Makes Recommendations To Pilots To Avoid Loss Of Control Accidents

The NTSB released its "10 Most Wanted List" on Wednesday morning, and several aviation-related items were included on the list. Reducing Loss of Control accidents was specifically singled out for attention by the board.

The NTSB Most Wanted List highlights safety issues identified from the NTSB’s accident investigations to increase awareness about the issues and promote recommended safety solutions.

The NTSB said that while airline accidents have become relatively rare in the United States, pilots and passengers involved in general aviation operations still die at alarming rates. Between 2008 and 2014, about 47 percent of fatal fixed-wing GA accidents in the U.S. involved pilots losing control of their aircraft in flight, resulting in 1,210 fatalities. Pilots can reduce these accidents through education, technologies, flight currency, self-assessment, and vigilant situational awareness in the cockpit.

In October 2015, the NTSB held a forum on “Humans and Hardware: Preventing General Aviation Inflight Loss of Control.” The forum addressed some of the common causes of loss-of-control events, such as pilot inattention due to workload, distractions or complacency, and a lack of understanding how a stall actually relates to exceeding a wing’s critical angle of attack (AOA), as opposed to the more common idea that it’s just related to airspeed. Also noteworthy is that when airplanes are close to the ground, such as in a landing pattern, there is limited time and altitude available to recover from a stall, thus making these stalls particularly deadly.
 
The 2015 forum provided potential hardware solutions, such as the use of AOA indicators, and human solutions, such as increased pilot training to ensure a full understanding of stall phenomena. This training should also include understanding AOA concepts and how elements such as weight, center of gravity, turbulence, maneuvering loads, and other factors can affect an airplane’s stall characteristics.

Pilots should:

• Be prepared to recognize stall characteristics and warning signs, and be able to apply appropriate recovery techniques before stall onset.
• Be honest with themselves about their knowledge level of stalls, and their ability to recognize and handle them.
• Use effective aeronautical decision-making techniques and flight risk assessment tools during both preflight planning and inflight operations.
• Manage distractions so that they do not interfere with situational awareness.
• Understand, properly train, and maintain currency in the equipment and airplanes they operate.
• Take advantage of available commercial trainer, type club, and transition training opportunities.
• Realize stall characteristics can vary with aircraft loading and are usually worse at aft CG (center of gravity).
• Airplane owners should consider installing an AOA indicator, which, coupled with pilot understanding and training on how best to use it, can enhance situational awareness during critical or high-workload phases of flight.

The NTSB said that the FAA, aviation advocacy groups, type clubs, and manufacturers, including kit manufacturers, are creating and maintaining educational initiatives that include general principles, best practices, and operational specifics as they relate to loss of control. These resources can be helpful in learning effectiveness countermeasures.

The Board also mentioned accidents in which fatigue was a factor in all areas of transportation including aviation as a focus area, as well as distractions in the cockpit from things like text messaging and other personal electronic devices that have been a contributing factor in some accidents.

(Source: NTSB)

FMI: www.ntsb.gov/safety/mwl/Pages/default.aspx