Flight Safety Foundation's President Speech

Stuart Matthews, president and CEO of Flight Safety Foundation, presents speeches worldwide about issues that affect aviation safety.
In 2001, the prevention of approach-and-landing accidents (ALAs), including those involving controlled flight into terrain (CFIT), and safety auditing of airlines under internationally agreed standards have high priority for the Foundation. Current data for 2001, showed that five ALAs and no accidents involving CFIT have occurred in Western-built large commercial jet airplanes, those heavier than 60,000 pounds (27,216 kilograms) maximum gross weight.
The following quotations have been excerpted as recurrent themes from Matthews’ speeches, news releases and other FSF sources:

On the Prevention of Approach-and-landing Accidents …
"Our major ongoing project remains approach-and-landing accident reduction (ALAR), which includes CFIT prevention. Although advanced technology will provide part of the solution, much can be done through education and training to prevent these types of accidents. Continued implementation of the FSF ALAR Task Force recommendations and use of the FSF ALAR Tool Kit will help the industry to address — with practical methods — two of aviation’s greatest safety problems. The tool kit is based on the task force’s data-driven conclusions and recommendations, as well as data from the U.S. Commercial Aviation Safety Team (CAST) Joint Safety Analysis Team (JSAT) and the European Joint Aviation Authorities (JAA) Safety Strategy Initiative (JSSI).

On Common Safety Auditing Standards …
"Major international airlines are now forming alliances and code-shares. Airlines are demanding that partners meet certain standards of safety. Passengers want this as well. Ongoing consolidation of the world’s air transport industry as a result of mergers, takeovers and the development of alliance agreements offers many economic and marketing benefits, but industry consolidation also has given rise to problems.

"Most airlines and regulatory organizations in the late 1990s preferred to continue doing things in their own way. However, things are changing, spurred in part by several accidents involving code-share partners. Our call for common safety standards now is being recognized and is being demanded by some major airlines and governments. The Foundation, which has conducted safety audits of airlines and corporate flight departments for more than 40 years, has consulted with the air transport industry and has been a leading advocate of common safety standards.

"There is a need for common safety standards so that, for instance, two major partners in an airline alliance do not give another code-share partner different safety ratings. It is gratifying to be part of an initiative that can build upon what already has been done in the United States and elsewhere to help accomplish this, and we are now consulting with industry to establish appropriate criteria for the best recommended operational practices, as well as for the necessary auditor qualifications, to ensure that common standards are built on a high level of safety."

"In time, this work could lead to adoption of our second proposal in 1997: standardized qualifications for certification of safety auditors who could perform safety and compliance inspections on behalf of the regulatory authorities, in much the same way as financial auditors examine a company’s books on behalf of financial regulators. We must determine what the people doing the safety auditing need in terms of experience and qualifications."

On Criminal Investigation of Aircraft Accidents …
"Accidents will be prevented and further improvements in aviation safety will be gained if people, particularly pilots, are protected from punitive action in the form of criminal prosecution or regulatory enforcement resulting from analysis of flight data or voluntary reports about inadvertent errors. When we worry after an accident more about finding someone to blame, someone who can be punished, than about finding out what went wrong and why, we invite recurrence of the tragedy with possibly more lives lost. Physical evidence is being impounded by criminal investigators. Companies and individuals that might be involved are retaining lawyers before talking to the accident-investigation agency for fear that anything they say may incriminate them. Very few pilots or other aviation professionals will be willing to provide information confidentially in support of safety improvement efforts if there is a risk that they will be prosecuted on the basis of information they supplied voluntarily. This problem already has impeded accident investigations. Identifying mistakes that are being made by pilots and moving to prevent them, to correct them or to offset their consequences is a very powerful means of preventing accidents before they happen. I am not talking about egregious errors — deliberate breaking of the rules or illegal acts that obviously cannot be tolerated. I am talking about inadvertent errors of the kind we all make every day."

On Risk and Responsibility …
"The dimensions and shape of overall risk will change as more aircraft are added to satisfy travel and shipping demand, resulting in more crowding of airspace and airport operations. The strategies for managing risk must be flexible and responsive to the rapidly shifting needs.

"Although the air carrier bears primary responsibility for operating safely, the responsibility for achievement of high safety levels goes beyond the airlines themselves. Safety oversight by national authorities, infrastructure support of air operations by air traffic services, airways facility maintenance entities, weather services, airport and supporting facilities and services, and communications services are examples of other vital components of the system whose own levels of commitment to safety will determine the overall levels of achieved safety.

"Well-meaning attention to nonsafety critical errors or inefficiencies may in fact result in corrective actions that, in themselves, may create a new latent, accident-enabling situation for a company that has high-consequence operations. Close attention therefore must be directed to identifying and countering the factors that can possibly lead to serious incidents or accidents. This is an essential part of sound management policies and practices that inevitably contribute to achieving a positive financial balance sheet."

On News Media Education …
"Notwithstanding that the mission of Flight Safety Foundation is to seek continuous improvement of aviation safety, we recognize that commercial aviation is already a very safe industry — indeed, it is undoubtedly the safest means of mass transportation today. Consequently, we have not stood idle in the face of biased, speculative, misleading and blatantly inaccurate news reporting about aviation accidents.

"We spend a lot of time trying to give objective comment to the news media. We have spoken out with an independent voice to provide objective and constructive comment on aviation safety matters. In so doing, we have established ourselves as credible and objective voice. In the immediate aftermath of most air transport accidents, FSF staff often devote their work days to responding to media queries and endeavoring to correct wild or inaccurate conclusions."

On Airplane Upsets and Human Factors …
"To address airplane upsets, Flight Safety Foundation is not doing major work, but we have been working closely with Airbus and with The Boeing Co. on a video addressing the problem, and an education and training aid.

"Eighty-five percent — some say 100 percent — of all accidents involve human factors. It is not just the aviation industry. In any industry, human factors have played some part. Human error is quite normal. What we want to learn is what people are doing wrong and why they are doing it wrong. Human factors have played some part in continuing toward that accident. If we talk about the line players, they are 25 percent to 30 percent of accident causes, but the other 75 percent is the organization, the culture, the management."