Aviation can be a dangerous business. But, a look at hangar and ramp accidents shows the costs can be high, even deadly. Training, attitude and reasonable expectations can reduce the number of incidents.
For all its glamour, aviation is a dangerous business. Pilots and mechanics are well aware of the risks and are highly trained to manage them. But the same can not be said for many of the ground support workers in aviation ramps and hangars. The lack of a standard approach to training, the relentless time pressures which many of these workers face, their congested and sometimes confusing workspaces, and their physically demanding but often ill-paid positions can create a dangerous environment.
The industry recognizes this and is taking steps to improve it, in general, business and commercial aviation, but are these changes happening fast enough? There are also major obstacles to understanding the scope of the ramp safety problem and thus improving it: government data is incomplete and privately collected data is considered proprietary.
The cost of ramp accidents is high. According to the Flight Safety Foundation, approximately 27,000 ramp accidents and incidents occur annually worldwide and around 243,000 people are injured — about nine per 1,000 departures. The cost to major airlines was estimated to be at least $10 billion a year. The International Air Transport Association (IATA) reckons the direct costs of airplane damage to be about $4 billion a year. IATA attributes the problem to "minimal oversight" of ground service providers in the selection and licensing process, in systems implementation, training and development, and in auditing, reporting and compliance procedures.
In a report published in late 2007, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) described the typical ramp as a "small, congested area in which departing and arriving aircraft are serviced by ramp workers, including baggage, catering and fuelling personnel...the presence of a large number of people utilizing equipment in a relatively small area, often under considerable time pressure, creates an environment in which injuries and fatalities can occur." As an example of what can happen, GAO cited the December 2005 scare at Alaska Airlines, when an MD80 experienced sudden cabin depressurization as a result of an unreported incident in which a ground vehicle had punctured the aircraft’s fuselage.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), U.S. workers supporting the air transport sector in jobs such as airport operation and the servicing, repairing, maintaining, storing and ferrying of aircraft, suffered 2,780 nonfatal occupational injuries and illnesses involving days away from work in 2006. The data showed an upward trend from 2003 (2,680) and 2005 (2,470). Many of the injuries in this category occurred to service workers, such as ticketing agents and bellhops, who lift heavy bags but don’t work on the ramp.
Nevertheless, it’s easy to tell, even from this randomly selected survey data, that serious injuries are commonplace among workers such as aircraft mechanics, vehicle and mobile equipment mechanics, and material movers. Among the most frequent types of injuries were: sprains and strains; bruises and contusions; fractures; and cuts, lacerations and punctures.
Fatalities also occur. GAO found that of 29 fatal ramp accidents (across all sectors of aviation) from 2001 through 2006, 17 involved ground workers, eight were passengers and four were pilots. These misfortunes typically occurred when employees were struck by objects such as vehicles, or were crushed, or fell. Of the eight passengers who died, five were struck by propellers.
NASA’s Aviation Safety Reporting System (ASRS) database is also full of complaints about commercial aviation ramp safety, ranging from poor signage and lighting to inept marshaling and the parking of equipment inside protected areas. Ramp workers were sometimes cited for putting the need for timely pushback ahead of safety or company policy, or for speeding and erratic driving of fuel trucks and other vehicles. Many of these complaints reported aircraft contact. One of these incidents sounds hilarious — when a member of the cabin cleaning crew tried to marshal an aircraft — but if the pilot hadn’t stopped the aircraft at receiving unintelligible signals, there could have been injury and aircraft damage.
A glance at the safety database of the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), which records incidents with significant aircraft damage and injury, spotlights lapses on general aviation ramps, as well. Pilots were often at fault, leaving engines running while searching for objects on the cockpit floor, visiting the bathroom or allowing a photographer to wander near an aircraft. One 71-year-old pilot collided with the terminal building while attempting to park his aircraft on the terminal’s ramp, while another older pilot impacted a hangar on his landing roll. In other cases, workers on the ramp inserted chocks while the engines were running, directed jet blast onto a taxiway (with ill effects for an incoming plane), or "guided" an aircraft into a construction vehicle.
Data Problem
The aviation industry likes to say that "safety is data-driven." But in the case of ramp safety, the data is insufficient. GAO said that "a lack of complete accident data and standards for ground handling" hinders the effort to understand the nature, extent and cost of accidents and to improve safety. Investigative agencies only look into certain classes of accidents, and that their data is incomplete, especially in the area of nonfatal injuries. According to GAO, the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) only investigates ramp problems "when they involve fatalities or the hospitalisation of three or more employees." And data collected by private entities is not available to the public "for competitive reasons," according to the agency.
The owners of privately collected data, however, are using it to improve safety. The Air Transport Association (ATA), which represents commercial carriers, has used knowledge, developed in the course of eight years’ data collection, to create guidelines and best practices for members. "We know we have an issue with ground damage," says Basil Barimo, ATA’s vice president of operations and safety. The organization planned to sign a memorandum of understanding with OSHA, which will include data collection, as well as outreach and communications, he says.
ATA has also worked with equipment manufacturers and designers to improve the design of cargo loaders in order to better protect users, as well as airplanes. And Barimo points to promising new technologies, such as self-parking jetways.
GAO also proposed the following actions, some of which have been undertaken by various parties:
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Promoting a safety culture
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Standardizing airport ramp markings
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Improving or increasing ramp worker training
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Increasing supervision
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Developing safer designs for ramp equipment
Safety Initiatives
IATA is starting a safety audit program for ground handling companies, including a worldwide ground operational safety benchmark and standard. This effort is known as the IATA Safety Audit for Ground Operations (ISAGO, pronounced eye-say-go). The National Air Transportation Association (NATA), an organisation with many fixed based operator (FBO) members, is creating a web-based event reporting database which it will make available to its SMS (safety management system) participants.
American Airlines is also making strides, according to Jerry Yates, Systems Safety Committee Chairman for the Transport Workers Union of America (TWU) with that carrier. Yates claims American Airlines is bucking an upward national trend in injuries for heavy transport workers. He expects the number of injuries per 100 base and line maintenance employees at AA to decrease by 5 percent and 6 percent, respectively, from May 2006 to May 2008. The national average of injuries per 100 heavy transport employees, he says, is projected to increase by 6.6 percent over the same period. (Note: these "heavy transport" workers that AA is compared with may or may not be in the aviation industry.)
Yates mentions several factors that may have contributed to this favourable trend. Six or seven years ago, the airline and the union began to set up emergency response teams, which now exist at all three of the airline’s maintenance bases. The Tulsa, Oklahoma, base relies on its own employees, many of whom are volunteer firemen. Defibrillators and stretchers are located within a 90-second walk from any given point on the floor, yielding a quick response time for the injured. Around 90 employees at Tulsa have been trained in emergency response procedures, he says. They can also do high-angle rescue and confined-space entry. Although Yates doesn’t have statistics, he says that this training and readiness have been well worth the effort and expense. He hopes to see this type of support rolled out to line maintenance workers, as well.
Another initiative in the works at American Airlines concerns standardising personal protective equipment (PPE). While the maintenance bases have a "wealth of gloves and hearing protection" devices, smaller line stations may be less endowed. In an effort to "level the playing field," the airline and the union have created a national PPE review board, which identifies items as standard gear, so that the equipment can be bought in volume, reducing costs as well as increasing safety.
Using Q-Pulse to Manage Safety in the Aviation Industry
Traditionally, the aviation industry has taken a reactive approach to managing safety, for example in occurrence reporting. As well as helping the industry to manage regulatory compliance, SMS have given airlines tools and techniques that have helped them to move from a reactive approach to take a more proactive stance.
However, the continuing growth and expansion of the industry exerts increasing pressure on airlines to extend the SMS to every level and to all areas of the organisation, in order to maintain the way in which safety is managed, and to continue to make sure that safety and airworthiness are improving.
This shift in how safety is managed can be seen in the changing requirements of aviation regulations and standards: from January 2009, according to the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), airlines must establish a SMS that complies with ICAO standards and recommended practices (SARPs).
Industry best practice recommends that safety management systems (SMS) should be based on Quality processes, and regulatory guidance material recognises the quality management system (QMS) as the foundation on which SMS should be built. By integrating quality and safety management systems, airlines can achieve a systematic approach to managing and Safety and Quality, and at the same time attain a holistic viewpoint of their QMS and SMS status in all areas and at all levels of the organisation.
Based on the PLAN-DO-CHECK-ACT cycle, Q-Pulse applies a systematic and holistic approach to QMS and SMS management, from documenting and distributing policies and procedures through to identifying opportunities for continual improvement. Q-Pulse has addressed ISAGO audit process for several versions and our new Occurrence & Incident Management purchasable add-on enables airlines to transfer existing Incident tools and techniques into a robust and scaleable system that is fully integrated with other core SMS activities, including:
- simple yet flexible occurrence report designing
- systematic occurrence investigating and risk rating
- automated occurrence action-tracking with associated business alerts
- detailed report trending and analysis across all reported occurrence data
Q-Pulse caters for all the reporting requirements of Occurrence Management, including ASRs, GORs and subsequent MORs. Additional reports from outside of the traditional Flight Safety domain can also be easily created. With all reports available through Q-Pulse’s web client, safety concerns can be raised by anyone with access to the corporate portal.
With the ability to mandate fields that must be completed before submitting a report, Q-Pulse ensures that information relevant to the occurrence is available at-a-glance prior to any investigation. Incident classification is performed using industry-standard descriptors and causal factors, whilst risk assessment templates are available for organisation-specific matrices.
With its unique ability to create customised incident workflows based on incident type, the system ensures that all findings are documented, all actions are agreed and all activities are communicated. Investigation communication is performed using existing company email systems meaning that staff are informed of actions and responsibilities in real-time.
With all data analysis conducted within a dedicated Analysis module, Q-Pulse uniquely offers dynamic incident analysis graphs which can be drilled down to the most specific details. In addition, the incident and occurrence records that comprise the graphs are accessible with a single mouse-click, instantly giving you the information you need to respond to any questions asked.
Read more about how Q-Pulse helps organisations achieve integrated aviation quality and safety management, or find out more by emailing us at aviation@gaelquality.com or phoning us on +44 (0) 1355 593 400 for more information.
Source: http://www.aviationtoday.com