Cyber toys threaten flight safety

Last year was the safest year on record for the world’s airlines, with zero serious accidents involving Asia-Pacific commercial jet aircraft, but new threats to safe flight have emerged with the development of widely available drones and lithium battery powered hoverboards.

by CHIEF CORRESPONDENT, TOM BALLANTYNE  

February 1st 2016

Print Friendly

When director general of the Association of Asia Pacific Airlines (AAPA), Andrew Herdman, delivered his annual report card on air safety last month, he declared 2015 the safest on record worldwide and a very good year for Asia-Pacific jet operators. Read More » They had an accident-free 12 months.

AAPA director general, Andrew Herdman: the major air accident loss rate has more than halved over the past five years

AAPA’s Herdman said that in 2015 the commercial air transport sector operated more than 40 million flights and carried over 3.5 billion passengers safely across the world. There were four major accidents involving large western-built jets operated by commercial airlines, which resulted in a total of 374 fatalities.

These losses included the Germanwings and Metrojet accidents, which are understood to be deliberate acts of unlawful interference. “Asia-Pacific carriers reported no major accidents involving large western-built commercial airline jets. The global fatal accident rate of one in five million flights marks 2015 as the safest year ever for commercial aviation. The major accident loss rate has more than halved over the past five years,” Herdman said.

But the encouraging results should not breed complacency, he cautioned. The rising number of incidents where drones (Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems) have come close to colliding with aircraft is a new threat to safe flight. Also an emerging risk to airlines is the likelihood of onboard fires from lithium battery powered hoverboards - or self-balancing motorized scooters. There have been numerous on ground incidents where they have caught fire and exploded causing serious injury.

The dangers of drones were recently highlighted by the International Air Transport Association’s (IATA) safety and flight operations senior vice president, Gilberto Lopez Meyer. He said the organisation’s research revealed that hundreds of drones have encountered airliners and airports and that collisions have occurred.

From January 2013 to June last year, 856 reports from seven official sources about drones were identified by IATA, with one suspected and one confirmed collision included. Almost 90% of the reports were from North American sources.

While there are no specific figures available on airline or airport drone incidents in the region, a number of incidents have been reported in the last few years. Last September, the New Zealand Air Line Pilots’ Association said it was “very worried” after a drone had a near miss with a commercial flight in controlled airspace above Christchurch.

The pilot of an Air New Zealand A320, with 166 passengers on board, reported sighting a drone north of Christchurch as the plane headed for Auckland. It passed close to the aircraft at an altitude of approximately 6,000 feet. Technically, it was a near miss.

IATA’s Meyer said five of the U.S. incidents involved traffic alert and collision avoidance system (TCAS) alerts. Only government drones are known to use TCAS. “We assume those TCAS using drones were government operated, but we don’t know,” he said.

“They certainly were RPAS equipped with TCAS systems. This is a serious problem. We are working with the ICAO (International Civil Aviation organization) to produce the necessary procedures, regulations and standards to control this problem as soon as possible.”

Hoverboards also have hit the headlines. There have been so many incidents where the lithium battery powered hands-free scooters have caught fire that airlines worldwide are banning them as both check-in and cabin luggage.

The lithium-ion rating on some models sold by manufacturers, including the world’s best-known hoverboard manufacturer, Swagway, measures 158 watt hours, putting it under the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) maximum limit of 160 watt hours, but the manufacturer urges extra caution about including the popular motorized scooter in onboard luggage.

“Our position on the question of flights is that while technically [the hoverboard] falls under the guidelines required by the FAA, we do not recommend taking the Swagway as carry-on. Each carrier varies in what they may allow [as cabin luggage], based on their individual comfort levels,” said a Swagway statement.

“These types of boards are new so there seems to be a lot of varying information out there, but for the sake of safety, we can’t stress enough that the calibre of the components used can make an impact on the overall safety of these boards.”

This is one of the problems. While boards produced by reputable manufacturers may be high quality, numerous cheap “copies” are being sold, many of them in Asia and particularly China, and they don’t meet accepted safety standards. They are even being sold airside at some Asian airports.