As world transport has grown in complexity, so has public pressure for safe
flight. The scheduled airline industry has a consistently good safety record.
Unfortunately, the business jet industry has not kept pace with the airline safety
statistics and lags far behind. During safety surveys and reports over the past 5
years there has been increasing comment and concern over the perceived
safety standards of business jets operations compared with normal scheduled
airline services. The UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has reported that based
on flight hours flown, the fatal accident rate for smaller jet aircraft below 15
tonnes was twice that for large passenger aircraft (CAA 2006a). The CAA also
identified that the majority of the accidents occur during the approach and
landing phase of the flight.
There is however, a lack of research concerning business jet operations. Due to
the unique and varied style of operations, business jet flights have many factors
that differentiate it from normal scheduled airline operations. Business jet
accidents have been reported but they have not been further investigated for
any overall causes. The study described in this thesis, a Grounded Theory
analysis of accident data was conducted to develop a model of the factors that
contributed to the accidents. The model that was developed demonstrated that
Pilot skills, Command and Crew Resource management are the key central
elements, with the ground organisations such as engineering and ground
operations personnel as a contributory influence.
As piloting skills were determined as a key factor in the accident statistics and
the accident model, a simulator trial was also conducted to assess the manual
flying skill levels of business jet pilots. The trial was both a challenging manual
flying task and a profile that is included as part of the Pilot Skill test prior to the
issue of a commercial pilot’s licence. The simulator trial confirmed that although
all the pilots were correctly tested and certified commercial pilots, a significant
proportion did not fly an accurate airspeed on approach within the CAA
examination tolerances.
The simulator trial data and the grounded theory model found that there are
concerns for the piloting skills of business jet pilots in their ability to fly an
accurate airspeed on approach.
The results from this investigation yield findings concerning the piloting skill and
accuracy of the business jet pilots that had not previously been identified. The
results also emphasise the need to include adequate testing and supervision
during business jet operations. It is recommended that further research be
conducted to evaluate actual piloting skill and accuracy during the licence skill
test.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:CRANFIELD1/oai:dspace.lib.cranfield.ac.uk:1826/8567 |
| Date | 08 1900 |
| Creators | Sears, R. W. |
| Contributors | Huddlestone, J. |
| Publisher | Cranfield University |
| Source Sets | CRANFIELD1 |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis or dissertation, Masters, MPhil |
| Rights | © Cranfield University 2013. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the written permission of the copyright owner. |
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