Issue 65: April 1991

The scenario for disaster unfolds on December 21 with a normal training flight that ends in disaster as the Cessna 152 goes missing with instructor and pupil. As is normal, a search begins and probably due to the proximity of Christmas, a larger than normal turnout of volunteer search aircraft get airborne just in case there is a chance of finding the missing aviators safe and well. Unfortunately that is not to be, but before the missing aircraft is found one of the search aircraft itself crashes. Of the six people aboard the second aircraft, four die and two more are seriously injured. By now two aircraft have been destroyed along with the loss of six lives with two more people seriously injured. This is tragic news that is received by a stunned aviation community that is rightly asking ‘why’? Indeed, even with just a cursory examination of the evidence available the facts are that much of the suffering involved in this double fatality was perhaps avoidable. The lessons are that obvious.

Lesson one is simply that every aircraft should be equipped with an impact activated electronic locator beacon (ELB). Mod- ern ELBS built to aviation standards now cost in the order of $250. If they were mandatory this would no doubt reduce further due to the large numbers involved. If the first aircraft had been so equipped then its position would have been known exactly within three hours of impact. Years ago, distress beacons were rudimentary and were only of use if searching aircraft were equipped with the means to locate and home in on the beacon’s signal. Today, Australia is a key player in the COSPAS/SARSAT international SAR satellite system. The net covering our immedi-ate region, downlinking to an earth station at Alice Springs and interrogated from the Marine Rescue Coordination Centre at Canberra, covers an area from New Guinea down to well below Tasmania, eastward to New Zealand and to Cocos in the west. If an ELB equipped aircraft, boat or whatever meets with harm in that vast region then the appropriate SAR authorities can be on an intercept within hours using dedicated search assets.

If the small trainer had been equipped with an ELB then the second accident would never have happened.

But there is more to it than that, and the second lesson is certainly just as important as the first. Of the six people in the second aircraft that crashed four died and two were seriously injured. Fact is that it is believed two of these fatalities (the occupants of the second seat row) could have been avoided if they had been wearing full lap/sash seat belts, whilst the two seriously injured in the rearmost seats of the Cessna 210 might have suffered only light injuries.

A recent US National Transportation Safety Board investigation into the effectiveness of lap/sash vs purely lap belts in GA aircraft indicates that where pilots wore their shoulder harness, injuries were slight, but where they did not many died or were seriously injured in accidents that would have otherwise been entirely survivable had a shoulder harness been worn.

Simple as that. Hundreds of manhours of SAR time (and cost) could have been saved IF the first aircraft had been equipped with an ELB, whilst the second accident would not have even occurred. And if you are a fatalist and believe that it would have crashed at that precise time regardless of its mission then at least some of those fatalities would not have occurred if the passengers had been securely restrained with full lap/sash belts. Compulsory wearing of seat belts is a major reason our annual road toll is now so low, isn’t it about time such an ‘advanced’ activity as aviation took a similar turn?

In 1988 there were 328 aviation accidents in Australia costing the community an estimated $45m. Whilst many of these were relatively minor it would be interesting to note specifically (a) how many SAR hours were flown in search of aircraft that could have been easily and safely located via the COSPAS/SARSAT system, and (b) how many deaths could have been averted by the wearing of full lap/sash seat belts and perhaps more realistically what lessening of injury severity this would have made.

Thanks to our ever greedy Federal Government, the CAA is now being forced (refer Dec ’90 Recce) to recover the cost of the safety component of its operations. That equates to $72m in this year alone, nearly $40m of which will be directly siphoned from already famished GA operators and private pilots. Efforts therefore to increase the overall safety level of GA, which is perceived largely by the general public as being less than a viable form of transport, is tantamount to the industry’s long term survival.

If the CAA and the Government seriously wish to do something positive to improve GA safety levels then they could do a lot worse than make the fitment of approved ELBS (complete with trickle charge and manual override capability) and the wearing of full lap/sash belts compulsory.

The incredibly small cost of this simple exercise would be drastically outweighed by the long term savings of finding crashed aircraft sooner and vastly reducing the death and serious injury rate of those having been unfortunate enough to have flown in harm’s way.