NTSB Reaches Out To Industry for Most Wanted List Progress

National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) officials are encouraged that the aviation community has made progress in key safety areas, such as the general aviation fatal accident rate, and want to continue to tighten their collaboration with stakeholders to chip away at areas that remain problematic, chairman Robert Sumwalt said yesterday during a midpoint look of the agency’s 2017–2018 Most Wanted List.

The Safety Board, which had released the Most Wanted List every year since 1990, last year adopted a two-year schedule for the list , but Sumwalt said officials wanted to take a midpoint look at not only at progress on the list itself, but to gather input on other potential safety concerns.

One of the key aviation areas involved loss of control in flight. This is considered the leading cause of fatal accidents. But Sumwalt credited the collaborative efforts of the industry with helping to bring down the fatal-accident rate, noting that 2017’s tally is expected to drop below one per 100,000 flight hours for the first time in history.

“I’m particularly glad that the whole general-aviation industry is united in our focus on loss of control,” said John DeLisi, director of the NTSB Office of Aviation Safety. Noting the “encouraging statistics,” he credited the entire community for working together on the issue and cited the “unique willingness pilots have to roll up their sleeves and talk about accidents.

“Our focus is continued collaboration,” he said, noting that the Safety Board is assembling a series of roadshows to discuss issues such as loss of control, in areas where they are most prevalent. Recent events have taken place in Alaska and on Long Island, New York. The agency found that “when we do that and when we collaborate, it gets people talking.”

Delving into loss of control, the overwhelming majority of the accidents involve personal flights. The NTSB believes mitigating efforts should target those areas and questioned how best to reach the community.

In addition to loss of control, the meeting discussed other areas, such as how to encourage operators to retrofit shoulder harnesses into older aircraft not required to be equipped with them; and the differing international and U.S. requirements regarding the handling of lithium batteries.

DeLisi reiterated the agency’s push for installing video recorders in cockpits and noted what he called a “groundbreaking” recommendation for flight data monitors in Part 135 aircraft, expressing the belief that such systems could encourage more compliance.