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Air safety: Flying into the unknown
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Air-traffic control
Most fliers are unaware that wide swaths of the world, including the oceans and most of sub-Saharan Africa, are without radar coverage. On transoceanic flights, well-established safety procedures are in place, and pilot groups say they are trained to fly without radar under most conditions. But, they note, problems can arise in areas with high traffic.
While the situation in Brazil has been in the news since the midair crash last year, in part due to the country's air-traffic-controller union's publicizing what it says are unsafe work conditions, neighboring Argentina is experiencing a similar air-traffic-control crisis. The country has had no crashes to draw the world's attention, but according to its air-controllers organization, five "near misses" were reported during a two-month period in which a major radar center was temporarily closed after a lightning strike. "Aviation safety in Argentina and surrounding areas has been seriously compromised," a group representing international controllers said in a statement, accusing the Argentinian government of "disrespect for the traveling public."
"The fact that South America's two largest countries are sounding the alarm is troubling," says the Flight Safety Foundation's Voss.
In Brazil and Argentina, commercial air traffic is under the control of the armed forces, a vestige of the days when the countries themselves were run by the military. A transition to civilian control is under way in Argentina, and the Brazilian government may soon follow suit. However, it's unclear how long this will take and whether the more serious problems of spotty radar and understaffed towers will be addressed. In both countries, the military, meanwhile, is in charge of investigating accidents and incidents—a clear conflict of interest, observers say.
Potential fixes
Many countries are moving directly to a GPS-based air-traffic-control system, bypassing ground-based radar altogether. The new system routes communications among pilots and controllers through satellites, allowing pilots to "see" all planes within several hundred miles. For Africa, in particular, the switch could potentially save many lives.
Interim measures include equipping more planes with a Traffic Collision Alert and Avoidance System, or TCAS, that acts as a sort of horn, sending out an electronic pulse to warn pilots when they are on a collision course with another aircraft, often with only seconds to spare.
Shoddy maintenance
Poor aircraft maintenance and counterfeit parts are emerging as a major concern, according to the Flight Safety Foundation. When I visited Moscow last July, police had just busted a criminal ring of parts counterfeiters, and in September, inspections of aircraft in the fleets of Aeroflot and Rossiya airlines turned up stolen and bogus parts, according to news reports from Moscow. The situation is made worse by the apparent professionalism of the perpetrators.
According to Alex Bobilev of iJet, "The documentation and seals on the parts looked like the real thing," leading to the conclusion that many of the culprits must have previously worked in the airframe industry. Safety experts also point to a larger issue: the increasing outsourcing of maintenance and the shortage of trained inspectors. "Good airlines will usually try and do the right thing, but some airlines will try to bend the rules. Just how closely are [the airlines] watching when they send their engines halfway around the world?" says McCarthy. Several recent incidents have raised red flags, including one in which a Qantas plane returned from an offshore facility with wiring problems. Qantas said it had rectified the problem, which "did not compromise the safety of the aircraft in any way."
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