SAFE SKIES
One flew over the kite’s nest
CAPTAIN A. RANGANATHAN
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There are strict procedural norms for monitoring and controlling bird/wildlife activity within a 13-km radius of an airport, none of which is followed in India. And training the crew for emergency evacuation procedures is lacking too. Is a disaster waiting in the wings?
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The committee for taking necessary actions and monitoring the progress has not met for more than a decade.
Political interference prevents proper enforcement of ICAO rules for bird strike prevention in our airports.
Photos: D. Satyajit and Captain A. Ranganathan
Inviting disaster: Birds’ nests in Ahmedabad airport
The recent Academy Awards for “Slumdog Millionaire” brings back nostalgic memories of another great Hollywood movie “One Flew over the Cuckoo’s nest”.
The title is derived from an American children’s folk rhyme:
Wire, briar, limber-lock
Three geese in a flock
One flew east, one flew west
And one flew over the cuckoo’s nest.
The movie was the first to win all five major Academy Awards. Roger Ebert, a film critic, commenting on the movie, said, “insisting on making larger points than its story really should carry, so that at the end, the human qualities of the characters get lost in the significance of it all. And yet there are those moments of brilliance”.
Two recent accidents due to bird strikes have raised concern over the danger levels. Geese flying east or west brought birds into centre stage. The first and most dramatic one was the ditching of the USAir flight into Hudson river on January 15, 2009. The aircraft suffered multiple bird strikes on both the engines when the flight encountered a flock of geese while climbing through 2,700-3,000 feet. Both engines lost significant thrust and the captain, the best judge at that time, made a brilliantly executed ditching in the river.
Importance of training
The second accident that involved a bird strike was on October 10, 2008. A Ryanair Boeing 737-800 encountered multiple bird strikes during the final approach for landing at Rome’s Ciampino International airport. The aircraft may have experienced power loss or engine failure on short finals. The left main gear collapsed on landing and a fire broke out on the left engine. All 166 passengers and six crew evacuated safely. These two accidents highlight the importance of having trained and alert crew.
Birds uncomfortably close during a landing.
The human quality is also brought into play. Those who foolishly imagine that modern technology can replace the human element in the chain should realise that a computer can never complete the task in situations that are not programmed or imagined.
We have had several bird strikes on airliners in India. The incidents have cost the airlines a huge dent in their earnings. Airports and the surrounding areas have not been kept free of what generates bird activity. We have the “Slumlord billionaires” ensuring that the golden geese that delivers the huge vote bank is not disturbed. The lives of a few hundred passengers and damages to the tune of millions of dollars to airliners make no difference to them. Bird nests right in the middle of operational area mean that airliners literally fly over a “bird’s nest”. All these years, the fear of a fatal crash due to bird strike on airliners was not thought of. The serious and near fatal accidents will generate some heat. The authorities have started taking a proactive step. Will the political will hold?
Alarming numbers
In a recent update released by International Birdstrike Committee (IBSC), their data shows a total number of bird strike accidents as 56 and 262 fatalities. This was based on the reported incidents while many are not reported. Airliners and Executive jets accounted for 41 aircraft, among which 15 were fatal which killed 188 persons. Among the lighter aircraft weighing 5,700 kg or less, 53 aircraft were destroyed with 31 fatal accidents killing 61 persons. There were eight helicopter accidents with six of them fatal, killing 10 persons.
The IBSC has published a standard for Aerodrome Bird/ Wildlife control. With such a large number of incidents involving bird strikes, dogs or animals on the runway or operational area, India should initiate stringent standards to comply with the recommendations which ICAO has adapted. An extract from the paper reads:
Airfield Habitat Management
Controlling the attractiveness of an airport to birds and other wildlife is fundamental to good bird control. Indeed, it is probably more important than bird dispersal in terms of controlling the overall risk. If an airport provides easily accessible resources to birds/wildlife in terms of food, water, shelter or breeding sites, then they will continue to try and return despite any dispersal tactics that are used to dissuade them. The control programme is thus doomed to failure unless the airport is made as unattractive to birds/wildlife as possible. Habitat management to deter birds/wildlife involves two processes, identifying the attractive features and implementing changes to either remove the attraction or to deny access to it.
The reasons why birds frequent an airfield are not always obvious. They may be attracted to food such as invertebrates, small mammals, seeds or plants in the grassland; water from ponds, ditches, or puddles on the tarmac, nesting sites in trees, bushes or buildings, or simply the security offered by large open spaces where they can easily see approaching predators. In some cases it may be obvious what resources they are attracted to, but in others it may not. If there is any uncertainty, obtaining the assistance of a professional bird/wildlife prevention specialist is advisable in order to identify what it is that is attracting the birds/wildlife to the airfield. Obviously, the attraction will vary from one species to another.
Ignored directives
The most significant portion of the document is Standard 9:
Airports should conduct an inventory of bird attracting sites within the ICAO defined 13 km bird circle, paying particular attention to sites close to the airfield and the approach and departure corridors. A basic risk assessment should be carried out to determine whether the movement patterns of birds/wildlife attracted to these sites means that they cause, or may cause, a risk to air traffic. If this is the case, options for bird management at the site(s) concerned should be developed and a more detailed risk assessment performed to determine if it is possible and/or cost effective to implement management processes at the site(s) concerned. This process should be repeated annually to identify new sites or changes in the risk levels produced by existing sites. Where national laws permit, airports, or airport authorities, should seek to have an input into planning decisions and land use practices within the 13 km bird circle for any development that may attract significant numbers of hazardous birds/wildlife. Such developments should be subjected to a similar risk assessment process as described above and changes sought, or the proposal opposed, if a significant increase in bird strike risk is likely to result.
Uncontrolled development in areas surrounding the airports have made many of our airports susceptible to bird strike incidents. The will to enforce the requirements in the 13 km radius is evident in all airports. The committee for taking necessary actions and monitoring the progress has not met for more than a decade. The event of January 15 will be forgotten soon until the next big event! Apart from the threat of birds and animals intruding into the airport area, the crowded surroundings deny access to rescue efforts. The crash of the trainer aircraft in Hyderabad last year showed that the narrow and crowded lanes prevented the fire tenders from reaching the spot. Are we equipped to address an accident rescue on the scale of the Air France accident in Toronto or the Spanair crash in Madrid? These are questions the Indian authorities need to address on a war footing.
If the preparedness on ground is lacking, the training quality in the air is also deficient. Are the airline crew proficient in ditching drills? As the Hudson river event proved, a crash landing on water is possible even in flights over significant portion of land. How well are our airlines prepared? A comparison of training imparted in India and airlines in Southeast Asia and the Gulf will show a marked difference.
Ditching drills are rarely carried out in the simulator for the proficiency training of pilots. The emphasis on minimising training costs and the unwieldy syllabus with outdated requirements compels airlines to drop an important aspect of training. None of our training institutions has a provision for wave generation. Ditching does not happen only in calm waters. Airlines forget that many flights in the coastal region and the flights across the seas, involve a possibility of a crash landing in the sea. The procedure required for ditching in calm waters as against a swell are significantly different. Practising with a dinghy in a mini-pool of a five-star hotel does not imply complete training!
Unheard of feature
Many aviation authorities require the crew to demonstrate proficiency in Safety and Emergency Procedures every year. A special SEP licence is provided which has to be validated every year. This feature is unheard of in India. A semblance of emergency procedure is covered during the initial endorsement training, but confined to the archives soon after. Airlines like Singapore Airlines, Emirates or Cathay have a special SEP training course with annual proficiency refreshers. The SIA training centre has a pool with wave generators, which can simulate the conditions likely to be encountered in rough seas. Crash landing in water may never happen but the crew are trained and prepared. Training is not bypassed with the excuse that the chances of a ditching event have not happened for several years to their airlines.
India is a vast country with people from different areas speaking different languages. A vast majority may not understand either English or Hindi. The safety procedure cards provided in the aircrafts for passengers is confined to these two languages. The safety demonstration on board is also confined to the two languages. Do the passengers understand the instructions? Visual instruction is the only solution in a country like India. When we solicit train and bus travellers to move over to air travel, we should also address the safety issue in case of a crash landing. A video demonstration of safety procedures is a must for a country like ours. This involves cost, initially. But, the safety result is significant and the authorities should consider imposing this change. A perfect example is the crash landing on water of the Ethiopian Airlines hijacked flight 961,on November 23 1996. Many passengers survived the initial crash of the 767 in the water. However, many passengers panicked and inflated their life vests inside the fuselage, which caused them to immediately surface to the roof, trapping them inside as the fuselage sank. Contrast that with the quick exit of the passengers in New York.
Fatal strike: Damage to an aircraft due to bird hit.
Political interference prevents proper enforcement of ICAO rules for bird strike prevention in our airports. With frequent elections and vote bank politics playing a significant part, we need to consider all new airport ventures on a Greenfield mode. Unfortunately, unplanned and unviable expansion in the current locations has made our airports suspect for international standards. Or, as the images show, the uncontrolled vegetation growth in the operational areas, has converted the current airports into “Green fields”!
The author is an Airline Instructor Pilot on Boeing 737 with a flying experience of 20,000 hrs. He is also a Consultant for Wet Runway Operations Training and Accident Prevention.
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