Anne Harlan / Hughes Tech Center research saved lives in crash: Asiana Airlines flight 214, Boeing 777-200ER, HL7742, Accident occurred July 06, 2013 in San Francisco, California

Posted: Thursday, August 8, 2013 12:00 am
Opinion/Commentary 
Press of Atlantic City


The July 6 Asiana accident in San Francisco was seen by the public and the media as a miracle. Almost everyone survived the crash of a large aircraft badly damaged during a hard landing and destroyed by the ensuing fire. Credit has been given to the first responders and passengers who assisted, but I would like to give credit to the dedicated men and women - many of whom are your friends and neighbors - who work at the Federal Aviation Administration's William J. Hughes Technical Center in Pomona, the FAA's premier research and testing facility.

Inside the gates of the complex you see from the Atlantic City International Airport or Westcoat Road are about 1,500 FAA federal employees and 1,500 contract employees, all working to make aviation safer in a variety of ways. These range from better guidance systems for aircraft to critical research on improving the design of large commercial transport aircraft and the airfields on which they operate. This work has been a major factor in saving lives, not only in the Asiana crash, but in the July 22 Southwest hard landing at LaGuardia, the Continental 737 crash in Denver in 2008 and the Air France 340 crash in Toronto in 2005, to name a few.

Aviation safety experts used to focus solely on how to prevent accidents, and they were so successful that, in 2012, we had the safest year in aviation since the dawn of the jet age. This was achieved despite huge growth in aviation - two million passengers and 30,000 flights daily in the U.S. alone. With accident rates so low, experts turned their attention to making the very rare aviation accidents survivable. That brings us to the Asiana crash.

Despite the tremendous forces exerted on the aircraft body when the Boeing 777 hit the San Francisco seawall, most seats and stowage bins remained in place. When passengers think of seats, their concerns are location and comfort. But tech center employees, working with industry, developed seats that can withstand 16 times the force of gravity and remain anchored to the floor. These 16G seats are now an industry standard, as are heat-resistant evacuation slides, in-floor and emergency exit lighting and fire resistant voice and cockpit recorders. All stemmed from research at the technical center.

Perhaps the biggest challenge to aircraft accident survival has been finding ways to provide passengers additional time to exit a damaged aircraft before they are overcome by fire and toxic fumes. With fuel readily available to feed a fire, every second is critical. It is here that FAA scientists and engineers have made tremendous contributions to safety through their work on fire-retardation materials, fire-prevention technology and fuel containment. Two of the more important improvements have been seat cushion fire blocking layers and low-heat and smoke-release interior panels that make up the side walls, ceiling, stowage bins and partitions. A simple experiment illustrates the benefit of fire blocked seat cushions: A quart of gasoline poured on an unprotected aircraft seat will result in an uncontrollable fire; with fire blocked seats, the fire will self-extinguish.

During tests in the tech center's unique full-scale fire test facility, fire-blocked seats provided passengers an extra 30-60 seconds, and low-heat-release panels an additional one to two minutes to escape. These tests were conducted with a large jet fuel fire against a fuselage opening. During the Asiana accident, the initial fire was much smaller and slower in developing, making the benefits of fire resistant seats and paneling that much more significant. An exact number cannot be given because of the many uncertainties, but it is likely that the passengers on the Asiana flight had the benefit of three to five minutes to evacuate due to aircraft design changes stemming from technical center research.

The scientists and engineers at the FAA William J. Hughes Technical Center are recognized by the aviation community as world leaders and experts in aviation safety. But they can only continue this critical work if they are given adequate funding and personnel resources. Sequestration and proposed legislation that would cut budgets, employment, salaries and benefits will make it hard, if not impossible, to recruit and retain world-class researchers. Many believe government employees don't make a difference, and that they hold jobs that could be cut with no impact. There are over 300 people who survived the Asiana crash who might disagree.

Anne Harlan, of Egg Harbor Township, is the former director of the FAA William J. Hughes Technical Center. She is an instrument-rated pilot and a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. She serves on the board of the Aviation Research and Technology Park.

Source:   http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/opinion/commentary

NTSB Identification: DCA13MA120
Scheduled 14 CFR Part 129: Foreign operation of Asiana Airlines
Accident occurred Saturday, July 06, 2013 in San Francisco, CA
Aircraft: BOEING 777-200ER, registration: HL7742
Injuries: 3 Fatal.

This is preliminary information, subject to change, and may contain errors. Any errors in this report will be corrected when the final report has been completed. NTSB investigators traveled in support of this investigation and used data obtained from various sources to prepare this aircraft accident report.

On July 6, 2013, about 1128 pacific daylight time, Asiana Airlines flight 214, a Boeing 777-200ER, registration HL7742, impacted the sea wall and subsequently the runway during landing on runway 28L at San Francisco International Airport (SFO), San Francisco, California. Of the 4 flight crewmembers, 12 flight attendants, and 291 passengers, about 182 were transported to the hospital with injuries and 3 passengers were fatally injured. The airplane was destroyed by impact forces and postcrash fire. The regularly scheduled passenger flight was operating under the provisions of 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 129 between Incheon International Airport, Seoul, South Korea, and SFO. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed at the time of the accident.