Questions tagged [safety]
Safety includes all aspects of protecting aircraft, passengers and crew from accidents, mistakes and other potentially dangerous situations.
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Why are the VHF and UHF airbands directly adjacent to frequency bands used by vital radionavigation aids?
Of the three main frequency ranges used by aircraft for radio communications (HF, VHF, and UHF), two (VHF and UHF) have their aircraft-radio-communications frequencies clumped together into a ...
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Is it possible for crew oxygen to exacerbate a flight deck fire?
Crew oxygen is, as I understand it, a very high percentage of purity.
Oxygen-enriched air acts as an accelerant to a fire, causing things to ignite which wouldn't in ordinary air, and making fire ...
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Are planes allowed to fly through a planned professional fireworks display?
I was watching 4th of July fireworks tonight, and I noticed a very low plane circling the fireworks display.
I'm wasn't sure of its altitude, but I would estimate around 1000 ft or no higher than ...
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What is the purpose of long endurance test flights?
Well known is the last long endurance test flight by a Boeing B787-8, which drew its shape in the air for 18 hours while on a long endurance test flight: https://www.wired.com/story/boeing-787-8-...
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Are evacuation slides meant to be used as safety boats?
What are design considerations and usage procedures for these slides in case of some successful water landing?
For instance, are they meant to be detached from the fuselage at some point?
Or ...
user21228
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What is the requirement for fire fighting equipment on board a passenger flight?
What is the legal requirement regarding fire fighting equipment on a passenger flight, e.g. fire extinguishers and fire hoods? I imagine that the number is proportional to the airplane's max capacity.
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Why are lavatories located near the exits of an airplane?
Is there some scientific or technical reason to locate the lavatories near the plane exits? Wouldn't it create problems during evacuation, if the swing open doors gets unlatched etc on forced landing ...
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How much force can the landing gear of a Piper Arrow withstand?
I'm currently working on my CFI-A in a Piper Arrow and i was wondering if anyone knows how much force the landing gear can withstand? The reason I ask is because I have never been asked this question ...
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What are the safety demonstration time-constraints?
On airliners, the safety demonstration includes many items (seat belt, life vest, evacuation, etc.) and each of those items may raise questions from the passengers (when to inflating the life vest, ...
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Do large aircraft have carbon monoxide detectors?
Do big aircraft (e.g. Boeing 737 or Airbus 320) have carbon monoxide (CO) detectors installed in them? I don't know if the pressurized cabin means they aren't needed, but I do remember there are CO ...
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What stops Germanwings 9525 happening again — a suicidal pilot crashing the plane?
I'm unpersuaded and still afraid, after reading What safety rule replaced the now-rescinded two-person rule (after Germanwings 9525)?. What's to stop or prevent another lone suicidal pilot from ...
user128
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How long is maximum time to investigate an airplane crash?
Lion Air flight 610 was crashed on 29 October 2018. It was Boeing 373 Max 8. Almost one year ago. I have not heard any news from National Transportation Safety Committee (NTSC) when they will release ...
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Why aren't runway numbers painted in a higher aspect ratio?
I'm watching a lot of aviation youtube channels and it seems to me that when attempting a landing on a "normal" glide path, it must be quite hard to read the runway numbers until you're on short final,...
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Can time spent in consumer flight simulators increase the safety of flying light sports aircraft for licensed pilots? [duplicate]
I've asked this question to my flight instructor, who believes flight simulators do a very poor job of modelling flight physics for very light airplanes, which makes them useless for preventing ...
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What is the relationship between the terms "airprox" and "near mid-air collision"?
Do the terms "Airprox" and "Near mid-air collision" mean the same? If not what is the difference between them?
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Are artificial magnetic fields used or proposed to be used to shield high altitude pilots and astronauts from charged, high energy radiation?
If not for the earth's magnetic field our atmosphere would be bombarded by high energy plasma (ionized gas) from the sun and other space sources. At very high altitudes and orbital altitudes this ...
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Other aircraft doesn't apply right of way rules [duplicate]
I was flying VFR a couple of days ago and was warned by ATC that another aircraft was coming from my left to my right.
At some point I saw it and we were clearly converging and getting pretty close.
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I have an idea about how to resolve a conflict between the pilots and an automated flight control system. Does it make sense? [closed]
I am thinking about the 737-MAX crashes. There is a similar question at Is it common for automated control systems to use non-redundant sensors? There was an article in yesterday's Seattle Times In ...
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What margin of error should one reasonably allow regarding aircraft performance?
This question generated a lot of discussion around amateur pilots often making the mistake of calculating aircraft performance based on perfect conditions and not allowing for a 'safety factor' (i.e. ...
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Can pilots smoke in the cockpit of an airliner?
An answer on travel.se suggests that some pilots are smoking on long-distance passenger flights.
Can passenger airliner pilots smoke if both the captain and first officer agree it’s ok? If I recall, ...
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Where is the toilet smoke detection indication displayed for a B777-200/300?
In case of smoke detected in any of aft toilet of a B777-200/300, where is the indication displayed? Is this at a single location, or at different locations?
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Why is this 777 zig zagging over the Pacific (and delayed by 2.5 hours in air)? [duplicate]
Why is this 777 (CX 806 on June 6 2017) zig zagging over the Pacific (and delayed by 2.5 hours in air)?
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How do flight crew train/demonstrate ditching evacuation?
In case of evacuation, flight crew can train and demonstrate their ability with a real plane and test passengers.
However; how can one be trained in case of ditching ?
Obviously, it would be quite ...
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Altimeter disagreement. What's the crew procedure to deal with that?
The crew is facing a situation, in which, the altimeters indicate different altitude (the port and starboard ones - cpt´s and FO´s). Is there any procedure to perform an IFR landing?
If we consider a ...
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How can bird hazard be avoided? [duplicate]
How do airport authorities deal with with birds? Which procedures have acutually been used in order to minimize or even avoid birds on airside and landside? Is there any procedure that crew can ...
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What is the typical fatigue life of a helicopter airframe? [duplicate]
For military helicopters such as the Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk, what is the typical fatigue life of a helicopter airframe (in cycles and hours) ?
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When is turbulence most dangerous to an aircraft?
In what general situations or flight scenarios is turbulence most dangerous to aircraft? When could it be bad enough to bring down an aircraft (even up to something as big as an A380)?
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Do I need a physical print-out of weight & balance calculations onboard
Our flight school taught us to print out some documents relevant to flight preparation and take them onboard the aircraft: This usually included
weight & balance...
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What is meant by these criteria for a stabilized approach? [closed]
Based on regulation, there are several criteria for when an approach is stabilized. I want to ask:
Only small changes in heading/pitch.
How small?
The aircraft is in correct landing configuration.
...
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Are there any situations where it's beneficial to disable altitude reporting in TCAS?
Having altitude reporting enabled persistently seems like a pretty common-sense thing to do -- it enables RA in addition to TA, the benefits of which are fairly obvious. That said, most of the common ...
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Is it allowed and/or safe to place objects on the dash in a PA28?
I am told by my maintenance engineer that NOTHING is to be put on the dashboard area above the instrument panel - this is where I keep my DUAL GPS to have an unobstructed view of the sky. It was ...
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Why does "airplane mode" turn off Bluetooth and WLAN if I can just turn them on again? [closed]
On my (Android) phone, enabling airplane mode automatically disables all wireless antennas except for GPS and NFC (I assume the latter is either passive or way too low power for anyone to care about). ...
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Why isn't cabin air quality in airliners directly monitored with sensors?
Airliner air conditioning systems refresh the cabin air volume every couple of minutes. A portion of it is filtered and re-circulated into the cabin, however AFAIK there are no direct cabin air ...
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Is it okay to use magnetized tools on airplanes?
Let's say you stored your tools on a magnetic organizer in your toolbox, such as the one pictured.
Now you go and use a socket or wrench that is slightly magnetized. Have you done wrong?
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At what point are the pilots allowed to communicate with the ground crew whilst they are still in the cockpit? [closed]
The question comes from this comment by Federico
you cannot be directly connected with the ground crew while the aircraft is autonomously moving (and pushbacks are not used for gate alignment)
Is ...
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What pilot safety features and equipment are on an A380?
What safety features and equipment protect the pilots (not, protect the plane) in the cockpit on a Airbus A380?
For example I know they have life jackets: but I wonder what else?
user19060
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Do I need a checkride for an initial SIC A320 type rating?
I have an FAA A320 initial pilot-in-command (PIC) type rating but haven't flown the actual aircraft.
Currently I am undergoing the second-in-command (SIC) type rating. I have completed the ground ...
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What is a "Standard visual inspection"?
Passengers injured as US fighter jet comes close to Iranian plane
The Iranian plane, belonging to Mahan Air, was heading from Tehran to Beirut on Thursday when the pilot staged a safety manoeuver, in ...
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Can I safely plug something that draws 6 amps into the cigar lighter (power port) in my Piper Archer lll?
Can I safely plug something that draws 6 amps into the cigar lighter (power port) in my Piper Archer lll ?
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Does a no-touch policy really work?
In Boeing 787 and Airbus 350 aircrafts, more than half of the aircraft body is made of composite material. The composite structure of the fuselage does not indicate the damage when the body is ...
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In an Airbus, if the AOA sensor fails and the computer pitches the plane down, can the computer still only pitch down 10 degrees maximum?
For example, something similar to Qantas Flight 72.
Assuming the Angle of Attack sensors are faulty and give bogus data - for example, that the Angle of Attack is 20 degrees, or the maximum Angle of ...
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Do modern aircraft have sensors to determine weight of the aircraft? [duplicate]
Do ALL modern aircraft, particulary airliners and private jets, have weight sensors on all landing gear to determine take off and landing weight in real time so as to determine take off speed and ...
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Can light aircrafts with no retractable landing gear make an emergency water landing? [duplicate]
In the suburbs of Lisbon today two people were killed because a pilot of a light aircraft (I imagine without retractable landing gear) landed on one beach full of people (it's Summer and the beaches ...
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How minimum runway length is calculated for PAC P-750 XSTOL?
I'm not a pilot, but have interest in the question from a safety perspective, as a skydiver and drop zone operator.
I read the POH of PAC P-750 XSTOL, and tried reading a bit about the calculations, ...
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Where can I get statistics on landing incidents?
I sometimes have the feeling that Airbus with augmented control are more prone to landing incidents (hard landings and runway excursions) than other models of aircraft with conventional controls.
Is ...
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Who determines the minimum area needed for a sky diving drop zone
What determines the minimum area required for a sky diving drop zone at an airport.
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In the last year, did Airbus make any changes to existing or newly built A220s control panels or AT/AP software?
As reported in various places (e.g. by simplyflying.com), there were two near-catastrophes in the A220, not because of the widely-discussed engine topic¹, but because of how autopilot & ...
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What do you need to have onboard for flights with an ultralight/sport aircraft over water (Atlantic, Pacific)? Life raft possible (weight/size)?
Remark: For us in Germany an UL is a 2 seater with 470/600kg MTOW. AFAIK those are named Light Sport Aircraft in the US/Australia. Example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ikarus_C42
What do you use if ...
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Have airlines average fleet age been shrinking?
I had read somewhere that nowadays Average age of Airlines is shrinking. I do not know how much of that is true. I did see this -
https://simpleflying.com/airlines-youngest-fleets/
On the other hand, ...
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Why do so few non-US runways have EMAS beds?
As occurrences of an aircraft running off the end of the runway and hitting things tend to leave both the aircraft and whatever it hits rather the worse for wear, much effort over the years has gone ...
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