The Air Transport Association’s Safety Council comprises senior safety leaders from 17 of the nation’s largest airlines[1] including ABX Air, Inc. (GB), AirTran Airways (FL), Alaska Airlines, Inc. (AS), American Airlines, Inc. (AA), ASTAR Air Cargo, Inc. (ER), Atlas Air, Inc. (5Y), Continental Airlines, Inc. (CO), Delta Air Lines, Inc. (DL), Federal Express Corporation (FX), Hawaiian Airlines (HA), JetBlue Airways Corp. (B6), Evergreen International Airlines, Inc. (EZ), Midwest Airlines (YX), Northwest Airlines, Inc., United Airlines, Inc. (UA), UPS Airlines (5X), and US Airways, Inc. (US).
ATA Safety Council initiatives provide industry leadership to the Commercial Aviation Safety Team (CAST), a unique consortium of government, airline, employee associations, manufacturers, and academic institutions committed to implementing voluntary safety enhancements to prevent fatal airline accidents. Over its 10-year history, CAST has developed risk reduction tools aimed at avoiding in-flight/ground loss of control, controlled flight into terrain, approach and landing accidents, mid-air collisions, fire/explosion, runway collisions, uncontained engine failures, and crew incapacitation. New work involves developing methodologies for early identification of adverse trends (possible accident precursors) in areas such as wrong runway departures, runway incursions, runway excursions, etc.
The Safety Council’s primary work groups, the Flight Safety Committee, Ground Safety Committee, Maintenance and Ramp Human Factors Joint Task Force, and Hazardous Materials Working Group meet frequently to compile and review incident data, exchange the most effective safety practices, and formulate risk-based safety strategies.
The best means to obtain actionable information on system safety performance is through observation by employees who subsequently voluntarily report what they see and do without fear of harassment, intimidation, or unjust punishment. Aviation Safety Action Programs (ASAPs) are a partnership between the regulator, the company and the employee. These programs encourage a “reporting culture.” Approximately 93% of the hundreds of thousands of ATA member employee ASAP reports submitted each year reveal information that would otherwise have been unknown and undiscoverable…and thus almost impossible to fix before an unwanted incident occurs.
Just as individuals benefit from ASAP, companies are encouraged to aggressively seek out systemic issues and submit them to the FAA regulator along with a comprehensive solution to prevent reoccurrence. This procedure is called the Voluntary Disclosure Reporting Program (VDRP). Many carriers also manage Flight Operational Quality Assurance (FOQA) programs to collect hundreds of parameters (speed, altitude, attitude, rate of climb/descent, engine performance, etc.), often at a rate of 8 times per second or greater during every flight, in order to assess the risk of off-normal operations. Finally, pilot behaviors are trained and assessed in an Advanced Qualification Program (AQP) and Line-Oriented Safety Audit (LOSA) to heighten awareness and train pilots in “threat and error” management. Pilots learn to trap errors before they lead to an undesired aircraft state.
In summary, voluntary reporting and risk analysis, complemented by innovative technologies, lead to better safety strategies. The key is getting out ahead of a potential hazard through early identification, mitigation, and follow up to ensure effectiveness.