Treating air accident as crimes

Treating air accident as crimes

Lalu A. Damanhuri, Jakarta

Within a one-month period at the end of this year there have
been a number of serious accidents in Indonesia in almost all
forms of transport.

While it is too early to make judgments about the exact cause
of the Lion Air Boeing MD-82 aircraft crash in Surabaya, it is
quite possible the accident was due to the failure of Lion Air to
comply with standard operating procedures. A likely contributing
factor to the accident could also be the failure of employees to
exercise adequate operational safety oversight.

Historically, a variety of people, including surviving pilots
and cabin crew, mechanics, ground workers, and surviving
passengers, have willingly provided key information in accident
investigations. The overriding emphasis of investigators is on
understanding the accident so that lessons learned could be used
in preventing future accidents. In the past there was little
concern with trying to punish those who might have contributed to
the accident.

However, this not the situation now and more people are
becoming reluctant to talk openly. It is also increasingly common
for people to talk to their lawyers before talking to
investigators. Although it is difficult to determine the specific
effect of this litigious environment on the quality of
investigations, it seems clear that accident investigators are
being told less and are finding it difficult to gather
information in a timely fashion.

Actually, according to Aviation Law No. 15/1999, there is no
way a pilot in Indonesia can be charged with causing an air
accident. The current law says no one is directly responsible for
an aviation accident, and therefore the pilot or copilot cannot
be charged for criminal recklessness or negligence as drivers on
land can.

The government, however, has established the Transportation
Safety National Committee (KNKT), the body that conducts
investigations into aviation accidents. However, this body is not
independent, because it is under the auspices of the Ministry of
Transport. To ensure an unbiased investigation, the existing law
must be reformed in order to accommodate air transport safety --
if necessary we should set up a separate aviation accident law.

Automatically recorded information is becoming ever-more
critical in determining the causes of increasingly complex
accidents. Flight data recorders (FDRs) in newly manufactured
aircraft must now record 57 different measurements and soon will
have to record 88.

Automation has already taken over many of the functions
previously performed by pilots, air traffic controllers, and
mechanics. For example, after takeoff, the pilot can program the
plane to fly itself. Some aircraft are even equipped with an
automatic landing function. However, in highly automated
aircraft, pilots no longer have a direct mechanical or hydraulic
link to control aircraft components. Instead they provide input
into a computer that issues commands to the components.

In some aircraft, the computer can even alter pilot inputs to
prevent action that has been programmed as unsafe. How can we be
sure that this increasingly complex programming will work as
desired under the huge array of circumstances that aircraft
potentially face?

A key practical issue is ensuring that the pilot will be ready
to resume control of an aircraft when needed. Take, for example,
the problem of ice accumulation during flight. Even small amounts
of ice can dramatically degrade an aircraft's performance, and
with sufficient icing the aircraft can become un-flyable. Because
the autopilot can compensate for the accumulating ice up to a
point, the pilot may not realize that there is a problem. But by
the time the pilot resumes control from the autopilot, the plane
may have deteriorated to the point where it is no longer
controllable.

Determining the point at which adding more automation becomes
counterproductive to improving safety is a complex issue, and we
don't pretend to know where that point is. Our concern is that
the industry may not always realize that just because we have the
technical ability to automate something doesn't mean we always
should.

The airline industry has always been strongly affected by
business cycles. During periods of rapid growth, budget carriers'
increased demand for pilots means that pilots often move more
quickly up the career ladder. There is always the concern that
they do so with insufficient experience and with less filtering.
Less experienced pilots are often hastily promoted to higher
position. Although there is no solid proof to back up the
statement, but from day to day we have seen a higher rate of
pilot errors in the last few years during the period of rapid
growth of this industry.

Until recently, the question of how the government safety
function should be organized haven't been given much thought.

A second element involved in organizing governmental
institutions for safety is harmonizing international safety
regulations. A persistent theme in aviation safety research is
the disparity of safety performance in different regions of the
world. Indonesia is dramatically less safe. The reasons are
varied, including differences in navigational and landing aids,
airports and weather. But there are also differences in
regulatory standards and enforcements in areas such as pilot
training, mandatory equipment on aircraft, and aircraft
maintenance.

These differences are aggravated by the tendency in Indonesia
for airlines to lease (buy) older aircraft from developed
countries. Although older aircraft can be operated safely when
properly maintained, adequate maintenance is frequently lacking
in Indonesia.

There have been relatively few attempts at harmonizing
international standards and enforcement on airline operations,
aircraft maintenance, pilot training and licensing, and minimum
required equipment on aircraft. Accident investigation is also
more difficult in Indonesia, because FDRs and cockpit voice
recorders are often less sophisticated.

The traditional approach of learning from previous accidents
alone is no longer enough. Stricter penalties from the
government, including to charge and bring to court those who are
responsible for the air accident should be taken soon.

The writer is a senior specialist from the Committee On Policy
for Acceleration of Infrastructure Development (KKPPI).