ROSSENDALE AVIATION SOCIETY
ROSSENDALE Aviation Society members were treated to a highly entertaining and somewhat disturbing evening as our guest, Debbie Riley of Airport Solutions, spoke on the topic, How safe is your Airport?
Airport Solutions specialise in airport safety management, emergency planning and event management.
Minor incidents happen on a daily basis and major accidents are still too common. Her talk centred on how these should be properly investigated to minimise the risk of them happening again.
Her first case study was into a runway incursion that happened at an airport in the Middle East in 2010, where Debbie was in charge of the investigation.
The airport has two parallel runways, usually one for take offs and the other for landings, but when one has to be closed for maintenance work the remaining runway has to take all the traffic.
For this reason closures have to be scheduled at the least busy time of the day, which in this airport’s case is during daylight hours.
Under normal circumstances the closure would end each day at 6pm but on the day in question a delayed start to the work meant that the closure would last until 6.30pm. This was agreed by airport operations and air traffic control but engineering services were not involved in the decision.
The team involved worked quickly, meaning that the runway could possibly be put back into service slightly before this time and the engineering services manager contacted air traffic control to say they could now use the runway.
They gave clearance for two approaching aircraft to land on the runway, when a senior airside controller drove onto it at high speed to inspect it.
Fortunately this was picked up by the radar and the approaching planes managed to change course on to the other runway.
Investigations showed the main cause of the incident was through faults in communication procedures and no-one being appointed to take the ultimate decisions on reopening the runway.
All the points raised by the investigation were quickly dealt with and it is unlikely that similar incidents would happen again at the airport.
Her second case study though was very worrying and centred on a fatal plane crash in the Far East.
An aircraft with 130 people on board was approaching the airport where earlier arrivals had reported wind shear and cumulonimbus clouds over the airport.
It was crewed by the airline’s chief pilot and a newly qualified pilot as first officer who was in control.
As they approached the airport the wind speed doubled and at only 48 feet above the threshold level the first officer called to go around.
The captain, who had made several radio communication errors during the approach, failed to take control of the aircraft, which was configured for landing with wheels down and engines idling.
The aircraft started to climb but stalled and crashed, sliding off the runway and crossing a 2m drainage ditch and colliding with rising ground.
The people on board received little help from the airport’s fire and rescue team. They should have been on site in two minutes but took five, were unable to cross the ditch and their appliance had not been refilled with foam and water after an exercise three days earlier.
The wrong message was given to the town’s fire service by air traffic control so they did not perceive the severity of the accident and did not arrive for a further half an hour.
Only 40 people survived the crash and they effectively had to free themselves.
Investigations into such incidents are led by the state where they take place, along with teams from the countries of the casualties and the aircraft manufacturer.
Almost immediately the authorities issued a report blaming the weather conditions.
Debbie said they also removed the wreckage very quickly, destroying important evidence.
However the American National Transportation Safety Board soon found evidence that the pilots had not operated a switch which in go-around situations would have automatically put the engines on full throttle.
Further NTSB investigations revealed that the chief pilot had a history of freezing under stress and had recently failed a medical investigation and should not have been flying.
A pilot’s social media network started to receive posts from pilots who had left jobs with the airline citing a history of falsified training records and pilots being paid to work more hours than they were allowed.
The authorities continued to blame wind shear and the relatives of the victims took their case to the American courts.
Nearly 10 years after the crash no action has been taken and the authorities have not published a final report.
The airline was later placed on an EU banned list and went out of business the following year.
Our next meeting, on August 3, will be a very different affair as Gary Hatcher, editor of Scale Aircraft Modelling magazine, will speak to us about the different types of research involved in converting a plastic model into a mark that is not available, concentrating on the Handley Page Jetstream.
We meet at 8pm at Haslingden Cricket Club and new members are always very welcome.