4 crashes in month / economics versus safety

[Air2D2]

My dearest friends,

Time for some reflection in this matter of unsafety due to competition.

First of all, this whole story can be considered as a blame to the Belgian air travel authorities and to the Belgian aircraft technicians. I hope we understand that our criticism means that we distrust the competence of both of them, whereas they have a splendid reputation ! Don't forget this, please...

On the other hand : what's wrong with us ? Why this self destructive behaviour. We (people who earn our daily bread with what we love - flying and aviation), we have shown before that we have a tendency to selfdestruction on company level. What was our role in SN, SLR, Citybird débacles ?... But do we understand that now we are destructing the whole aviation business ?...

Het Nieuwsblad, who came out with this front page headlines yesterday... It's "cubumber time", as we call it in Belgium. There's no news and the media pick up any news or any speculation. The more spectacular, the better. This Nieuwsblad quoted some forums today, where pilots came up with new stories, confirming that flying is unsafe due to competition.

What do we want to obtain with that ? If we want the public (our clients, the ones who pay our paychecks by the end of the month) to have fear for flying. If we want the public to believe that the aviation is a gangster business. If we want to break the confidence in our highly professional and very regulated business. Well, if that is what we want...

To my opinion such a shortsighted behaviour might have the same effect on aviation as terrorism had just after 9/11.

Food for tought, isn't it...

[Embraer767copilot]

I haven t read all of the comments, but the topic of this forum is 4 accidents in aviation in a month..but in my mind 5....te 5 th is Copterline accident that falled in to the Baltic Sea and 14 people died!!

[regi]

yep, you are right, we forgot about that one.

[Avro]

First of all, this whole story can be considered as a blame to the Belgian air travel authorities and to the Belgian aircraft technicians. I hope we understand that our criticism means that we distrust the competence of both of them, whereas they have a splendid reputation ! Don't forget this, please...

Don't worry we trust belgian technicians and authorities.

On the other hand : what's wrong with us ? Why this self destructive behaviour. We (people who earn our daily bread with what we love - flying and aviation), we have shown before that we have a tendency to selfdestruction on company level. What was our role in SN, SLR, Citybird débacles ?... But do we understand that now we are destructing the whole aviation business ?...

First of all let me say that I don't have anything against the technicians they do a great work in Belgium and indeed they have a great safety record. It's just that a few questions were raised the last couple of days and to be honest I'm sure that any airline in the world is one day or another confronted with such maintenance vs economics problems. There is nothing wrong in raising such questions and don't worry people will continue to travel. You don't destroy aviation by that and most important of all people have the tendancy to forget. I'm sure that many people who now say they won't fly a so called "crappy" airline anymore will end up in any plane next year. You'd be surprised.

But let me come back to the questions which were raised because I find them quite interesting and I hope you do as well.

Pluto said that in the past they had to let some planes leave with minor problems instead of paying the accomodation for the clients. I believe him and I'm sure this happens everywhere in the world since the economic pressure is increasing everyday. Does this mean that aviation is unsafe ? No Sir ! But does this mean that we have to keep silent and do as if everything is perfect ? Not at all.

If we know that those things happen we should try to avoid them as much as we can. But how !! that's the question ? We might maybe come to solution by discussing it in the forums.

Regarding Belgium one of the solutions could be to force the authorities to make more checks (and not only superficial ones) on planes on our airports. It's impossible to force airlines not to tend to the economics but by checking them very frequently and in a very tough way they will for sure tend to put safety in front of profit !!

But this raises another question again: How many people in Belgium are qualified to do the checks ? I've once heard that just a couple of people could do those checks ? I don't know if this is right but the authorities could maybe hire some more people then.

And how many checks does the BCAA do per year in Belgium ?
Are there any figures available for the public ?


That's more of a constructive way to look at the problem isn't it ?

Again I want to say that in NO WAY I'm saying that Belgian aviation is unsafe on the contrary but there is always room for improvement !

What do we want to obtain with that ? If we want the public (our clients, the ones who pay our paychecks by the end of the month) to have fear for flying. If we want the public to believe that the aviation is a gangster business. If we want to break the confidence in our highly professional and very regulated business. Well, if that is what we want...

To my opinion such a shortsighted behaviour might have the same effect on aviation as terrorism had just after 9/11.

It's not a shortsighted view and it's definitely not killing aviation. As I mentioned above, people who now claim they don't want to fly anymore will be the first ones to buy very cheap tickets on any airline when they forget in a few weeks.

Food for tought, isn't it...

Indeed and now you also have some food for some thoughts

Chris

[lastrow]

Hi Comet,

my impression is that some LCCs have excellent safety records *also* because they serve safe routes. I think that is why many large airlines have their sub-airlines (like LH has Condor) to serve all holiday destinations like in the Carribean, etc. They tend to be more problematic in terms of airport safety and maintenance coverage.

In other words: no wonder if Ryanair does fly well between stansted and frankfurt hahn! compare this to venezuela!

-lr.

[Pluto777]

I am surprised, with the actual search for cheap flights. that nobody came with the idea of starting a western-europe based LCC, operating with cheap leased russian Ilyushins and russian pilots... that would certainly result in very cheap prices...

[Airbus330lover]

I am surprised, with the actual search for cheap flights. that nobody came with the idea of starting a western-europe based LCC, operating with cheap leased russian Ilyushins and russian pilots... that would certainly result in very cheap prices...

Cheap price, but they must find passengers and..... with the safety issues of the last times......

[Avro]

They don't lease Ilyushins for the simple reason that most of those planes are not allowed to fly to our airports due to noise restrictions !

Chris

[Airbus330lover]

They don't lease Ilyushins for the simple reason that most of those planes are not allowed to fly to our airports due to noise restrictions !

Chris

Let fly the Ilyushins for a month in Brussels, the people claiming about the noise will know wat is a very serious noise. After this it will be easier to discuss about the future of BRU.

[Pluto777]

First of all, this whole story can be considered as a blame to the Belgian air travel authorities and to the Belgian aircraft technicians. I hope we understand that our criticism means that we distrust the competence of both of them, whereas they have a splendid reputation ! Don't forget this, please...

I fully agree with that statement, and we are certainly not blaming our technicians, maybe they're the best in western europe, you didn't quite understand the point...here an example:
Airbuslover wrote:

In maart heb ik met een futura vliegtuig gevlogen en ..... kort na het opstijgen begon het te fluiten aan de linker voordeur.
De dichting van de deur was defekt en... de hostess tracht het op te lossen met natte wc papier.
5 dagen later, zelfde toestel en...... zelfde probleem.
Totaal gebrek aan hestelling.
Het was maar een dichting ( sorry voor de fouten ik ben franstaalig.)
si j'ai bien expliqué c'est un joint.
En plus ca c'est visible et audible. Wat voor de rest....

These skilled technicians won't get the chance to repair this !

The fixing of this door can not be done in 2 hours.. so, tell me, which scenario is possible nowadays ?
If they do not delay this repair until next inspection, it will certainly cost lots of money to the company... this plane has a full loaded schedule of flights, remember...

So all these topics bring us to back to the basic statement:
Economic pressure becomes too high !

[Rago]

So all these topics bring us to back to the basic statement:
Economic pressure becomes too high !

It's only a technician who can do the right thing to "ground" a plane to be able to work on it. If he doesn't do it, he's working the system of "economic pressure" in hand, and to me he's as criminal as the system he's supporting at that moment by not reporting the prob!!!

[HorsePower]

my impression is that some LCCs have excellent safety records *also* because they serve safe routes.

A more important point is that LLC have only 1 or 2 aircraft types in fleet. So it's easier to avoid human error.

It's only a technician who can do the right thing to "ground" a plane to be able to work on it. If he doesn't do it, he's working the system of "economic pressure" in hand, and to me he's as criminal as the system he's supporting at that moment by not reporting the prob!!!

I've heard recently about this story:

An interim mechanic was working for a small french airline. He checked the elevator control cable adjustment. On one of the side, the adjustment was beyong the tolerance, so it needed to be re-adjusted. It was meaning the aircraft have to be grounded for at least 2 hours. His manager told him to make the average of the 2 sides to make the both ajustements within the tolerance. The mechanic refused, then his manager was angry about him. When his contract ended 2 months later, it wasn't renewed...

It don't mean the aircraft was unsafe to fly, but the fact is this aircraft should has been grounded to proceed at the needed adjustment! It's always start with minor points...

Regards

Seb.