An Cosantóir

44 The 17th of September 1908 is a significant date in the history of aviation safety. It is on this date that an orientation flight in Fort Meyer, Virginia ended in the tragic death of Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge. Lt Selfridge was aboard the 'Wright Flyer' with Orville Wright when a section of the propeller blade broke free and struck control wires which connected to the aircraft rudder. This resulted in a loss of control with the aircraft impacting the ground at a high rate of descent. This would be the first fatal accident in aviation history. The following years would see an exponential increase in the frequency of fatal accidents as aviation became a fundamental component of civil transport and military application. This trend continued until the 1950s, when how we viewed aircraft accidents, began to lead to significant improvements in the overall safety of the aviation system. These can be considered as the eras of aviation safety which extend right up to today. They are the technical era, the human factors era, the organisational era and the systemic safety era. As you will see from the articles in this issue of An Cosantóir, the Air Corps has been to the forefront of aviation in Ireland for 100 years. The story of the Air Corps over the preceding 100 years, mirrors the various eras of aviation safety. The evolution of these eras has been influenced by often tragic accidents/incidents, they are ultimately shaped by how the aviation industry and organisations, including the Air Corps, respond and learn from these accidents/incidents. The Technical Era (1900s – 1960s) In the 1900s to the late 1960s the technology associated with aviation was in its infancy. The era was marked by the rapid development of new aircraft which pushed the boundary of flight further. The consequence of this was that often aircraft systems and components had technical faults, hidden defects, and broadly speaking, reliability issues. These hazards were causal and contributory factors to a significant number of accidents in this period. This is reflected in the accidents/ incidents recorded for the Air Corps during this period. The development of the Air Corps fleet in these years illustrates the rapid change in the aircraft capabilities of the time period, from the arrival of the first aircraft, a Martinsyde Type A Mark II in 1922 through to the arrival of the first fighter jets, the De Havilland Vampire in 1956. The advent of accident investigation in aviation safety meant that with a shared understanding of what went wrong, changes could be put in place to prevent a reoccurrence. This approach resulted in a reduction in the number of accidents/incidents as the technology became more and more reliable. The Human Factors Era (1970s to 1990s) In the 1970s accident investigators noted a new trend emerging. More and more aviation accidents were not caused by technical malfunctions with the aircraft, but rather by human performance/human factors. Two fundamental tenets of aviation safety which are used by the Air Corps today emerged from the study of this era, they are, Crew Resource Management and Just Culture. In March of 1977 two Boeing 747s collided on the runway of Tenerife Airport in what is, to this day, the deadliest aviation accident in history. The accident report lists a number of causal and contributory factors but notably neither aircraft was suffering from any technical malfunction at the time of the accident. The report outlines how a diversion, time delays, weather and stress impacted on the crew performance in the lead up to the accident. One of the key learnings from the report into this disaster was the creation of 'Cockpit Resource Management' now known A CENTURY OF FLIGHT AND THE EVOLUTION OF AVIATION SAFETY By Lt Colm Keena – Deputy Flight Safety Officer The crash of the Wright Flyer – 1908 de Havilland Vampire The Evolution of Aviation Safety A CENTURY OF FLIGHT AND THE EVOLUTION OF AVIATION SAFETY

• Cover