To Curious Eagles: Take My Interdisciplinary Course on Airplane Accidents (Part II of II)
Note: This post discusses airplane incidents. If you are scared of flying, know of someone who passed away in an airplane incident or think that airplane crashes should not be subject of casual discussion because of human lives at issue, please stop reading.
(Continued from Part I)
Topic 10: Fire in flight (Natural Sciences)
A fire on an airplane can be deadly. It can be caused by bad wiring (Swissair Flight 111), under-inflated tires (Nigeria Airways Flight 2120) or combustible cargo (ValuJet Flight 592, UPS Airlines Flight 6). Fire can even occur during taxing, due to leaking fuel making contact with heated tires (China Airlines Flight 120).
Topic 11: Biology of spacial disorientation (Natural Sciences)
Humans rely on physiologic system other than vision to orient themselves in space. Especially when flying at night, the failure of the bodily system can cause the pilot to lose track of where they are in space (Death of John F. Kennedy, Jr.).
Topic 12: Mathematics of measurements (Mathematics)
Proper measurements are essential for safe flight. Mistaking liters for gallons can cause an airplane to run out of fuel mid-flight (Air Canada Flight 143) and relying on average weight of humans and luggage from decades ago can vastly underestimate the actual weight carried on a plane today (Air Midwest Flight 5481).
Topic 13: Psychology of attention and distraction (Social Sciences)
Humans have both a remarkable ability to concentrate and tragic inability to remain focused. Both can lead to deadly results. Pilots may get distracted by the control tower and skip an item on the essential pre-flight checklist (Northwest Airlines Flight 255) or get overly focused on addressing a minor technical issue and fail to realize that the autopilot has gone off (Eastern Air Lines Flight 401).
Topic 14: Sociology of Cockpit Resource Management (Social Sciences and Cultural Diversity)
All commercial airplanes fly with at least two pilots. Decades ago, captain was king, but today, pilots receive extensive training on Cockpit Resource Management. CRM is the idea that fostering a collaborative working atmosphere through good communication is essential in resolving a crises in the cockpit. Lack of CRM may be caused by an aggressive and overbearing captain (Trans-Colorado Airlines Flight 2286) or an ingrained culture of respecting seniority (Korean Air Cargo Flight 8509), both of which have led to deadly consequences.
Topic 15: Communication in air traffic (Social Sciences)
Communication among and between airplanes and air traffic control is critical for air safety in the modern era of busy air ways. When such communication fails because of language (Avianca Flight 52), conflicting instructions (Bashkirian Airlines Flight 2937 and DHL Flight 611), simple error (USAir Flight 1493 and SkyWest Airlines Flight 5569) or not communicating at all (Hughes Airwest Flight 706), it often leads to disastrous mid-air collisions.
Topic 16: Psychiatry of stupidity (Social Sciences)
Humans can be very stupid, leading to unbelievably senseless deaths. A pilot may fly after ingesting cocaine the night before (Trans-Colorado Airlines Flight 2286), allow his teenage son to take the controls (Aeroflot Flight 593) or become too preoccupied with talking romances and dinner out with a flight attendant (LAPA Flight 3142).
Topic 17: Theology of depravity and suicide (Theology and Philosophy)
Although not as common as often believed, airplanes crash as a result of intentional human act and cavalier treatment of human life. Events such as a pilot’s murder-suicide (Germanwings Flight 9525, SilkAir Flight 185), military shoot downs (Korean Air Lines Flight 007, Malaysia Airlines Flight 17) and terrorist act (Pan Am Flight 103), sometimes for religious reasons (American Airlines Flight 11, United Airlines Flight 175, American Airlines Flight 77, United Airlines Flight 93), require us to think deeply about meaning of life.
Topic 18: Fallibility and capacity of humanity (Philosophy)
Humans have an amazing capacity to excel while simultaneously suffering from tragic failure to do the basic things. There have been accidents where passengers could have survived if only the pilot had done nothing (Air France Flight 447) and others where they would have all died if left to the autopilot (United Airlines Flight 232).
Topic 19: History of air safety improvements (History)
Each airplane accident results in an extensive investigation, official reports and safety improvements for the entire industry. Improvements could be as fundamental as re-designing the windows so it won’t have edges (South African Airways Flight 201), to something more subtle like installing lights on the floor so people can find exits even as they crawl through heavy smoke (British Airtours Flight 28M) or changing order of items on a checklist (Death of Payne Stewart). Today, air travel is the safest way to travel because it reflects learnings from every tragic accidents of the past.
Topic 20: Fate and coincidences in airplane crashes – course review (Philosophy and Theology)
The most devastating aircrash in history is the 1977 Tenerife crash involving two jumbo jet Boeing 747s, in which KLM Flight 4805 crashed into Pan Am Flight 1736 on the runway during takeoff. The aircrash resulted from a chain of unfortunate coincidences that illustrates many of the failures studied throughout this course:
- Both planes were diverted to Tenerife purely due to bad luck, because a terrorist set off a bomb at their original destination, the Gran Canaria Airport on the island of Gran Canaria
- Tenerife was not designed to handle five large airlines, forcing air traffic controller to use the take-off runway as also a taxiing runway
- The KLM flight crew was close to limit on their duty-time restrictions, which put a lot of pressure on the captain to quickly get to Gran Canaria islands, then to Amsterdam
- The KLM captain decided to refuel at Tenerife to save time at Gran Canaria airport, but once Gran Canaria airport was re-opened, the Pan Am was unable to maneuver around the refueling KLM, by just 3.7 meters (12 feet)
- The delay caused by KLM’s decision to refuel brought fog to the runway and reduced visibility to a minimum
- KLM captain was a senior pilot and a training instructor who had not flown a regular flight in 12 weeks
- Air traffic controller, whose native language was Spanish, did not use standard language in his communications with KLM
- Pan Am’s radio communication that they were still on a runway was interrupted by radio signal from KLM and the tower at the same precise moment
- KLM captain initiated takeoff without clearance from the tower, and the first officer and flight engineer did not challenge him due to CRM failure
- Upon seeing the Pan Am plane, KLM was unable to avoid the Pan Am flight as it was taking off because of the weight from the additional fuel it took on
