Dana Air Committed No Offense

March 21, 2013 

By CAPT. DANIEL OMALE  

Again, this week, Dana Air’s operating certificate was temporary suspended. Professionally, what the crew did was right; instead of grounding the airline, it suspended its license. When the crew noticed a minor fault in the electrical system, they simply briefed the passengers and a replacement aircraft was provided to take the customers to Lagos. The aircraft was still on ground, at the pre-flight stage; and, even, if the airplane was already airborne, the best decision would have been to come back to the airport of departure or divert to the nearest airport for safety.

Grounding an airline for a sound professional decision such as this is another sign of political influence on professionalism, and an infringement on crews’ decision process.  A captain of an aircraft can decide, in the interest of safety, not to fly an airplane, if he or she finds the aircraft not airworthy enough. At the same time, there is no reason to punish or reprimand the airline if the crew points out a defect for rectification.

Aircraft, like all machines and mechanical devices, are susceptible to failures and disorderliness. The only remedy is to have competent mechanics and vigilant crews. That was exactly what happened in Dana’s case.

The danger in publishing every minor discrepancy in airline operation is the threat it poses to the airline in question, and a persistent instigation of fear in the mind of the traveling public. We cannot keep stereotyping an airline or create a situation where an airline is synonymous with accidents. Any airline in the world can experience an accident as long as humans are in charge.

The most important aspect of aircraft accident investigation is to learn from the cause(s) of the crash.

Establishing a culture of safety reporting:

Timely and accurate reporting of safety occurrences is critical to modern aviation safety management programs. ICAO has long recognized that establishment of a proper safety culture is key to effective safety reporting. According to the ICAO Safety Management Manual (ICAO Doc. 9859, 2nd edition), certain attributes and traits are necessary for an organization to perform well in this area. 

The five basic attributes of an effective safety reporting organization are as follows:

A demonstration of willingness to report errors and experiences

Information is received from knowledgeable aviation professionals

Flexibility of reporting is available for information to travel directly to the appropriate decision maker in unusual circumstances

A learning organization with the ability to draw conclusions and implement major reforms

An accountable organization where people are encouraged and rewarded for providing essential safety-related information

Experience indicates that successful incident reporting systems employ most of the following characteristics:

Trust: Persons reporting incidents must be able to trust the recipient organization and be confident that any information they provide will not be used against them. Without such confidence, people are reluctant to report their mistakes, and they may also be reluctant to report other hazards they are aware of. For an incident reporting system to be successful, it needs to be perceived as being non-punitive with regard to unintentional errors or mistakes.

Confidentiality: Non-punitive systems are based on confidential reporting. The person reporting an incident must be sure that his identity and other information that may be used to identify those involved will not be disclosed.

Independence: Ideally, an incident reporting system should be run by an organization divorced from the federal agency that is also responsible for the enforcement of aviation regulations. Accordingly, some countries, including the United States, use a third party for the management of so-called voluntary reporting systems. The third party receives, processes, and analyses the submitted incident reports and feeds the results back to the federal agency and the aviation community. With so-called mandatory reporting systems, it may not be possible to employ a third party. Nevertheless, it is desirable that the federal agency give a clear understanding that any information received will be used for accident prevention purposes only. This principle also supplies to an airline or any other aircraft operator that uses incident reporting as part of its accident prevention program.

Ease of reporting: 

The task of submitting incident reports should be as easy as possible for the reporter. Reporting forms should be readily available so that anyone wishing to file a report can do so easily. They should be simple to compile, with adequate space for a descriptive narrative, and they should also encourage suggestions on how to improve the situation or prevent a recurrence. Classifying information such as type of operation, light conditions, type of flight plan, weather, and so forth can be presented in a “check” format. The forms should ideally be self-addressed and postage-free.

Acknowledgement: The reporting of incidents requires considerable time and effort by the user and should be appropriately acknowledged. Whenever possible, feedback on the actions taken in response to a report should be provided to the reporting person.

Motivation and promotion: The information received from an incident reporting system should be made available to the aviation community as soon as possible, as this may help to motivate people to report further incidents. Such promotional activities may take the form of monthly regular e-mail or internet bulletins, newsletters or periodic summaries. Ideally, all such methods would be used with a view to achieving maximum exposure.

Dana air airline should be commended for displaying professional competence, not retribution.