Wide-ranging Safety Discussion...?

On Jun 25, 6:38*pm, Ramy wrote:
On Monday, June 25, 2012 12:06:23 PM UTC-7, Bill D wrote:
The most poisonous attitude that I fear are the people resistant to change. *They can resist for the sake of resistance and meanwhile poison the environment for everyone. *Adoption of Flarm or Transponders or Radio usage or safety practices can all be very detrimentally affected by a loud naysayer, even when the arguments lack validity.

Everyone just needs to keep trying and start with focusing on your own behaviors. *Your personal safety culture as you pointed out.

No kiddin'!

The safety of the sport of soaring for any particular pilot is only as
safe as he/she chooses to make his/her next flight.

Apparently it is not working this way. Otherwise accidents would have happened only to unsafe pilots, but the statistics is showing otherwise. Problem is that most pilots are not aware that they are doing something unsafe. Most pilots are not aware of the many different ways they can kill themselves, since we do not have an effective system to learn from accidents and incidents and figure out ways to prevent them from happening again, as oppose to commercial aviation which constantly learn from every accident as much as possible and implement lessons, resulting in contiguous improved safety. Our safet record not only not improving, but getting worse. Last year was a record year for fatalities, and this year we would have already broke this record if not for some amazing luck. And it is only the beginning of the season. *Almost every fatality I heard of since I started flying many years ago had no useful information or conclusion other than speculation on RAS and the typical useless NTSB report. Those who knows the details, and those who survives the crashes, usually prefer to keep the details for themselves. Until we manage to implement such a system, pilots will continue killing themselves without realizing they are not as safe as they choose to be.

Ramy

It works like this.
Fact: There was a crash.
Uninformed speculation: The pilot was 'safe' so there must be an
outside cause.

I've discussed this with Greg Feith, a retired NTSB investigator
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greg_Feith). Feith says we're naturally
uncomfortable with pilot error since "they were one of us". NTSB
reports aren't useless just because they fail to list evidence the
pilot was at fault - the investigation stops when it's obvious the
cause was pilot error but the final report will stop short of calling
a recently departed pilot an idiot.

Never miss a chance to attend one of Feith's seminars. It's a
sobering, chilling experience but you will be a safer pilot because of
it. There are few accidents where the pilot was not at least a
contributing factor.

There are no secret new accident causes. It's an informative exercise
to download a couple of years of NTSB glider accident reports and
tabulate them in Excel - something I do every year. Almost every one
will be pilot error - usually gross error. Were these 'safe' pilots?
It would be a stretch to say they were. It only gets complicated if
you try to re-interpret the facts to show the pilot was somehow not
responsible. "Occam's razor" applies.

On Monday, June 25, 2012 8:38:39 PM UTC-7, Bill D wrote:
On Jun 25, 6:38*pm, Ramy wrote:
On Monday, June 25, 2012 12:06:23 PM UTC-7, Bill D wrote:
The most poisonous attitude that I fear are the people resistant to change. *They can resist for the sake of resistance and meanwhile poison the environment for everyone. *Adoption of Flarm or Transponders or Radio usage or safety practices can all be very detrimentally affected by a loud naysayer, even when the arguments lack validity.

Everyone just needs to keep trying and start with focusing on your own behaviors. *Your personal safety culture as you pointed out.

No kiddin'!

The safety of the sport of soaring for any particular pilot is only as
safe as he/she chooses to make his/her next flight.

Apparently it is not working this way. Otherwise accidents would have happened only to unsafe pilots, but the statistics is showing otherwise. Problem is that most pilots are not aware that they are doing something unsafe.. Most pilots are not aware of the many different ways they can kill themselves, since we do not have an effective system to learn from accidents and incidents and figure out ways to prevent them from happening again, as oppose to commercial aviation which constantly learn from every accident as much as possible and implement lessons, resulting in contiguous improved safety. Our safet record not only not improving, but getting worse. Last year was a record year for fatalities, and this year we would have already broke this record if not for some amazing luck. And it is only the beginning of the season. *Almost every fatality I heard of since I started flying many years ago had no useful information or conclusion other than speculation on RAS and the typical useless NTSB report. Those who knows the details, and those who survives the crashes, usually prefer to keep the details for themselves. Until we manage to implement such a system, pilots will continue killing themselves without realizing they are not as safe as they choose to be..

Ramy

It works like this.
Fact: There was a crash.
Uninformed speculation: The pilot was 'safe' so there must be an
outside cause.

I've discussed this with Greg Feith, a retired NTSB investigator
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greg_Feith). Feith says we're naturally
uncomfortable with pilot error since "they were one of us". NTSB
reports aren't useless just because they fail to list evidence the
pilot was at fault - the investigation stops when it's obvious the
cause was pilot error but the final report will stop short of calling
a recently departed pilot an idiot.

Never miss a chance to attend one of Feith's seminars. It's a
sobering, chilling experience but you will be a safer pilot because of
it. There are few accidents where the pilot was not at least a
contributing factor.

There are no secret new accident causes. It's an informative exercise
to download a couple of years of NTSB glider accident reports and
tabulate them in Excel - something I do every year. Almost every one
will be pilot error - usually gross error. Were these 'safe' pilots?
It would be a stretch to say they were. It only gets complicated if
you try to re-interpret the facts to show the pilot was somehow not
responsible. "Occam's razor" applies.

I guess it all depends what falls under 'pilot error'. I agree that just about every accident you can blame the pilot, even if his rudder cable broke for example, after all, he didnt check his rudder cable before the flight. But how many of us are perfect? Same goes to a recent fatal accident where the pilot tried to bail out too low, probably due to some sort of mechanical failure. And a recent mid air, where none of the pilots saw each other until impact. The NTSB will,of course, determine it was pilots failure to see each other. Case closed . But is it? It's been demonstrated over and over that our eyes are not able to detect collision threat on time. So I wouldn't consider those as true pilot errors, but as bad luck or outside cause, which happened to safe pilots. And yes, we do find new ways to kill ourselves.. The recent Texas tragedy may reveal one. I know of other pilots who took a toddler for a flight. I am sure those who heard about this accident will think twice and hard before doing it again, and maybe, just maybe, another life will be saved thanks to sharing and speculating about the cause of this accident.

Ramy

I couple of years ago I have written an article about safety in
soaring (www.tango-whisky.com/safety.html) which has spread a little
bit throughout Europe.
Somebody said that every pilot has to decide for himself how safe he
is or wants to be, and I think this is absolutely correct. The key for
this decision is situational awareness - if you don't have it and you
don't exercise it every single minute of a flight, you are an accident
waiting to happen.

Bert, Excellent article. I'm very concerned about the adrenaline tunnel vision issue and believe it's possibly a bigger factor than we may think. This would explain a lot toward what seems to be a disconnect between highly experienced pilots and accidents rates. I also think it's believable that some experienced pilots may relax their safety margins over time. Fine, untill the day they really need them.

I believe that much discussed Buffalo commuter accident of 2009? showed that the pilot held the yoke full back most of the descent. Could very well be this adrenaline issue.

It won't work in a contest environment very well, but I don't thermal below 1500 AGL, this is the altitude where I concentrate on raising and monitoring my airspeed, staying coordinated and scanning for traffic. I think all this relaxed attitude toward low altitude saves and landouts is not for me. I hear a fair bit of bragging about landouts and how it's no big deal. Read the accident reports for the truth. Not always fatalities, but lot of accidents. ... Aaron

I don't pretend to be an expert, but I wanted to pull out two comments
from this and another thread:

I also think it's believable that some experienced pilots may relax their safety
margins over time. *Fine, untill the day they really need them.

and:

I cannot believe this is pilot error ,comp pilots have so much instinctive skill, that
is what allows them to deal with every thing else while there body flys the plane.
So my thoughts are medical ,or possible the main ballast dumped and the fin stayed
in and pushed the c of g beyond the recoverable range.

In my opinion, these comments, while heartfelt, point out exactly why
I think it's difficult to have any kind of meaningful safety
discussion within the community. First, of course, experienced
pilots relax (or as needed, tighten) their safety margins, that is how
one becomes an experienced pilot. Safety margins necessarily vary
according to the nature of the flight. My margins at 100 hours were
very different from my margins at 1200. My margins taking a passenger
for a ride around the airport are quite different than flying in a
competition. I think it quite simplistic to think that there is one
true set of safety margins that apply to all pilots with all
experience levels under all circumstances, and as a result, it is
impossible to "train" all pilots to a consistent level of "skill" that
will keep them 99.99% safe.

Second, I see a certain element of denial that plays into all safety
discussions. In order to be willing to continue flying (or driving,
etc.), I needed to believe that my skills, experience, and margins
were sufficient to keep me safe from making the kinds of simple errors
other (less safe) pilots made. This created a bit of a conundrum, as
periodically during my soaring career, other pilots that I readily
acknowledged had equal or greater piloting skills than myself still
managed to make fatal errors doing the sorts of things I thought I was
"safe" doing. In fact, of the ten glider pilots I've personally known
who had fatal accidents, all but two were either at my level of skill
or well beyond. There are three ways to handle this conundrum. One
is to simply denigrate the perceived skills and judgement of the pilot
post-accident (which tends to apply here on r.a.s., unless we're
talking about a well known/liked contest pilot). The second is to
find some technological solution to the problem. The third is to
reach the conclusion that NO pilot is immune from making mistakes
(particularly, the seemingly benign choices that lead unexpectedly to
a critical situation), and to adjust the way one thinks while flying
accordingly...

Marc

Psychology of Safety

http://www.flyingmag.com/safety/left...chology-safety

This is a great article and it really stuck with me when I read it back when it was published.

Does anyone know a link that has a big database of soaring safety articles? ... Aaron

On Tuesday, June 26, 2012 1:21:13 AM UTC-5, Ramy wrote:

So I wouldn't consider those as true pilot errors, but as bad luck or outside cause, which happened to safe pilots.

Ramy, I have to disagree a bit. We have remarkably few accidents that are due to mechanical failure out of the control of the pilot - the recent JS-1 rudder cable is apparently one of those. But just about every other glider accident we have seems to be the direct or indirect result of pilot error..

Direct in that the pilot intentionally does something stupid and breaks something.

Indirect in that the pilot does something he doesn't know is stupid (due to poor training or lack of self-education) and breaks something.

Midairs? Sure, it's hard to see another plane - but if we run into each other in a thermal - both pilots looking at the cu instead of clearing where they are going - is that bad luck, lazy lookout, or poor training?

I think of myself as a safe, pilot (opinion not shared with some others, I fear). And I've done some really stupid things in gliders (only dinged one once, slightly). EVERY time I debriefed myself afterwards (as in, "YOU IDIOT, WTF WERE YOU THINKING!") it was pretty easy to see how I worked myself into the position to make a bad decision. That old chain of events is often glaringly obvious after the fact!

My contribution to this safety thing? It's always pilot error. If the pilot hadn't flown the plane, there wouldn't have been an accident. So the pilot has to prepare himself to avoid situations that are dangerous, or if necessary, have the skill to get out of a dangerous situation. Expecting someone else to make you safe is NOT going to work.

Kirk
66

On Tuesday, June 26, 2012 4:45:38 AM UTC-7, kirk.stant wrote:
On Tuesday, June 26, 2012 1:21:13 AM UTC-5, Ramy wrote:

So I wouldn't consider those as true pilot errors, but as bad luck or outside cause, which happened to safe pilots.

Ramy, I have to disagree a bit. We have remarkably few accidents that are due to mechanical failure out of the control of the pilot - the recent JS-1 rudder cable is apparently one of those. But just about every other glider accident we have seems to be the direct or indirect result of pilot error.

Direct in that the pilot intentionally does something stupid and breaks something.

Indirect in that the pilot does something he doesn't know is stupid (due to poor training or lack of self-education) and breaks something.

Midairs? Sure, it's hard to see another plane - but if we run into each other in a thermal - both pilots looking at the cu instead of clearing where they are going - is that bad luck, lazy lookout, or poor training?

I think of myself as a safe, pilot (opinion not shared with some others, I fear). And I've done some really stupid things in gliders (only dinged one once, slightly). EVERY time I debriefed myself afterwards (as in, "YOU IDIOT, WTF WERE YOU THINKING!") it was pretty easy to see how I worked myself into the position to make a bad decision. That old chain of events is often glaringly obvious after the fact!

My contribution to this safety thing? It's always pilot error. If the pilot hadn't flown the plane, there wouldn't have been an accident. So the pilot has to prepare himself to avoid situations that are dangerous, or if necessary, have the skill to get out of a dangerous situation. Expecting someone else to make you safe is NOT going to work.

Kirk
66

I think we all basically saying the same things. My main point was that to really be safer, we need to know better and understand better what kind of problems and mistakes can kill us and how. Will a forgotten tail dolly just embarrass us or can it kill us? What can go wrong if we put a toddler on our laps, should we bother wearing a parachute when not doing aerobatics or contests, etc. Those are just recent examples and perhaps obvious, but there were much less obvious causes. So the point is our poor job in analyzing accidents, sharing the results and finding solutions in a timely manner, rather than the all so lame reaction of "waiting for the NTSB report". This is perhaps the main thing we can do to try to improve our dismay safety record.

Ramy

On Tuesday, June 26, 2012 3:34:27 PM UTC-5, Ramy wrote:

I think we all basically saying the same things. My main point was that to really be safer, we need to know better and understand better what kind of problems and mistakes can kill us and how. Will a forgotten tail dolly just embarrass us or can it kill us? What can go wrong if we put a toddler on our laps, should we bother wearing a parachute when not doing aerobatics or contests, etc. Those are just recent examples and perhaps obvious, but there were much less obvious causes. So the point is our poor job in analyzing accidents, sharing the results and finding solutions in a timely manner, rather than the all so lame reaction of "waiting for the NTSB report". This is perhaps the main thing we can do to try to improve our dismay safety record.

Ramy

Ramy, analysing accidents after they happen is one source of information. But what we need to be doing better is analyzing potential accident scenarios before they happen, and getting a good idea of what can happen. To take your example of the tail dolly - the CG effect can be calculated, and the behaviour of the glider in question at aft CGs can be investigated, so that a good idea of what will happen if a tail dolly is left on can be developed. But there are other issues - the reduced angle of attack during the takeoff and landing roll due to the dolly wheel: longer takeoff roll? Tail first touchdown requiring a faster, flatter "wheel landing"? Loss of directional stability due to castering tailwheel and resulting groundloop if release during takeoff or at end of landing roll?

The military and commercial aviation spent a lot of time developing emergency scenarios and practicing them in simulators (and in flight, by the way). I practice various contingencies in my glider - full spoiler landings, hard over rudder (yes mine will lock over, but easy to push back), bailout sequence, full flap spin entries, unusual attitude to spiral dive recoveries, etc. No-one tells me to do this - I do it because it is fun and keeps me sharper, I hope.

Kirk