{"id":1001,"date":"2020-08-09T20:06:43","date_gmt":"2020-08-09T20:06:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vayuacademy.com\/blog\/?p=1001"},"modified":"2020-11-17T11:59:53","modified_gmt":"2020-11-17T11:59:53","slug":"when-it-isnt-the-safest-form-of-travel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vayuacademy.com\/blog\/when-it-isnt-the-safest-form-of-travel\/","title":{"rendered":"When it isn’t the Safest form of Travel…."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

On 7 August 2020, Air India Express Flight 1344<\/strong>, a COVID-19repatriation flight, part of the Vande Bharat Mission from Dubai, United Arab Emirates, to Kozhikode, India, overshot the runway during landing run at Calicut International Airport. The aircraft fell into a gorge killing 16 passengers, and both pilots. The remaining four cabin crew and 168 passengers survived, of whom over 100 were injured. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A very tragic accident. The accident has rattled the nation, the aviation community, and especially all the pilots in particular. Flying is not inherently dangerous but it is terribly unforgiving. The aviation industry which was fraught with adversity and at times with tragedies has emerged as one of the safest modes of transportation today. The aviation industry has made tremendous strides since the first commercial flight a little more than a century ago and pilots have played a very vital role in that. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

An accident is just the tip of the iceberg, a sign of a much larger problem below the surface. <\/p>Don Brown<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

While I do not deny the ultimate responsibility of the captain, but when an accident happens the focus seems to be only on the pilot’s actions or omissions. If we look at the statistics and various studies undertaken in the past, over 70% of the accidents involved human factors. The most common human factors are related to poor judgment and decision making. It is pertinent to note here that all accidents involve a sequence of events. Most accidents have more than one contributing factor like environment, supervisory, and organizational. Pilots do have control over some of the factors but they, unfortunately, have no control over weather, lighting, or terrain. Given the multifactorial nature of accidents, it is more important to give these factors a good thought if we want to bring a change. Human factors and behavior are complex, and we must understand the role other factors play to modify human decision making. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kozhikode (Calicut) accident, is not typically associated with skill-based errors, decision errors, violations, and perceptual error. Proper planning for safe flight is as important on the ground as in the air. To make sound judgment pilots require not only accurate weather-related information but they also require high-quality infrastructure. Let us all resolve to provide accurate information and the best infrastructure to avoid such kind of mishaps. <\/p>\n\n\n\n