We take safety for granted, we are complacent, we are in danger - there are so many studies on the subject of safety that you can drown in the amount of information.

It is clear that the travelling public has been essentially "lucky" in that the number of accidents is not higher than it is.

Hopefully this luck is not an accident of chance but a result of systematic focus on safety.

One of the most dramatic improvements in cockpit management has been the Electronic Flight Bag - EFB. However the recent incident involving an Emirates A340 at MEL highlights that there is still a problem with the overall safety of the system - namely the human factors side.

www.flightglobal.com/articles/2009/05/29/327075/emirates-incident-highlights-electronic-flight-bag-human.html

There is no answer to the question of how to manage safety - it is essentially unmanageable. We just have to hope and pray that the combination of factors that can cause an accident either never happen or that we can create mitigation for them.

Reading the reports of the AF447 accident, it would seem to the layman (and that includes me) that there are circumstances when things go wrong and nothing can be done to fix them if there is a major external distracting event going on. The lessons of Eastern Flight 401 have been researched and analyzed yet the core combination of factors continue to cause either accidents or almost accidents.

The recent revelations of the CO commuter Q400 accident reveals some things that should never have happened. Yet they still do. Crews commuting from more than 2000 miles away and sleeping on couches in a ready-room. Etc Etc.

We all as public and as professionals must be vigilant. We have to ensure that safety is not someone else's job. Its all our job. There is an excellent article in ATW June 2009 entitled back to basics. It makes a sobering read. We cannot just look for politically expedient solutions. We have to bring a culture of endemic focus on safety that embraces us all. We are all part of the solution. We can be thankful to the boys and girls in the front who guide the tubes to their destinations. But they are just part of a machine. That machine needs to work at 100%, all of the time.

Cheers,

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