Interview – James King

The key units to this are intermodal “go-teams” composed of board experts with a wide range of accident investigation skills who are ready to travel on a 24-hour-a-day basis.

In 1979, the NTSB sent investigators to aircraft accident sites ranging from the slopes of the Rocky Mountains to the Middle East nation of Qatar. The 900 investigations included most US fatal general aviation accidents, all in-flight collisions and all air taxi-commuter and airline accidents. The NTSB made 107 aviation safety recommendations in 1979. NTSB chairman, Mr JAMES B. KING was in Australia recently for a seminar on dangerous goods transportation. Mr King came out of the White House personnel office as special assistant to the President.

Before that, he was with the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, known affectionately as the MBTA, from which Charlie never returned in the song, as director of community affairs and marketing.

Before that he was Senator Kennedy’s special assistant in Massachusetts and before that in programs for the aging. He was appointed to the NTSB in October 1977.

Q: He was asked the main reason for his visit to Australia.

A: The NTSB and the Australian Air Safety Group have a long history of cooperation and there are a lot of professional and personal relationships. Our folks have a very high regard for your people as professionals and also there is a kind of friendship that has evolved over the years on a personal level.

We are doing some work at the Board now which we thought your people might be interested in and we wanted to really sit down and share with your people some of our interests and then ask whether they have some questions about what we were doing. I thought it was a delightful exchange.

Q: Can you tell me what the subject was?

A:  Yes, one of the things was the traditional kind of line. As you know Australia has the best air safety record Australia has the best air safety record several notches down as far as statistics go. First, we want to know why, in their judgement. Secondly, Australia’s incident reporting system is somewhat unique and the manner in which they handle the investigation is too. How they feel that contributes. Their data collection system and the methodology both in hardware and software programs.

We talked at some length both here and at ICAO about the concern we all had on human factors.

At one time, as you know, a substantial part of your aviation accidents was hardware.

What we are finding now is that the hardware is improving and on the other hand we find that more and more human factors are related to accidents. Our data collection system is a hardware-based system as you were, and yet the trend of accidents is going towards the human side.

We are investigating, if you will. Doing a psychological and or physical autopsy is a much more extensive and expensive item as far as the allocation of resources.

Are there some lessons we could learn so that we do not have to reinvent the wheel? What experience has Australia had that goes beyond ours and what methodology do they use in optimising the utilisation of professional personnel?

It was a kind of exchange. After we finished our formal sessions, we stayed together well into the night. I think it would be fair to say it was an exchange. It was somewhat story-telling about what they have seen and what we have had, and our similar experiences. They have had some questions about some accidents we have had.

Q: Was it very much a two-way thing or were you trying to pick up a lot of details or was it mainly you talking?

A: I came really to talk and hear from them. I am sure there was an exchange but I do not flatter myself that I had anything earth-shaking to deliver. I think we opened up some areas that we will continue to explore together in close contact – especially at the staff level, then follow up hopefully, with some additional visits.

Q: There is a point of view that perhaps the statistics as they currently are not entirely fair because in this area of the world our air traffic density is much lower and because of our situation, a lot of our flying involves fairly long routes, which are fairly routine, bearing in mind that most of the accidents happen towards one end or other of the flight. Do you think there is anything in this which at all modifies the statistics in any way?

A: I found it rather interesting for example when we were looking at the kind of commuter accidents we were experiencing in the US. What we found were gross deficiencies. Not the sort of insidious thing that sometimes creeps up into an accident, or there is a systems failure of some type. When I say gross, I am talking about deliberately falsifying maintenance records. People flying a totally unairworthy aircraft. I am talking about the chief mechanic coming out with a wrench and telling the pilot that if he does not go he is going to beat his brains out.

Q: That has happened?

A: Yes, and the fellow flew into a mountain and takes 17 people with him.

I am talking about a Heron a thousand pounds over gross with an aft centre of gravity of 7. 9 inches. I consider that gross.

I do not think that has been the experience of your people here, as a rule. You will see gross things but what I am talking about is when we go out to a lot of our accidents, that is what we see.

We go to Gulf Port, Mississippi; a fellow with a very few hours in type took off with a full load of revenue passengers, and had basically never flown that type of aircraft until the day he had a full load of people behind him. He killed them. Everybody on board. I mean you do not see that type of thing. That person does not arrive in the left seat.

Q: Why do we not see it here?

A: Well, first of all there has been a standard of surveillance – at least that is what I am hearing, I have not seen it. I have physically not been out so what I am doing is giving you what I have heard.

But the proof is in the pudding. I have sampled the pudding, which is the statistical profile, and I have read some of your accidents, and the sort of things you talk about are the sort of things that can happen. They need work and they need attention. On the other hand, as I suggest, I do not see or hear the kinds of gross things that we have experienced – at least in one area of our marketplace.

Q: This would obviously be a sensitive issue, but could you talk about what areas you do think need attention in Australia?

A: I have not been here long enough to say that. And I must admit – I know this sounds like a lot of hokes, and I do not intend it to be – I have not run into anything negative since I have been here. I have not been out to anything to see it or witness it. I have before me the numbers and the statistics. As you suggest, they- may or may not be misleading, I do not know. But I am suggesting the type of action so far that we have seen and we have exchanged between us – there is somewhat of a contrast.

Q: There has been a lot of argument in the US and here about mixing general aviation aircraft with larger aircraft.

A: What was that – what did you want to do with general aviation?

Q: For instance, that collision in San Diego when the Cessna and the 727 collided. I believe there was a huge outcry after that to ban GA from certain control areas.

A: I think that there are a couple of arguments there.

One is that you can mix various types of aircraft. The real question is that if you are going to that kind of mixing, then you have to pay very careful attention and separation becomes critical.

You can operate with a mix not only of aircraft but also the performance of pilots. I mean I can have a high-performance aircraft and a very low performance pilot. Yet he is dealing with an aircraft control system that does not understand his problems. If he does not really understand what that fella is saying is very brisk, business, English, as it were, he has got a problem especially if you are talking very close separations.

In the instant case of San Diego, the Cessna had drifted a bit off course, but PSA had told the aircraft controller that he had him in sight. When he lost him he never told his air traffic controller that he had lost him. He eventually found him most incredibly.

Q: I believe there was an eyeliner problem there too?

A: Yes. The Cessna did go off his route. There is no question about that. But the Cessna at no time could ever have seen the 727 as it overtook him. On the other hand, the 727 did have him in sight, briefly – at least they say they did – we will take them at their word – and then lost him.

What I am saying about the mix is that if you are going to mix the performance of both aircraft and pilots, a heavy burden falls on the people having to do the mixing and separation then becomes critical.

I gather the way Australia is organised – at least as I understand it – that there is a keen kind of sensitivity to that. There is an understanding that you are going to have an absolute separation situation. You may say you can afford to have that because you do not have the heavy load, but that is fine. That is very fortuitous that you can afford the luxury of a very large separation.

In the US we have a problem that has to be faced in dealing with satellite airports so that the general aviation community will be drawn to those airports.

For example, in Chicago, most general aviation does not like going into O’Hare. They would rather go to DuPage or even over to Midway. Or they will go downtown. It is easier for them. They have all the equipment they need. They can get in and out on instruments and what have you and it is more convenient. That is the place where they want to go. So when you make the satellite airport a more attractive alternative to general aviation, and yet too are still able to maintain the commerce of large and passenger and freight movement out of O’Hare and still accommodate the travelling public as well as general aviation.

Now maybe when you talk to me I am kind of an aviation booster and I think general aviation and civil aviation can play a very keen role in the transportation mix. I think it is valuable to any community.

Q: We have a bit of a problem here though, particularly in Sydney, that we do not have much in the way of satellite airports. We have Bankstown, which is partly in conflict with the Sydney Air Traffic Control Zone and is heavily trafficked already, and then there is not a great deal else anywhere near the city which is generally available. Would you say that satellite airports are a distinct safety plus to a major downtown heavy traffic airport?

A: Well, I tell you, before I respond to an instant case, I would at least like to have a look at it. I do not ever hesitate to shoot from the hip, but I would be shooting from the knee on that one. I do not know what the pressures are. I do not know what the traffic patterns are

Q: As a general principle then?

A: The first thing is it is a question of when the mix can occur – can it be executed? Our big thing was – let me take San Diego where you have a very active naval base, Montgomery Field right there and then you have Lindberg three fields almost within spitting distance. So what you have to do is to have a high level of coordination with your air traffic control systems.

Now what would have helped them enormously would be if everyone in there had a Mode C transponder. Then you would have a three-dimensional picture of all the traffic in the area, without them playing grab-arse and hoping – pardon the grammar – rather than playing around with people and saying: “Hi – are you up there? You know – please make a left hand turn so we can identify you on radar. ”

I would like to be able to take a quick look at my screen – I mean we are talking about people who are highly trained (and by the way in the San Diego area you have got a million passenger flights a year). There is no reason why they cannot be separated by a relatively inexpensive piece of equipment with coordinated air traffic control separation.

Q: They are about a couple of hundred dollars or something like that?

A: That is exactly it. By the way, 90 per cent of the private sector has Mode C in that area. Now there are some parts of the country where it is nowhere near that high but what I am saying is that the ticket for admission to certain types of airports could be to have the appropriate hardware that makes it easier for separation for the air traffic control system.

That is a mechanical thing. You do not then have to go into elaborate procedures and major construction and disruption of people’s lives because of other kinds of intrusions. What it is is making the system work better and then work for you.

Q: So you are suggesting then that transponder could become compulsory?

A: In San Diego:– yes. To be candid, I have no idea about Sydney. But in San Diego, you betcha life they ought to be. And they ought to have the kind of traffic separation that is at a professional level and the price of admission into that airspace is that you must tell the air traffic control centre that you are there, and you must have your own discrete beacon operating. That is not up for grabs. If you are in that airspace – dammit everyone ought to know it.

Q: Another point about – there is a system being promoted of precision approach with the R-Nav 3D Radar Navigation System. Apparently, the Washington Airport has it where Ransome Airlines is operating Dash 7s on a ‘completely separate approach path, and landing on runways that intersect with other active runways. They pull up short because they are stol. Are you familiar with the details of that?

A: No I am not. I have watched them. I have flown out in them, but I am not familiar with the details.

Q: What do you think about the idea in general principle?

A: I never like crossing an active runway, at any time.

Q: They do not actually cross.

A: If you do not stop, or you land a bit long, you will be out there. But, they are sequencing them in such a fashion that with the type of aircraft they are using, we are back to the same question maybe you asked earlier – how do you optimise the utilisation of your facility? That is a way to go but you have to pay very careful attention, if you have a number of moving parts, coming at you in different directions. It really becomes incumbent, especially in that close situation, on the tower which should be doing the final approach with these people, to really pay close attention to what is happening. You have to be careful because your taxiways are not operating in the usual fashion – the pattern changes. So you really have to stay on top of that. It means you have to have your top people on that sort of operation. Can you optimise that way? – yes you can. Is it unsafe? – no it does not have to be. Can you turn it into a piece of dung? – yessir.

Q: What about the two or three-crew debate in new airliners coming along? I gather that a lot of evidence is being produced to show that statistics would seem to indicate that a two-man crew can be safer than a three-man crew in many situations. Are you familiar with that at all?

A: Ho ho ho. Yes, I have heard rumours about that. We have never done a study on the size of a crew and what creates an optimum situation.

Qantas flies with four and they have three people who can fly the aircraft, as I understand, and at least two of them understand the flight engineer’s position so that there is a redundancy that goes beyond. And that is the way Qantas feels safe about it. There may be others that feel that other combinations are best. In any case, it is a discussion about how far one wants to go. We have never taken a position on the safety board because what we have done is look at the accident in the context of what was there and then deal with it on that.

We have not found crew size – at least at this moment – as a major issue. But there may be reasons – for example, the pilot’s association may be saying, “let us tell you from our unique perspective what we see”. Keep in mind that when the Safety Board becomes involved, we are dealing with an accident and an accident really is a failure of the system. There are a number of different parts in that system. We are going to the one part which failed and it may not always reflect other areas or other possibilities for failure. We deal with the individual accident.

You could say maybe we should be taking a broader approach and the answer to that would be “possibly”. But we really do spend so much time handling individual accidents. Part of our role in the US is to create an environment where it is an independent board and we do not have any backsides to cover, and we call them as we see them on those individual accidents.

We try to report to the people in aviation, the FAA, to tell them what we have found so that they can then do a systems search to see if there is something else. So crew complement really would rest with FAA.

Q: That raises the question of the DC-10 Chicago crash. I think in its finding on that the NTSB criticised the fault reporting and updating system.

A: Yes we did, because Continental Airlines had had very similar difficulty. By using a forklift and lifting both the engine and pylon in one piece created a vibration.

The tolerances were so close that you have the opportunity to crack that flange, and in fact, it had been cracked using that procedure. That was never told to anyone beyond Continental Airlines.

Now United Airlines was keeping them both together on the lift but they were using a crane and they had no problem.

What we were concerned about was that McDonnell Douglas said the two should be separated. But here is your problem. First of all, you save 200 man hours by leaving them as one unit and there were 4 7 connections you did not have to operate on. Every time you release a connection, there is a possibility of bad fit when you reconnect. So here you set a climate that from a safety point of view, and surely from an economic point of view, it would be logical to think that the operator would want to keep the pylon and the engine as one piece.

But should not someone have examined the system that would permit that to happen, since that is what in fact was happening in the real world of maintenance?

We would like to give the operators maximum leeway in performing maintenance tasks so that the genius of the industry can come into play. But should not there be some sort of analysis as to what the problems might be if you do it that way?

If the manufacturer prescribes how he sees it should be done and if I see a significant shortcut, why should the burden fall on me, since I am going to gain the economic advantage, to produce a document that says we have looked at the possibilities here and here is how we have dealt with them, and submit that to the FAA? We felt that should be done.

What you had there was that no analysis had been done as to the potential problems that could have emerged. Had that been done by American Airlines, or FAA, or Continental, you would not have had that accidentstyle profile that could have been prevented. It was a preventable thing if someone had taken a look at it. But they had not done that.

Q: That someone should have been the FAA?

A: Our question was if FAA had seen the problem over at Continental, would it have been worthwhile sharing it with others, knowing that that was 1 a reasonable thing that people would do.

Q: Had FAA seen the problem at Continental though?

A: That was part of the question. They basically said they were aware of it but it had not been passed on because they do not formally approve maintenance procedures. Well, then the question is – should not someone?

Q: When you are getting on an aeroplane what passes through your mind as to what should be done to keep you safe?

A: Well, I select my seat carefully, and if you say where do I select, I am not going to tell you because I do not intend to have competition.

Quite often I dress a particular way. I wear cotton. I mentally work out where the exits are. I work out my own evacuation plan in my mind without being frightened about it. I work out how my seat belt is attached so that I can spring it open immediately. I make it a point to put my seat belt on securely across my hips – not my stomach, and with my build that is quite a trick. And I generally will lean forward during both the take-off and the landing.

Q: How far forward?

A: I lean so far forward that most people think I am looking backward out of the flight. They think that I have left something on the ground. Because that is the direction I am going to be going anyway if something should occur, and this will cut the opportunity for any kind of injuries considerably.

And I am mentally prepared that if I am going to depart I understand that I am not going to reach for anything in the aircraft, I am going to leave.

So far what I have said is the basis for the general profile of people that we have had out of sheer luck who have survived accidents in the US.

Q: And the clothing you wear?

A: I usually wear cotton. Sometimes I have a tweed jacket on or something. But my basic clothing will be cotton.

Q: Why not wool? Is there anything wrong with wool?

A: Wool has a tendency to turn to cyanide gas when it catches on fire. I wear Harris tweeds. I think I have six jackets that are identical. People think that I have a uniform.

Q: If there was an in-flight emergency and you were advised to take your shoes off, as I gather has happened in some cases …

A: I am not about to take my shoes off. No. I wear low heels. There is no chance that my rubber heels are going to cut the slide. That is what they are concerned about with shoes and it is generally women who are wearing some of the new fashions – and men – when they get sharp heels with steel tabs on. I do not wear either and I have walked through a number of aircraft that have been wrecked. I know that the floor will probably be buckled with maybe sharp pieces of metal. I would prefer that my shoes take the wear.

Q: I read accident reports too.

A: I can tell.

Q: What about other forms of transport?

A: Automobiles? Well, the usual. I think Australia is remarkable. Really I think it is a tribute to the people of this country and the government and police, that the compulsory seat belt law is working.

Q: Are you a nervous flyer?

A: I must tell you that I travel a great deal by plane and in the aircraft and I understand that they are the safest mode. From a purely intellectual decision, I would rather travel by aircraft than by driving. Let me put it this way. I know that I am going to get there when I fly. And I know the risks involved. But somehow, When you are on the ground, you feel in control of your own vehicle and you never think of the person on the other side who may not be. By the way, that is why I am convinced that there are no cynics on the highways in spite of what they say.