Achi news desk-
It’s been 15 years since the last fatal crash involving a US airman, but you’d never know it by reading about a spate of flight problems in the past three months.
There was a time when things like cracked windshields and minor engine problems didn’t appear very often in the news.
That changed in January, when a panel plugging the space reserved for an unused emergency door of an Alaska Airlines jetliner blew off 16,000 feet above Oregon. The pilots of the Boeing 737 Max landed safely, but in the United States, media coverage of the flight overshadowed a deadly runway crash in Tokyo three days earlier.
And concern about air safety – especially with Boeing planes – has not let up.
Is flying getting more dangerous?
By the simplest measurement, the answer is no. The last fatal accident involving a US airliner occurred in February 2009, an unprecedented safety lapse. There were 9.6 million flights last year.
However, the lack of fatal accidents does not fully capture the state of safety. In the last 15 months, a series of close calls have caught the attention of regulators and passengers.
Another measure is the number of times pilots broadcast an emergency call to air traffic controllers. Flightradar24, a popular tracking site, has just compiled the numbers. The website’s data shows that such calls have risen since mid-January but remain below the levels seen during much of 2023.
Distress calls are also an imperfect gauge: the plane might not be in immediate danger, and sometimes planes in trouble never alert controllers.
The National Safety Council estimates that Americans have a 1-in-93 chance of dying in a motor vehicle accident, while deaths on airplanes are too rare to calculate the probability. Figures from the US Department of Transportation tell a similar story.
“This is the safest form of transportation ever created, but every day on the nation’s roads about 737 full of people die,” said Richard Aboulafia, a longtime aerospace analyst and consultant. The safety council estimates that more than 44,000 people will die in vehicle accidents in the United States in 2023.
A panel of experts reported in November that a shortage of air traffic controllers, outdated aircraft tracking technology and other problems are a growing threat to air safety.
“The current erosion of the margin of safety in the (national airspace system) caused by the confluence of these challenges makes the current level of safety unsustainable,” the group said in a 52-page report.
What is happening at Boeing?
Many but not all of the recent incidents have involved Boeing aircraft.
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Boeing is a $78 billion company, a leading exporter in the United States and a century-old iconic name in aircraft manufacturing. Half of the duopoly, along with Airbus Europe, dominates the production of large passenger jets.
However, the company’s reputation was badly damaged by the crashes of two 737 Max jets – one in Indonesia in 2018, the other in Ethiopia the following year – which killed 346 people. Boeing has lost nearly $24 billion in the past five years. It has struggled with manufacturing defects that at times delayed deliveries of 737s and 787 long-haul Dreamliners.
Boeing was finally starting to regain its stride until the Alaska Airlines Max hit. Investigators have focused on bolts that help secure the door plug panel, but were missing after repairs at the Boeing factory.
The FBI is notifying travelers of a criminal investigation. The Federal Aviation Administration is increasing oversight of the company.
“What is going on with the production at Boeing? There have been problems in the past. They don’t seem to be getting resolved,” FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker said last month.
CEO David Calhoun says that no matter what conclusions investigators reach about the Alaska Airlines blowup, “Boeing is accountable for what happened” on the Alaska flight. “We caused the problem and we understand that.”
Problems attributed to an aircraft manufacturer can vary widely.
Some are design errors. On the original Boeing Max, a single sensor failure caused the flight control system to point the plane’s nose down with great force – which happened before the fatal 2018 and 2019 Max crashes. It is a maxim in aviation that the failure of one part should never be enough to bring down a plane.
In other cases, such as the door plug panel that flew off an Alaska Airlines jet, it appears that a mistake was made on the factory floor.
“Anything that leads to death is worse, but it’s much harder to deal with design because you have to find the problem and fix it,” said Aboulafia, the aerospace analyst. “In the manufacturing process, the fix is ​​extremely easy – don’t do” whatever caused the defect in the first place.
Manufacturing quality seems to be an issue at other events as well.
Earlier this month, the FAA proposed ordering airlines to inspect wire bundles around the spoilers on Max jets. The order was prompted by a report that fraying electrical wires due to a faulty installation caused a plane to roll 30 degrees in less than a second on the 2021 flight.
Even small things are important. After a LATAM Airlines Boeing 787 flying from Australia to New Zealand this month went into a nosedive – it recovered – Boeing reminded airlines to inspect switches for motors that move pilot seats. Published reports say a flight attendant accidentally hitting the switch likely caused the dive.
Investigations into some incidents suggest maintenance failures are likely, and many close calls are due to errors by pilots or air traffic controllers.
This week, investigators revealed that the American Airlines jet that shot over a runway in Texas had undergone brake replacement work four days earlier, and that some hydraulic lines to the brakes had not been properly reconnected.
Earlier this month, a tire fell off a United Airlines Boeing 777 leaving San Francisco, and an American Airlines 777 made an emergency landing in Los Angeles with a flat tire.
A piece of aluminum skin was found missing when a United Boeing 737 landed in Oregon last week. Unlike the brand new Alaska jet that suffered a panel blowout, the United plane was 26 years old. Maintenance is up to the airline.
When a FedEx cargo plane that landed in Austin, Texas last year flew close over the head of a departing Southwest Airlines jet, it emerged that an air traffic controller had cleared both planes to use the same runway.
Aviation industry officials say the incidents of greatest concern involve issues with flight controls, engines and structural integrity.
Other things like cracked windshields and planes clipping each other at the airport are rarely a security threat. Warning lights could indicate a serious problem or a false alarm.
“We take every incident very seriously,” said former NTSB member John Goglia, citing such vigilance as contributing to the current accident-free streak. “The challenge we have in aviation is trying to keep it there.”
