F-16 Crashes Increase...

[Ashar]

According to this report on MSNBC...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21427173/

[expat]

"Human error", a good way of covering up what the real problems are. Pilot error or maintenance errors.

Matt

[Tweek]

Pilot error or maintenance errors.

How is 'human error' suggesting any different?

[beaky]

"An Air Force official said that one factor appears to be human error, and that pilots and maintenance crews must stay on guard against complacency. Pilot error was blamed for three accidents and the Iraq combat crash last year."

I'm still trying to figure out how "human error" in this paragraph is an attempt to cover up "pilot error or maintenance errors".  ::)

But it really doesn't matter:

[expat]

Pilot error or maintenance errors.

How is 'human error' suggesting any different?

As a aircraft tech, if the pilot f#%ks up, I do not want that on my desk thank you, any more than you would want to be implicated by a co worker who drops that a ball when you are at home with your feet on the coffee table. Maintenance errors that cause the loss of aircraft are less than 1%, the rest is component failure or the guy at the front gets it wrong.

Matt

[beaky]

Pilot error or maintenance errors.

How is 'human error' suggesting any different?

the rest is component failure or the guy at the front gets it wrong.

Matt

That's a good point; "human" includes the manufacturers as well.

And the blame game sure can get complicated, even when it's something simple.
For example: the closest I've come so far to an in-flight emergency was a smoking (but still transmitting) transponder in a training aircraft.
 When you think about how many factors may have caused that...
Was it a manufacturing flaw?
Was maintenance incorrect or lax?
Were pilots to blame, for not switching it on/off/stby/alt when appropriate?

Now I know as a maintenance tech, in that case your first thought would be "Those dumb pilots always forget to put it on standby, let alone make sure it's off before they kill the master"... and you'd probably be right.
But on the other hand, I've seen some poor maintenance practices as a renter, stuff that required a little more attention from me as the PIC : mostly the usual rap- stuff left inside the cowling, etc.
My favorite pre-flight surprise was a pair of needle-nose vise grips left clamped to a Dzus fastener on the cowling...

However, I won't argue with any assertion that it's usually the pilot who's the weak link, and only in part because of the PIC's responsibility to determine airworthiness.
But I still think that it would be better, in the case described in that article,  for all concerned to say "we don't know yet" rather than "it's... um... probably human error..."

[C]

Fast pointy, weapon carrying, operational aircraft will always have higher rates of incidents, particularly down to "pilot error".

This means that soon there will be no pilots in front-line aircraft.  Then nothing bad will ever happen...

Indeed, the UCAV world will be perfect! The human errors that do occur won't be the CFIT etc type we see now whilst under pressure in a combat environment, but I expect will be the potentially more serious (for anyone but the pilot) by the console operator in Las Vegas...

High arousal, such as in a combat environment can lead to very high performance, but I wonder how much research has been done to see if operators of UAVs/UCAVs can suffer from the opposite effect, being under aroused, thousands of miles from the actual mission.

Just a thought.

[spitfire boy]

[quote]Fast pointy, weapon carrying, operational aircraft will always have higher rates of incidents, particularly down to "pilot error".

[quote]
This means that soon there will be no pilots in front-line aircraft.

[C]

I can just imagine what displays on the console if the UCAV is shot down....

GAME OVER....

For the UK ones, yes. We've only got about two "proper" ones (Predator size and above!)...