Now there is roughly one major accident per 1 million
flights with increased air traffic by 2015 there would be one
fatal crash a week. (CNN.com) So in the near future if
stricter regulations are not placed on the people building,
inspecting and flying these planes. Future airplane
crashes will be responsible for killing hundreds of people a
week. Air safety is also important because it effects
America’s economy. American airlines alone logged 9.5 million
scheduled flights in 1997and had 625 passengers. (Gaffney
There are four areas where air safety needs to be
improved. The most important area is human error which has
caused over 70 percent of airline accidents since 1950. Other
important areas of air safety is finding better and more
accurate ways of predicting the weather. Security needs to be
increased in the ways of detecting weapons and explosives.
The final area of air safety that needs to be improved is the
Since 1950 over 70 percent of airline accidents have
been caused by Human error. The reason is simple while all
other aspects of air travel have been improved, human
behavior still has its age-old imperfections. Which is why
the Gore Commission spot lighted the need for more work on
the human side of aviation safety research. “Government and
industry aviation research should emphasize human factors and
training.” The Gore Commission said to Bill Clinton in its
Human error was responsible for the Deaths of 583 people
on March 27 which was the worst commercial air disasters in
history. The disaster happened when KLM and Pan Am pilots did
not see each others airplanes, because of thick fog, and
collided. (Two 747 jumbo jets collide at Tenerife)
Most fatal accidents are caused when perfectly working
aircraft are flown in to the ground which is called
controlled-flight-into-terrain (CFIT). (Gaffney 45) This
phenomenon which has accounted for 25 percent of all
commercial airplane accidents worldwide killing 2,396 people.
Steps to reduce CFIT is to make the installment of enhanced
ground- warning systems within the next three years
mandatory. The systems are designed to decrease human error.
In the early days of airline travel flying was in
adventure. Navigation aids were primitive. Weather reporting
was spotty. Pilots had to rely on steel-nerved flying skills
to deal with weather. In the 1920s radio navigation was one
of the first ways to help deal with bad weather conditions.
Since the beginning of aviation there have been many
crashes caused by bad weather conditions. For example on
March 3,1993 81 people were killed from a condition caused by
bad weather called icing. (Major Airline Disasters) Icing is
when ice forms on air plane wings caused by rain and snow.
There are many different weather conditions that can be
very hazardous to air safety. There is in-flight icing,
which is when icing can collect on airplane surfaces while a
Wind Shear can be a big threat to airplanes taking off
or landing. The edge of a weather system called a front can
throw up a wall of thunderstorms to block an airplanes path.
(Gaffney 57) All are problems that technology can eventually
Airplanes are usually very reliable machines but they
are no better than the people that design and build them.
Mechanical error has caused many deaths and is a problem that
needs to be fixed though more in depth inspections on
airplane parts and higher standards on parts.
There are many airplane accidents caused by mechanical
failure each year. One of the most fatal accidents was on
February 29th 1996 when engine failure caused a Faucett
airlines 747 to crash because of engine failure killing 123
people.(Major Airline Disasters) Which is why new ways of
keeping planes in better condition as they age is necessary.
One major hazard is that airline are increasingly using
two engines