Japan aircraft runway collision: Aviation is safe, but we need to learn lessons

On January 02, Japan Airlines Flight 516, an Airbus A350-900 operating from New Chitose Airport to Haneda Airport, collided with an earthquake relief plane, Japan Coast Guard De Havilland Canada DHC-8-315Q, while landing. The A350 plane burst into flames after the collision as the airliner skidded on the blazing runway. Both aircraft were destroyed. Fire crews spent hours dousing the fire. Yet, all 379 passengers and crew on board were evacuated. This was the first hull loss of an Airbus A350. Five of the six crew on the coastguard plane unfortunately died, and the captain was injured. Recent aircraft accidents where passengers survived On January 05, Alaska Airlines Flight 1282, a Boeing 737 MAX 9 departing out of Portland International Airport, suffered an explosive decompression when a plug covering an unused exit door blew out. The aircraft made a safe return to Portland, all 177 people on-board survived. On September 12, 2023, Ural Airlines Flight 1383, an Airbus A320 operating from Sochi to Omsk in Russia, made an emergency landing on an open field after reporting hydraulic issues. All 165 on board survive without injuries. On November 18, 2022, LATAM Perú Flight 2213, an Airbus A320neo took off from Jorge Chávez International Airport, Peru, collided with a fire engine crossing the runway, killing three fire-fighters. All 102 passengers and 6 crew aboard escape unharmed. This was the first hull loss of an A320neo. On November 06, 2022, Precision Air Flight 494, an ATR 42-500 flying a domestic flight from Dar es Salaam, crashed into Lake Victoria while attempting to land at Bukoba Airport, Tanzania. Of the 43 people on board, 19 were killed. We all can recall, “The Miracle over Hudson”, when on January 15, 2009, an Airbus A320 of US Airways Flight 1549, struck a flock of birds shortly after take-off from LaGuardia, losing all engine power. Pilots Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger and Jeffrey Skiles decided to glide the plane to ditching in the Hudson River off Midtown Manhattan. All 155 people on board were rescued by nearby boats, with only a few serious injuries. The time from the bird strike to the ditching was less than four minutes. On October 23, 2022, Korean Air Flight 631, an Airbus A330-300 flying from Seoul, overshot the runway at Mactan-Cebu International Airport, Philippines, in poor weather and collided with airport equipment. There are no injuries among the 173 passengers and crew. Flying in general has been trending safer, and in particular, newer, less flammable materials help keep people alive in the event of a fire. But in all the accidents the airline culture, aircraft crew, passengers, Air Traffic Controllers, ground handling staff, and emergency services staff had a great role. Lessons from Japan Airlines Flight 516 accident If one watches the video of the plane rolling quickly down the runway, with flames shooting out from almost its entire length, it seems inconceivable that no one died. There are many reasons the crash did not result in a much bigger tragedy. One of the biggest reasons no one died on Flight 516 was the crew’s swift reaction. They popped out the emergency slides the moment the plane stopped. Then moved passengers to the slides swiftly but in an orderly manner. They insisted that passengers leave everything but their phones behind, since bringing items along could have slowed things down and led to deaths. Most passengers were Japanese. Japanese culture, values, and discipline meant all obeyed instructions and acted like a responsible group. Interestingly, the pilots and flight crew of all airlines are trained to get passengers off planes very quickly. The planes collided at 5:47 pm and footage shows all passengers had evacuated by 5:55 pm at the latest. Only the pilots stayed behind with the captain leaving at 6.05 pm after conducting a final check in the cabin. Flight 516 had landed well past sunset time of 4:44 pm, and all emergency procedures were handled when dark. Some passenger videos show that they could see sparks outside the window and that the cabin was filled with gas and smoke. Passengers escaped using an evacuation slide and ran across the tarmac to safety, as footage and photos showed. Eventually, the plane burned down to its fuselage. Around 14 passengers and crew suffered minor injuries. Lessons from the 1985 JAL crash In the 1985 Japan Airlines (JAL) Flight 123 crash, with 524 people on board, only four had survived, making it the worst single-plane disaster in aviation history. The airline had learned their lessons and became determined to make sure it would never happen again. They put in place strict safety procedures, protocols, and training. To keep reminding the new employees, the airline created a display at its headquarters with pieces of the plane’s wreckage and stories about the people who had died on board. All failure must become an opportunity to learn, they believe. JAL for years became among the world’s safest airlines. Calmness and discipline The calmness and discipline of the cabin crew and passengers had a huge impact on their survival. Exceptional professionalism of Japan Airlines and their crews on the fast and effective evacuation that saved all of the passengers’ lives must be commended. Remember flight attendants aren’t just glorified airplane waiters, they’re trained safety professionals who know what to do in case of an emergency. So don’t feel grumpy when they don’t get you a drink quickly enough, they are multi-tasking all the time for your safety. They were absolute heroes. The Captain was the last person who got out of the plane – great leadership. Salute to the passengers for not panicking, remained seated, and prevented a stampede, which could have made things so much worse. It was nice to see passengers not going for their bags and actually doing the thing that mattered, and saving their own precious and irreplaceable lives. They all exited in the most orderly manner, and that made a huge difference. Koji Shibata, president of ANA Holdings, also offered his words of praise for these great rivals, saying, “It was truly professional work.” It is the first major accident involving the A350, one of a new breed of aircraft built largely of advanced materials such as carbon fibre-reinforced plastic. The plane’s technology also did a great job too. Culture Japan is a country with a lot of volcanoes and earthquakes, and has seen the Fukushima nuclear disaster and the deadly Tsunami, among many other disasters. Japanese are repeatedly trained for thorough evacuation drills since they are in elementary school. They respond calmly, judge the situation, cooperate with the surroundings and help each other. It has been deeply penetrated into culture for a long time. This incident demonstrated the human nobility of not fighting for a better escape chance, but accepting the sequence given by seating order. I recently went to Japan and noticed in the Shinkansen bullet trains and the subway, how packed passengers change trains in an orderly manner. Discipline is part of the Japanese lifestyle. Japanese people are respectful of others. The culture is that collective good overrides individual opinions or desires. This is a good lesson for air passengers around the world. Remember to follow flight crew instructions. Exponential increase of aircraft and traffic As per Airports Council International, global passenger traffic is expected to reach 9.4 billion passengers by 2024. As per DGCA, India’s domestic airlines passenger count was 125.49 million in the period January-October 2023. Indian daily domestic air passenger count hit a new high of 463,417 people on November 23, 2023. India is already the third-largest domestic aviation market in the world. As of June 2022, the total worldwide commercial aircraft fleet size was 28,674 aircraft. Airbus has forecast a demand for 40,850 new passenger and freighter aircraft deliveries over the next 20 years. A Bain and Company report forecasts that by 2030, Europe–North America travel could increase about 17 percent from 2019 demand volume, while Asia intra-regional travel could jump 61 percent. Civil aviation safety statistics improving The Aircraft Crashes Record Office (ACRO), a non-government organisation based in Geneva, has indicated that in the last 10 years have seen fewer than 150 accidents a year compared to over 200 a year in earlier decades. As much as 56 percent of all accidents are attributed to Pilot/Human error, 17 percent to Technical flaw, 13 percent to weather and remaining to miscellaneous causes like Air Traffic control error (4 percent), mid-air collisions, sabotage, bird strike, high-jacking, shooting-down etc. Boeing study over the last 50 years indicates that most on-board fatalities occur in accidents during approach and landing (60 percent), Take-off (12 percent) and rest in other phases or causes. The Odds of at least one fatality on your flight is 1:3.4 million (1:10 million in top 40 airlines). That is a good reason to choose a reputed airline. There is a 25 percent chance of surviving even a fatal crash. 53 percent chances of survival when aircraft ditches in water. The good news is that over 95 percent of people in US plane crashes, between 1983 and 2000, survived. According to a study by the European Transport Safety Council, plane crashes technically have a 90 percent survivability rate, and this figure is increasing, largely thanks to modern aircraft design, which features enough exits to allow for a full passenger evacuation in around 90 seconds. Recent proof of plane crash survival came in October 2021 when a Boston-bound private plane taking-off at Houston Executive Airport struck a fence and burst in flames. All 21 people on-board survived. In 2018, all 103 passengers survived a flaming plane crash in Mexico when strong winds brought down Aeromexico flight 2431. Clearly, in over one hundred years of implementation, aviation safety has improved considerably. Aircraft being designed for increased safety The two major manufacturers, Boeing and Airbus, still produce heavy passenger aircraft. Both place a huge emphasis on the use of aviation safety equipment, which in itself is now a few billion-dollar industry. A poor safety record in the aviation industry is a threat to corporate survival. Some major safety devices now required in commercial aircraft are, evacuation slides for rapid passenger exit from an aircraft in an emergency situation; advanced avionics, incorporating computerized auto-recovery and alert systems; turbine engines with improved durability and failure containment mechanisms; and landing gear that can be lowered even after loss of power and hydraulics. Newer civil aviation safety procedures In an effort to prevent incidents such as the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, a new standard was issued by ICAO in 2016 requiring all commercial aircraft to report their position every 15 minutes to air traffic controllers. It was part of a long-term plan, called the Global Aeronautical Distress and Safety System (GADSS), which will require new aircraft to be equipped with data broadcast systems that are in constant contact with air traffic controllers. The GADSS is similar to the Global Maritime Distress and Safety System (GMDSS) used for maritime safety. The Aviation Safety Reporting System (ASRS) collects voluntarily submitted aviation safety incident/situation reports from pilots, controllers and others. The ASRS uses reports to identify system deficiencies, issue alert messages, and produce two publications, CALLBACK, and ASRS Directline. The collected information is made available to the public, and is used by the FAA, NASA and other organisations working in research and flight safety. Reduced accidents and fatalities The Bureau of Aircraft Accidents Archives (B3A), is a non-government organisation based in Geneva, that compiles statistics on aviation accidents of aircraft capable of carrying more than six passengers, excluding helicopters, balloons, and combat aircraft. They only consider crashes in which the aircraft had to be removed from service because of extensive damage. Their statistics indicate that recent years have been considerably safer for aviation, with fewer than 170 incidents every year between 2009 and 2022, compared to as many as 225 as recently as 1998. The annual fatalities figure has been less than 1,000 for 12 of the 16 years between 2007 and 2022, the year 2022 experienced the lowest number of fatalities, at 357, since the end of World War II. In India, until May 30, 2012, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation investigated incidents involving aircraft. Since then, the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau has taken over investigation responsibilities. Air among the safest means of transportation Measured on a passenger-distance calculation, air travel is the safest form of transportation available. This statistic is used by the insurance industry when calculating insurance rates for air travel. For every billion kilometres travelled, trains have a fatality rate that is 12 times higher than that of air travel, and the fatality rate for automobiles is 62 times greater than for air travel. By contrast, for every billion journeys taken, buses are the safest form of transportation. Using this measure, air travel is three times more dangerous than car transportation, and almost 30 times more dangerous than travelling by bus. Is there a safer seat? Some studies have claimed that passengers sitting at the back of an aeroplane are 40 percent more likely to survive a crash than those sitting at the front. Time magazine analysed airplane accident data between 1980 and 2015 and found that passengers seated in the back of the plane had a 32 percent fatality rate, compared to 38 percent and 39 percent for those seated in the front and middle respectively. But both Boeing and the FAA claim that there is no “safest” seat. Just because the flight data recorder is usually mounted in the aircraft’s empennage (tail section) where it is more likely to survive a severe crash, doesn’t make rear seats safer. Good idea Irrespective of where you are seated, the speed at which a passenger exits a crashed plane dictates their chance of survival. The closer you are seated to an exit, the better the chance of survival. University of Greenwich professor Ed Galea analysed seating charts from more than 100 plane crashes and found that sitting within five rows of an exit increased passengers’ survival rates. Importance of safety briefing You may have heard a hundred safety briefings before, but it’s always worth paying attention to every safety briefing. Aircraft and instructions vary. I always double check where the nearest exit is, and remind my co-passenger about it. Also one must practice the bracing instructions for the time of crash as given in safety guides. Objects flying through the cabin can also cause secondary impact, which is why passengers are asked to put their bags under the seat in front of them. I always keep my seatbelt fastened throughout the flight as this would prevent me from being thrown around the aircraft in the event of turbulence or a crash. Correct dress for an air passenger Interestingly another study says that snug-fitting attire is preferable to loose-fitting fabrics that could snag on fixtures and fittings when trying to exit a crashed plane. Full-length clothing could potentially protect the skin from fire, which is typical in a plane crash. Durable jeans or sportswear such as leggings made from less-flammable fabric such as cotton are ideal. Stilettoes are best left in the luggage. As safety cards point out, sharp heels can damage inflatable slides. Nervous flyers education Are you still a nervous flyer? If so, there’s an educational organisation in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. Dynamic Advanced Training specialises in giving people the skills to survive a plane crash. Instead of thinking about all the ways that you can die, learn the ways that you can survive. Aviation is safe Advances in technology have made a big difference in safety and passenger comfort. Weather radars, good autopilots, collision avoidance systems, glass cockpits, more reliable engines, greatly support and reduce pilot load and improve safety. For better safety, it is recommended to fly non-stop flights to reduce exposure; larger aircraft have better survival statistics; attention to pre-flight briefings have saved lives; keep seat-belts fastened all the time; cabin crew are more for safety and less for serving; and keep cool and your wits about. There is one accident per 3 million departures, so cheer-up airliners are very safe. The writer is Director General, Centre for Air Power Studies. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost_’s views._ Read all the  Latest News ,  Trending News ,  Cricket News ,  Bollywood News , India News  and  Entertainment News  here. Follow us on  Facebook,  Twitter and  Instagram.