UPS is making a series of safety enhancements in the aftermath of the September 9 NTSB hearing into the crash of UPS Flight 1354 at Birmingham, Ala., in August last year.
During the hearing, the NTSB’s Steve Magladry explained that the Honeywell enhanced ground proximity warning system (EGPWS) on the freight airline’s Airbus A300-600 was operating as designed, but that a free software enhancement available from Airbus had not been installed on the aircraft. That update, he said, could have improved proximity alerts by sounding a “Too Low, Terrain” alert 6.5 seconds earlier than did the version installed on the accident aircraft.
“Flight simulator sessions indicated that the aircraft could have avoided terrain had a CFIT [controlled flight into terrain] avoidance maneuver been executed within 2.4 seconds of this earlier alert,” according to Magladry.
UPS told AIN via e-mail that the company plans to “build upon the lessons learned from this accident and work to improve operations and safety” and improve its “training and automation standard enhancements, call-outs, pilot monitoring duties, stabilized approaches and [no-fault reaction to] go-arounds.”
NTSB member Robert Sumwalt said the aircraft’s excessive rate of descent close to the ground (1,500 fpm) might have negated the value of the earlier alert. “But it [the software update] would have given the crew the opportunity to avoid this crash.” Mentioning a 2010 IATA-published safety article about EGPWS, Sumwalt commented, “To get the most CFIT risk reduction possible, the airlines need to give GPS position direct to the EGPWS unit, which UPS did not do, and to keep the latest software and database up to date, which UPS did not do.”
Comments
samaritan
September 28, 2014 - 9:55am
I knew this UPS Captain. We flew for the same airline years ago. Per documented reports, this UPS Captain and Co-Pilot complained of fatigue before or during this flight that crashed. Ironically, neither Robert Sumwalt, nor UPS, nor AIN, commented on fatigue being a contributing factor in this article. In April 2014, Robert Sumwalt gave a speech at the Duke Energy Aviation Safety Seminar in Charlotte, NC during which Robert Sumwalt told the audience he would stay around for personal conversations if anyone wanted to talk to him. Before and after his speech, I talked to Robert Sumwalt one-on-one and personally handed Robert Sumwalt a copy of my wrongful termination lawsuit, 05-CVS-19860, filed in the Mecklenburg County North Carolina Court Public Records, after I was terminated for voicing objections to being forced repeatedly to be On Call + On Duty for an uninterrupted 30 hour period without a legal rest period. I asked Robert Sumwalt to please read this lawsuit at his leisure at his house or office since Robert said he was driving home to Columbia after the speech in Charlotte. I gave Robert Sumwalt my cell phone number and email address and asked him to please contact me. Robert Sumwalt has never contacted me in the 5-6 months since Robert Sumwalt was handed a copy of my lawsuit that is filed in the public records and available to anyone at the NTSB, DOT and FAA. These are facts, not unsupported opinions that cannot be supported. AIN, the NTSB, DOT and FAA can find evidence to support these facts. I expect AIN will delete this comment saying AIN will not publish "unsupportable" comments just as AIN deleted my previous comments on this subject. AIN or any reader of this comment can find support for this comment by simply a simple search of the Mecklenburg County North Carolina public records for Case Number 05-CVS-19860. This is not a negative comment about Robert Sumwalt, the FAA, DOT nor AIN. This is a plea to please do not suppress the truth in journalism. Journalistic ethics and integrity demand this comment not be deleted by AIN.