Aviation – John Vincent

Future of Aviation: Enhancing Safety and Resilience

The aim is clear. A safe, secure, sustainable and resilient international aviation system. I’d add to that list an ambition to continuously improve.

And that’s in the face of the challenge that was recognised 30-years ago. With an aviation system that knows how to archives a high level of safety, even incremental improvement is challenging. Factor in projected air traffic growth that’s unabating. What we know is that that continuously improving the global accident rate requires active interventions.

Since here I can only highlight the key priorities, I’ll choose three aspects of active intervention. Back to what I said earlier in my talk. Aviation is still climbing a maturity ladder. Digitisation has facilitated a growth in proactive work. Initiatives and plans identify actions aimed at solving known aviation safety problems. But the next step remains some way off. It’s that ability to anticipate safety problems before they occur. To predict.

We have the notion of safety intelligence. There are Big Data projects that are gathering large quantities of aviation safety data. Today, what might be called prognostics continues to depend on expert judgement. That’s not negative, as such. In fact, that augmented by objective and trustworthy safety intelligence is a route to the next step in maturity.

In my view, here’s the three categories that must be addressed now and, in the next decade.

One is a foundation stone of aviation safety work. It’s the capability and will to react in a timely manner to events. Not just accidents and serious incidents but any event that elevates aviation safety risks above acceptable levels.

Top operational risk that are likely to need immediate actions are those involving loss of control and those concerning runway incidents.

To take timely corrective action the results of investigation need to be readily available. As pointed out by the industry, across the globe, there’s much scope for improvement here. Timeliness matters.

My next category is that of systemic risks. System wide safety risks. People, organisations, processes, procedures, the human factor and human performance issues.

Much is being done to ensure the effective implementation of safety management systems (SMS). The four pillars of SMS have proven to work – safety policy, risk management, safety assurance and safety promotion.

The acceptance, elimination or mitigation of risks is not an act that begins on one day and stops on the next. Digitation can help but there’s always the dangers of the needle in a haystack or even problems sitting in plain sight.

What’s often weak is the communication of what’s discovered. Believable, understandable straightforward communication to decision makers is vital.

Thirdly, what’s ahead of us is an order of magnitude more complex than what’s gone before. And a rate of change that mindboggling.

I’m calling this emerging aviation safety risks. The question arises; are we ready for advanced leaps in technology? Hydrogen, hybrid propulsion, machine learning, quantum computing, complex airspace networks and robotics. Humans as executive manager whilst retaining control only in emergencies.

It’s a famous quote; data is the new oil. We are ushering in extremely large and complex datasets that will be essential to the workings of automated and autonomous systems. Could data be the new quicksand? This is a huge issue in dense airspace where crewed and uncrewed aircraft must share the airspace.

Another emerging aviation safety risks, that industry and regulators are starting to address is the fact that safety and security have become inseparable. In the past, these disciplines were addressed as silos. That’s no longer viable.

Another emerging aviation safety risk is that of the workforce. Aviation has attracted dedicated professionals who acquire experience and train to a high level of competence. A safety culture has been embedded. In this respect the fundamentals of aviation safety remain constant.

The rapid growth of technology is a two-edged sword. Now, there are many opportunities for future generations, but aviation may not be at the top of the list of choices, as it has been. There’s a serious aviation safety risk if serious investments are not made, people are not motivated and able to gain the competencies needed by a rapidly changing industry.

To sum up. Everything I’ve spoken of can only be addressed in partnerships. In the past, the aviation industry and its regulators have proven themselves to be imaginative, resilient and forward looking.

The challenges ahead, dare I say, are even greater. Levels of integration, interdependency and rapid technology adoption are off the charts. Yet, I believe we can continually improve global aviation safety. We can step up.

POST: Farnborough International Air Show 2026. 20-24 July 2026.

Current State of Aviation Safety: Data-Driven

The present day. Today. There will be Press Releases galore at this air show. I expect ambitious and upbeat predictions. More orders. More growth. More developing markets. Demands for more skilled people, more performance, more pressure for the early adoption of rapidly changing technologies.

My subject is safety. Where are we with aviation safety in the present day? There’s a sound legacy. Afterall aviation has a long tail. What we have now, and if I look at the Farnborough Airshow catalogue of ten years ago[1], is digitisation. The ambition to be data-driven. A continuing drive to exploit data of all kinds. Extracting information from ever increasing sources in aviation.

This desire for actionable safety intelligence is not new. On my desk I have a coaster celebrating the UK CAA’s MOR Scheme[2]. That’s been alive for 50 years (1976-2026). Occurrence data has been, and is being, used to construct all sorts of safety performance indicators. These indicators can be useful but it’s not always so. They are fuel for safety management systems.

I used the word “actionable” with purpose. Today, making the results of safety data analysis useable by front-line actors and responsible managers has been a challenge we wrestle. I’ve often heard it said – that’s great but what do I do about it? Too many “greens” on a chart and complacency can set in. Too many “reds” and everyone goes into panic mode.

I have been fortunate to work with a number of safety initiative. One called the Commercial Aviation Safety Team (CAST) in the US. To match its work, on this continent, I set up a European version; ECAST in 2006. The focus was on data-drive analysis. There’re safety teams for Rotorcraft and General Aviation too.

These safety initiatives came about a reactive way. Reporting in 1997, the Gore Commission, was a reaction to dilemmas that is still with us. What to do in the wake of catastrophic accidents. And more pertinent to this talk; what to do when the global accident rate curve looks flat at the same time as predictions are for a significant growth in global air traffic. Reading this report now, the predictions were horrifying. Predictions of one large aeroplane fatal accident every week by now. Luckily, commercial air transport didn’t suffer that fate.

I should NOT say “luckily”. Current safety performance is down to an enormous amount of work done by thousands of aviation professionals over a sustained period. Not only this but shocks, whether they be financial crisis, volcanic eruptions or global pandemics, have tested this industry severely.

Taking on board what was learned over the decades, safety management has developed and matured. Incorporated in aviation’s safety regulatory framework, it’s now practiced across the whole industry. Almost. We don’t just react. We now have Safety Plans. Lists of actionable tasks aimed at continuous safety improvement. On the scale mentioned earlier – we are proactive.

Let me stop. This is not a utopia. I’d say at least half the global aviation industry is struggling with the need to be proactive. So, the road we are travelling on remains a long one. We don’t just need the capability to do better; we need to maintain the will to do better.

[1] 50^th Farnborough Air Show in 2016.

[2] https://www.caa.co.uk/about-us/make-a-report-or-complaint/report-something/mor/occurrence-reporting/

The Evolution of Aviation Safety: A Historical Overview

A quick tour of the history of aviation safety. In a couple of minutes.

As powered aircraft took to the skies it quickly became apparent that, of all the means of transport, aviation was less forgiving than others. Moving at speed in four dimensions, with the necessity to take-off and land safely, has inherent risks. By no means does this mean that flying is an dangerous activity. What it does necessitate is an exercise of sound engineering, preparation, and proficiency. When these are missing, and in cases of misfortune, accidents and serious incidents happen.

In the days between the world wars, aviation moved from the military and a circus-like amusement to a viable means of public transport. Progressively, more passengers had the opportunity to experience the wonders of flight.

Today, it’s not the early days of flight I want to focus on, but we do owe the engineers and aviators of that time a great debt. Much was learned as aeronautics matured. Since the end of the second world war the production, promotion and application of standards has embedded what had been learned. This has established the way that international civil aviation works.

One simple expression of the stages we’ve been through is Prof Patrick Hudson’s[1] model. This model describes five distinct levels of cultural maturity. The steps are pathological, reactive, calculative, proactive and generative.

This model sits alongside steps in the development of technology that have been a hallmark of aviation. Different categorisations exist. AIRBUS[2] has one that’s easily understood in terms of generations of civil aircraft.

First are the “classics” of the 1950s and 60s. Next, the second generation starts down the road of more electronics. More safety critical systems. Third generation starts flying in the early 1980s when automation becomes the norm (early fly-by-wire, glass cockpits, flight management systems). The fourth generation introduces safety systems, which address the major causes of fatal accidents, namely Controlled Flight Into Terrain (CFIT) and Loss Of Control In-Flight (LOC-I). That’s the early 1990s. When I made that move from industry (design and production) to an aviation safety regulator.

Now, I’d say we are well into fifth generation aircraft, with composite structures and integrated modular avionics. In fact, we are well into speculation about what the sixth generation may look like. Machine learning, single pilot operations, hybrid powerplants, aircraft as a node on a network.

Because aviation is a learning industry, and a conservative one, the expectation is of progressive improvement in maturity throughout the aviation system and innovative technology applied to enhance safety.

This is not to say that the potential for error, missteps and recklessness don’t exist. They do. I expect continuity in a way that takes full advantage of advanced methods without scarifying the legacy of an astonishing good global aviation safety achievement.

Later, to cover a lot of ground in a short time, I’m going to condense all the above into three distinct categories. But before that, I’ll talk about the present and a vision of the future.

POST: UK Farnborough Air Show on Thursday 23rd July 2026. Time: 13:00-13:15 BST. Location: Hall 3 Stage. Session title Where Next for Aviation Safety?

[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0925753507000227?via%3Dihub

[2] https://d10x.airbus.com/generation-of-jets/

Digital Dependency

Here’s a collection of annoying and sometime hazardous events that can happen in our digital world. Digital dependency is growing at an ever-increasing rate. There’s no way we can put our head in the sand and pretend it’s not happening. Yet, I’d say we are ill-prepared for the stuff that can go wrong. Well, anyone over the age of 25 years can be ill-prepared. Maybe the younger ones are ill-prepared too because of the immense trust they place in digital systems.

Last night, the wonderful “smart” TV that sits in our living room behaved in a way that is designed to get anyone’s back-up. Ironically that’s the function that is often missing – back-up.

Do I blame my clever Sony digital TV or the App that’s running on the TV? The many Apps. Anyway, the TV guide displayed but every time a selection was made the TV screen went blank. Me being used to troubleshooting, I tried another App. All worked fine. So, only one App was misbehaving. Ony one App was not doing what it should do.

To most people this would be a shout out to say; my TV is broken. How can it be broken it’s nearly new? It’s not performing its most basic function. To me, my deduction was that the App that provides the digital stream of the live broadcast channels was doing some kind of update but, unhelpfully, not telling anyone about it. The dumb thing is that the screen went blank. No information. Why the developers of this App couldn’t have thought ahead and put up the screen words saying – please wait – I have no idea. Perhaps they like to see our blood boil.

By the way, the above event happened just at the end of a world cup football game last evening.

Believe it or not, this irritating blank screen case has occurred in flight on an in-service aircraft. The main displays in the aircraft cockpit blanked. For those who may not be familiar, the main critical flight information is displayed to pilots on electronic screens in a modern aircraft cockpit. So, when everything goes blank it’s not a nice situation. Because safety is the primary concern there are independent standby instruments. They are only basic and aimed at managing the situation.

The case that I’m writing about above was because of a notorious software error. One that’s by no means new. Most serious and well-trained developers will know the case.

Do a little maths. Have you ever taken any number and divided it by zero? For fun, I picked up a desk calculator, yes, they still exist and did this simple sum. The makers, Casio have that one figured out. A small E comes up on the corner of the screen. E for error. Trapping this potential error is elementary best practice. For flight safety related systems, it’s vital.

What’s my message? It’s to understand what it means for something to be broken.

A vast swath of the population continues to have a, learned from experience, idea of what broken means. It’s basically an analogue notion. If I get a puncture in the wheel of my car’s tyre it’s visible, it’s understandable and it’s fixable. It’s a physical phenomenon.

If my super-duper mobile phone does something strange and unexpected, it might be visible, understandable and fixable but it might not be. In essence I have few ways of knowing. I hesitate to introduce the subject of Wi-Fi connected computer printers to this short article, but I will. Some of the most frustrating, unhelpful and mysterious software has been developed for this equipment. Annoying to a level that is difficult to match anywhere on Earth.

Perceptions of Aviation Professionals

Let’s see what aviation stereotypes look like. There’s a wide selection of free images on-line. There’s a typical view of the crew of an aircraft. It didn’t take long to find one.

I can point out the obvious gender related features of such images, but what first caught my eye were the aircraft engines. They were way to far out on the wings. I suspect our good friend artificial intelligence may have generated such a colourful image.

Now let’s go for an Air Traffic Controller. The image that came up did have plus points. It did give an impression of what a controller’s job is about, at least as much as a simple graphic image can. I did expect to see a radar screen with dots on it as part of the image. A controller sitting at a desk with buttons to press and a window to look out of sums up the basic picture.

Next my on-line search was for an aircraft mechanic. Now, I started this search with low expectations of what might come up. The picture I got was of a hanger with two large aircraft to the left and right. Standing in the middle of this scene was a man in overalls moving an aircraft engine on a trolly. Proportions were off, in that the engine diameter was half the hight of the mechanic. Yes, the stereotype of a workingman with a spanner persists.

So, what have I discovered? Not much really. Or not much that didn’t fit the title of time-honoured stereotype. Images that pigeonhole jobs as done by people who dress in a particular way and are surrounded by the equipment of their trade. Roles, age, race and gender are fixed in a traditional pattern. I do draw the conclusion that, for all the daily hype, artificial intelligence is not going to do anything original when faced with a simple question about specific job.

This isn’t good. If the latest advance in technology is locked into classical and predicable images from the archives, then it’s not so advanced at all.

Why does this matter? Well, there’s a great deal of concern about where the next generation of professional in aviation are going to come from. Our wish to fly is affected by lots of social, environmental, and economic factors. Overall, the trend over coming decades is in one direction – up. More flights, more aircraft, and the need for more people to operate the system.

If the generic images of the professional roles in aviation are stuck in the past, then that’s not going to help. It’s off-putting. There are those young people who may find the traditional professional stereotypes appealing. My guess is the majority are unlikely to think this way.

In an on-line environment where artificial intelligence regurgitates the past this technology may drive us backwards. Not for one moment does the image of a workingman with a spanner need to be demoted. What needs a touch of imagination is a portrayal of images more akin to reality. A changing reality too.

[Yes, the title image is an appropriately prompted artificial intelligence generate one provided by WordPress].

Lessons from Operational Events

For an aviation industry that takes pride in learning lessons from experience and taking timely corrective action, a series of operational events is surprising to say the least.

Today’s large aircraft do look much the same. The tricycle undercarriage has become universal. A set of steerable wheels at the front and a heavy set of landing gear, each side, to the rear. When parked, a nose gear collapse or inadvertent retraction on a large aircraft is not catastrophic. The aircraft can be recovered, inspected, and repaired. This undesirable event can be dangerous for anyone in the vicinity. It has the potential to be fatal. Fortunately, so far, there has been no fatalities.

For an aircraft operator such an event at an airport gate is a massive expense. Putting an in-service aircraft out of action for a considerable time.

To date, several damaging nose gear collapse (and alike) events have occurred to large aircraft[1]. Detailed analysis of these events exists and corrective actions are proposed.

One conclusion is to say that this is about people not following procedures. That is the instruction is to put a pin in one place but instead it gets put in the wrong place. So, this dramatic unintended event is written up as a maintenance error. It’s an outcome that no one intended. That’s fine. There’s no doubt that an error was made. Accepting that an error occurred is not a reason to blame. That is if there are no signs of negligence.

The trouble is the simple question – how easy was it to make that error?

Then we get into that grey area of the gap between aircraft design and operations. In a design office it may be reasonably assumed that a procedure will be followed in an almost robotic manner. No need for the people in operations to think beyond taking the same action day-after-day. This would surely become widespread practice.

As we know the actual environment of aircraft operations can be more demanding than the original equipment manufactures might imagine. Pressure to turn around an aircraft can be high, working conditions can be poor and fatigue can play a part.

There are lines of communication between the aircraft design and operations organisations, and such difficulties are regularly discussed.

Faced with an event categorised as maintenance error then what next? Redesign the aircraft? Change a procedure or require more training? Those are three of the options, there are more.

This is where the possible discussion gets reactive. Now, it would be extremely costly to redesign an aircraft for the sake of an event that is rare or for which the consequences are minor. It is possible to put numbers on each of these. The rarity, the cost, and the impact.

Modifying or rewriting a procedure, on the other hand, can be less costly and it may be quite sufficient as a corrective action. That said, any procedure that can be written can be subject to error. In fact, the original procedure may have been straightforward and well thought out.

Then there is the fall-back position. Give the people in aircraft operations more training. The assumption being that more training means less errors. It is a crude assumption because this is not a linear relationship. So many other factors come into play.

Discussions surround the above possibilities can become protracted. There’s a call for more analysis and more data. There’s the proposal for a study to be conducted. Once in that loop a year can go by as if it was a month.

There’s always the argument that highlights dozens of aircraft operators haven’t had this event occur and therefore the finger is pointed at those who have. This argument gets an outing, but it is foolish. It’s like saying – I haven’t had an accident yet, and therefore I’m safe. Foolish.

There are a lot of detailed discussions and a million and one opinions. Taking the big picture, this is a problem that is solvable[2]. What is surprising is the reoccurrence of the problem.

[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/news/aaib-special-bulletin-g-zbjb-inadvertent-nose-landing-gear-retraction-during-pre-flight-maintenance

[2] https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2019/12/12/2019-26734/airworthiness-directives-the-boeing-company-airplanes

Future Aircraft Systems

I read that there’s lesson to learn from the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) experience that plagued Boeing. And led to fatalities. There’s a lot that has been written about the tragic saga. Much of great value.

It’s true. Aviation advances as the community learns lessons from incidents and accidents. Yes, there’s variability in the effectivity of this learning process. Occasions when oceans are written about one case and dozens of others are given an inappropriate light touch[1]. A trustworthy centralised repository of safety recommendations from published aviation accident reports is a useful tool. A point of reference. In the first months of the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) in Cologne, back in 2005, my team established such a database. It’s only possible to track the follow-up of key safety recommendation if there’s a well-maintained administrative system. Safety is often about the intelligent use of data.

Cockpit design, and the human factors issues involved, are without doubt one of the most critical parts of an aircraft. Society is not ready for fully autonomous passenger carrying aircraft. I believe it will happen, in decades to come but the horizon is way off. For certain types of vehicles, autonomy must be the solution given that flight control is beyond human capacities. Here’s I’m thinking mostly of hypersonic and space flight.

For a pilot to exercise responsibility for a flight there’s a need to have, at least, a basic understanding of what a machine is doing. In past times of strings and wires and clockwork instruments that understanding was ingrained knowledge gained from training and experience.

Future aircraft systems will not be easily described as functional blocks that perform well understood and dedicated functions. An autopilot, an autothrottle, autobraking, a flight management system, even an engine. Hybridisation is coming.

That does not mean a pilot must understand the inner working for a multicore microprocessor or complex software algorithm. Flight test pilots being the exception, in this case.

The design goal should always be to make safer systems. Engineering these aircraft systems is not a case of purely fitting together a set of Lego like components. The error made with the MCAS is one that ignored this fact. Interdependencies are manyfold.

Ideally, future aircraft systems, however capable and complex, should be describable, predicable, and ultimately trustworthy. These words sound so simple. One reason this is not simple is that very word – complex. The minute that there’s a massive number of possible combinations and permutations of conditions at may exit boundaries must be set. What’s a little more reassuring is that complexity if far from new in human experience[2].

Just to make the airspace of the future even more complex it’s no longer correct to think of an aircraft as alone and free to make any appropriate manoeuvre. Increasing connectivity, cybersecurity, and artificial intelligence (AI) all come into the mix.

To stay safe, pilots will have to appreciate how constraints and boundaries are managed. This information must be provided transparently and preferable with options.

[1] https://www.iata.org/en/pressroom/opinions/the-safety-paradox-fewer-accidents-greater-responsibility/

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheat_and_chessboard_problem

Sustainability in Aviation

Conventional thinking pervades. It’s the model for seeming to be reasonable. To grow consensus and find a middle way through opposing parties. To bend in response to the wind that blows from popular opinion. Institutions are inclined to go this way. This is not surprising when an organisation is set-up to serve a large constituency. There’s the need to emphasise the parts of public policy that coincide with the mission of the institution. To push back gently against the ones that run adverse to that mission too. The Royal Aeronautical Society’s (RAeS) position paper on Airports[1] is a nice example. Here’s a few points that come to mind.

Linking Airports and Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) isn’t such a good idea. Yes, there’s the fact that Airports have infrastructure which every form of air transport needs. That’s the upside. The downside is the competing for resources and high cost of the provisions at major Airports. There’s a degree of environmental saturation that can’t be avoided.

One of the greatest opportunities for AAM is that of entirely new air transport links. Afterall, a Vertiport needn’t take up much space. As long at there’s plenty of electrical power and links with other modes of transport there are exciting possibilities.

A long time ago the commuter class of aircraft operations was created in the US. These were referred to as air taxies (fixed wing). The idea was then to open a travel market at a layer below large transport operation. It wasn’t that successful but does show mixes of types of traffic at major Airports doesn’t work out for the smaller parties.

Regional airports, and their potential, are greatly undersold. It’s wrong to see them as merely part of a hub and spoke network. What they do best is to serve their local communities. Having recently flown through Bournemouth (Hurn) Airport for the first time, it’s clear that so much can be done to spread the load and make traveling again a pleasant experience.

To me, I see the emperor’s new clothes. The case of the expansion of London Heathrow Airport (LHR) is not viable. Dressed up as an investment opportunity this continuation of incremental development is what we do badly in the UK. Environmental saturation has hit the rails. The proposers are dressing up a project that is the proverbial putting of eggs in one basket.

I don’t think the same can be said of London Gatwick Airport (LGW). In fact, squeezing the amount of capacity out of what’s there now is a feat of amazing ingenuity. Surely, that major London airport does need a genuine second runway. Even with less good than needed surface access this former racecourse has the ingredients for success.

Yes, I know it’s difficult to get away from London centric thinking in the UK. Nevertheless, that’s what’s needed to ensure the whole country thrives. Airport policies that lump everything else as “others” or under one label as “regional” aren’t tacking the challenges. The UK as major cities. Each has significant needs for air transport.

Some say that environmental objectives and Airport expansion are not compatible. The difficulties are clear to see. Each area of concern needs resources at a level commiserate with the needs. Quality of life, in and around Airports, should not be traded for economic benefits alone. Tackling air quality, water quality, on and off Airport noise, waste management, traffic volumes, overflight privacy, and enhancing biodiversity are not merely nice to haves.

[1] https://www.aerosociety.com/media/29306/raes-airport-expansion-in-the-uk-position-paper-april-2026.pdf

Numbers, Nostalgia, and Dystopia

I’m not sure what conclusion to draw from these numbers. There are people who believe that numbers are important in a cosmic sort of way. Certain combinations have a special meaning. Even the Bible goes in for this kind of mystical philosophy. I think this is a normal human instinct to look for patterns in everything. That is, even when nothing useful can be said about those apparent patterns. Me being reasonably rational, numbers are simple symbols with relatively simple meanings put to a myriad of uses. [Please let’s not go into complex numbers].

The thought that came to me is that the auspicious year of 1984[1] is now 42 years ago. And I think you know what I might write about the number 42. Life the Universe and Everything. The result of a long computation started to find out what life was all about in a fantasy world.

So, now it’s fine to conclude that the fictional world of 1984 didn’t come into being in the last 42 years. However, it can be argued that the groundwork for a political dystopia has been done in the meantime. There’s no doubt that in four decades a lot of interconnections and interdependencies have been constructed as globalisation has taken hold. Our everyday News cycle is proving this to be undeniable. A repercussion of the acts of a difficult politician on one continent impacts the availability of home-grown food on another poorer one.

My life in 1984 was as a young engineer trying to navigate through several workplaces to get the most interesting employment that was on offer. Fortunately, a great deal was happening in the field of electronics in the 80s. Integrated circuits where getting increasingly powerful. As the years clicked by the miniaturisation of components made possible what was once impossible. Several major projects were underway whilst industry was undergoing a rapid transformation.

[A different transition from the one in prospect brought about by artificial intelligence but, in so many ways, just as impactful and a fundamental percussor.]

This weekend, I was transported back to August 1984 and the island of Crete. In amongst piles of memorabilia there I found a scruffy notebook from a package holiday to Greece. My second venture to that Mediterranean country but the first with my partner.

That was a paper-based time. Airline tickets were paper. Money was paper (traveller’s cheques). Photographs were paper. Travel was a wholly analogue experience. Telephones tied down by wires. Even the Boeing 757 that transported us from London Gatwick to Crete had a cockpit full of dials, levers, knobs and switches, all mechanical.

Illuminating in our notes was the reaction to the heat and some continuity. Crete in August is hot at the best of times. That didn’t stop me from wandering along a long stretch of beach looking for an archaeological site. The further we went, the further it seemed we had to go. My saying that it was – just around the next bend – was never forgotten. And this week, there it was in barely legible handwriting.

Tourism has expanded many fold since those innocent wanderings. Greek buses are now modern and often quite regular, which they weren’t in 1984. Basic bathroom facilities in uncooled concrete apartments have given way to four-star hotels and luxurious pools. Nostalgia is fine, if it’s not taken to ridiculous levels, as is the habit of some of my generation.

[1] https://www.orwellfoundation.com/

Runway Incursions and Airline Safety

Firstly, condolences to the families and friends of those killed in the recent aviation accident at LaGuardia airport in New York. It’s incredibly sad that this destructive runway incident took place in the way that it did. At this stage there is a jumble of international News reports. As is often the case while attention is focused on what happened at a time when the facts have not been verified or data collected.

What is known is that Air Canada Express flight 8646 was where it was supposed to be on a runway and an airport-based fire truck was not. The resulting high-speed collision had disastrous consequences for both the aircraft and the fire truck.

The US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has quickly engaged to start a detailed technical investigation. Their role is to independently piece together all the information that is available and determine a probable cause of the accident. With that to make formal safety recommendations aimed at preventing accidents and incidents.

What I can say is that the subject of Runway Incursion (RI)[1] is a long-standing aviation safety concern. So much so that it has its own accident category when it comes to aviation safety data analysis. Such tragic events are not isolated or extremely improbable.

Air Traffic Control (ATC) is tasked with separating aircraft from each other and any other vehicles. Accidents in this category have been the catalyst for advances in equipment and procedures. That said, there’s no getting away from the substantial number of human and operational factors that pervade this domain.

Unlike the design and construction of aircraft system whereby an onerous safety objective can be stamped on a technical specification. Managing air traffic on the ground is done with a high dependency on the actions of professionally trained staff.

In an internationally accepted code, a RI is defined as:

Any occurrence at an aerodrome involving the incorrect presence of an aircraft, vehicle, or person on the protected area of a surface designated for the landing and take-off of aircraft.

I don’t hesitate to say that’s what happened at LaGuardia. This says nothing about – why?

So, we have an indication of what happened. What’s a little unsettling is how quickly there is News reports speculation on why it happened. Initial references to someone having made a mistake or error are no helpful. This signalling tends to encourage a simplification of the circumstances of the accident into a matter of blame. That unfortunately leads to an impression that this is a rare event that can be attributed to one factor. All to often this is not the case.

The actions of professionally trained staff can be put under such work pressure as it comes to a situation where no normal person can perform adequately. It was the introduction of Safety Management Systems (SMS) that was intended to identify these scenarios and ensure that they were mitigated or eliminated.

The actions of everyone involved with this fatal aviation accident are now under investigation. Aviation is not a “a dangerous business”. However, it is a business that requires more care and attention than most. That includes the provision of adequate resources at all times.

[1] https://www.intlaviationstandards.org/Documents/OccurrenceCategoryDefinitions.pdf