Homebuilt safety and NTSB reports

[danielfindling]

While browsing the NTSB site for January 2013 incidents, I came a cross this preliminary investigation regarding an RV 10

http://www.ntsb.gov/aviationquery/brief.aspx?ev_id=20130105X35922&key=1

- - basically an engine failure at 6 hours during flight testing resulting in substantial damage to the airplane.

If the NTSB could provide more information regarding engine type: e.g. Certified, experimental or auto conversion. . . It would appear to me to be relevant to safety. Anyone have more information on this incident?

does EAA follow up on these incidents to improve safety, compile data etc.? What about Vans?

If a goal of EAA, FAA etc. is to improve safety, it would seem relevant to understand the data.

Daniel Findling

[danielfindling]

Ok, my goal is to start a dialogue, not to bash experimental aviation. It appears we are under a microscope for saftey concerns compared to certified aircraft. The Seawind had a history of engine trouble and recently replaced fuel injector and overhauled prop.

http://www.ntsb.gov/aviationquery/brief.aspx?ev_id=20130112X64931&key=1

What is missing is information on the engine. Certified, experimental or conversion . . .

Daniel Findling

[WLIU]

The problem with better data in the accident report is that generally the FAA has an Aviation Safety Inspector from the FSDO look at the accident and those individuals know very very little about the universe of homebuilt aircraft out there. Or any aircraft that carries some kind of Experimental airworthiness certificate. And they are not tasked with learning about that topic. You will note that the vast majority of homebuilts get their certification through Designated Airworthiness Representatives, not FAA inspectors. With the FAA budget priorities focused on the air carriers and sexy programs like NextGen, it is hard today to get the ASI's out of the office to look at anything that is recip powered general aviation. When was the last time that you met an FAA inspector on the ramp at your home airport on a Saturday?

The other problem is that the information is often no longer available. When a Beechcraft goes down, the FAA can call Beechcraft to confirm the details of the aircraft. Engine, propeller, number of seats, etc. The builder is the repository of all info about an individual experimental amateur built aircraft. If the builder perishes in the crash, the accident investigator has no source for the information that you suggest would be useful in an accident report.

So all we are left with is gross statistics. Maybe number of hours on the aircraft, the type of airworthiness certificate, number of engines, general configuration.

So when the airplane says "Experimental", there are great aspects of what you do, and potentially some not so great aspects.

Fly safe,

Wes
N78PS

[Kyle Boatright]

That airplane had a lycoming. There has been some discussion on the RV boards. It may be that the registration is so recent the FAA's databases aren't current enough to show the information you're interested in.

[rwanttaja]

There are four basic accident reports.

There is the FAA preliminary on the FAA web page, that identifies the type of aircraft and the basic circumstances in tabular format. This usually appears the day after the accident, or the Monday after if it happened on a weekend.

The NTSB preliminary comes out about two weeks later. The preliminary is basically a narrative version of the FAA prelim. Usually, it just describes the circumstances of the accident ("Aircraft lost power and landed in a field") without any greater depth of description.

The next report is the NTSB Factual Report, which comes out quite a few months later (8-10). The Factual Report is basically a set of filled-out forms, and will normally include details such as the engine type, pilot total time, pilot time in type, etc. It includes a narrative (sometimes several pages long) that summarizes all the results of the investigation, including any lab work. It does not identify the cause of the accident, but usually it can be inferred from the facts provided.

Finally, about a year after the accident, the Final Report comes out. This is basically the Factual, with addendum that provides the NTSB Investigator's Probable Cause of the accident.

The NTSB accident report databases are available online for public download and analysis. They are in Microsoft Access format. You can download a year's worth of accidents, and build your own summaries based on aircraft type, engine type, etc. These are located at:

http://www.ntsb.gov/avdata/Access/

I have been downloading and analyzing this data for about ten years, now, mostly dealing with Experimental aircraft accidents. When I transfer the NTSB data to my personal database, I add columns to make it easier for me to break out accidents by other factors, such as Engine Type (Certified, auto, two-stroke, etc.), homebuilt type (the NTSB designators are all over the map, but I standardize them), and cause (I read the narrative for each accident, and assign the cause to one or more of 51 categories).

In short: Do you have a question about homebuilt accident statistics? Ask it here, and I'll try to answer it. If I can't or won't answer it, I'll explain what the difficulty is.

The one thing I'll caution you about is that my database (currently) only runs through 2011; I prefer to wait until the investigations are complete and a probable cause is assigned.

Ron Wanttaja

[rwanttaja]

Ok, my goal is to start a dialogue, not to bash experimental aviation. It appears we are under a microscope for saftey concerns compared to certified aircraft. The Seawind had a history of engine trouble and recently replaced fuel injector and overhauled prop.

http://www.ntsb.gov/aviationquery/brief.aspx?ev_id=20130112X64931&key=1

What is missing is information on the engine. Certified, experimental or conversion . . .
The FAA registration database list this as "Lycoming IO-540 series." If it's a commerically-modified version of the engine, the registration database sometimes indicates this, but this listing should not be assumed to mean it was stock.

The NTSB factual report usually gets specific as to the engine type.

Ron Wanttaja

[rwanttaja]

does EAA follow up on these incidents to improve safety, compile data etc.? What about Vans?

To steal a line from "The Right Stuff": "You're looking at him." I write an annual summary of homebuilt accident trends for EAA, published in Sport Aviation. Just submitted the 2012 report a couple of weeks back, think it'll be in the March issue. The 2011 report was published April 2012. I've also published numerous articles on the subject in Kitplanes magazine, including analyses of the statistics for specific homebuilt types.

BTW, just so it's clear: I'm a freelancer, I don't work for EAA. Nothing I say here should be construed as coming from the EAA.

Ron Wanttaja

[1600vw]

The FAA registration database list this as "Lycoming IO-540 series."
Ron Wanttaja


I believe I wread somewhere that this engines are having crank problems.

[WLIU]

What you likely read was that Lycoming had a problem with a vendor and recalled a number of crankshafts. Lycoming provided a discount on replacement cranks and some $$ towards the labor of replacement. I have a number of friends who bought new cranks.

But owners of experimental aircraft may not receive FAA Airworthiness Directives, may not look at service bulletins, and are not obligated to follow them. The experimental category has fewer constraints than Standard, Normal, Utility, Acrobatic etc certified aircraft.

So from Ron's posts above we now know who tracks Experimental - Amateur Built aircraft incidents and accidents. That kind of data base has value, and I suspect that if Ron wanted to be the steward of what in the high tech world we call an "open source project", that there might be a volunteer or two able to make some diplomatic calls to follow up on accidents so as to obtain more detailed information to include with the statistics. I suspect that not only EAA can use the data, but I will suggest that insurance companies, manufacturers like Vans' and others would provide funding to support a database hosted by a "neutral" party, if that database offered more insight on the types of issues that result in accidents than what we have today.

Best of luck,

Wes
N78PS

[rleffler]

Unfortunately, there have been two recent RV-10 incidents that preliminary information indict the root cause is builder error.

As Kyle mentioned, there has been significant discussion on these incidents in the RV community. On appears to be a fitting that came off in flight and the other appears to be a stop not that wasn't installed. Over the last couple years, there seems to be more of these types of accidents occuring. I suspect that may be due to the increased numbers of experimentals being completed.

In all cases, the problem could have easily been avoided. The opportunity for the community is how to educate builders to pay closer attention to detail when it comes to fittings and fasteners. Torque seal works well when used appropriately to validate inspection. I think the problem is that the builder is too close to the project and starts making too many assumptions as the build gets complete, or simply doesn't remember or overlook testing the torque on the various connections.

This is probably the one area that keeps me up at night, since I'm about a month away from getting a pink slip for my RV-10. I think my approach is to invite a group of 3 or 4 builders (not at the same time) over to inspect the RV-10 before the final FSDO visit. To motivate them a little, I'm going to offer them their favorite adult beverage for each building defect or issue they find. In my opinion, there is no room for ego here. Worse case is that I may owe some friends a few drinks, but the positive is that I hope they find anything that I may have overlooked or missed.

But back to reality, what keeps me up at night is what if there is something that we all missed in our inspections? I know the odds are minimal and the risk is low. But I'm sure these other builders thought they had all their bases covered too or they wouldn't have flown their aircraft.

bob

[1600vw]

Bob, even though I do not build, I too have others look over my bird. But what I ask them to do is look at what others have not looked at. Once I have someone tell me, we looked at every part, only then am I ready to climb aboard for a flight. Now this only happens at time of purchase or at the beginning of the year once repairs have been made.

I know Experimentals or HB do not have to follow any AD's put out by the FAA or anyone for that matter, but is it not in our best interests to look at these AD's, if you can find any on what you fly, and address them?

I fly a Fisher airplane. I called Fisher and asked if any ad's have come up over the years. I received the answer I knew I would, but I had to ask.

[Auburntsts]

100% agree with what Bob Leffler said. I'm a little behind him in my RV-10 build but also plan on holding a "Sharpie" party close to my inspection date with members of my EAA Chapter. I'm also thinking of turning it into a contest of sorts -- the person who discovers the most discrepancies (and there will be some, but hopefully not many) wins a 6-pack of their favorite beverage.

[WLIU]

I encourage you to have your smallest "party" member dive under the seats and into the tail cone. We found a veritable hardware store of stuff in an RV. A pair of dropped reading glasses and the case for them, was recovered from different bays in the belly of an RV. Ask the builder whether they have EVER dropped ANYTHING while working on the airplane and not recovered and removed it from the airplane. Its stunning how small an item can jam a control in flight.

And put a wrench on some bolts. There may be a elf that runs around at night loosening nuts after the builder goes to bed. The builder will swear that he or she tightened every nut and bolt...

Best of luck,

Wes
N78PS

[1600vw]

Wes: I use that tamper paint stuff on every bolt I inspect or have other inspect. This way when I am by myself looking at my bird I can tell if any of these bolts have moved from the time I had everything inspected.

I never did this at first, but upon checking everything the only way I knew something was not loose was to put a wrench on it. Now I need no wrench just my eyes. I have not as of yet found one bolt or nut that has moved on its own. But I look all the time.

I put this tamper paint stuff on every bolt or nut. Its so easy to check now for a loose nut or bolt that has moved. Like I said I have not found one bolt or nut that has moved.

[rleffler]

I know Experimentals or HB do not have to follow any AD's put out by the FAA or anyone for that matter, but is it not in our best interests to look at these AD's, if you can find any on what you fly, and address them?

ADs aren't really a part of the shortcomings of finding a loose bolt or fitting. However, I do agree with you that addressing them is in everyone's best interest, even if an experimental.

[rleffler]

Wes: I use that tamper paint stuff on every bolt I inspect or have other inspect. This way when I am by myself looking at my bird I can tell if any of these bolts have moved from the time I had everything inspected.

I never did this at first, but upon checking everything the only way I knew something was not loose was to put a wrench on it. Now I need no wrench just my eyes. I have not as of yet found one bolt or nut that has moved on its own. But I look all the time.

I put this tamper paint stuff on every bolt or nut. Its so easy to check now for a loose nut or bolt that has moved. Like I said I have not found one bolt or nut that has moved.

I concur. I use torque or inspection lacquer on everything. If I don't see it, then I get the wrench out to validate.

Two incidents that I'm aware of are with repeat builders. This implies that nobody is immune to this issue. Whether or not it's forgetfullness, got distracted during the process, overlooked, or just plain being lazy (although I think I would be hard pressed to call any homebuilder lazy) is only a contributing factor. The real question is how do you establlish a program in which the appropriate level of due diligence is performed to overcome the original deficency? I think I know how to minimize or reduce the risk, but I'm not sure how to completely eliminate it, since we are all human.

The Tech Counselor program and either FSDO or the DAR may catch things, but they aren't fool proof either. I know it's being overly anal, but I supect until there is a master checklist for each model to check off in an inspection, I suspect things will continue to be overlooked.

[rwanttaja]

What you likely read was that Lycoming had a problem with a vendor and recalled a number of crankshafts.
I think the accident data does tend to show this. My 14-year database of homebuilt accidents shows 120 with Lycoming engines of the 540 series installed. Nine were due to what I call "Engine Internal Issues" (7.5%) of which two are crankshafts. One specifically blames an improperly manufactured crankshaft. The other, six years later, attributes the problem to fatigue, so I presume it didn't have the bad crank.

In contrast, there are 418 accidents of aircraft with Lycoming 360 series engines installed, of which 16 were Engine Internal Issues. That's 3.8%, about half what the 540 encountered. There are four crankshaft cases, but two are wrench errors, not really the crank's fault.

Ron Wanttaja

[rwanttaja]

This is probably the one area that keeps me up at night, since I'm about a month away from getting a pink slip for my RV-10. I think my approach is to invite a group of 3 or 4 builders (not at the same time) over to inspect the RV-10 before the final FSDO visit. To motivate them a little, I'm going to offer them their favorite adult beverage for each building defect or issue they find. In my opinion, there is no room for ego here. Worse case is that I may owe some friends a few drinks, but the positive is that I hope they find anything that I may have overlooked or missed.
And excellent idea, but: Make sure they look at the big stuff as well as the small stuff.

Two local guys built a couple of big four-seat homebuilts (not RV-10s) a few years back. There were unusual airplanes, and garnered a lot of interest among the homebuilder community. Lotsa guys coming by to look at the airplanes. FAA came, and signed off the airworthiness.

When the first one was ready to fly, the first builder taxiied out to the runup pad. He checked the engine carefully, then did a last check of the control motion. Something nagged at him. He checked again.

The ailerons worked backwards.

He taxied back to the hangar. He and his partner checked the other aircraft. It was wrong, too.

They checked the plans. Both were built to plan.

Weird situation: The homebuilt had originally be designed with a yoke. They had asked the designer for drawings to convert the design to a stick, and the designer had messed up....

Ron Wanttaja

[Bill Berson]

Hi Ron,
There was an experimental Wright Flyer B that crashed ( I think July 30)
I read the NTSB final report online. Cause was determined to be incomplete welds.
I wanted to see the Materials Lab report( mentioned in report)with pictures of the weld.
Is this lab report available online?


p.s. I think the empty weight of 1800 pounds (for a Wright replica )is a major contributing factor to the flight characteristics after the prop shaft failed.

[Bill Greenwood]

Ron, that story gives me a cold chill, but think of this. A "controls free and correct" check should be part of EVERY run up at the runway before flight.
But normally you can only see the ailerons from the pilots seat. What ir it was the elevator that was hooked up backwards?

I know of 2 instances similar to that. The control lock for a Bonanza is a metal rod that fits in a hole behind the pilots yoke, It is 2 parts, the rod and the larger red plastic flap the holds the rod. It wears over time, and the rod loosens in the flap. Now, the best course is to buy a new one, but it is about $500. So I epoxyied mine back together. One day I get ready to take off, and do the run up, and I do follow the check list. But I have a thousand hours and 15 years in this plane, and I am not expecting there to be a control problem. But when I tried to cycle the yoke, it won't move at all. When I had pulled off the plastic case, the rod slipped out and was still in the hole behind the yoke. I probably would have noticed it when I began the takeoff roll, but if not I was moments from an accident. I could have seen the big red flap if it was in place, but the rod by itself was hidden.

Another time a friend had his plane , a Helio repainted at a fancy shop. It looked good when it was done, that is if any nosewheel converted Helio looks good. But upon closer inspection, he asked the shop why they had reversed the ailerons? They denied doing any such thing,so he brought out the "before" photos that clearly showed the trim tab used to be on one wing and now was on the opposite one.

It has now, in the last year or so for some control towers to try to pressure pilots of small piston airplanes to avoid the run up just before takeoff. They do it here in Aspen and at Denver Centenial that I know since I fly at those.
Don't let them rush you into doing something dumb.
I have never ever heard them ask one of the pilots in jets the same thing.

[Auburntsts]

Ron, that story gives me a cold chill, but think of this. A "controls free and correct" check should be part of EVERY run up at the runway before flight.
But normally you can only see the ailerons from the pilots seat. What ir it was the elevator that was hooked up backwards?

Even if you can see them that's no guarantee. There was a fatal F-15 crash in the mid 90's in Germany where there was a control rod reversal. The accident pilot did the pre-takeoff stick sweep but neither he nor the crew chief caught the reversal (neither did maintenance for that matter). So the point is not only do you need to perform these checks, you have to understand what are the correct indications/responses are that you're getting back from the inputs. How many of us are guilty of whistling through the pre-flight and/or before-takeoff checklists? Did you really pay attention to whether the left aileron went up and the right one down when the stick/yoke went left or did you just note that "things" moved? Did you really look at the RPM for correct response during the mag check? I can tell you I'm guilty, particularly in my youth, but not so much now as the older I get the more cautious I become.

[rwanttaja]

Hi Ron,
There was an experimental Wright Flyer B that crashed ( I think July 30)
I read the NTSB final report online. Cause was determined to be incomplete welds.
I wanted to see the Materials Lab report( mentioned in report)with pictures of the weld.
Is this lab report available online?

p.s. I think the empty weight of 1800 pounds (for a Wright replica )is a major contributing factor to the flight characteristics after the prop shaft failed.
The NTSB is putting a lot more of the supporting data online...for instance, I accessed some crash-scene photos and witness accounts from a Fly Baby accident. I'm betting the lab reports are there, too.

The problem was, you got to them via a route that was NOT the ordinary accident search page. If no one else posts the link, I'll dig through it and find the access point when I get home from work.

Ron Wanttaja

[rwanttaja]

Ron, that story gives me a cold chill, but think of this. A "controls free and correct" check should be part of EVERY run.
Absolutely. The point in this case, of course, is that everyone and his brother (literally) had pored over the airplane, and the FAA inspector had visited too. No one caught it.

This is a *very* good lesson about pre-take off checks....

Ron Wanttaja

[1600vw]

My instructor told me of a man whom hangared his airplane at this man's place. One afternoon this gent was working on his airplane all afternoon. the owner of the airpark asked what he was doing and this man said resetting incidence on his tail feathers. He asked why and this man said he read on the internet to do this.

After doing this and who knows what else this man taxi's to the end of the runway. After setting there for what I was told seemed like 15 mins he comes over the radio and says he is having problems with the elevator or something, the man whom owned the airfield told him to come back to the hangar and look at it. Again some time goes by and all of a suddden this man takes off.

He takes to the air, climbs to about 5 or so hundred feet then enters a spirl and crashed and killed himself. Not one word over the radio what was happening, he just crashed and died.

The owner of the airpark then had to call this man's wife and explain he would never be coming home again. He then takes me out and shows me what is left of this man plane, it was not much a couple pieces, the rest was lost in the fire after the crash.

[rwanttaja]

The NTSB is putting a lot more of the supporting data online...for instance, I accessed some crash-scene photos and witness accounts from a Fly Baby accident. I'm betting the lab reports are there, too.

The problem was, you got to them via a route that was NOT the ordinary accident search page. If no one else posts the link, I'll dig through it and find the access point when I get home from work.
A little lunchtime surfing comes though:

http://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/dms.html

Enter the accident number, then click "Find" (not "search" at the bottom of the page)

They do have the material inspection report.

Ron Wanttaja

[Tom Charpentier]

The NTSB is putting a lot more of the supporting data online...for instance, I accessed some crash-scene photos and witness accounts from a Fly Baby accident. I'm betting the lab reports are there, too.

The problem was, you got to them via a route that was NOT the ordinary accident search page. If no one else posts the link, I'll dig through it and find the access point when I get home from work.

Ron Wanttaja

Ron,

I think the link you're looking for is here: http://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/dms.html (edit: whoops, you beat me to it!). Click "search" and key in the accident ID. Not every accident has a public docket available, but many do. Thanks a lot for your input on this topic!

I agree that in many cases we wish we knew more. Some information isn't always available to investigators or anyone else for that matter (often true in fatals). In the case of what engine was installed on an accident airplane I believe it was correctly raised in this topic that you can find the make/model of the engine in the aircraft's registry online (http://registry.faa.gov/aircraftinquiry/NNum_Inquiry.aspx), although if it was an uncertified/experimental version of an engine it may not be noted. Usually if powerplant failure was a cause the final NTSB report will include anything noteworthy about the engine.

[Bill Berson]

Thanks Ron,
I found the Materials document for the fatal Wright B crash with your web instructions. (NTSB ID CEN11FA528)

The weld looked nice on outside. Yes, the weld lacked full penetration by about 25 percent.
But in my opinion, no weld would last with such a small shaft with a large stress riser at the weld. I think the NTSB should have looked at part design, but this may be beyond their expertise.
The original Wright airplanes had plenty of shaft failure. And they certainly never had a 210 hp Lycoming.




edit, tried to attach NTSB photo. But the "Manage Attachments" did not work on my iPad.

[Floatsflyer]

Ron, that story gives me a cold chill, but think of this. A "controls free and correct" check should be part of EVERY run up at the runway before flight.

Me too! Clearly the designer is responsible but does not share in any of the blame because the question begging to be screamed out loud is why didn't all those people(or at least one) involved including the FAA inspection guys ever notice that that the ailerons were crossed long before the plane had it's first taxi? This is a rhetorical question of course because I don't expect an answer. But nonetheless it makes for an interesting departure point for discussing(just a little)the psychology of human group behavior and anatomy.

Perhaps someone did notice. Perhaps that person was far less educated or less skilled in aircraft building knowledge. Perhaps that person then felt somewhat intimidated or less confident within this group and feared that speaking out about an anomoly so obvious would invite admonishment, repudiation or humiliation . This psychology of the group dynamic has become quite accepted with the airlines and programs have been put in place to counter the cultural differences and clash of cultural values on the flight deck. It stems from crash investigations where the cause was pilot error and could have been avoided if there had been effective communications and relationship management between captain and first officer. Investigators concluded in these instances from flight recordings and other evidence that outcomes could have been different but for the first officer's(the subordinate) fear of questioning the actions of the captain(the superior) and recommending an alternative course of action. The inability to say or do something contrary because of a perceived notion that power and seniority equates with skills and correct decision making. Conversly, the captain's inability to accept alternative info because of ego and seniority status.

Perhaps it had something to do with the physiology of the brain and eyes and how that complexity works. Since we see with our brain and not our eyes it is possible, it's been said by medical experts, that our brain does not process quickly enough what our eyes are seeing. This delay can cause a situation where once an object is seen, it is then registered nano seconds later but the eye has already moved on.

Whatever the reason this story provides inspiration for doing extrordinary walk arounds and pre checks.

[Bill Berson]

I watched a pilot crash and die from reversed ailerons.
Lots of pilots don't check for proper control movement. I check every flight.
Especcially important for ailerons. Because a reversed throttle, elevator or rudder will probably be noticed before liftoff. Not so with reversed ailerons where the plane will usually get about 100 feet and then rolls inverted to the ground.

It took me and the NTSB investigator about an hour to trace the cables and find the mistake. The pilot didn't have 5 seconds to think after liftoff. In this case, he was the mechanic that reversed the cables, so no one else suffered from his error.

[danielfindling]

The NTSB is putting a lot more of the supporting data online...for instance, I accessed some crash-scene photos and witness accounts from a Fly Baby accident. I'm betting the lab reports are there, too.

The problem was, you got to them via a route that was NOT the ordinary accident search page. If no one else posts the link, I'll dig through it and find the access point when I get home from work.

Ron Wanttaja

Thanks for the link and your work on safety. Maybe a goal for EAA headquarters would be to help solve the issue of making all the known data more readily available from a single source and therefore more relevant to all.

I took a few graduate level statistic courses many moons ago, and I remember little. I do recall from my methods courses the necessity for good data sets. The current data source seems like a big mess for you and others to work with.

Another thought would to allow anonymous reporting of homebuilt safety issues at the EAA national level without the possibility to have the reporting haunt the messenger.

I know physicians have a mechanism of doing so without a fear of repercussions, to prevent future malpractice among fellow physicians.

Finally, I am grateful to all for engaging in this dialogue. I am learning a lot.

Daniel Findling

[rwanttaja]

Another thought would to allow anonymous reporting of homebuilt safety issues at the EAA national level without the possibility to have the reporting haunt the messenger.
That's a very good idea. Make it like NASA's Aviation Safety Reporting System (http://asrs.arc.nasa.gov/), but concentrating on homebuilts. I can see there being folks who don't want to go public because they're afraid the kit-makers will retaliate, or they'll get a bunch of vicious emails from supporters of the design.

Tom? Hal? Either of you want to try walk that upstairs?

Ron Wanttaja

[Sam Buchanan]

That's a very good idea. Make it like NASA's Aviation Safety Reporting System (http://asrs.arc.nasa.gov/), but concentrating on homebuilts. I can see there being folks who don't want to go public because they're afraid the kit-makers will retaliate, or they'll get a bunch of vicious emails from supporters of the design.

Tom? Hal? Either of you want to try walk that upstairs?Ron Wanttaja

Maybe this wouldn't result in "anonymous" posters creating fictitious reports in order to trash the reputation of their competitors......

Guess I'm just too cynical.

[rwanttaja]

Maybe this wouldn't result in "anonymous" posters creating fictitious reports in order to trash the reputation of their competitors....
It certainly could, so you'd have to filter the inputs and allow a limited degree of rebuttal statements.

Ron Wanttaja

[Auburntsts]

Maybe this wouldn't result in "anonymous" posters creating fictitious reports in order to trash the reputation of their competitors......

Guess I'm just too cynical.

Interesting -- got any examples? Not opening a debate, just genuinely curious.

[Tom Charpentier]

That's a very good idea. Make it like NASA's Aviation Safety Reporting System (http://asrs.arc.nasa.gov/), but concentrating on homebuilts. I can see there being folks who don't want to go public because they're afraid the kit-makers will retaliate, or they'll get a bunch of vicious emails from supporters of the design.

Tom? Hal? Either of you want to try walk that upstairs?

Ron Wanttaja

That's a very good idea, and if we can implement it in a way that will be effective we will certainly consider it. Consider it walked!

[Frank Giger]

For spurious report elimination, do it like the other program.

Pilot/builder submits his real name, contact info, N number, etc. with the report. It's redacted from the record and kept secret.

The notion of the Aviation Safety Reporting System is that if one tells on himself and then later some yahoo makes a complaint, it's covered. Not a get-out-of-jail card, though; one can't call the number after the fire's out (but the NTSB/FAA hasn't arrived) and get amnesty.

Here's the relevant paragraph:


Enforcement Restrictions. The FAA considers the filing of a report with NASA concerning an incident or occurrence involving a violation of 49 U.S.C. subtitle VII or the 14 CFR to be indicative of a constructive attitude. Such an attitude will tend to prevent future violations. Accordingly, although a finding of violation may be made, neither a civil penalty nor certificate suspension will be imposed if:

The violation was inadvertent and not deliberate;
The violation did not involve a criminal offense, accident, or action under 49 U.S.C. § 44709, which discloses a lack of qualification or competency, which is wholly excluded from this policy;
The person has not been found in any prior FAA enforcement action to have committed a violation of 49 U.S.C. subtitle VII, or any regulation promulgated there for a period of 5 years prior to the date of occurrence; and
The person proves that, within 10 days after the violation, or date when the person became aware or should have been aware of the violation, he or she completed and delivered or mailed a written report of the incident or occurrence to NASA.



Main link:

http://asrs.arc.nasa.gov/index.html

[WLIU]

Not to be the skunk at the party, but NASA as a government agency can set up that sort of separation of the names and text and make it stick, but an individual like your or I or Ron can not. The FAA or a plaintiff's attorney can make use of legal tools to force the holder of the info to provide it. That said, perhaps NASA would buy into hosting this program, running it as part of the existing ASRS program. This would make the data available through the existing ASRS database query process.

Who wants to write the proposal?

Fly safe,

Wes
N78PS

[Flyfalcons]

Maybe not an individual but plenty of groups (ie, pilot unions) do exactly that with ASAP programs (in-house ASRS program). So it is possible.

[steveinindy]

That's a very good idea, and if we can implement it in a way that will be effective we will certainly consider it. Consider it walked!

If you guys need someone to help implement it, consider me extremely interested in helping.


Who wants to write the proposal?

If the EAA would formally support the proposal, I would be happy to author it.

[audioflyer]

Wow, this is exactly what I'm researching for my master's thesis. In fact, I'm surprised Tom Charpentier didn't mention this thread when we spoke a few weeks ago. I'm specifically looking at whether an ASAP program could be set up for E-AB aicraft type clubs (or type communities) and whether builders and pilots would use it. FlyFalcons hit the nail on the head. ASAP is like ASRS, but implemented at a company level (like an airline). This allows the airline to analyze the safety reports and look for trends, figuring out what procedures, training, equipment, or other changes might be needed to improve safety. I think the same thing could be implemented at our level. With an ASAP, the reports are confidential, so the reporter includes name and contact information, but they are de-identified when they are released back to the members. ASAP carries the backing of the FAA, and allows for limited immunity from FAA action similar to ASRS. I think ASRS has a great system set up for this, but because of the limited resources they have, it's difficult for them to spend much manpower on Experimental reports unless they represent a serious safety concern. This really needs to be handled at the EAA or type club level.

If anyone has information or informed opinion that might be helpful to my research, please contact me! I will be posting a survey for pilots and builders about this topic in a few months. I should be done with my thesis by next summer. If the research shows that this is feasible and useful, I'd like to push to get one started, maybe on a trial basis with a few aircraft types. Let me know off-list if you would like to help out somehow.

[martymayes]

If anyone has information or informed opinion that might be helpful to my research, please contact me! I will be posting a survey for pilots and builders about this topic in a few months. I should be done with my thesis by next summer. If the research shows that this is feasible and useful, I'd like to push to get one started, maybe on a trial basis with a few aircraft types. Let me know off-list if you would like to help out somehow.

I think it would be moderately difficult to sell a recreational ASAP program to the FAA for several reasons but I'd be glad to participate in a survey. FWIW, we get a lot of dissension in the ERC, regarding ops errors despite the fact we all use the same book. Wow, part 91 ops are all over the map. As a pilot, I would probably be hesitant to participate.

[audioflyer]

Well, I'm supposed to meet with the FAA guy in charge of ASAP next week, I'm interested to see what he says. There are definitely some roadblocks along the way, and that's what I'm exploring in my thesis. Please e-mail me with any of these concerns that you have in detail.

[WLIU]

The ASRS program is administered on behalf of the FAA by NASA. They hold themselves as unbiased and a neutral party in the world of airman goofs enforcement. And they get funding to run programs. Now the ASRS program specifically excludes accidents. Which means that the only data being formally collected is by the NTSB, which delegates a lot of that data collection to the FAA. And when the FAA shows up to speak with a pilot, the data that the pilot is willing to provide in obviously limited by the certificate implications.

So one approach to specifically advancing the knowledge of the safety of E-AB would be to have the FAA create a grant to run a program like ASRS for E-AB focused on accidents and incidents rather than general aeronautical goofs. EAA or even AOPA or MIT etc. could apply for the grant and publicize and run the program.

Now you could propose updating the NASA program to collect more info on E-AB, and EAA could actively encourage pilots to use the program. But that might make the existing NASA program more complicated than makes sense. The current printed general ASRS form is 3 pages and more questions might start making it unweildy. I will say that am surprised that most pilots don't know that you can fill out the ASRS form online.

I will note that the NASA ASRS program in general has become pretty low profile in the GA community and perhaps it needs EAA to help make it higher visibility. I have to confess that it had completely dropped off my personal radar until I was recruited to be what IAC calls a Regional Safety Coach and it made sense to carry a few ASRS forms to hand to pilots who do something really dumb in plain view of the rest of the world.

Best of luck,

Wes
N78PS