If you are a pilot, losing control of your plane in flight can be a very dangerous situation. Neelakshi Majumdar, an assistant professor of aerospace engineering in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Arkansas, wants flying private planes to be safer. She co-authored a study published in the Journal of Air Transportation that is the first to ask surviving pilots — more than 200 of them — why they experienced in-flight loss of control. She worked on the study at Purdue University, and the work received funding from the Federal Aviation Administration.
Neelakshi says there is a pretty simple definition for what constitutes in-flight loss of control.
“The Federal Aviation Administration, the FAA, defines it as when, in simple words, when a pilot is unable to control the aircraft, and it could happen because of various different reasons. Let’s say weather conditions. And then the pilot couldn’t control the aircraft because of maybe gusty wind conditions or something. It could happen right after some kind of engine trouble and various other reasons. But it’s basically an unintended departure of flight from a controlled flight regime. That’s basically what the FAA defines an in-flight loss of control as, and because it’s in flight, it’s only applicable after takeoff and before landing,” Majumdar said.
You mentioned weather. That can be a cause. What other kind of causes can lead to mechanical error, I suppose?
“Yeah, so mechanical error, which, well, it’s not one of the biggest causes, mechanical errors, it’s like 20 percent mechanical malfunctions and you could say 70 to 80 percent is human error, human factors. And that’s what the study really focused on. We do get to know a lot about what happened to the aircraft after it crashes, but especially when we have fatalities and we don’t have any survivors. How do we know what kind of actions or decisions or conditions did the pilot go through, which contributed to this in-flight loss of control accident?” Majumdar said.
So ideally, you’d find out from the surviving pilot.
“Yeah, exactly. And that’s what we did. We went ahead and surveyed pilots who had a potential in-flight loss of control or they somehow prevented or recovered from it. And then we asked them how did it happen in the first go? And then what did you do to recover from it? And were there any other prior conditions that you think might have contributed to this? How were you — were you even trained to recover from these conditions? So that was the main focus of the study, to know more about human error, pilot error, pilot conditions and the training.” Majumdar said.
Is there mandatory training when you are getting your pilot license on how to deal with different potential losses of in-flight control?
“Well, we do have some fixed maneuvers that are included in the private pilot curriculum. And those maneuvers may expand in different levels of pilot certificates. For example, for a private pilot certificate, we are taught how to — and when I say we, because I’m one of the private pilots, so I’ve gone through it — we are trained how to recover from a potential stall. A stall is basically when the aircraft loses lift and it’s like nose diving into the ground, so you know how to recover from that. And then engine failure, emergency procedures, go arounds — basically when you’re trying to land and you want to abort the landing, how do you go around while maintaining proper airspeed and your aircraft attitude and all of that.
“But there are certain gaps in training that we also identified through the study, which could help pilots to better learn how to recover from in-flight loss of control scenarios. There are no specific fake maneuvers that really teach private pilots as such to recover from a loss of control.” Majumdar said.
These 200-plus respondents — what did this help you find out or discover?
“So if I have to be a little bit broad in terms of pilot error, it was mostly skill-based errors, which is basically pilots having inadequate skills. And that, I would say, is originating from maybe having inadequate training back in their flight training times. And then it was also decision-based errors, where pilots said they did not even recognize the severity of the condition in the beginning, or they were overconfident and thought they’d be able to land even in gusty weather conditions. And they just went for it.
“So the first instinct where you need to make that decision, whether I should go ahead with my planned flight or not — if you can identify that part, I think that would help a lot. And then, of course, recovery training, that is another thing. Some of the pilots said because they had some additional recovery training apart from their private pilot curriculum — upset prevention and recovery training, which is UPRT, quite popular these days — there are some flight schools and independent flight instructors that train pilots. It’s maybe like a three- to four-day course where you can understand more about how to recover from upset flight. Upset is basically in-flight loss of control, where the flight is not in the normal safe parameters.
“So the main thing is, maybe there are some things we can do better in training. Because for private pilots, which is most of the pilots in general aviation — and I would like to clarify, general aviation is all aviation operations excluding military, commercial and scheduled flights — here we are only talking about private pilots or pilots flying for example agricultural purposes and so on, or recreational flying." Majumdar said.
Right.
“The minimum hours for a private pilot certificate is 40 hours under the Federal Aviation Regulations Part 61. So 40 hours — well, you think you get 40 hours of flight training and you pass the exam on a good day when you got lucky, and then you go and fly and something happens. Well, it’s only you who’s responsible for it.
“And I keep on reading such accidents sometimes. It would make sense to me that maybe the pilot had less experience or they just made a bad decision. But I’ve also seen accidents where the pilot was really experienced, someone who had even a commercial pilot license, and they end up just crashing and losing their life. It’s really unfortunate, I feel. Commercial aviation is so safe. Why can’t general aviation?” Majumdar said.
Are these things that you can train for on a simulator?
“Yeah, there are some, flight simulators are really good for learning or practicing the procedures that you’re trained on. I think that’s one of the ways you can build up your proficiency and currency.” Majumdar said.
Were there pilots who didn’t want to talk about their experience?
“Oh yeah. Yes. I remember getting some responses when we were disseminating our surveys where pilots were like, ‘We don’t want to jeopardize our FAA license.’”
I was thinking more PTSD. They were thinking their future.
"Yeah. Especially the younger pilots, newer pilots, they didn’t want to talk about anything about any of the incidents that might have happened to them. And that’s why in our study most of the responses are from older pilots around 50 years and older, because maybe they are more confident and maybe they’re retired and they’re just flying for recreational purposes. But I’m not sure about the PTSD thing. Maybe that could be as well.” Majumdar said.
Can plane mechanisms get more helpful in crisis situations?
“Yeah. Personally, I feel like general aviation training aircraft are pretty stable. Even if you try to stall an aircraft, it’s not that easy to stall it. That’s good. It has good design characteristics. But I feel like one of the things — and I don’t know how it can happen — but if I have to compare it with driving, let’s say you’re driving and you crash, you at least have airbags around you to protect you, right?
“There’s no such mechanism in planes, especially general aviation planes. There’s no parachute system or ejection system or I don't know if there's any technology like airbags that could be introduced so that at least if you’re crashing at low altitude, maybe you could survive? Probably in the next 100 years or so, who knows, we may come up with some kind of technology. But how can we, even if pilots are making error, how can we still have a safety margin or safety cushion so that we can at least save their lives?”
You’re a pilot. What do you like about flying?
“I just like the freedom it gives you. The freedom to explore and to see land or Earth from a different angle or perspective. The freedom to see the sky during sunsets or sunrises sometimes, it’s just very exciting. And also it is challenging. I like that challenging part as well because it teaches you not just about flying. It teaches you a lot about yourself, and the multitasking aspect of it. There are so many things you need to pay attention to.
“It’s also kind of meditative because you are just focusing on the flying. There’s no way that you’re flying and you’ll be thinking about something else.
“I would just like to say, statistics wise, just to give some idea, general aviation — which is recreational or you can say private plane crashes — are around 25 to 27 times riskier than driving. And if you have to compare it with commercial aviation, it’s around 400 times or more riskier than commercial aviation flights. On average, around four such accidents happen every day in the U.S.” Majumdar said.
Four? On average per day?
“Yeah. Three to four for sure. And that would give you some idea how unsafe it is. Although it is really nice to go out and fly on your own, and me being one of those pilots, I just feel that there’s a lot that needs to be done. Why can’t we make general aviation as safe as commercial aviation?”
Thank you so much for your time. Appreciate it.
“Thank you.”
Neelakshi Majumdar is an assistant professor of aerospace engineering in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Arkansas, and a licensed pilot. The study she co-authored with Corinne Marais of Purdue University can be found in Journal of Air Transportation. Our conversation took place in the Anthony and Susan Hoy News Studio. And by the way, she says there is room for much more studying into private flight safety.
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