Most of us who fly regularly don't worry much about safety. After all, the US aviation industry has a stellar record. Which makes it all the more disturbing when we learn that there have been more close calls than we think.
According to a piece in this morning's USA Today, there have been more than 50 incidents of flights in the US where wing flaps weren't extended until pilots were alerted of the lapse by an emergency warning system immediately before takeoff. Failure to extend flaps is thought to have caused the Spainair crash this summer in Madrid that killed 154 people.
Wing flaps are hinged surfaces on aircraft wings that control lift and drag. Pilots often partially extend them to reduce stalling speed so that they can take off from shorter runways. Failure to extend flaps can make takeoffs extremely dangerous.
A report from Spanish safety investigators says that at the time the Spanair's black box data recorder stopped, the wing flaps were not extended. This could be the reason that the plane crashed just 40 feet off the ground, hitting the runway tail cone first. When flaps don't extend, an emergency alarm is supposed to sound immediately before takeoff, but this evidently did not happen in the case of the Spanair MD-82.
The USA Today story analyzed eight years of safety data and found that the same safety lapse has occurred dozens of times in the US
since 2000. In many cases, it was only the last minute emergency warning system that prevented planes from taking off without flaps extended.
The Wall Street Journal's Middle Seat blog says that at least two major plane crashes in the United States have been tied to flap issues. In 1987 a Northwest airlines flight crashed in scenic Detroit, killing 148 passengers and six crew members.
The next August, Delta flight 1141 crashed at Dallas/Fort Worth
International, killing 12 passengers. In 2005, pilots took off from National Airport in Washington (I refuse to call it Reagan National, sorry) without extending flaps and nearly plunged to the ground. Not comforting.
The USA Today points out that with more than 10 million flights each year, flap related incidents are statistically tiny, but quotes a safety expert who says it is a disturbing trend nonetheless. Some say the focus shouldn't be on the warning system, but on pilots who are too preoccupied to take necessary safety precautions. In the 1988 Delta crash, the cockpit crew evidently spent
17 minutes chit chatting with a flight attendant pre-flight, and the minutes immediately prior to take off musing about her sex life.
Interesting I'm sure, but save it for the crew lounge.
Photo by Flickr user Benjami
