The NTSB will continue to zero in
Aviation Week & Space Technology
The NTSB will continue to zero in on maintenance training and air cargo safety,
NTSB Chairman Ellen Engleman-Conners vowed at the
2004 Air Safety Forum in
The airlines are under a great deal of pressure to reduce
costs . . . but I cannot accept that an airline should reduce investment in
maintenance training or operations in order to make that profit" (see pp.
74-77). As for airfreight, Engleman-Conners noted the NTSB has covered 40 cargo
accidents since 1984. Compared with air transport, cargo has 2-5 times the
fatal accident rate; an older average fleet age (28 years versus 7); and
different certification standards for aircraft and ground personnel.
Additionally, there are no crew escape slides, and hazmats
transport remains an issue. Engleman-Conners
emphasized to the pilot audience that "the families [of crews] waiting at
home deserve the same expectation of safety."
Copyright 2004 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. http://www.mcgrawhill.com
All Rights Reserved
Page 74:
Back to Basics; Former
NTSB member--plain talking, never dull--looks back . . . and forward
Think of aviation maintenance, think of John J. Goglia. Think of safety, think of John J. Goglia. In 1995, he became the first licensed mechanic to
become an NTSB member. Since then, the outspoken Goglia's
voice has been heard above the others in safety board probes, doggedly raising
industry awareness of the role of maintenance in accidents. Anyone who's
attended an NTSB accident hearing is familiar with how he sizzles witnesses in
the quest to find out what went wrong and how to make it right again.
Maintenance-related investigations marked his arrival and departure from the
NTSB. He presided over the ValuJet Airlines Flight 592 hearing. The DC-9
crashed in the Florida Everglades in 1996. The airline's failure to oversee its
contract maintenance program was cited as a contributing factor. In May, Goglia formally stepped down from the board at the final
hearing into the crash of Air Midwest Flight 5481 at
For all his toughness, Goglia is a man who's not
afraid to openly express the more tender emotions--especially for the families
of accident victims. He has worked assiduously to win them more compassionate
treatment from industry.
Goglia met with Transport Editor Frances Fiorino to talk about his post-NTSB life, which, no
surprise, is devoted to building aviation safety.
Aviation Week & Space
Technology: Financially strapped air carriers are cutting costs, but are they
cutting corners in maintenance and thereby compromising the safety of
passengers?
John Goglia: I'd say there's a lot of pressure on
people within the airline community to deliver the product much cheaper, much
quicker than they ever have in the past. And that kind of pressure often
results in substandard work.
Not long after I arrived at the NTSB in 1995, I realized my concerns about
maintenance were far greater than I had anticipated. Since then, the industry
has gone through several periods of right-sizing, down-sizing--and all the
fancy words we use for working faster, better, cheaper. It all means the same
thing: doing more work with fewer people. But sometimes, under certain
circumstances, there is no substitute for people. And when you cut your
operation down to the bare bone, or maybe into the bone, you get an
off-standard operation and find yourself behind the curve.
AW&ST: How has industry changed since you joined the NTSB?
JG: The aviation business is integrated. We are supposed to fit like a hand in
a glove--but we are no longer fitting into the glove. We are turning into
vertical silos and we don't talk very much, or very efficiently, across those
silos.
AW&ST: What's the reason for that?
JG: The culture has shifted, in particular, the way we're managing the
workforce. When I started this business, everyone helped each other. I was a
maintenance person, but I'd also help ramp guys struggling to load an aircraft.
It was like that across the board. You don't see that happening anymore; it's
one simple example of the disconnects in industry.
AW&ST: How would industry reconnect?
JG: All I hear at meetings are grandiose plans on how we are going to fix the
system. What we really need to do is go back to basics.
Managers aren't managing our workforce. One of the manager's responsibilities
is to remove obstacles to getting a task done. But for whatever reason, managers
instead have been driven down too close to, or become part of, the operation.
They are more part of the crew trying to get the job done. We must make certain
they develop the personal skills and have the tools to handle the workforce.
AW&ST: What skills and tools do you think are necessary?
JG: First, they need people skills to work with employees and they need
whatever tools are available--knowledge about their job and the workplace, for
instance--to perform effectively.
AW&ST: What is the quality of maintenance training out there?
JG: Training has been thin for maintenance employees. On the air transport
side, there's been a big shift toward contracting out heavy maintenance. During
the course of investigations, the NTSB found the vast majority of people who
work on the airplane are unlicensed. Because the turnover rate is as high as
50% a year, there's a reluctance to invest money in training them.
Where does that leave the traveling public? Where does that leave the airline?
The airline is paying good money to have this work done. Based upon what I've
seen lately for warranty claims and such, carriers are not getting their
money's worth as far as quality is concerned.
AW&ST: You've been very vocal about the need for improved oversight of repair
stations. Are airlines meeting the challenge?
JG: There are a number of airlines with good programs. I've been particularly
impressed with the efforts of America West Airlines and FedEx (see p. 76). Each
of these airlines has taken a different approach, but the end result is a much
higher quality product when the airplane goes out the door.
And remember, repair stations are staffed by humans. When you measure
performance, it's amazing how much better the product is improved.
AW&ST: You are a proponent of infusing human factors into maintenance. What
progress has been made?
JG: Human factors is not applied very well now in
commercial aviation. A number of operators have portions of a good program but
no one has embraced it fully. Human factors is mainly
about teaching people how to communicate. In the maintenance environment,
"communicating" doesn't necessarily mean you and I
conversing while we're turning wrenches. It means learning how to accurately
pass on job information to the guy on the next shift.
It also means management's sharing important job information in open dialogue
with all crewmembers and workers being able to voice opinions without
retribution. Closed dialogue is more common. That's how the grease problems on
Alaska Airlines Flight 261 never saw the light of day. Imagine losing 88 people
because of grease? That made me mad.
[Editor's note: Alaska Airlines Flight 261 crashed
AW&ST: You'd expressed anger at a number of hearings. Looking back over
your years at the NTSB, what's angered you the most?
JG: I rattled a number of people . . . because I ask the questions that nobody
wants to ask, and no one wants to answer. But they need to be put on, not
under, the table: "Are you embarrassed, Mr. Maintenance Manager?--then do
something about it!"
One of the things that got to me most has been fixed: The treatment of family
members of accident victims. The Family Assistance Plan for Aviation Disasters
Act, which was passed following the TWA Flight 800 accident, improved the
situation. Families are now kept well-informed. Prior to that, the accident
airline dealt with the families, and with rare exception, did not do a very
good job. Their focus wasn't 100% on making certain the families understood the
facts.
AW&ST: The NTSB has been criticized for not having board members with an
aviation background. How much of a problem does that create in investigations?
JG: It can be a problem. When an accident report comes to the board, the
board's job is to balance out the recommendations. We do that by probing
members of the [investigative] staff. If you don't have the technical
background--and nine out of 10 accidents we see are very technical in
nature--then you do not have the ability to ask appropriate questions. Or if
you do ask a question, you might not grasp the answer, or don't know if the
answer is complete. So that leads to a little disconnect, and
the scales between the board and staff are then out of balance.
But consider the system is not even 40 years old. And if you look at what's
happened in 37 years, we have made tremendous improvements--in the airplanes,
in the material we use in the airplanes, aircraft systems, and now we have been
focusing on people issues. So the system really has served us well.
AW&ST: You are a workaholic, putting in 70-90 hr. a week at the NTSB.
What's on your agenda now?
JG: I'm planning to do some government affairs work with the Professional
Aviation Maintenance Assn. and represent a portion of industry--general
aviation and some repair stations--that has no voice. Also, I've joined the
faculty of
AW&ST: Do you have a message for industry?
JG: There are pieces of our operation that are not functioning very well today.
But they can be made to function much better--if we go back to the basics. We
don't have to spend millions of dollars. We don't have to design new computer
systems. We have in place all the bits and pieces we need.
We have a wonderful industry that has always responded to problems. And the
industry will respond in a cost-effective way to get the job done. What we need
to do is make certain we can stay focused to get that
done. This is not rocket science. It's paying attention to detail.
Copyright
2004 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. http://www.mcgrawhill.com
All Rights Reserved