Category: Flying

The Mystery of Flight MH370

It’s ridiculous and shocking. In the modern era of civil aviation, that a large passenger aircraft can go missing and never be found. This tragic disappearance that has had experts baffled.

Mysteries, in the early days of flying, were not commonplace. They were, however, sufficiently commonplace for pulp fiction writers and amateur investigators to fill their boots. Mysteries at sea, and in the air have been a fascination for as long as there has been maritime and air transport. As our scientific and technical capabilities have increased so has our expectation that these mysteries are of the past, not the present.

Without any cause for concern, Malaysia Airlines flight MH370[1] took off 12-years ago. The aircraft disappeared from radar and has never been seen since. Parts of the aircraft have been recovered. Unfortunately, those parts provided insufficient evidence as to where the whole aircraft crashed. With what is known, this Boeing 777-200ER[2] aircraft is somewhere in the depths of the ocean. How it got there, wherever there is, and why remain unknown.

The most recent sea search for the wreckage of the aircraft has yielded no findings. Systematically searching the Indian Ocean, an organisation known as Ocean Infinity, has not advanced our understanding of what happened to flight MH370. That might be unfair, since we now know that the aircraft wreckage is not likely to be at the locations they searched.

The vast area of the Indian Ocean has an average depth of over 12,000 feet. Locating an object on the seabed is a hard task even when there’s some idea where it’s resting. To make the task even more difficult, ocean seabeds have a wide variety of geological formations. Mountains, crevasse and flat expanses.

We spend most of our time living on dry land. The reality of planet Earth is that a larger part of its surface is covered with water. That we can be thankful for given what we see of other planets.

Thus, the importance of having the mechanism for location that works anywhere and everywhere. Airborne Communications, Navigation and Surveillance (CNS) is vital in all aspects of international flight. Flight MH370 was equipped with Boeing’s FANS-1 (Future Air Navigation System). This does have a surveillance function in that it provides aircraft position reports via satellite communication (SATCOM).

[In the late-1990s, I was involved in the standards setting and regulatory approval of the airborne components of both the Boeing FANS-1 and AIRBUS FANS-A systems].

Reports of the loss of MH-370 say this aircraft system was working at the point of take-off. Official reports also say that this aircraft system was “deliberately” disabled during the flight. A mystery remains as we may never get to understand the motivation for this action.

There’s no good reason for disabling such systems unless they are presenting a hazard to the aircraft in flight. Clearly the crew need to have the ability to isolate aircraft systems in the event of an avionics bay fire or other significant failure events. Circuit breakers are provided for that purpose. Procedures and training are too.

So many questions. Will the Indian Ocean search be revived again? Not for a while, I think.

[1] https://john-w-vincent.com/2024/12/20/mh370-and-mh17-a-decade-on/

[2] The ER stands for Extended Range.

Integrating for Success

It’s almost as if there’s two types of humans. Who often find it difficult to understand the other. In the field of pros and cons here’s a sketch.

One who takes a general overview that can be called the “big picture”. They shy away from dense information. Much in favour of short précis and a well-crafted pitch. Not so much interested in how an answer was derived as what it is an how it impacts their interests.

Another who specialises and focuses on precise detail. Deeply engrained in the working of a particular issue. Open to a continuous round of investigation and discovery. Not so much interested in an outcome as the interaction of the components that produced an outcome.

With the first, they are comfortable with ambiguity. A degree of vagueness. They can short-cut to decisions to provide a sense of certainty. On the downside this can lead to turning a blind eye to difficulties and failing.

With the second, they are obsessed with the pursuit of excellence almost to the exclusion of practicality. On the upside they may anticipate problems. Providing workable solutions before they become forced.

What am I talking about? Most people don’t fit in either camp. Or we have subjects where we dig deeply and others where we skim the surface. I’ve used the analogy of a basic comb on this one. The spine of the comb is the overview. The prongs of the comb are the deeper scrutiny.

My message is simple – both are needed. That is, both are needed to understand what’s going on. Where the subject is a complex aircraft systems design both are essential.

There’s another way of saying this too. Slightly different because this way assumes a hierarchic organisational structure. For the most part, despite fads and fashions to do differently, most large organisation still have a form of hierarchical arrangement. Directorates, departments, sections, teams and alike.

One view of a complex system can be taken “top-down”. Another view is taken “bottom-up”. Phrased like this (top and bottom) it’s not easy to appreciate that both are equally important.

As an illustration, I certainly remember working with highly professional engineers with incredibly detailed knowledge of their part of an aircraft. However, they had little idea of the implications of some functions in relation to the abnormal operations of an aircraft in service.

Equally, to be fair, those meetings with capable and highly experienced managers who were inclined to bypass or belittle difficulties to ensure that a promised date was met. Or an inability to appreciate the necessity to consider the long-term consequences of a finding.

My message is simple – the two perspectives must be drawn together for success. Bringing together the points of connection between the nitty gritty detail and a wider appreciation is a hard job. Fraught with misunderstanding the people who can do this are rare and precious.

The above is a reason to be concerned when the approach to efficiency is biased towards automation. To speed up design processes to get all the ducks in a row. To more quickly pile up the paperwork, or its digital equivalent, without time to think. Without the space to use our most valuable skills – experience, creativity, imagination, discussion and mutual respect.

Navigating Change

It’s all too easy to say – it was different in my time. How things have gone downhill. There’s a boring refrain from me, and my baby boom generation, which laments a lost era. What we forget is that all of history is a lost era. Becoming history is a discomforting feeling.

I remember walking around the transport museum at Brooklands in Surrey. Look to one side and there was an aircraft cockpit display that was the latest tech in my days as a young design engineer. It was slightly worse than that in that the retired equipment, covered in dust, was one I worked on in the late 1980s. Sophisticated at the time. Now an item of curiosity.

This weekend, I stood under the last flying Concorde at Aerospace Bristol. Looking up the supersonic aircraft, it remains stunning, impressive, and futuristic. It’s a real testament to the British and French engineers who were so adventurous, creative, and foresighted in its design.

That said, in the end that era came down to money and politics. Just goes to show what the implications are of having made a robust international commitment and finding it impossible to backout. As a purely business adventure, a project like Concorde is difficult to justify. As a cultural icon and industrial marker laid down for all of history to appreciate, it’s momentous. It’s reasonable to say that the success modern-day AIRBUS has roots in this tremendous European collaboration.

Anyway, back to war and more day-to-day concerns. There’s no doubt that having some form of industrial strategy is better than not having one. The trouble is that UK Governments come and go and are incredibly fickle. So, a nice policy document with sound ideas can either spur change or slowly gather dust with equal measure.

Reflecting over the last 40-years and more, the UK has taken a large peace dividend. Defence spending has declined steadily under every political flag. This has led to a focus on fewer engineering projects. A concentration on fewer prestige assets whether in the air, at sea or on land. A gradual cutting of cloth to fit a lesser role in the world.

How do I write is without the predicable lament? It’s a matter of highlighting the downsides of the current position without lapsing into an archaic wish for a return to a bygone era.

One observation I would make here. If I pick up a British aviation magazine of the 1960/70s it’s clear that there’s a huge diversity of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) making products that are as diverse as they are spread across the country. Yes, the large aerospace companies have consolidated so that there remains a handful of prominent names. A lot of the iconic British names have disappeared. Consigned to museums. Inward investment has meant that the titans of the past have been swallowed up by international businesses.

There’s a pattern here that is not uniquely British. I’d make the point that one of the most concerning weaknesses is the decline of the large ecosystem of SMEs. Or the precarious situation that is often their fate. These businesses are the smaller fish that swim around the bigger players. They have the capacity to be dynamic and innovative. Even if they are often under regarded and more vulnerable to economic shocks.

Central government can’t always solve problems. That said, they can, at least, take an interest and create an environment where such entrepreneurs can flourish. Reflecting over the last 40-years and more, governments have been immensely ineffective in this respect. Policy documents are great. Where the failing persists is going from words to effective actions.

From Daedalus to Artemis

Being in good company is always nice. That spirit of experimentation doesn’t suite everyone. Now, I find myself in company of a NASA astronaut and an 12th Century English Monk. All in one week.

I stumbled across the NASA App[1] last evening. I hadn’t reckoned at that being available on my smart Sony TV. There it was. So, it only seemed right to download it and check up on what’s going on with the current Artemis mission. Other News told of delays and troubles with the launch vehicle that’s to send astronauts to circle the Moon. Setbacks are common in space flight so that’s not an issue to be alarmed about.

[Whatever would we do without the Ancient Greeks. Artemis, Apollo, Mercury, Gemini[2]].

This is a fundamentally important space mission given that it’s the first-time humans will have ventured so far since the days of the Apollo missions. Sending four astronauts around Earth’s satellite is a hard task to undertake. It’s aimed at establishing a means to get to the Moon on a regular basis.

Apollo spacecraft did this journey when computers were relatively primitive machines. Artemis has the advantage of a technical capability that is many fold greater. The problem is that sheer complexity and society’s tolerance for safety risk has moved on since the 1960s.

Anyway, the tale told, in interview of one of the Artemis astronauts is one of jumping off a barn roof as a young lad. Constructing a homemade parachute and trying it out. Having that freedom of a life growing-up on a farm and that appetite for experimentation. I was thinking, been there, done that and lived to tell the tale. In my previous scribblings I’ve mentioned the large red Dutch hay barn that was part of my youth.

Back to the Greeks. It’s myth but there may have been an element of truth in it. A map of modern Greece makes it clear that the islands of Ikaria and Crete are separated by a great distance. So, suggesting that a father and son in ancient time flew from one to the other can’t be true. However, that doesn’t dismiss the possibility that the Greeks experimented with the possibility of human flight.

So, the myth goes, Daedalus was the design authority for a method of flying which does not come recommended. Strapping on wings made of wax and feathers is a 100% risky venture. Daedalus was, if a real person, an imaginative ancient inventor. An inspiration to others. In this century it’s best to interpret the famous myth of flight as one of experimentation in a way that is fully respectful of the risks involved.

Coincidentally, this week, more by accident than intention. It’s a long story. I visited the town of Malmsbury. Inspired by the story of Daedalus, Monk Eilmer of Malmesbury[3] has solid claim to be the first European to fly. It wasn’t an entirely successful flight, but it was a flight. In the 12th Century he leapt from a church tower with wings of his own invention and survived.

Monk Eilmer of Malmesbury did end up with broken legs and a place in history. It would be unwise to repeat his early experiment as an example of human flight. That is unless a crude glider was replaced by four rotors, electric motors, some electronics and a powerful battery.

I share the hazards of a technical ability. Luckily my youthful attempts at flying with a parachute made of black polythene sheeting from a red barn roof didn’t result in any broken bones. Good luck to all who fly. Especially those who travel the furthest.

[1] https://www.nasa.gov/nasa-app/

[2] https://www.greeknewsagenda.gr/from-olympus-to-the-universe-where-greek-mythology-meets-nasa-missions/

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eilmer_of_Malmesbury

Mutuality in Aviation Safety

Back to the benefits of mutuality. That idea of working together for a common goal. It may seem bazar but instead I will start with the downsides of mutuality.

Parties who are in conflict often like to deny interdependency. It’s that instinctive feeling that we can go it alone. Highlighting that working with others turns out to be complicated, calculating and compromising. Surely much better to be that lone High Plains Drifter who lives day to day.

In the aircraft airworthiness discipline, I saw this happening during the lengthy process of the international harmonisation of technical requirements that took shape in the 1990s.

It’s not easy to say but a substantial number of aviation rules and regulations that are applied are written in blood. Ever since the first aircraft took to the skies there has been incidents and accidents. Each one presents an opportunity to gain experience. Tragic though they maybe, if there’s a positive outcome, it’s that measures are put in place to try to prevent similar occurrences happening again. This doesn’t aways work but it works often enough to make it the intelligent way forward. When that learning doesn’t take place, the result is condemnation and outcry[1].

So, imagine a situation where Party A has a rule that comes from a tragic aviation event and Party B does not have that rule, or see the need for that rule. Equally, where Party A is eliminating a rule that Party B views as a judicious measure for managing aviation safety risk.

Clearly, where safety is the goal, the harmonisation of technical requirements is not a trivial matter. Disagreements can put stress on relationship. It can from time-to-time cause people to walk off the playing field. To use an expression that became real at the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations football final. When the application of international rules doesn’t go the way people would like the results can be testing.

What I’m alluding to here is the early days of the technical harmonisation work that was done within what was then called the Joint Aviation Authorities (JAA) in Europe. And how that work interleaved with the work that was done to harmonise rules across the North Atlantic.

People did indeed walk off the playing field. One or two of them became ardent anti-Europeans. Maybe it was easier for younger technical staff to accommodate change. Nevertheless, each step that was taken to change or eliminate additional national technical requirements created tension. Maintaining sight of the greater goal of mutual benefit was demanding work. In fact, technical harmonisation is demanding work and always will be as such.

Across boundaries circumstances differ. My analogy is that of saying that it is no surprise that the Netherlands maybe concerned about bird strikes and overwater helicopter operations. At the same time Switzerland maybe more concerned about mountain waves and high-altitude helicopter operations. Each concern needs to be met. Priorities may vary.

Recent headlines saying: “Trump Says He Is ‘Decertifying’ Bombardier Aircraft In US[2]” has a sour ring about it. Political pressure should not be the driver of aviation safety technical rules. It’s perfectly reasonable for aviation entities to compete aggressively in the commercial world. It’s idiocy to compete on aviation safety grounds. This is not new learning. This has been the case for at least the last half a century.

POST: A view Gulfstream Confirms Delay over Canadian Type Certification of Business Jets | Aviation International News

[1] https://www.ntsb.gov/news/press-releases/Pages/NR20260127.aspx

[2] https://aviationweek.com/business-aviation/aircraft-propulsion/trump-says-he-decertifying-bombardier-aircraft-us

What to Expect

What’s going to happen in 2026? Predictions are always more a matter for the ancient Greek Gods than mere mortals but here goes. For the world of civil aviation:

Global air traffic will continue to grow,

Large hub airports will continue to expand,

Commercial air travel safety improvement will stagnate,

Electric air taxis will become a reality,

Pontification about the next generation of single aisle aircraft will continue,

Impacts of climate change will increase,

Blows to climate action will be slowly reversed,

AI breakthroughs will continue but adoption will slow,

Drone technology will advance at pace,

More airspace will be subject to conflict warnings,

Volatility and instability will plague the commercial manufacturing sector,

Regulatory harmonisation will struggle to advance,

And for certain, the United States will formally mark its 250th birthday.

Some pluses and some minuses. It will not be a dull year.

Globally the future of civil aviation is a healthy one. Propensity to travel is deeply ingrained in our ideas of development and growth. The complexities of adopting innovations are not new to the aviation industry. What may be new is finding a workforce that is as captivated by aviation as past generations. To train, induct them and offer them the attractive careers paths that compete with other fields. Anticipation of potential technology transformations often lacks a vision for the people who will make them possible.

Visual Cues and Decision Making

Back to visual perception. Initially, it may not seem right to focus on one human sense and not discuss the others. We are multifaceted humans. The brain takes advantage of all its senses, when they are available. We’ve evolved with amazing capabilities.

The interesting notion that certain wines taste better when accompanies by certain music is a wonderful example of how interactive our systems can be. That’s without us having any conscious control over their immediate intimate workings. Parts maybe hardwired and others soft wired and adaptable.

Vision plays a dominant part in enabling us to move around. We haven’t yet evolved echo sounding, like bats and dolphins. This is not to say that those who loose vision can’t compensate to some extent, but they don’t fly aircraft or drive fast cars or become astronauts.

My thoughts arise from exposure to several aspects of our dependency on seeing the world around us. To begin, at the early part of my career, it was indeed the process of taking sound imaging and making it usable for recognising objects. Converting the information that come back from sending sound pluses through water into an image must deal with a dynamic environment. Interpretation of such electronic images can be the difference between hitting an object at sea and avoiding it.

Later, my design work concentrated on information presented to a pilot and what happens next. That whole arena of the aircraft cockpit is one big interface. The link between the senses and the decision maker. I’m not straying into the interminable debates about human factors.

Let’s stay with the trend that’s in front of us in every walk of life. That’s the dependence on recognising and acting on information that is presented to us on a nearby screen. In so far as I know, humans didn’t evolve with this need to relate acutely to closely presented information as much as reacting to distant stimulus. Afterall if a hostile animal or dangerously armed person was heading towards me at speed, I wouldn’t sit around debating the subject.

Aeronautics has experience in this shift of attention. At the start of my career aircraft cockpits where mostly knobs and dials. Mechanical indicators and filament bulbs. Sometime unreliable. Still the idea of flying by the “seat of the paints” prevailed. That centred around situation awareness, predominantly guided by looking out of the window. At the outside world. Distant vison equally, if not more, important as looking two feet ahead at a panel. Over the last five decades the above has changed radically. Instruments are large flat screens dotted with an array of colourful symbols offering every aspect of “situation awareness”.

Now, this is happening to cars. Most new cars have electronic screens. The expectation is that we humble humans have transitioned from simple mechanical dials to a fascinating world of colourful animated markers and whizzy logos. Despite the glorious technology the basic function remains the same. That is the link between the senses and the decision maker.

Adequate levels of visual perception being the number one attribute a pilot or driver is expected to maintain. This continues to be true as automation does more and more. What maybe a long-term trend in human evolution is that shift between the importance of what’s a couple of feet away and what’s in our surroundings. Will we become less sensitive to a personal experience of what’s more that two feet away? I wonder.

Navigating Aviation

Each profession has a way of speaking. This is not usual. Just try reading a long-winded contact on any subject. There are lots of references to a “third party” and more than one. Copious uses of the word “herein”. A good sprinkling of “hereby” and “foregoing”.

I don’t speak those words. If I used them in everyday conversation, I’d get locked-up. Nevertheless, these English words are universally applied to common legal documentation. The hundreds of End User License Agreement (EULA) that we all sign up to, whether we know it or not, apply legalese language liberally [love the alliteration].

Aeronautical people are no different. I could have said aviation people or professional flying people. There’s the rub. Even to say the same thing, there are a myriad ways of saying it.

One major problem that we all encounter, now and then, is having to work with a community that uses language in a different way from ourselves. I’m not talking about language as per dictionary definitions of words and standard English grammar. For good or ill, English opens the door to a numerous of ways of saying basically the same thing.

Professional English users, as I have alluded to above, choose their own pathway through the possibilities. English is not alone in facilitating this variability of expression.

I once worked in Bristol. A Filton. A large aircraft factory with an immense heritage. That included the Concorde project. Here both British and French engineers had to work closely together on a huge joint venture. It succeeded. Supersonic flight was commercialised.

One of the delightful little books I picked up from that time was a handy English/French dictionary of aeronautical terms. Those in common usage at an aircraft factory of the 1970s. To communicate effectively it was recognised that technical words needed to be explained.

What I’m noting now is this reality hasn’t gone away. For all the imaginative language Apps that might grace my mobile phone, there’s still a need to explain. This gets even more important when it’s a specific aviation community that is being discussed.

How do people from other communities get what regulatory people are saying when it’s perfectly obvious to them what they are saying? Take a banker or financier that wants to invest in electric aviation because they believe the future points that way. They come across bundles of jargon and precise terms that are not found in everyday conversations. Not to say that the world of money doesn’t have its own langauage.

In aviation there’s not only particular words with detailed meanings but a raft of acronyms. Combinations of words that are easily expressed as a package of letters. Then the short, sweet acronym surpasses the original text.

SMS, POA, DOA, ODA, OEM, TSO, TC, ICA, CofA, SUP, FDM, FAR, CS, NPRM, NPA, AC, AMJ, ACJ, GM and I can go on and on.

Maybe we need a Sub Part – better understanding.

Why Timely Aviation Safety Reporting Matters

Waiting for accident reports can be frustrating. I’ve found this to be the case in past experiences. When a major fatal aviation accident happens the demand for information is exceptionally high. That means that every credible source of information will be drawn upon.

I don’t think anyone expects professional aviation accident investigators to come up with instant answers. Extensive and meticulous work is required to arrive at detailed findings. When it’s possible accident investigators publish interim reports to ensure that relevant information becomes generally available.

Countering this reality is the need to ensure that the aviation system is not operating at elevated risk during the period that investigation is being conducted. Information needs to flow to those who are empowered to take corrective action.

Given the nature of international civil aviation, accidents can occur anywhere at any time. There’s no rule, statistical or otherwise, that can stop these extremely rare events occurring. Much as it’s fine to promote an ambition for zero accidents, it’s not going to happen.

The frustration I’ve pointed to is shared by industry and authorities. As time goes by the level of speculation and misinformation always increases where there is an absence of verifiable facts. There’s always a need for industry, authorities and investigators to cooperate. As often each one will have a part of the jigsaw that when put together describes what happened.

For all sorts of reasons, this necessary cooperation does not always exist or exist as a smooth pathway to resolving a situation and initiating corrective action. Where barriers exist and delays accumulate the collective aim of assuring aviation safety is harmed.

The International Air Transport Association (IATA), at their recent conference, highlighted this as being a significant issue[1]. There are international standards, but these standards are not always applied in the manner with which they were intended. It seems obvious to say. It’s essential to learn safety lessons and take corrective action as soon as it’s humanly possible.

Where sufficient resources are an issue then there must be cooperative arrangement to allow others to help. It’s by sharing expertise and equipment that the time between occurrence of an event and the implementation of risk reduction measures can be reduced.

Risk reduction measures do not always need to be the final measure. There are the conventional strategies for addressing aviation safety risk – reduce, eliminate or mitigate. Even if publication of a final accident report is a year or more away, there’s often much that can be done in the interim.

Bureaucratic protocols, political sensitivities and commercial interests are real. However, most governments have signed up to obligations within the ICAO convention and its standards. It’s recognised that timeliness is vital.

[1] https://www.iata.org/en/pressroom/2025-releases/2025-10-14-02/

Recent Aviation Accidents: Lessons Learned, or not

I start from a position of apprehension. Making aviation accidents, documentary style, the subject of a television series does give me some concern. Obviously, there’s the importance of being respectful to those involved. To reveal something that is of genuine public interest.

Accident investigation and journalism seek to answer the six questions – Who, what, where, when, why and how. When it comes to addressing aviation accidents that have occurred in the last 18-months some of the process of investigation may still be ongoing.

My apprehension starts with – what is the purpose of the series? Does it go some way to answering the question – why? That’s especially the case given that word is in the title[1]. Practically the “why” is turned into a probable cause because the “why” can include multiple factors. It’s rare for there to be a lone factor that results in a tragic outcome.

Broadcast last night by the BBC, this series took a selection of the accidents that recently commanded international headlines. The fatal events have been much discussed within informed professional communities and across social media. I’ve written on them too.

[Fatal Boeing 737 Crash in South Korea, Investigating the Black Hawk and American Eagle Collision, Aircraft Safety and Fuel Starvation, Understanding Boeing 787 Avionics.]

We do this to seek to understand. If there are always lessons to be learned, it’s imperative that those lessons be learned without delay. Lack of an informed and timely response exposes the flying public to further risks.

Sadly, a few of the lessons learned in the past have not been translated into change. The fatal accident at Muan International Airport in South Korea is a case in point. Brid strikes are not new. The dangers of flocking birds have been highlighted time and time again. Whilst airports are built near large bodies of water this will continue be a risk. However, it wouldn’t be right to say this is the only cause of the accident outcome at Muan.

Truly tragic are what may be called: avoidable accidents. This is where the event is purely made up of human actions that need not have take the course they took. Processes and procedures were inadequate, and known to be inadequate, for the situation. To me, this is the case of the military helicopter that collided at low altitude with a passenger flight in Washington DC. It’s mystifying as to why past occurrences of near misses didn’t prompt a change to operations.

I’ll say this because it’s not often given credit. A testament to the good design of an aircraft, and the extensive certification work done and the rigorous training of crews, an accident in the Canadian snow did not become fatal. Upon a spectacular heavy landing in Toronto everyone escaped.

On take-off, a London bound, fully loaded Air India Boeing 787 failed to climb. The results were catastrophic in every sense. Not only were all on-board killed but there were multiple fatalities on the ground.  This tragic fatal accident remains mysterious. The published preliminary report is a source of more questions than answers. Facts so far published do not explain the sequence of events.

What connects this spate of aviation disasters? Nothing, that I can determine. Although, there is the importance of lessons learned. They are not that compilation of dusty past accident reports that sit on a shelf. They are a source of everyday learning. That is learning that needs to be put into action. Timely action. Not waiting for a final publication.

[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002kw1n/why-why-planes-crash