Phil McCain AP English 12 5th Hour Mr.

Toth

Pilot Error Every year the worlds safest method of transportation, flying, faces accidents and fatalities of pilots, passengers and bystanders. Mechanical failure and weather conditions are common causes, but the majority of accidents are caused by pilot error. The definition of pilot error includes a wide variety of different incidents. A common fatal accident occurs when the pilot becomes spatially disoriented and does not know how to regain straight and level flight of the airplane. Spatial disorientation is usually caused by entering clouds or other zero visibility conditions. Although the accident report may classify these types of crashes as weather related, in actuality, the real cause was a lack a proper pilot decisions prior to entering the zero visibility conditions. Despite increases in technology and improved aircraft design problems remain in properly training and ensuring that every pilot is ready to handle the different conditions encountered during a flight which leads to accidents caused by pilot error. The United States aviation safety organization is the Federal Aviation Administration, or the FAA. The FAA has a major role in the safety standards and requirements for every flying capable machine in the United States including gliders, helicopters, and airships. Every year the FAA releases the Federal Aviation Regulations, or FAR. This behemoth of a manual covers every scenario and establishes guidelines for all types of flying, including pilot requirements and limitations (FAR 1-2). The FARs are broken into different parts that are numbered and apply to different instances of aircraft operation. The most important ones to consider for information regarding pilot error are part 91, titled General Operating and Flight Rules, along with part 97,

titled Standard Instrument Procedures. Failure to comply with these set regulations can be paralleled with auto drivers disregarding state traffic laws; they both are breaking the law. The modern air traffic control system is highly complex and an increasing amount of traffic is added to the skies every year (Pilot Error). Other basic terms that are important are VFR, which is an abbreviation for visual flight rules. VFR flying requires the ability to look outside the aircraft and use the ground as reference to keep the aircraft upright and navigate by recognizing cities, landmarks, or anything else on earth. IFR, an abbreviation for instrument flight rules, means the pilot is using the airplanes instruments with no outside visual reference to fly the airplane (FAR 91, 97). Before every flight, whether it is the first flight of the day, or the last leg for a regional airline pilot, there are pre-flight activities to ensure a safe flight. The pilot will check online for the latest wind and weather data at the flight origin, en route, and at the flights destination. To further supplement the safety the pilot will note everything there is to know about the cruise portion between the origin and destination along with any significant information about the destination airport. After this is done the pilot performs a physical check of the aircraft (Burnside). Only after all possible steps have been taken to ensure a safe trip will the pilot continue. The information gathered by commercial pilots is not hard to find, it is free, and takes a relatively small amount of time to gather, yet many general aviation pilots will not acquire this information before a flight (Schweitzer 8). For a VFR pilot, ignoring to gather all the possible weather forecasts and charts can lead to big trouble if the destination turns out to have insufficient visibility or severe weather conditions. When a VFR pilot continues to fly into weather with zero visibility, and eventually loses control, the NTSB (National Transportation Safety Board) will state weather as the cause for the crash in an official report, but the NTSB

will not mention whether the pilot was aware of the weather conditions before he or she departed. The FAA has recognized this problem and has attempted to address it by placing in the regulations that no flight may be conducted until all necessary information is gathered for the flight (FAR 91). Naturally the environment is in total entropy and weather will arrive unexpectedly. This leaves the pilot with a difficult decision to continue flying into what may be worse weather, or make a 180 degree turn to escape the area and find a suitable alternative (Goh 189). A common biology experiment is where a frog placed in scalding hot water will immediately jump out, whereas a frog placed in water that gradually rises to boiling will not recognize the near danger and fail to react before it is too late. This experiment can be compared to a pilot experiencing slowly deteriorating weather conditions. When flying through clear blue skies and then quickly presented with a thunderstorm, a pilot can quickly recognize the danger and avoid it. Although if the pilot is flying towards a destination and the weather begins to deteriorate slowly with gradually worsening visibility he or she may never realize the danger. Before the pilot may realize how bad the situation is, it may be too late to get out of the weather. This exact experiment was conducted with 36 private pilots placed in a simulator that replicated this scenario and analyzed the decisions they made (OHare 189). This experiments data was mostly used to correlate the experience level of the test pilots and the decisions they proceeded to make. There was little difference between the decisions made by the less experienced new pilots and the veteran experienced pilots (OHare 190). After analyzing 276 aircraft accidents it was determined that flight into instrument conditions was often a willful choice by the pilot which understood that they were breaking regulations about weather requirements (Goh 191). Encountering a cloud layer along the path of the flight will leave three options for the pilot.

First, the pilot can climb over the cloud layer and fly on top of the clouds; attempt to fly through the cloud layer, or most dangerously the pilot could fly under the cloud layer which is known as scud running. Scud running is considered low altitude maneuvering to stay legally below the cloud layer while dodging any terrain or structures on the ground. The danger in this procedure is naturally the possibility of eventually striking terrain or getting into zero visibility conditions and having no place to divert, ultimately leading to loss of control (Is it Safe?). To learn how a pilot can lose control in zero visibility conditions, one must understand the psychological side of flying. A pilot who has not been trained to fly by instruments will have issues trusting what the instruments say in real instrument conditions (Bowlin). In instrument training a pilot is specifically taught not to pay attention to what the body and inner ear is sensing because the senses the body feels are inaccurate and will lead to spatial disorientation (Leis 4). There was one general aviation accident that resonated throughout the entire world. The Day the Music Died was the popular song written by Don Mclean. On February 3, 1959 Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson were killed when the Beechcraft Bonanza they were flying in at night lost control in light snow and poor visibility and struck the ground (Wright 5). The weather conditions at the time of this accident were poor and the pilot was not yet rated to fly by instruments. The pilots lack of experience, late time of day, and pressure put on the pilot to transport the three very famous stars to their destination was determined as the cause (Schweitzer 8). Then, forty years later a Piper Saratoga crashed into the Atlantic Ocean off of the New England coast. On board was John F. Kennedy Jr., the pilot, and two passengers who died on impact. It was a hazy night over the dark ocean and Kennedy did not have his instrument rating. The weather conditions were poor but not outside the set minimums. Technically the flight was conducted legally per the regulations. As put by Robert

Wright "A pilot can be in compliance with the regulations and still conduct unsafe operations." This quote rings true with the crash of Kennedy Jr. who decided to make the flight towards Marthas Vineyard knowing that it was hazy, dark and the ocean would give no depth perception ability (Schweitzer 10). The accuracy of weather information given to the pilots can be an issue. During flight there are different sources available to pilots. EFAS, or En Route Flight Advisory Service was created to inform pilots of all weather conditions existing along the route of flight along with the forecasted weather for the destination airport (Pardo 12). This is an important service due to the ever changing nature of weather, and it gives significant information about the destination airport that the pilot may not have been able to access before departure. At many smaller, uncontrolled airports there are automatic weather stations that give basic weather conditions for the field. Normally, smaller uncontrolled airports are used for VFR flying when the weather is not as important to know exactly as compared to IFR weather where cloud heights and visibility is vital to know. The automatic weather systems are capable of measuring wind speed and direction accurately, but they are not as able to determine the cloud layers, visibility and precipitation because these readings are determined by taking a ten minute average inside only one cubic meter of air (Pardo 12). This possible deviation can lead pilots to believe that the clouds are either lower or higher than they actually are, or encounter heavy precipitation at one side of the field, while the other receives light precipitation. This inconsistency could be dangerous when the cloud layer is reported at a level higher than minimums when in actuality it is below. Without the proper cloud height, the pilot may feel more pressured to continue flying past minimums which would risk flying into terrain or becoming disoriented (Pardo 13).

The responsibility of safety during flight is very clearly placed in the hands of the pilot in command. All aspects of the flight must be considered before flying and if the pilot has any doubt of his or her ability to complete the flight, then the pilot needs to recognize this potential problem. The reason flying has remained the safest method of transportation is due to the diligence exhibited by all flight crews, maintenance crews, ATC, and the strict regulations set by the FAA. These combined groups all work together to assure a safe flight for everyone up in the sky.