This report documents a six-month study to develop a framework of societal costs of aircraft accidents in Australia for the purpose of assisting the Department of Aviation in relating costs and benefits in resource management decisions and for assisting the Bureau of Air Safety Investigation in the management of aviation safety promotion programs.

A detailed set of unit and total cost estimates for Australian 1980 is presented together with a literature review and recent work on approaches to valuing human life.

Two cost components, fatalities and aircraft hull damage/loss, account for about 96.5% of total annual costs of $31 million.

The costs of fatalities and injuries are based on the value of future lost work efforts and are to be considered as minimum values only. Intangible social costs such as pain and suffering are not expressed in dollar terms.

Also the use of average cost levels is limited because of the skewed distribution of most accident cost characteristics.

Further research directed towards refinement of the data and the conceptual and empirical bases of these estimates is recommended.

Changes to the airspace management system which were introduced on the 12th of December 1991, firmly established the responsibility with the pilot for aircraft collision avoidance outside controlled airspace, and for avoiding penetration of controlled airspace. In doing so it was a radical modification to the Australian Air Traffic Services (AS) system.

In view of significance of the changes, the Bureau of Air Safety Investigation (BASI) undertook an evaluation. This evaluation took the form of the investigation of all occurrences which were deemed to be related to the AMATS changes in a four-month period from the 12th of December 1991. Additionally, a questionnaire was disseminated in the BASI Journal and deidentified CAIR reports were used to supplement the information available.

In the four-month period, 147 occurrences were categorised as AMATS related. The Bureau received 169 questionnaires and 51 CAIR reports.

Aviation Safety Indicators (ASI) was first published in December 1996 as a response to the recommendation to '...prepare and publish safety indicators' contained in the 'Plane Safe' report issued by the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Transport, Communications and Infrastructure.

AS1 is produced jointly by the Civil Aviation Safety Authority, the Bureau of Air Safety Investigation and the Department of Transport and Regional Development. The first report brought together a wide range of data, primarily for the decade from 1986 to 1995, which set benchmarks for on-going monitoring of the safety of aviation in Australia.

The publication, to be published annually, contains data covering the period to the end of the previous calendar year. Thus, this second issue, or 1997 edition, includes data to the end of 1996.

In December 1995, the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Transport, Communications and Infrastructure (HORSCOTCI) published its "Plane Safe" report, an inquiry into safety in the general aviation and commuter sectors of the aviation industry.

Recommendation (e) of the report was that:

"the Civil Aviation Safety Authority and the Bureau of Air Safety Investigation prepare and publish safety indicators;"

In response to that recommendation this report has been produced jointly by the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA), the Bureau of Air Safety Investigation (BASI) and the Department of Transport and Regional Development.

The report presents a series of indicators which provide a broad view of the national aviation system and its operation. The indicators show trends in Australian aviation activity, in industry performance, in the number and rate of aviation accidents, and in the number of three significant types of incidents.

While some of the information contained in this document has been published previously, this is the first occasion on which such a wide range of aviation data has been compiled by these three organisations.

This study analysed occurrences involving:

• fuel starvation - the state in which the fuel supply to the engine is interrupted although there is adequate fuel onboard the aircraft, and
• fuel exhaustion - the state in which the aircraft has become devoid of usable fuel.

Fuel starvation has been a more common type of occurrence; however, the probability of the occurrence resulting in an accident has been greater for fuel exhaustion. starvation accidents and 8 fuel exhaustion accidents per annum in Australia since 1969. Fuel-related engine failures have constituted 34% of all engine failure accidents.

The history of helicopters in Australia did not begin until after World War II. Although in 1943 the Amy planned to use helicopters for reconnaissance work in New Guinea, it was not until 1948 that the RAAF received its first helicopters, Sikorsky S51s. Civil helicopters followed in 1956, with the import of a Bristol Sycamore for ANA and a Hiller 12c for TAA early in that year. In May 1956 ANA'S helicopter began operating in Tasmania.

A VCA occurs when a pilot enters controlled airspace without a clearance. Controlled airspace is a section of airspace surrounding an airport with a tower, and/or airspace up to a certain altitude overlying Australia. This airspace may or may not be radar monitored. The controller needs to be aware of all aircraft within his/her section of controlled airspace so as to provide a complete traffic service. Pilots are required to request a clearance before entering the airspace.

Accident, incident and anecdotal evidence indicate that the introduction of new technology to aviation has generally resulted in benefits to safety and efficiency (Norman and Abbott 1988). Information published by Boeing Commercial Airplanes indicates that in general, accident rates have been declining with each successive technological advance over the last thirty years (Boeing 1988). However, new technology has also resulted in a range of new human factors and operational difficulties. New tools invariably change the way a job is done, and new aircraft are no exception. The work of pilots and other airline personnel is being changed by the introduction of new technology and although most of the changes are likely to be beneficial or benign, some may be undesirable.

A Failure to Comply incident is defined as an air safety incident in which flight crew fail to follow an ATS clearance in controlled airspace.

During 1994, BASI recorded an increase in the frequency of incidents involving failures to comply with ATS clearances. This trend continued in 1995, and the largest increase appeared to be associated with the introduction of new arrival and departure procedures at Sydney airport. The Bureau conducted a preliminary study to confirm these trends and concluded that a comprehensive study was necessary.

This report draws on data collected during the comprehensive study of incidents in June, July and August of 1996. The primary data for this study was received through ESIRs and questionnaires completed by the pilots of aircraft involved in FTC incidents.

This report deals with information supplied by respondents to the Advanced Technology Aircraft Safety Survey and provides a detailed analysis of answers to both the 'open' and 'closed' questions.

Accident, incident and anecdotal evidence indicates that the introduction of new technology to aviation has generally resulted in benefits to safety and efficiency (Norman & Abbott 1988) but has also resulted in a range of new human factors and operational difficulties. BASI's advanced technology aircraft research project was begun in response to a number of perceived problems such as data entry errors, monitoring failures, mode selection errors and inappropriate manipulation of automated systems.

Phase 1 of this project included a literature review which identified major concerns with advanced aircraft, including pilot complacency, potential loss of skills, and loss of situational awareness. There have been several previous surveys concerned with advanced technology aircraft safety issues. Wiener (1989) surveyed errors made by pilots of Boeing 757 aircraft and Wiener and others (1991) compared the DC9 with the MD 80, looking at errors in the
operation of both aircraft types.