Smoke in the cabin. A tire blowout. A cracked glass. No shortage of problems can affect a flight, fueling traveler anxiety and contributing to thousands of daily delays and cancellations around the world.
But for all the frustration and alarm that such events cause, it can be difficult to interpret and understand their severity. Here’s how aviation security experts say travelers should think about disruptions when they happen.
Problems happen.
Several alarming air travel incidents have made headlines in recent weeks – a sharp dive into an ocean, a disturbing shake that damaged a plane’s tail and an aborted takeoff after an apparent engine fire.
But the most common mishaps and malfunctions, even if hair grows back, are usually not serious, experts say.
A hydraulic leak, for example, is a familiar occurrence that pilots take seriously, but it’s not as devastating as it might seem. This is because aircraft have hydraulic backup systems, which are used to power equipment such as landing gear, brakes, wing flaps and flight controls, allowing aircraft to take off, fly and land. A plane running off a runway in what is known as a runway excursion makes for fascinating video and a possibly terrifying experience for those on board. But it does not necessarily cause significant damage to an aircraft or threaten the safety of those on board.
The same is true of the wide range of mechanical or maintenance issues that can arise before takeoff, which can force a pilot to hold an airplane at his gate or taxi back to the gate. These incidents are important to understand and address, but they are often small, experts said.
“Pilots are saying, ‘I’ve been very trained, I’m very educated on this airplane, and we need to go back to the gate and get the experts involved out of an abundance of caution,'” said Shawn Pruchnicki, a former pilot of airline and an assistant professor at the Ohio State University Center for Aviation Studies. “This is a system that works perfectly. That’s a good thing.”
Sometimes, such problems can disrupt a flight or put an airplane out of commission. But in other cases, they can be fixed quickly. And because airplanes are packed with safes, there are times when a flight with a malfunctioning system can continue safely simply by relying on one or more backups.
Flight is a complex, gravity-defying feat that is repeated thousands of times every day in a wide range of conditions. So travelers shouldn’t be surprised when things go wrong, said Amy Pritchett, a pilot and professor of aerospace engineering at Pennsylvania State University.
“Small little components will always start to burn or break,” she said. “There will always be potholes in the pavement on the approach road pushing something. There are always questions about whether the weather is good enough to fly, whether you can hit the turbulence or not. All of these things are sources of variability that need to be actively managed.”
The flight is safe.
Another thing travelers should keep in mind is that serious in-flight problems are extremely rare, experts said.
Flying is safer than driving or traveling by train in part because safety is built into the design of everything from air traffic control to the airplane itself. Important systems and procedures have backups, there are rarely single points of failure, pilots receive intensive and repetitive training, and airlines prepare for a wide range of possible outcomes.
“It’s the safest form of transportation ever designed by mankind,” said John Cox, a former airline pilot who runs a safety consulting firm. “Be careful driving to the airport.”
Over the past several decades, commercial aviation safety in the United States has improved more than fortyfold, according to a 2022 analysis of commercial aviation safety conducted by the National Academies.
According to the National Transportation Safety Board, typical causes of accidents include turbulence, hard landings, ground collisions with aircraft or other vehicles, and component failures, such as wing or engine flap failure.
Flying is so safe in part because the industry generally responds to any problems, even those that pose little threat. In the United States, airlines, manufacturers, and agencies such as the Federal Aviation Administration and the NTSB are constantly monitoring and reviewing risks and hazards in air travel.
“The level of systems that have been put in place to monitor commercial air transport today is profound,” said Ms. Pritchett. But that doesn’t mean anyone involved can lose vigilance in assessing potential risk, she added.
And while trips are cut short from time to time, experts said, the diversion of a flight from its destination generally reflects due diligence by pilots, airlines and air traffic controllers, not a life-threatening emergency. “Can we proceed to our destination?” said Kenneth Byrnes, a pilot and an associate professor who directs the flight training department at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. “Yes, but is it the safest thing to do?”
Placing blame is tricky.
Because aviation is complex and defined by redundancy, problems rarely have a single cause. Instead, the most serious—even catastrophic—problems are the result of many factors.
“There is never a smoking gun, so to speak,” said Mr. Pruchnicki. “There’s never this ‘aha’ moment, when we’re going through the wreckage or going through the records and we’re like, ‘Ah, I found the only reason this plane went down.'”
Take the episode early last year in which two planes nearly hit each other on a runway at Kennedy International Airport. The National Transportation Safety Board found that several factors contributed to what might otherwise have been a disaster.
The agency found that the pilots of one plane were distracted while taking the wrong connecting route. At the same time, the air traffic controller who gave them instructions did not notice because his focus was elsewhere. And a runway status light was activated too late to alert pilots to the error, the agency concluded.
In investigating such incidents, assigning blame is not only difficult but also generally discouraged, experts said. Kyra Dempsey, who writes about aviation accidents on a blog, Admiral Cloudberg, said that “posthumous is a cornerstone of modern aviation safety,” facilitating an open safety culture in which people are willing to report concerns.
Mr Cox, the pilot-turned-consultant, said “aviation accident investigators are really more interested in understanding the cause than assigning blame, because our job is to see that it doesn’t happen again”. Instead, “lawyers get the blame,” he said.
Perspective is important.
When disaster strikes, it’s important to keep context in mind, experts said.
A casual observer might notice, for example, that many problems seem to affect two types of aircraft: the Boeing 737 and the Airbus A320. But these aircraft families make up more than half of all commercial aircraft in service, so they naturally feature heavily in news coverage.
Experts also warned against confirmation bias. When an airline or a manufacturer figures in a headline-generating episode, the media and the public tend to be alert to other problems involving the company, even those that have little to do with the company or may not be all that important. for her. attract a lot of attention from security agencies.
“When something happens, you need time to find out and learn exactly what happened and why it happened,” said Jeff Guzzetti, a former accident investigator for the FAA and NTSB. “That’s something you can’t do in one news cycle or even two news cycles.”
It can take the NTSB months, and sometimes more than a year, to conduct investigations, which culminate in safety recommendations to prevent future accidents.
After a fuselage panel exploded on a 737 Max during a flight in January, Boeing came under intense scrutiny, and rightfully so, experts said. But some also said they received many calls from reporters in the following months seeking comment on problems involving Boeing planes in cases that had little to do with the company.
“Just because it’s a Boeing airplane that has a mechanical problem doesn’t necessarily mean it has anything to do with Boeing,” Mr. Pruchnicki.
In the episode involving the fuselage panel, the aircraft was practically new, focusing attention on the manufacturer. But a manufacturer is probably not to blame when a problem occurs with a plane that was delivered years ago and has since flown safely, experts said.