What is turbulence? High in the sky, as you are cruising to your destination, the seat belt sign goes on. As you look out the window, there are no clouds for kilometres. What could you possibly run into at this height? Turbulence – a frequently invisible problem for aircraft. Turbulence is a weather phenomenon responsible for the abrupt sideways and vertical jolts that passengers often experience during flights, and is the leading cause of in-flight injuries to passengers and cabin crew. Turbulence is caused by the irregular movement of air, and often cannot be seen. When air masses with…

The Aviation Short Investigation Bulletin covers a range of the ATSB’s short investigations and highlights valuable safety lessons for pilots, operators and safety managers. Released periodically, the Bulletin provides a summary of the less-complex factual investigation reports conducted by the ATSB. The results, based on information supplied by organisations or individuals involved in the occurrence, detail the facts behind the event, as well as any safety actions undertaken. The Bulletin also highlights important Safety Messages for the broader aviation community, drawing on earlier ATSB…

Why the ATSB is doing this research One of the main objectives of air traffic services (ATS) is to prevent the collision of aircraft. Aircraft separation standards are set to ensure that the chance of a mid-air collision is very remote. When they are infringed, there are fewer defences left to guard against a mid-air collision. This ATSB research investigation looks at loss of separation (LOS) incidents in Australian airspace to understand how often they occur and in what contexts, how and why they are occurring, and whether there are any wider implications that the air traffic system is not…

Introduction The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) 2012–13 Annual Report outlines performance against the outcome and program structure in the 2012–13 Infrastructure and Transport Portfolio Budget Statements.  Chief Commissioner’s review 2012–13 2012–13 was the ATSB’s fourth year in its current form as a fully independent agency within the Infrastructure and Transport portfolio. It has been a productive year. Our investigations yielded a range of important safety messages that touched every element of transport, from the manufacturing of vehicles through to the effectiveness of…

Why the ATSB did this research Emergency locator transmitters are radio beacons carried on most aircraft so that in the event of an accident in a remote location the aircraft wreckage and its occupants can be located quickly by search and rescue (SAR) operations. Finding the aircraft wreckage quickly not only increases the chance of survival of the occupants, but also reduces the risk to pilots of SAR aircraft who commonly need to operate in marginal weather conditions and over mountainous terrain. Airframe mounted emergency locator transmitters (ELTs) are designed to automatically activate…

The Aviation Short Investigation Bulletin covers a range of the ATSB’s short investigations and highlights valuable safety lessons for pilots, operators and safety managers. Released periodically, the Bulletin provides a summary of the less-complex factual investigation reports conducted by the ATSB. The results, based on information supplied by organisations or individuals involved in the occurrence, detail the facts behind the event, as well as any safety actions undertaken. The Bulletin also highlights important Safety Messages for the broader aviation community, drawing on earlier ATSB…

Why have we done this report Significant debate has occurred within the aviation industry regarding the issues of pilot training and experience, particularly with regard to the introduction of new pilot training programs that are focused on training cadet pilots. The main concern being presented by some sectors of the industry that are not in favour of these concepts is that these low-hour co-pilots are not as competent as their high-hour peers. The ATSB gathered data from three airlines to explore the issue of pilot performance as a function of both flight hour experience, and entry pathway…

The Aviation Short Investigation Bulletin covers a range of the ATSB’s short investigations and highlights valuable safety lessons for pilots, operators and safety managers. Released periodically, the Bulletin provides a summary of the less-complex factual investigation reports conducted by the ATSB. The results, based on information supplied by organisations or individuals involved in the occurrence, detail the facts behind the event, as well as any safety actions undertaken. The Bulletin also highlights important Safety Messages for the broader aviation community, drawing on earlier ATSB…

The Aviation Short Investigation Bulletin covers a range of the ATSB’s short investigations and highlights valuable safety lessons for pilots, operators and safety managers. Released periodically, the Bulletin provides a summary of the less-complex factual investigation reports conducted by the ATSB. The results, based on information supplied by organisations or individuals involved in the occurrence, detail the facts behind the event, as well as any safety actions undertaken. The Bulletin also highlights important Safety Messages for the broader aviation community, drawing on earlier ATSB…

Introduction As pilots, we are familiar with well-publicised events of aircrew who, as a result of their experience and exceptional airmanship, avoided what could have been a disaster and a tragic loss of life. Pilots, such as Captain ‘Al’ Haynes in command of a United Airlines Douglas DC-10 on a flight from Denver to Chicago in July 1989, that had the fan wheel of its number two (centre) engine disintegrate, causing a loss of all three of its hydraulic control systems — an unprecedented problem that made the aircraft nearly impossible to fly or land. Captain Haynes and his crew…