ACCIDENTS and SAFETY !

European transport commissioner [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien]and several French politicians have seen fit to pronounce on aviation safety in the wake of [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien]in a way that reflects a distressing degree of nationalistic prejudice.

Without any knowledge of what caused the Yemenia accident, they have clearly pre-judged the carrier as not being up to standard. The French have a word for this: chauvinism.

A little more than month ago an [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien]over the Atlantic; in [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien]; and in 2000 the airline [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien].
What would the European Commission and France think of politicians from other countries who drew conclusions about Air France and the DGAC (French aviation authority) from these accidents, especially if the comments were made public before any facts about the events had been established?

Of course, where France is concerned, this attitude dates back to the [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien]. The now-defunct Egyptian charter carrier's 737-300, packed with French holidaymakers, was lost climbing out of Sharm el-Sheikh. It was discovered that Switzerland had banned Flash, and France itself had had its doubts about the airline but had not banned it. So political and media hell broke loose at the time.

They sound almost as bad as [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] and [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien], who fired off salvoes of blame in all directions to distract attention from the fact that they had underfunded the aviation infrastructure in the country they governed. It was high farce.

And these people are the guardians of our regulatory systems and our safety? Don't make me laugh.

"On the strength of that report, we are going to review the way we use radar," says Gourgeon. "Whether or not that was the cause of the loss of flight 447, we have to examine every factor and improve all of our procedures and rules."

The US FAA has issued a safety alert calling on airlines and air taxi operators to review their existing policies and procedures aimed at preventing flight crew fatigue for short-haul flights.
The interim action occurs as the agency mulls potential pilot rest rule changes developed by an aviation rulemaking committee (ARC). Efforts to overhaul the decades-old rules gained traction in June after pilot fatigue was identified as a potential factor in the February crash of a Colgan Air Q400 commuter aircraft.

"Short-haul pilots commonly identify sleep deprivation and high workload as the main factors contributing to their fatigue. Conversely, long-haul pilots generally attribute sleep deprivation and circadian rhythm disruption caused by multiple time-zone crossings as the main causes of fatigue," says the FAA in the alert.

"However, both short-haul and long-haul flight crewmembers report fatigue resulting from multiple flight legs, early wake times, consecutive duty days, insufficient recovery sleep periods, time demands and high workloads resulting from high density air traffic environments."

A typical day for a short-haul pilot consists of four-to-five flight segments, averaging approximately 6h of flight time, with duty days lasting 13-15h, says the FAA. The agency says that while "sleep loss" is a primary contributor to fatigue, hours-long wait times between flights also contribute.

"Certificate holders should consider providing crew rest facilities that have rooms away from the general traffic for quiet, comfortable and uninterrupted sleep as well as expedited transportation to and from the airport in the layover city," says the FAA.

The agency says airlines and air taxi operators should establish "effective rest enhancing prerequisites for layover city hotels" as well as encourage the use of crew rest facilities between flights to "counter the effects of cumulative fatigue".

The UK Air Accidents Investigation Branch has called for regulators to develop safeguards to prevent take-off performance miscalculations. The AAIB argues that they happen too often and the potential consequences are serious.
It recommends to the [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] that it should provide specifications for a take-off performance monitoring system (TOPMS) and require it to be fitted to airliners.

The AAIB's recommendations were sparked by its investigation of a serious incident on 28 October 2008 involving a [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] (G-OJMC) that took off from Sangster International airport, Montego Bay, Jamaica for the UK. The commander had quickly selected take-off/go-around power when the aircraft failed to unstick at the calculated rotate speed.

The board says it could not determine the actual error that caused the take-off performance miscalculation, but the effect was as if a much lower weight than the actual take-off mass was entered, because the calculated decision and rotate speeds were too low.

The crew were also carrying out a "flex" take-off, using a de-rated thrust level that was calculated, along with the take-off speeds, on a computer at Thomas Cook's base flight dispatch unit, using figures passed by the crew.
Runway 07 at Sangster was long enough, with an accelerate/stop distance of 2,724m (8,930ft) for a safe take-off to be made, the AAIB says. Its report also cited several other examples of take-off performance miscalculation, including the [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] at Halifax, Nova Scotia and several others that involved tailstrikes during take-off.

In addition, the AAIB says it found 26 "relevant events" in its own mandatory occurrence report database.

The AAIB has made two recommendations to EASA: the first is that it should "develop a specification for an aircraft take-off performance monitoring system that provides a timely alert to flightcrews when achieved take-off performance is inadequate for given aircraft configurations and airfield conditions". The second is that it should mandate the fitting of such a device in transport category aircraft.