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Based on a recent study of aviation accidents, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has concluded that small airplanes equipped with glass cockpits do not have a better overall safety record than airplanes with old-style traditional instrumentation.
Significantly, the Safety Board determined that “because glass cockpits are both complex and vary from aircraft to aircraft in function, design and failure modes, pilots are not always provided with all of the information they need — both by aircraft manufacturers and the Federal Aviation Administration — to adequately understand the unique operational and functional details of the primary flight instruments in their airplanes.”
The NTSB Chairman Deborah A.P. Hersman stated that “while many pilots have thousands of hours of experience with conventional flight instruments, that alone is just not enough to prepare them to safely operate airplanes equipped with these glass cockpit features.”
In other words, even though the advanced technology
of glass cockpits is supposed to provide more information, improve situational awareness and, as a result, make flying safer, the accident rate belies this notion.
And the NTSB has offered a common sense solution — MORE INFORMATION AND PILOT TRAINING.
Such training includes, among other things, requiring manufacturers to provide pilots with information to better manage system failures; incorporating electronic primary flight displays into training materials and aeronautical knowledge requirements; and, more training in glass cockpit simulators. The NTSB also highlighted the importance of reporting malfunctions or defects with electronic flight, navigation and control systems through the Service Difficulty Reporting system. As safety advocates we applaud this initiative and hope that the FAA, manufacturers and all of us pilots do their part to heed the NTSB’s call for action.
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