Technical Paper Title: Air Accidents and latest Investigation Techniques
Authors: G. Padmaraju, Syed Sazeeth , 2nd BTech, Aeronautical
College: Malla Reddy College of Engineering and Technology, Dhulapally, Medchal, Hyderabad
Flight accidents and speed investigation:
Since three years the aviation industry is economically going down due to the recession and increase in fuel charges. Many accidents occurring these years pushing the aviation industry in more trouble, because when some air accident took place an average of 110 people will lost their lives and in ten years (between January 1995 and December 2004), a total of 5,612 people died in 376 commercial aircraft accidents. This represents an average of about 560 people dying in 38 accidents per year and the investigation teams which work on this accidents results will consumes a lot of time for giving the reasons for the accidents.
They study the black box information which consists of cvr (cockpit voice recorder) and fdr (flight data recorder) data of some 80 to 90 difference performance parameters. The investigation teams will be completely depends on the black box for the investigation purpose, in some cases they will not able to find the black box itself. And they will just keep the accident case aside and will give some useless results to the administrative board about the cause of the particular accident.
There are many examples where the investigations team failed to give the correct results of the accidents. Generally the accident’s occurs due to 58% of pilot’s mistake and remaining includes 18% due to atmospheric conditions and 17% due to aircrafts technical systems. In some cases if the accident’s occurs due to atmospheric conditions the investigators of that accident will not be able to judge correctly where the flight went wrong and simply blames the pilot for that accident to happen which is a very improper thing for the board of pilots association.
Some data about the accidents since `1960’s
On board fatalities means people who were present in the aircraft at time of accident.
When comparing the data from 1960 to 2008 we will find a very good change in the number of accidents. And now we are technologically very advanced so we have to reduce the number of accidents as more as possible. And we have to make investigations of accidents In such a way that we have to get the reasons for accidents in two or three days from the accident day.
This will be possible if we upgrade the aircrafts with some new & simple technologies which will help us a lot in reducing the accidents and to get the fastest results possible if some accident took place. Every country is now focusing on this particular issue to reduce accidents and to make the investigations as soon as possible.
The following chart shows the causes for the air accidents
Which clearly shows that the accidents are mainly due to the human errors and remaining due to aircraft and weather conditions.
So its becoming so crucial to reduce the accidents and to develop the latest investigations techniques for the accidents took place.
The main techniques we can adopt are:
- Installing simple artificial intelligence programs in the flights control equipment which will help the pilot in critical conditions
- Auto pilot system should be used properly by the pilots. In many accidents the pilot’s failed in using the auto pilot service correctly.
- Aircraft manufacture company’s has to take the information of checking’s done to their aircrafts regularly.
- Government’s have to maintain strict rules and regulations in the issue of license’s for the new airline companies.
- Pilots and the crew cabin should be selected on good efficiency and experience levels.
- The radar teams should not allow the aircraft’s to take off in bad weather conditions
- Every important system in the aircraft should be directly communicated with the ground team
As shown below the aircrafts in motion should continuously give its data in pictorial technique form to the ground for having long and critical safety support.
This can be done using simple sensors fixed at different locations of the aircraft assembly .Which gives us very useful data of various parts of the air crafts in cruising motion.
And techniques for speed investigations to be done;
When some accident happen we first run in the search of black box
Instead of searching and studying black box data for a long time after the accident happens we can get the data directly to the ground level by sending the black box data continuously to the ground with the help of continuous satellite communications.
Installing GPS systems for flight will make easy and fast recovery of the data, aircrafts location and the onboard fatalities.
Economically adoption of the systems like real-time black box data transfer and the Hi end GPS will consume very less funds. Every airline in the world is able to bare this amounts which will costs some 20k to 30k$ which will be a very less amount for funding on the safety of the aircrafts. Generally a Boeing or Airbus aircraft costs some 195–200million$.
By adopting real time systems we can get the continuous motion of the flight to the ground at high speeds via satellite systems, this will help the air lines to reduce the wastage of money on the investigations teams and wasting the time too. Below figure shows how the simple technique takes place
Thus I conclude that we have to adopt real time systems and artificial intelligence in the aviation purposes to have much development in the aviation industry and to reduce the flight accidents and to increase the passengers safety.
These techniques can be easily implemented as they are simple and very cost effective, for the airlines these are very affordable amounts which can be easily bearable.
Using real time techniques we can get the data on the internet and also be able to see it on our gadgets which will be very cost effective for the general public.
Governments have to focus on the development in the new technologies and try to adopt them in their aviation departments.
There are many blacklisted airlines which are still in continuous services violating the NTCB (National Transportation Safety Board) norms and regulations, these airlines should be stopped as soon as possible to reduce more accidents.
The public should try to travel in the airlines which are not blacklisted by NTCB to have good safety in the journey.
The emergency services should be very rapidly done when some problems occurs when the aircraft is in the airport base. There are many nations which are lacking behind technologically and not have enough funds to adopt these technique’s, all other nations should be commit to help those nations in their development.
By practicing these methods by various nations and airlines can reduce the number of accidents at max level and can increase the business levels by making the public to feel secure about the air travel.
Generally many accidents happens due to pilots negligence, a very few accidents are probably not preventable. But I would strongly argue that the facts show that at least 99% of the general aviation accidents are preventable through improved pilot attitude, awareness, or training.
Thus these are the smart and simple tools for the reduction of number of accidents in future and for the speed investigation of the accidents. So the next generation should have to focus on these things in creating new systems and technologies to make the aviation industry even more secure than what it is now.