Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Safety Forecasts More AF Mishaps

Safety Forecasts and Plans has determined that since AF has devoted so many resources towards trying to prove that they were not legally at fault for the deaths of their AF 447 passengers, that AF has not devoted sufficient resources to preventing future mishaps of all kinds, and therefor should plan on more mishaps for the future.

The statistical review of the past 10 years shows that AF mishaps were preventable, yet AF took steps insufficient to prevent them. Since AF has seemingly now devoted enormous resources to the trying to defend themselves, such as spending as much as $35 million to recover a DFDR by submarine, when all that they had to do was to walk into their own dispatch office and witness supervisory personnel not taking preventative steps to advise line captains about weather hazards in their path.

Example? AF 358 flew into a thunderstorm upon landing. Was the thunderstorm present prior to approach? Did dispatch, flight ops or anyone at AF have a thunderstorm avoidance policy? Did the policy undergo scrutiny, study or in anyway become part of flight operations procedures subsequent to AF 447 departing?

It appears that the thunderstorm avoidance procedures at AF was not change after AF 358 crashed in Toronto. Remember that this crash happened in August of 2005.

AF 447 occurred June 2009. So four years occurred and AF 447 flew into a thunderstorm. So once again the same mishap occurred all over again. And Why?

Very simply because no one in AF, or Canada or any other body determined that the cause of the mishap was flying into a thunderstorm. Blame was placed legally at the hands of the flight crew. Legal blame, legal blame was the product of the Canada Aircraft Safety Mishap Board. In fact it appears that the board didn't complete the safety task at all.

Should not have the board instead of assigning blame, determined the cause to be an encounter with a thunderstorm? Who claims that the aircraft can fly in thunderstorms? Does the manufacturer? Who does?
And yet less than 4 years later, AF flies another aircraft into a thunderstorm and the various mishap boards are all focusing on the actions of the crew once inside the storm!!!!!!! How absolutely ridiculous and illogical can any attempt be?

The manufacturer of no commercial aircraft and the regulator of no civil aviation authority anywhere in the world builds or certifies any commercial aircraft to operate inside of a thunderstorm.

So why does AF continue to do so? Why does any board expect to find any differing result in the event of an encounter?