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December 2004
Vulnerabilities Warrant Attention as Satellite-based Navigation Grows 32 pages. [PDF 1.1M]
The International Civil Aviation Organization and other authorities recommend backup inertial-reference systems, ground-based navaids, and radar surveillance and vectoring to mitigate interference — unintentional and intentional — with navigation signals from space. Improved satellites and augmentation systems will help to lessen risks under instrument flight rules.
November 2004
RVSM Heightens Need for Precision in Altitude Measurement 40 pages. [PDF 757K]
Technological advances have honed the accuracy of aircraft altimeters, but false indications still can occur at any altitude or flight level. Some involve limitations of the altimeters themselves, but most are associated with the ‘weak link’ in altimetry — the human.
October 2004
Global Implementation of RVSM Nears Completion 40 pages. [PDF 1.2M]
Reduced vertical separation minimum (RVSM) for aircraft being flown at 29,000 feet through 41,000 feet has been applied in many regions; North America, South America and the Caribbean will follow in January 2005. Experience has shown that increased traffic congestion below RVSM airspace and wake-turbulence encounters in RVSM airspace have not been significant problems.
September 2004
Charts Raise Pilot Awareness of Minimum Vectoring Altitudes 48 pages. [PDF 978K]
At least 158 paper charts published by 34 civil aviation authorities currently provide advisory information about minimum vectoring altitudes to pilots. Newly released data for 374 U.S. MVA charts should encourage development of electronic versions that will help to prevent controlled flight into terrain.
August 2004
Stabilized Approach and Flare Are Keys to Avoiding Hard Landings 44 pages. [PDF 1.3M]
Flight crews primarily use their judgment to identify and report hard landings, but recorded flight data also might be useful to gauge the severity of the impact before a conditional maintenance inspection is performed. The accident record shows that hard landings often involve substantial damage and sometimes result in fatalities.
June–July 2004
Wealth of Guidance and Experience Encourage Wider Adoption of FOQA 116 pages [PDF 1.9M]
On Jan. 1, 2005, nonpunitive flight-data monitoring will become an international standard for operators of some commercial transport aircraft. Air carriers that already have established flight operational quality assurance programs have turned them into indispensable risk-management tools.
May 2004
Controlled Flight Into Terrain Takes Highest Toll in Business Jet Operations 64 pages. [PDF 1.3M]
Loss of control was the second leading cause of fatal business jet accidents worldwide from 1991 through 2002. Inadequate crew coordination and monitoring were cited in the majority of business jet incidents.
April 2004
Freeing NOTAMs From Teletype Technology 56 pages. [PDF 1.2M]
Notices to airmen (NOTAMs) are essential to flight safety. A survey of dispatchers, and an analysis of the human factors aspects of the formatting and distributing NOTAMs show that the system has not technological advances and is in need of redesign.
March 2004
Bracing the Last Line of Defense Against Midair Collisions 48 pages. [PDF 2.4M]
Recent accidents have prompted the International Civil Aviation Organization to clarify that pilots must comply immediately with airborne collision avoidance system resolution advisories, even when contradictory instructions are issued by air traffic control.
September 2003–February 2004
Waterproof Flight Operations: A comprehensive guide for corporate, fractional, on-demand and commuter operators conducting overwater flight. 668 pages. [15.4M]
The work on this extraordinary Flight Safety Digest was begun in 2001 by the Flight Safety Foundation (FSF) publications staff in response to queries from corporate aviation managers who were initiating overwater flights. They wanted additional guidance about how to ditch their aircraft, how to select life rafts, how to use the required equipment and what might be expected from search-and-rescue resources in various parts of the world.
The publications staff came to realize that the sea is the great equalizer: Whether the survivors arrive from a ditched aircraft or from an abandoned ship, once in the water, their survival issues are universal.
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