Aviation Aircraft Accident American Airline Flight 2253 Boeing 757-200, N668AA - Case Study Example

Abstract A case study of the December 29, 2010 incident where American Airline Flight 2253 Boeing 757-200 overruns its runway. On board were two captains, 4 flight attendants and 175 passengers. The incident was a tragic occurrence yet surprisingsince there were no casualties. The damage on the plane was significantly negligible .The report produced on the incidence identified several causes and concerns. The report identified among other factorsfailure of the speed break to deploy automatically, failure by the pilots to manually control the plane, insufficient knowledge in handling heavy workload and improper training on handling emergency in abnormal circumstances. The due course of action to pursue in such cases heavily relies with the pilot’s capability to react on time. As a result, the Independent Safety Board Act was iteratively referenced to provide for future similar incidence and improve on the existing laws. The board recommended instantaneous action to be taken with regard to such system failure .Technological failure was the major variable determined as the core cause in addition to adverse failure by the pilots in charge. Introduction The case of the Jackson Airport Hole is an adverse case of plane accident that has been associated with human and technological error. Though the accident has been deemed as that could be remotely controlled, technological failure is factors that must be considered. The December 29thincident was a special of its kind since there were no casualties. Consequently, the plane was slightly damaged. There have been several questions regarding the happening. Could there be a possibility of failure by the Captain? Could this be as a result of improper supervision of the flight? Technical report has been produced by Safety Board from its critical investigation of the event from and expert point of view. During the process of the investigation, several determinants were establishedas the possible cause of the accident. This paper covers human, management, machine, medium and mission factors with detailed analysis of the human factor. Detailed Analysis Human error About 70-80 percent of aviation accidents occur as a result of human error (Wiegmann, 2000). Though process has been established to identify and try to solve this menace, the effectiveness of an individual at the time of an accident cannot always be measured accurately. After detailedinvestigation of the December 29th incident, it was established thatintermittent actions by the crew was the cause of the accident. Qualifications of the Crew Humans are prone to committing errors. This is a natural phenomenon that can unwillingly occur. Several questions have been raised about the accident concerning the pilot’s action at that particular time. From the analysis of the accident, the pilots seemed to be inadequately prepared for emergency(National Transportation Safety Board, 2012).The report proved beyond reasonable doubt that the two pilots were not well trained and lacked relevant skills to handle thrust reverse lockout(National Transportation Safety Board. 2012).Failure to recognize failure of the breaking system to deploy was a major weakness on the part of the pilots(National Transportation Safety Board. 2012). According to America’s Operation manual, the breaking may be reduced to about 60% if speed breaks are not timely deployed (National Transportation Safety Board. 2012). Flying Records Records indicated that the captain under control had 19,645 hours of flight time and therefore was qualified to operate the plane (National Transportation Safety Board. 2012).This included the 10,779 hour in the very plane. The fellow officer had a total of 11.800 hours of flight time inclusive of 3,582 on the same plane. The medical history of both pilots was stable during and before the accident. They had both had enough hours of sleep has required by the Aviation’s Act. Expertise and Concurrency The pilots are qualified personal with suitable characteristic and ability to fly the plane. Their act during the accident leaves more questions rather than answers to the expertise. As Wiegman(2000)& Murray (2007) Observe, though qualified by paper and training, this should be a true reflection of their expertise and concurrency while executive the real task. In the operation of an aircraft, every decision and every split second can cost loss of lives. The inability of the two pilots to make sound decision in such critical situation was a minus on their expertise. Psychological and Physiological status It is quite clear from the investigation that the pilots were in normal condition at the time of the. The test carried on the two pilots proved positive against any physiological or psychological defects. The pilots were not either fatigued or sleepy at the time of the accident. Theanalogy of distraction could be a cause too given that the incident could have been noticed much earlier. In such cases, variables such as; who caused the accident? What is operational efficiency of the operators? lack of information, distraction and source of distraction may be considered. Pilot’s action at the time of landing greatly determines where and when the plane should land. In this case, despite receiving landing details 18 minutes earlier, they still landed the plane with only 21,000 feet of the runway remaining. This may due to distraction or under calculation by the pilots. The captain’s decision to take over the landing role from the co-pilot violated Flight acts. Personal readiness From the event of the plane crash, the plane crews were already aware of their landing conditions. This is in line with the Aviation act. In this case, the aircrew’s coordination ability was compromised by the captain. Given that the captain was not in charge of landing but arbitrary took over control from the assistant, it was a clear indication that this was the causes of the accident. Machine Error Technological Condition Due to technological advancement, the human factor is being replaced by computers and machines which are more efficient and fast. Modern aircrafts are suited with automated systems that can be used to operate the plane leaving the pilots with lesser task in operation and surveillance. These reduced operation responsibility on the part of operators is not extended to the machines in case of failure.For this case, the machines failed to alert the operators upon failure of the appliances very critical especially with regard to airplanes which are operate on real time application. The air/ground sensing system was uniquely identified to cause interruption by reading “down” and momentarily reading “air”. This happened immediately after the thrust reversers begun to extend upon landing down. This may have caused confusion among the pilots thereby causing the delay in enabling manual speed breaks to automatically deploy. This is the result of inconsistent systems that arecritical in operation of aircraft. Failure of the air or land system was one of themajor causes of the 2253 Boeing 757-200 accident Thrust reversers are designed for the purpose of decelerating the plane where the runway is too short at the time of landing. The system helps the plane to decelerate in order to reduce the landing distance. Automatic Speedbrake System is automatically initiated by air/ground system when the plane touches down. Though there was an interruption of the air or ground system, the pilots had the capability of manually enabling the speed breaks system depending on the fact that the plane had already touched town. This was indecisive by the pilot resulting to the accident. Level of Damage The when accessed after the incident was fully the plane was fullyoperational.The speed breaks system and thrust reversers were examined after the accident and proved to be in their perfect condition. This is infarct disturbing given the instantaneousfailure. Past Records Upon examination of the records, the plane was fully operational before liftoff. The thrust reversers were determinedto operate normally beforeand after the accident. The course of the accident heavily relied on the pilots since they failed to determine the exact position of the plane during landing in order to initiate the thrust reversers. Atmospheric conditions The operation of aircraft requires clear path both in the air and on the runway. The human personnel at the control unit are also important in the operation of a flight. During the December Flight 2253 Boeing 757-200 accident, the weather was quite snowy. This is evident from the report which established the plane overrun the runway into 658 feet snow. The snow was falling at the time and the flight operators could only view 1.5 miles away before landing. Environmental factors as well as time delay are fundamental factors that should be examined while landing or taking off of aplane. In addition, the ground controller personnel should also be able to provide substantial assistance during landing. Condition of the Runway The condition of the runway was in perfect good/wet condition before the plane landed. This was communicated to the pilots beforelanding. Though being aware of the condition of the weather and the runway, the pilots under control could not make a perfect landing. This was either as a result of miscalculation or poor judgment at the time of landing. This resulted in landing half way of the runway. Management Accident prevention techniques are critical in every institution. The management is solely responsible for aircraft maintenance, supervision and hiring staff (Rodrigues & Wells, 2003). The purchase, routing and safety procedures are usually under the control of the management. It may be a possibility that the pilots operating Flight 2253 Boeing 757-200 were not properly trained to handle some situations as provided by civil aviationact (National Transportation Safety Board. 2012). The operators on the flight were identified as lacking some technical training to handle thrust reverse lockout (National Transportation Safety Board. 2012).. The management of the airplane therefore failed in their mandate to evaluate and properly train their staff. Despite of the fact that Federal aviation requires Airlines to maintain accurate documentation of their FRA, the personnel of the said aircraft did not have one (National Transportation Safety Board. 2012). This is a total failure on the part of the management which oftenresults to most accidents. Mission The main mission in this case was to land the plane. Having accurate data of the landing environment is very critical at this stage. The communication on the weather condition was made early enough from the control base. Though there was bad weather, the information provided was sufficient for landing. The error on the part of the pilots to enable speed breaks at landing therefore caused delay in stopping the plane. Recommendations As a result of the findings from the investigation; Failure by the pilot to carry out efficient monitoring and work load management i.e. the captain assumed the landing role while he was not supposed to be violating normal practice. Inadequate training on handling anomalies and emergencies i.e. The crew took much time in troubleshooting the thrust reverser system. As a result, they engaged the speed breaks much later thereby resulting to the accident. Insufficient provisions in case of failure of the thrust reverser system i.e. The American Airline management confirmed that the technique of handling reverse thrust was not provided to the crew and therefore it was an ill action to take. This might be the cause of the delayed decision during the accident. The alerting system failed to warn the crew of speed breaks to deploy automaticallyi.e.the airlines alert system could have been used to bring back the attention of the pilots to deploy the speed breaks manually given they were distracted by the thrust reverse system. According to the above mentioned causes, these were the recommendations to the Federal Aviation Admissions; All operators should be properly trained to effectively determine and solve failure of speed breaks to deploy automatically during landing. Requirements for newly type-certificated 14 Code of Federal Regulations to fit all planed with alert systems that can alert the crew in case of Speed brakefailure to deploy during landing. Clear and specific guidelines should be provided to all flight crews on handling thrust reverser lockout. Conclusion The human factor has been regularly and repeatedly examined in the previous plane crashes. The plane accident database center has been used as reference points to analyze previous plane accidents. The major causes have been related to human error. Human factors regarding the 2253 Boeing 757-200 accident wasanalyzed by a committee of expert. All the variables leading to the accident was greatly examined and conclusive evidenced generated. Pilot training, failure by the speed brakes to automatically launch and interruption of the air/ground system were the variables determined to have caused the incident. Thecapability of the crew to make sound and timely decision was the major cause of the accident. Despite the fact that the crew was experts, they lacked the skills to handle failure by speed breaks to automatically launch. The report showed that the crew was not trained on how to handle such abnormal cases. Distraction and anxiety were considered at the time of the accident. Both the captain and the assistant over delayed in troubleshooting the thrust reversers while they could manually enable the speed breaks just in time to stop the plane. Recommendations have been made including further training of crews to handle speed breaks and thrust reversers in case of abnormalities during landing. Failure by the Airline’s management to fully equip their pilots with relevant knowledge was considered. This paper has prudently proved that the human error was the main cause of the American Airline Flight 2253 Boeing 757-200, N668AA accident. References Murray, S.R. (2007). Deliberate decision making by aircraft pilots: A simple reminder to avoid decision making under panic. The International Journal of Aviation Psychology, 7, 83-100. National Transportation Safety Board (2012). Runway Overrun, American Airlines Flight 2253, Boeing 757-200. N668AA.Aircraft Incident ReportNTSB/AAR-12/01. Washington, DC: Jackson Hole, Wyoming Rodrigues, C.C. & Wells, A.T. (2003). Commercial Aviation Safety. New York: McGraw Hill. Wiegmann, D. (2000).The Human Factors Analysis and Classification System. HFACS, Report ,10-18. Read More