Florida Personal Injury Blog - Mass Transit (Airline, Cruise Ship, Train, Bus)

Officials Release Cause of Tragic Bus Accident

Sandy Grinnell — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 06:05:00 GMT

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has released its findings on the cause of the bus accident that took the lives of 17 and injured 38 more back in August of 2008. The bus left the highway at about 68 miles per hour, broke through a metal bridge railing and ended up 8 feet below the bridge.

After an extensive review of the crash, it was determined that the bus had been driving for a significantly long distance with an under-inflated tire. The low tire pressure resulted in such a complete tire failure that there was no way the driver could have possibly maintained control of the bus.

The report revealed that number of deaths and the significant injuries were also the result of the fact the brdige railing failed in keeping the bus from plunging over the side. To make matters even worse, the luggage racks inside the bus failed and prevented passengers from exiting and impeded the rescue of the injured.

The most significant recommendations coming from the NTSB were to:

the Federal Highway Administration by increasing the requirements for bridge railings and repair of older bridges, and

the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) which was asked to impose a requirement that all new motorcoaches over 10,000 pounds have tire pressure monitoring systems, and develop performance standards for the luggage racks. In addition, the NTSB asked NHTSA once again to develop requirements for passenger safety restraints, including restraints for children, on all new buses.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Sandy Grinnell

Headphones, Pedestrians and Railroad Tracks Don't Mix

Eddie Farah — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 17:35:44 GMT

This is a very sad story to report out of Auburndale, Florida.

An 18-year-old high school student was walking along Amtrak train tracks wearing headphones and apparently didn’t hear an approaching train traveling from Miami to New York.

The conductor says he tried to alert Robert Lopez with no response. When the train got within 20 feet of Lopez, he tried to jump off the track, but it was too late. Lopez was pronounced dead at the scene.

Our condolences go out to his family for this very tragic and avoidable accident.

This is not an isolated incident.

Just last week, a 24-year-old man was struck and killed by a train in Litchfield, Minnesota. His headphones and music player were found at the scene.

In February, a 17-year-old teen was hit and killed by an Amtrak train near his Comstock Township home in Michigan. He was crossing the tracks diagonally with his back to the eastbound train and was also wearing headphones.

No matter where you are or what your are doing, it is illegal to trespass on a railroad right-of-way outside of the designated crossing areas.

In 2008, there were 2,395 grade crossing incidents nationwide.

In Florida, there were 26 pedestrian rail trespass deaths in 2008, one of the highest in the nation.

The Florida chapter of the nonprofit rail safety group, Operation Lifesaver has launched our state's public awareness campaign to bring a “Common Sense” message to the public and reduce the number of pedestrians fatalities at rail tracks. Whether texting, talking on the phone or wearing headphones, the best advice is stay away from tracks- its just common sense.

In order to attract attention of the 18-34 age range, most likely to be killed on the tracks, the campaign includes an interactive Web site, videos and internet ads. See: www.CommonSenseUseIt.com

Other than a public crossing area- if you use the tracks to fish, take an ATV, or walk, you are trespassing.

If you need to cross the track – do so only at public crossing designated areas. Look for the crossbuck sign. Forget the cellphones and headphones when you are near the train tracks.

Modern trains are quieter than they used to be. Be sure to look both ways before crossing. You can expect a train at any time. There is no way you will be able to outrun it. #

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Eddie Farah

Northwest Flight 188: A Heated Discussion or Pilot Fatigue?

Jerry H. Trachtman — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 13:49:56 GMT

Everyone has heard about the Northwest Airlines flight that departed San Diego bound for Minneapolis-St. Paul (MSP), and flew 150 miles past its destination before turning back and landing. According to the NTSB, after landing the pilots told the FBI and airport police that they had been in a heated discussion over airline policy and lost situational awareness. The FAA tracking data on the flight shows that the aircraft began its decent for landing more than 48 minutes before it eventually touched down at MSP. The cockpit voice recorder (CVR) is being analyzed by the NTSB, but it will only reveal the last 30 minutes of cockpit conversation before the aircraft was powered down at the arrival gate. So unless the pilots actually discussed what had happened during the last 30 minutes of the flight, it is unlikely the CVR will provide any clues. The flight data recorder (FDR), which records aircraft systems data and pilot flight control inputs, is also being analyzed by the NTSB. Pursuant to normal operating procedure, the autopilot would have been flying the aircraft while the pilots monitored the aircraft systems and communicated with air traffic controllers (ATC). Since the autopilot flies the aircraft with precision, and since the systems on an A320 are highly automated, as long as all the aircraft systems are operating normally there is nothing for the pilots to do in cruise flight. It is therefore unlikely the FDR will provide any clues as to what may have happened.

The flight departed San Diego at 3:00 PM PDT, and the NTSB says that ATC "lost radio communications" with the flight at 5:56 PM MDT. What the NTSB means by "lost radio communications" is not clear. Does the NTSB mean that the last ATC communication with the flight took place at 5:56 PM MDT, 1 hour and 56 minutes into the flight, or does the NTSB mean that at 5:56 PM MDT ATC unsuccessfully tried to communicate with the flight? FAA flight tracking data shows that at 5:17 PM MDT the flight began a climb from its initial cruise altitude of 35,000 feet to its final cruise altitude of 37,000 feet. If the last successful ATC communication with the flight was the instruction to climb to 37,000 feet, and 39 minutes later at 5:56 PM MDT ATC unsuccessfully tried to reach the flight, is it possible that a heated discussion about airline policy would prevent both the Captain and First Officer from responding to ATC radio calls? According to the NTSB, controllers "reestablished communications" at 8:14 PM CDT. This means that, according to the Captain, he and the First Officer were in a heated discussion for something between 1 hour 18 minutes and 1 hour 57 minutes, and it was so heated that they lost track of where they were. FAA flight tracking data shows a groundspeed of about 600 knots when MSP was overflown, and according to the NTSB the flight went another 150 miles, which would have taken about 15 minutes. This means the discussion was so heated that neither pilot realized they had arrived at their destination until about 15 minutes after they passed it, and and it was so heated they could not hear the frantic ATC calls that most certainly occurred. Or is it more likely that with nothing to do but monitor systems, and with no ATC communication for 39 minutes, the pilots were fatigued and fell asleep? Without knowing details of their working hours, it is impossible to say at this time whether fatigue played a roll. But pilot fatigue has resulted in known past incidents where crews fell asleep, and crew fatigue should not be ruled out here.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Jerry H. Trachtman

Plane Headed For Ft. Pierce Crashes When Taking Off From Charleston. All Are Confirmed Dead.

Gabrielle D'Alemberte — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 08:44:23 GMT

Tragedy struck again Wednesday for a small airplane and its passengers. Federal authorities said four people were killed when a small plane headed to Fort Pierce, FL, crashed Wednesday shortly after departure in South Carolina. Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen said the Piper PA-23 was engulfed in flames when firefighters arrived. The aircraft crashed shortly after departure at 6:45 a.m.

Bergen said the plane was headed to St. Lucie County Airport in Fort Pierce. The pilot has been identified the pilot as Peter Radding of North Charleston, S.C. One of Radding’s neighbors, Jim Deaton, told The Post and Courier of Charleston, S.C., that Radding had planned to stop in Florida, pick up more passengers, then head to the Bahamas.

It’s the second four-person, fatal crash in the Southeast. On Sept.20, a Piper PA-32R Saratoga plunged into the Everglades killing pilot Bruce Barber, his wife, son and a family friend. It was the "fourth fatal accident at the (Dorchester, SC) airport in recent years" according to Jason Ward, a Dorchester Counter Administrator who commented on the investigation.

Radding had 40 years of flight experience, and, like Barber, was described as very meticulous with his airplane. The front seat passenger in Radding's plane, James Randolph Hargenrader, was also a licensed pilot. National Transportation and Safety Bureau officials were expected on the scene late Wednesday. There had been no public speculation by officials as to the cause of the crash by late Wednesday afternoon. Radding was reputed to be an excellent pilot, and "volunteered to fly mercy air ambulance trips and introduced young people to flying".

One is left to wonder in an accident like this, where there are experienced pilots and (for now) a seemingly maintained aircraft, how does something like this happen. The trouble with airplane crashes, is the fuel generally causes tremendous damage to the remaining parts, and essentially wipes out evidence of what went wrong. Meanwhile, the family members who are left, are devastated by the accident, and all the questions remaining. It seems a difficult decision to make, but allowing the FAA do do the only investigation on the aircraft may result in more questions than answers, which is why experts are retained to perform an "oversight" of the inspection, particularly in the hours and days immediately following the crash, which is when most of the information is gleamed.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Gabrielle D'Alemberte

Is 2009 is becoming a record year for Airplane/Airliner crashes?

Gabrielle D'Alemberte — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 15:21:25 GMT

As 2009 has unfolded, we have read about several high-profile airline crashes, many of which resulted in fatalities and serious injuries. While accidents are nothing new, the combination of the Internet, the 24-hour news cycle and an insatiable desire by the media, and consumers, for front-page news has brought them to the public consciousness.

And the public is not the only one listening.

Federal Aviation Administration chief Randy Babbitt recently called for the need to “step up professionalism” in citing crashes that occurred due to preventable negligence. “The biggest factor I think for all of aviation is the need to step up professionalism in the workplace,” Mr. Babbitt said in prepared remarks. “It’s definitely there in the vast majority of the aviation workforce, but it’s not uniform throughout the industry.” ¹

There are few professions where the consequences of lack of professionalism on human life are greater than with flying an airplane. Throw in bad weather, long commutes, inexperience, low wages, sleep deprivation and antiquated rules, and you have a recipe that is sure to produce some disasters.

That’s why Randy Babbitt has it right. Professionalism, in all aspects of a flight – from mechanics to air traffic control to pilots – is crucial to maintaining air travel’s excellent safety record and reputation.

This isn’t the first time that the air travel industry has needed to step up the accountability. In 1996, following two crashes that killed more than 300 people, a White House commission told the airline industry and its regulators to slice the domestic rate of fatal accidents 80 percent over 10 years. ²

In 2007, after cutting the domestic fatal accident rate by nearly 65%, former administrator of the FAA Marion C. Blakey proclaimed, “This is the golden age of safety, the safest period, in the safest mode, in the history of the world.”² To get to that point, adjustments were made, including to the alarm system that warned, too often falsely, of an imminent collision with a mountain; and changing the approach system at a major domestic airport.

It was put best by John Cox, an Air Line Pilots Association safety representative for 20 years, who told the New York Times in 2007: “It’s not one thing. It’s a series of small things.” Meaning the biggest changes weren’t rocket science, just small issues found in everyday operations, he said, which were corrected before an accident could occur. ²

In 2009 and beyond, the call for professionalism should be heeded by doing the little things right, and there are a few areas that can be looked at to bring the vast minority of aviation industry personnel up to snuff.

Checking the Weather

Could professionalism be as simple as checking the weather? Recent reports show that literally throwing caution into the wind is not the best policy.

Earlier this year, an ATR-72 turboprop plane carrying 68 passengers and four crew members slid off the runway at Koh Samui airport in Thailand. The aircraft slammed into an old air traffic control tower, killing Captain Chartchai Punsuwan while his co-pilot remains in a critical condition in hospital. Seven passengers were injured. According to early reports, the plane was attempting to land in a storm, and heavy rain and strong winds may have played a role in the accident. ³

It was just one of a string of weather-related airplane emergencies this year. Two people were hurt when a Detroit-bound Delta Air Lines plane was “hammered” with severe weather, a spokesman said, and was forced to land in Kentucky. And at least 28 passengers aboard Continental Flight 128 were injured as the plane flew from Rio de Janeiro to Houston. The flight made an emergency landing in Miami. ⁴

Between 1994 and 2003, there were 4,167 weather-related accidents, according to a report by the Federal Aviation Administration’s National Aviation Safety Data Analysis Center. Of those accidents, 1,717 show no record of a weather briefing. ⁵

If the weather is monitored than maybe fewer risks should be taken if a flight is potentially going to land during a thunderstorm.

Sleep Deprivation

In a National Transportation Safety Board safety study of US major carrier accidents involving flight crew from 1978 to 1990, one finding stated: “Half the captains for whom data were available had been awake for more than 12 hours prior to their accidents. Half the first officers had been awake for more than 11 hours.” ⁶

This may seem like a tired argument since the study’s last subjects were analyzed nearly 20 years ago. But consider that many of the current rules for pilots’ work schedules haven’t changed in nearly 50 years. ⁷

And commuter flight rules may need the most attention. Passengers probably have no awareness that the pilot and crew of their plane may be on their sixth flight of the day, and that before the first of those six flights, the pilots and crew weren’t tucked in a comfortable bed but packed into a dark “crash” house with several other commuter airline crew members trying to sneak in a couple hours of shut-eye. ⁸

There could be as many as 1,000 such houses in the United States in cities like Pittsburgh, Newark, Houston and Chicago. Joe Williams, a spokesman for Pinnacle Airlines, parent company of Manassas-based regional carrier Colgan Air, said that Pinnacle supports "the right of our pilots to live where they choose. . . . Some pilots choose crash pads, and some choose to move to the area where they are based." ⁸

Airplane crew members bemoan low pay as a reason for the need to use a crash house, and some industry people agree.

According to a Washington Post story, "The sad truth of this industry is that [air travel] has been and remains one of the great bargains for the consumer," said Bill Swelbar, a researcher at the International Center for Air Transportation at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "When adjusted for inflation over the last 30 years, fares are down some 50-plus percent. And that just does not make for a sustainable business model. It doesn't make a model that allows them to compensate their people well, like they have in the past." ⁸

Mr. Babbitt told the Wall Street Journal that "It's absolutely unsafe to think" that commuter cockpit crews can fly as many hours as long as pilots who may fly one long-range route during the same day. 9

The results of this sleep deprivation can be fatal. Studies show exhaustion can impair a pilot's judgment in much the same way alcohol does. Overtired pilots can focus on a conversation or a single chore and miss other things going on around them, including critical flight information. ⁷

Additionally, studies show that the average adult needs seven to eight hours of sleep to function at maximum capacity. Without this sleep, doctors say, accidents, depression, anxiety and cardiovascular problems can occur. ¹⁰

But there is hope on this point. An advisory committee on pilot fatigue delivered its recommendations to the Federal Aviation Administration in late summer, though the FAA asked for them not to be made public. Though to counter that point, it has been reported that since 2002, the National Transportation Safety Board has made 16 safety-related recommendations of the on-demand flight industry, but that the FAA has not implemented any of them. ¹¹

Time will tell if this go-round will produce results.

Follow the rules

On Aug. 8, a small airplane and a tourist-carrying helicopter collided over the Hudson River in New York killing all nine people aboard both vessels.

On Sept. 16, it was reported that the mid-air crash could have and should have been prevented.

The pilot of the plane read back the wrong radio frequency to an air traffic controller but wasn’t corrected by the controller, a federal safety official said. The air traffic controllers tried to warn the plane’s pilot that he was approaching the helicopter but couldn’t reach him because they were on two different radio frequencies. ¹²

It was reported earlier that the air traffic controller was on the telephone at the time of the crash and that the controller’s supervisor also wasn’t in the building, as required, at the time of the Aug. 8 crash, the FAA said in a statement in mid-August. The FAA placed the employees on administrative leave. ¹³

In his remarks on professionalism, the FAA’s Mr. Babbitt cited specifically the February crash of a Pinnacle Airlines Corp. Colgan unit plane near Buffalo, N.Y., which killed 50 people, and a 2006 accident in Lexington involving Comair with 49 fatalities as examples of inexperienced pilots who didn't follow basic operating standards. The captain in the Colgan crash had failed three in-cockpit exams, called “check rides,” before he came to the airline. ¹⁴

“Whether you have a wrench in your hand, whether you sit at a yoke or carry a clipboard, wear a headset or work in the galley, I'm not seeing consistent professionalism," Mr. Babbitt said. ¹⁵

Merriam Webster defines a professional as someone who is “characterized by or conforming to the technical or ethical standards of a profession.” Which means something as basic as recognizing an incorrect code could have saved nine lives.

Risky Business

Even the most prepared pilots face risk when they take to the skies.

South Florida resident Bruce Barber was meticulous when it came to flying. His business partner, Eric Elliott, described him as “always ahead of the activity. Every possible piece of gear you could have on a plane, he had,'' including three GPS systems and a storm scope. ¹⁶

Another friend said of Mr. Barber: “He was a very safe pilot -- very cautious. If there was going to be bad weather, we left earlier or we didn't go. In the last six months, he got a new radar system. He was very fussy about that plane.'' ¹⁶

Yet on Sept. 20, flying his small personal aircraft, Mr. Barber, his wife, son and friend perished in a crash that still doesn’t have a cause.

The industry does have tools for helping pilots become more aware of For the 13^th year in a row this fall, Bombardier’s safety seminar, Safety Standdown, challenged “pilots and crew to expand their understanding of the human factors involved in aviation accidents. Knowledge Ace refers to the concept of using the acquired information to minimize the possibility of human error,” said Rick Rowe, chief pilot of Learjet, in BART International magazine. “Knowledge-based training integrated with skill-based training is our greatest defense against error, bridging the gap between what the industry gets and what it needs. New for this year’s event were a Smart Pilot workshop and Mind and Body Wellness - a workshop examining cardiovascular risk factors among pilots and crew. ¹⁷

In the end, the responsibility to maintain professionalism will fall on many shoulders. Flight crews know their work schedules and it is ultimately their responsibility, like anybody with a job, to come to work ready to go. The FAA needs to put modern, relevant rules in place that jibe with what science and research has shown are the most tiring or non-tiring flights. The airlines have to make tough choices with an eye on their bottom lines of hiring more crews or risk over-taxing existing crews. And the passengers, ultimately, may face the choice of paying higher fares to fund the extra crews that may end up saving their lives.

Citations

1. www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601110&sid=ajzpzsoVMJfU

2. www.nytimes.com/2007/10/01/business/01safety.html

3. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8182962.stm

4. www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2009-08-04-turbulence_N.htm

5. www.asias.faa.gov/aviation_studies/weather_study/wbrief.html

6. http://aeromedical.org/Articles/Pilot_Fatigue.html

7. www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32648418/ns/travel-news/

8. www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/03/AR2009080302837.html

9. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124950069377208687.html

10. www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/03/04/sleep.stress.economy/index.html

11. http://mobile.wsvn.com/news/articles/national/MI129871/

12. www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5i7snJnN8kUVlX69sAmaPg4IPi6aQD9AOJVA02

13. www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=anrLkbMmv5qc

14. www.nytimes.com/2009/06/16/nyregion/16colgan.html

15. www.usatoday.com/travel/flights/2009-09-14-faa-buffalo-crash_N.htm

16. www.miamiherald.com/news/broward/story/1245084.html

17. www.bartintl.com/content/faa’s-randy-babbitt-ntsb-chairman-and-nbaa-president-slated-open-safety-standown

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Gabrielle D'Alemberte

Family’s weekend trip ends in tragedy when Piper Aircraft goes down in the Everglades

Gabrielle D'Alemberte — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 08:24:53 GMT

Bruce Barber was meticulous when it came to flying.

His business partner, Eric Elliott, described him to the Miami Herald “`It's all about risk management,'' he said. ``You're always preparing for something to go wrong. You want to get everything where it's supposed to be in case you lose power'' and need to land. Mr. Elliott continued: Mr. Barber was ``always ahead of the activity. Every possible piece of gear you could have on a plane, he had,'' including three GPS systems and a storm scope.

Family friend Danny Ponce said of Mr. Barber: “He was a very safe pilot -- very cautious. If there was going to be bad weather, we left earlier or we didn't go. In the last six months, he got a new radar system. He was very fussy about that plane.''

So what went wrong on Sunday, Sept. 20, when the Piper PA-32R Saratoga plunged into the Everglades in Broward County killing Mr. Barber, his wife Karen Chubbuck Barber, son Payton, and family friend Phillip Marsh of Coral Springs?

A Federal Aviation Administration official said Mr. Barber reported engine trouble and called in a “mayday” before communication cut out. But the National Transportation Safety Board (NTS B) may take months to figure out what exactly went wrong.

If there was a manufacturer defect or if there was pilot error on account of Mr. Barber, there may be damages to be gained or a lesson to be learned. But now the moment belongs to mourning a philanthropic, model family and the future of 10-year-old Chloe Barber, the daughter who didn’t make the trip with her parents and brother.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Gabrielle D'Alemberte

Cruise Ships Have Legal Responsibility for Your Safety

Sandy Grinnell — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 08:47:55 GMT

A cruise is supposed to be a relaxing getaway from the stresses of everyday life. Unfortunately, the injuries that occur on the mainland during everyday life sometimes follow us on board. There are many potential hazards on cruise ships that can injure you and there are many causes. Luckily, rules and regulations enforced by the US Coast Guard and Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) have been established to help prevent injuries and fatal accidents at sea. However, injuries can happen even with these rules in place, and you should be prepared.

Common cruise ship accidents include assault by crew members or other passengers, food poisoning, sexual battery, slip and falls, trip and falls, and injuries on excursions. Slip and fall injuries are very common and occur on cruise ships just as easily as they do on land. Several serious fires, resulting in injuries, have also been reported in recent years aboard cruise ships all over the world. Passengers may be trampled during a fire if the crew is unable to manage evacuation at the exits. If the fire is so intense that passengers must abandon ship, they can injure themselves as they depart from the ship to enter a life boat. Passengers may suffer from burns if they are close enough to the flames, but most fire injuries happen during the escape. Passengers may also suffer injuries at the pool, in the gym, or as a result of navigational errors made by the crew. If a passenger visits a doctor while onboard the ship they may become victims of medical malpractice.

The list of possible injuries is never-ending. Cruise ships have as many passengers as small cities, and come with all of the threats and possible I injuries that small cities do. Thankfully, cruise lines and their ships are regulated by maritime law and must adhere to these rules to guarantee the well-being of passengers and crew. If you are still injured, despite the laws put in place for your safety, you should alert the crew and ship's physician right away, photograph the scene, including anything that may have contributed to the injury, take note of the names, addresses, and phone numbers of any possible witnesses, especially passengers and crew that you have been in touch with, photograph the injury (if there is visual evidence), and request copies of your medical records and other documentation prior to the end of the trip. If you suffer a severe injury and you're well offshore or visiting a foreign country, request that the cruise company return you to the US for medical attention. Make sure you hold on to all paperwork from the cruise and make a copy of the incident report. Cruise ships do have a legal responsibility for your safety, but are very reluctant to pay for any damages. Retain as much information as possible and consult your ticket to see if any restrictions apply to file a legal claim.

In the end, we should all be cautious on a cruise line. If an injury does occur, remember to get as much information as possible, and contact an attorney experienced in tourist and cruise related accidents. Don’t let the injury award you deserve sail off into the sunset.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Sandy Grinnell

Air Traffic Controller On A Personal Phone Call Just Before the Hudson Crash

Gabrielle D'Alemberte — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 11:37:00 GMT

Quoting from the the Daily Record, the Chairman of the NTSB (National Transportation Safety Board) Deborah Hersman, "...told a congressional committee Wednesday that shortly after the single-engine Piper took off from Teterboro Airport in New Jersey, a Teterboro controller handed off the plane to nearby Newark Liberty International. During the handoff, the controller instructed the Piper pilot to contact Newark and gave him the radio frequency.

Less than a minute after the incorrect readback, the plane collided with an air tour helicopter, sending both aircraft hurtling into the river. All three people aboard the plane and a pilot and five Italian tourists aboard the helicopter were killed."

While recent scruntiy has come over pilot fatigue (especially since the commuter plane crash this summer Buffalo, little has been suggested about air traffic controllers' role in recent crashes. Until now that is.

On Sept. 16, it was reported that the mid-air crash between a small plane and a tourist-toting helicopter over the Hudson River that killed nine could have and should have been prevented. The pilot of the plane read back the wrong radio frequency to an air traffic controller but wasn’t corrected by the controller, a federal safety official said. Meanwhile, other air traffic controllers tried to warn the plane’s pilot that he was approaching the helicopter but couldn’t reach him because they were on different radio frequencies.

Meanwhile, FAA chief Randy Babbitt recently called for the need to “step up professionalism.” He cited the February crash of a Pinnacle Airlines Corp. Colgan unit plane near Buffalo, N.Y., which killed 50 people, and a 2006 accident in Lexington involving Comair with 49 fatalities as examples of inexperienced pilots who didn't follow basic operating standards. “The biggest factor I think for all of aviation is the need to step up professionalism in the workplace,” Mr. Babbitt said in prepared remarks. “It’s definitely there in the vast majority of the aviation workforce, but it’s not uniform throughout the industry.”

What’s clear is that whether its inclement weather, physical damage to the plane, tired pilots, miscommunication with air traffic control or inexperienced pilots, flying is loaded with inherent dangers. One can only hope officials are doing everything to can to make sure every pilot steps up “professionalism” to make sure accidents happen as infrequently as possible.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Gabrielle D'Alemberte

Pilot Fatigue- FAA is taking notice but are they telling passengers the truth

Gabrielle D'Alemberte — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 09:38:01 GMT

Federal Aviation Administration head Randy Babbitt says "It's absolutely unsafe to think" that commuter cockpit crews can fly as many hours or stay on duty for as long as pilots who may fly one long-range and execute a single landing route during the same day. In other words, the rules of flying, some of which have been in place for decades, may be wrong. Passengers probably have no awareness that the pilot and crew of their plane may be on their sixth flight of the day.

Keep in mind that before the first of those six flights, the pilots and crew weren’t tucked in a comfortable bed. According the Washington Post, they were packed into a dark “crash” house with several other commuter airline crew trying to get some shut-eye.

Sleep deprivation and fatigue have long been known to be a dangerous factor in flying. In a National Transportation Safety Board safety study of US major carrier accidents involving flight crew from 1978 to 1990, one finding stated: “Half the captains for whom data were available had been awake for more than 12 hours prior to their accidents. Half the first officers had been awake for more than 11 hours. Crews comprising captains and first officers whose time since awake was above the median for their crew position made more errors overall, and significantly more procedural and tactical decision errors."

Studies show exhaustion can impair a pilot's judgment in much the same way alcohol does. Overtired pilots can focus on a conversation or a single chore and miss other things going on around them, including critical flight information.

There are solutions being worked out, but after the advisory committee on pilot fatigue delivered its recommendations to the Federal Aviation Administration late Tuesday, the FAA asked for them not to be made public. The airlines want to schedule some pilots with less-taxing flights — fewer takeoffs and landings — but for longer, not shorter, hours in the cockpit. The unions say they won't agree to more hours for those pilots in exchange for fewer hours for pilots who fly as many as a half dozen short flights a day or take off at odd times.

In the end, the responsibility will fall on many shoulders. Flight crews know their work schedules and it is ultimately their responsibility, like anybody with a job, to come to work ready to go. The FAA needs to put modern, relevant rules in place that jibe with what science and research has shown are the most tiring or non-tiring flights. The airlines have to make tough choices with an eye on their bottom lines of hiring more crews or risk over-taxing existing crews. But passengers, ultimately, may face the choice of paying higher fares to fund the extra crews that may end up saving their lives.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Gabrielle D'Alemberte

Is the Air You Breathe on an Airline Flight Harmful?

Jerry H. Trachtman — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 14:42:02 GMT

Ever since the advent of the jet engine, "bleed air" has been used to supply the air that pressurizes and ventilates an airliner's cabin. Essentially, bleed air is air that is syphoned from the engine (or auxiliary power unit) after it has been compressed and before it is mixed with fuel and ignited. So, what could possibly be wrong with breathing it inside the aircraft cabin? According to a recent study published in the Journal of ASTM International, plenty might be wrong.

The airlines, the FAA, and even the airline labor unions have all agreed that the bleed air introduced into aircraft cabins can sometimes be contaminated with pyrolized engine oil and hydraulic fluid. However, the "sometimes" has never been defined. Researchers collected available documentation of 470 contaminated air supply events reported from January 2006 to June 2007, which includes 350 events reported by airlines to the FAA. Typically, the reported events describe smoke, and/or fumes, and/or a strong odor. The only sensors aboard the aircraft which may detect potentially dangerous air are the eyes and noses of the passengers and crew. There is no monitoring equipment. In the ASTM study, 57% of the events reported in flight resulted in diversions, and most of the ground events resulted in delayed or canceled flights. A lawsuit recently filed in Washington state alleges that a flight attendant suffered severe physical and neurological injuries after breathing toxic fumes that entered the cabin through the bleed air system. I am not aware of any other litigation alleging injury to passengers or crew as a result of engine bleed air, but perhaps those who have become ill have not made the connection to the possible source of their illness.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Jerry H. Trachtman