fire spreads and other passengers are prevented from exiting the plane.
It is patently clear now that something more needs to be done. Passengers—at least some passengers—will hinder the evacuation process by retrieving bags from under the seat in front of them or even the overhead bins. Hopefully, the FAA and the airlines will address this problem before lives are lost because someone needed to grab their laptop or other carry-on item before getting out.
The last troubling report comes from the world of drones and the recent video that purports to be a drone flying close to an airliner landing at McCarran Airport in Las Vegas. As I write, it has not been definitively established whether the video is real or a computer simulation, but either way it’s a really dumb stunt. It’s these kinds of reckless videos that can lead others to try similar stunts, and one day the results could be much more significant. If the drone video is a simulation, it should clearly state that. If the drone operator had specific permission to fly the stunt, it should clearly state that. And if the video is real and the drone operator was flying as close as it appears to a landing passenger flight, the FAA should prosecute to the fullest extent of the law.