Update to " What You Are Not Allowed to Take on an Airplane" Page

AirSafe.com recently updated "What You Are Not Allowed to Take on an Airplane" page to include specific information about carrying batteries and also to include an update to the TSA's list of banned or prohibited items.

The most important change was the addition of a section on batteries, with specific details on what kinds of batteries are allowed only in carry on baggage, and what kinds can be carried in checked baggage.

For details, visit the page at tsa.airsafe.org.

NTSB Hearings on the Buffalo Plane Crash

On May 12th, 2009, the NTSB began a three-day public hearing about its ongoing investigation into the fatal February 2009 crash of a Continental Connection airliner in Buffalo, NY. Among the issues that came up were the possible roles of crew fatigue and crew training in the accident. During the last day of the hearing, noted aviation consultant Mike Boyd and I sat down with host Dave Berns of the "State of Nevada" program on KNPR radio in Las Vegas.

KNPR Interview on 14 May 2009 (15:21)

Additional Information
NTSB Public Docket on the Investigation
Accident Details from AirSafe.com
Todd Curtis book Understanding Aviation Safety Data

Risk, Safety, and the Plane Crash in Buffalo

Yesterday, the NTSB began its public hearings into the 12 February 2009 crash of a Continental Connection Dash 8 near Buffalo, NY. One of the issues that is of interest to the media is the safety of feeder airlines like Colgan Air which operated the Continental Connection accident aircraft. While the aircraft had "Continental" painted on the side, and may have a similar paint scheme as Continental, the fact is that the aircraft was not operated by Continental Airlines.

One common question that AirSafe.com gets about this situation is whether the feeder airline is just as safe. When I was contacted by the Wall Street Journal on the day the hearing again, in my quote that appeared in an article the paper the next day, my point was that safety is a subjective concept, and different people can have different ideas on whether an activity is safe or unsafe. I gave the example of skydiving. While sky divers believe the activity is safe, most other people would think that it was an excessively risky activity.

This brings out a more important point, that safety and risk are not the same concept and and not substitutes for one another. As explained in some detail on AirSafe.com, risk, typically an unwanted outcome combined with the likelihood of that outcome, is something that can be defined explicitly and be measured objectively. Given the same definitions and data, different people should come to the same conclusion about how much risk exists in a situation.

By comparison, safety, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder, and does not have to be associated with anything measurable. For example, the FAA requires that any US airline operating an airliner with the capacity for 10 or more passenger seats operate under the same set of regulations. However, an aircraft that is designed to seat 10 passengers will have FAA design requirements that are very different, and in some ways less strict, than the design requirements for an aircraft that can seat 300 passengers.

The different design requirements imply that different potential risks are dealt with in different ways depending on the size of the aircraft. These differences mean that the risks of flying on these two types of aircraft are not the same. However, the FAA allows both aircraft to operate under the same safety regulations.

Risk and safety questions can come up in other ways during an accident investigation. During the first day of the public hearings, it was revealed that shortly before the crash, a specific warning system was activated, but the crew apparently reacted to the warning in ways that made the situation worse and led to the aircraft departing from controlled flight.

Even more revealing were media reports that prior to the accident, Colgan pilots were no required by the airline to have hands-on simulator experience that would show them how to respond to this kind of warning. To the average passenger, allowing pilots to fly a plane without having adequate training in how to respond to critical warning systems is both unsafe and too risky. It will be months before the public finds out if the NTSB agrees.

Emirates A340 Accident Report Released

On 20 March 2009, an Emirates A340 aircraft, with 275 passengers and crew on board, was involved in a tail strike accident during takeoff from Melbourne, Australia. The aircraft suffered some damage, but there were no injuries to anyone on board. The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) recently released preliminary findings that indicated that an incorrect weight had been used when making performance calculations prior to departure. The calculations were based on a takeoff weight that was 100 tons below the actual takeoff weight of the aircraft.

This is the first accident involving an Emirates A340. Previously, in 2004, there was an Emirates A340 incident involving a runway overrun in Johannesburg, South Africa.

What sets this preliminary report apart from most is that the ATSB releases substantially more information at this stage than most accident investigation authorities. While the NTSB sometimes releases this level of preliminary information for major accidents that have tremendous media attention, it has not provided that kind of detail for other kinds of accidents.

Below are links to an audio of the ATSB press conference about the release of this report, a summary of the accident, and other accident details.

Abstract of Preliminary Report
Media Release from 30 April 2009
Preliminary Accident Report
Audio of ATSB Briefing from 30 April 2009 (21:10)
Other A340 Plane Crashes
Other Emirates Safety Events

AirSafe.com Swine Flu Update for 29 April 2009

The first US swine flu fatality was confirmed by the CDC 29 April 2009. The victim was a 23-month old child who was being treated in a Houston area hospital. The CDC also reported that there were 90 other cases of swine flu in the US. Yesterday, the World Health Organization reported that seven countries have officially reported cases of swine influenza (H1N1) infection, including 26 cases and seven deaths in Mexico. The number of confirmed cases and deaths from the CDC and WHO may be very different from the numbers reported by other health authorities or the media. There have been no reports of swine flu infections involving airline passengers.

Swine Flu Risks for Airline Passengers

Audio: MP3 | Video: iPod/MP4 | WMV | YouTube
For more videos, visit the AirSafe.com YouTube channel.

AirSafe.com Passenger Resources
Centers for Disease Control Swine Flu Information
World Health Organization Swine Flu Information

Discussion of Fatal Bird Flu Outbreak on Airliners in 2003 (5:44)

Swine Flu Risk for Airline Passengers - Yes, a Virus in the Sky Can Kill You

With the recent reports that swine flu (H1N1) epidemic in Mexico may be spreading around the world, one of the fears is that air travel may make it easy for the flu to spread. Given the global nature of air travel, and nature of swine flu, by the time authorities were aware that there was a risk, it was already too late. In addition to the US and Mexico, reports of swine flu infections have already been made by authorities in a number of countries in Europe, Asia, and South America. In at least one case, authorities suspect that a cluster of flu cases in New York may be due to a group of students who had recently visited Mexico.

When events like this happen, one question that gets asked is whether anyone has ever died after being exposed to some kind of virus on an airline flight. That answer appears to be yes, and it involved the SARS virus in 2003. The next question in your mind may be whether it happen with swine flu virus in 2009. Only time will tell if it will happen again.

The New England Journal of Medicine reported that in March 2003, six passengers from two different flights in Asia died after being exposed to the SARS virus on those flights. Two of the flight attendants and 17 of the other passengers on those two flight were also infected, but survived.

Another question that may get asked is what kind of person is at the greatest risk of getting infected. A report in the online edition of The Times of London, quotes Michael O’Leary, the head of the Irish airline Ryanair, as saying that the virus was only a risk to Asians and Mexicans “living in slums.” The official position of AirSafe.com is that unlike human beings, a virus does not discriminate on the basis of national origin or economic condition and would certainly never be quoted saying anything so blatantly asinine.

AirSafe.com suggests that passengers who are concerned about swine flu should follow the news media for the latest bulletins and to refer to the following resources for information:
Travel Warnings and Other Passenger Information
US Centers for Disease Control
World Health Organization

Additional Resources
Background Information on SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome)
http://www.airsafe.com/issues/medical/sars.htm

Podcast from 29 April 2009: Swine Flu Risks for Airline Passengers (2:35)

Background Information on Bird Flu (Avian Influenza)
http://www.airsafe.com/issues/medical/birdflu.htm

Podcast from March 2006: Bird Flu Risks for Air Travelers (5:44)
http://www.airsafe.com/podcasts/show9.mp3

Using Media Attention to Promote the Need for More Thoughtful Data Analysis

Since the very beginning of AirSafe.com, intense media focus on aviation safety events, typically plane crashes, have presented opportunities to bring the work of AirSafe.com to the attention of the media and the general public. The increasing variety of advanced search and social media applications have made it easier than ever to quickly identify opportunities to promote a greater understanding of aviation safety.

The recent FAA policy proposals concerning public access to their bird and wildlife strike database, and the reversal of those proposals, resulted in something unusual when it comes to the the media and aviation safety--intense media attention that didn't involve a plane crash. AirSafe.com used one of the many free search tools from Google to find newspapers and other news media that were writing about that database, allowing AirSafe.com to take specific steps to engage the public and the media in a further dialogue about issues related to analyzing that database.

When the FAA proposed to severely restrict the public's access to the FAA's bird and wildlife strike database in March 2009, it ignited controversy as well as hundreds of news stories related to the proposed policy change. When the DOT and the FAA reversed course the following month, it led to hundreds of other articles, many of them focusing on the strike record of specific airports and airlines.

This spike in interest represented an opportunity to increase AirSafe.com's audience by using the media coverage to direct people to bird and wildlife strike information on AirSafe.com's web sites and blogs.

The key was that many of these articles allowed readers to leave comments. AirSafe.com left comments on many of these articles, making sure that the comments invited the reader to visit AirSafe.com related online resources that provided additional information about bird and wildlife strike related issues.

Finding the articles was particularly easy, with the most important tool being Google Alerts, a free service that allows you tell Google to search for recently published content that contain specific keywords of interest.

The full plan to take advantage of the sudden public attention had three parts:

1. Use Google Alerts to find out what news stories were coming out online (in this case, the search terms [+faa +"bird strike"] were used).

2. Find the articles with the largest potential audience and either post comments to the article (always mentioning at least one of AirSafe.com's bird strike related resources).

3. If an article from a medium to large media organization had contact information for the writer of the story, I'd make a point to contact that person by phone or email and offer to provide information or answer questions.

By using Google Alerts research to find news articles, I was able to easily find dozens of opportunities to post comments to articles and use those posts to direct readers to some of my resources. In addition, I also found relevant media contacts that I could help or that could help me later.

Each of AirSafe.com's comments were a variation of the following message:

Releasing the data was the right thing to do on the part of the FAA. The right thing to do on the part of the public is to use the data as a way to understand a problem and not as the final answer.

Keep in mind that the FAA bird strike database is voluntary, so you can't just look at the raw numbers. Aggressive reporting is only one reason why there may be many reports in the database from a particular airport or airline.

Aviation organizations like the AirSafe.com Foundation offer many insights into how one should approach aviation safety data. Many of their bird strike examples are at birds.airsafe.org and strikevideos.blogspot.com.

It's not too late to do this kind of thing for your organization. Whether it is for bird strikes or for something else related to aviation, if you have a blog or web site that needs a boost of attention and traffic, and there is a major media frenzy that is relevant to your site or blog, try this three step marketing method yourself. Even if you don't place comments, it is an excellent way to identify reporters whom you may want to approach later.