By James Laird | Reporter
With recent tragedies in air travel as well as major airliners consistently being in the news, aircraft safety has become a concern for many in our society. Russell “Rusty” Sloane, lecturer in Baylor’s aviation sciences department, analyzed some of these tragedies and went over some of the training and safety measures that are involved in aviation.
Sloane, who served in the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard as an aviator for 22 years, spent time flying the airspace where a military Black Hawk helicopter crashed into an American Airlines flight on Jan. 29.
“I flew that airspace pretty much every day, off and on for four years, so [I’m] really super familiar with that airspace,” Sloane said.
Sloane said his main duty was providing security for that airspace which includes knowing helicopter and jet routes.
Sloane said that with an event like this, everyone wants to give their opinion on what happened and what went wrong but it is important to filter down the information and stick to what is really true.
“Everyone is coming out saying this airspace –– and the airspace is called Bravo airspace or B airspace –– is, ‘Oh, it’s so dangerous.’ I would say that it’s a little more contained,” Sloane said. “It’s a little more condensed than other airspace. But if you get familiar with it, it’s not dangerous.”
Crestwood, Ky. freshman and aviation sciences major Elliott Crumbo warns against speculating too much into the events that occurred.
“My first thought is, of course, how tragic an accident like this is, regardless of reasons. My next thought is about all the projections people are making and trying to guess the cause for this crash as this happens every time there is an aviation crash in the news,” Crumbo said. “But as one of my aviation professors, Tim Compton, says ‘Speculation means, I don’t know.’ It is extremely important to not project or make assumptions until the official conclusion is released from the NTSB.”
Sloane compared different airspaces to the roads we drive on and referenced the different expectations we have for those roads. Expectations for I-35 versus a farm-to-market road differ, but Sloane said I-35 is probably not more dangerous, just busier.
Sloane said commercial airliners operate under flight instrument rules, which means “their primary reference during that phase of flight is going to be referenced by instruments.” Sloane said this does not necessarily mean they are flying in bad weather, but that their primary instruments for reference are inside the cockpit to navigate and see where they are, especially during landing.
Sloane said the landing phase is typically the “most dangerous part of any flight.”
“When you’re taking off or landing in a plane — a fixed line airplane – you’re super limited in what you can do or not as far as your maneuverability,” he said. “You got your flaps down, you’re getting your landing checks. Now you’re doing all this stuff as you’re getting ready to land.”
The army helicopter was most likely operating under a “visual flight plan, according to Sloane. The pilots still consult the instruments in the aircraft but mainly use co-pilots and their visuals.
“The bottom line is, you’re flying visually, but that doesn’t mean you eliminate all those tools that you have at your disposal to keep you separate,” Sloane said.
Sloane said having flown these exact routes with his specialized unit in the Coast Guard, called The Black Jacks, he feels that the army helicopter may have gotten slightly off course in an area they are not familiar with, putting them into the path of a collision.
Crumbo said aviation safety is the most complex subject he has studied.
“There are more rules, regulations and guidelines in aviation than you can imagine, and they all work together to keep people in the air and on the ground safe. As a pilot, I feel like aviation safety is in a good place right now,” Crumbo said. “There will forever and always be parts of aviation that can be made safer, but flying metal pieces through the sky that weigh anywhere from one ton to 500 tons is inherently dangerous and must be taught well in order to be done safely. Safe flying is something every pilot trains for their entire career.”
