AIR SAFETY

HC Deb 15 April 1970 vol 799 cc1531-44

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Ioan L. Evans.]

10.37 p.m.

Mr. Edwin Brooks (Bebington)

Last November my hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Leslie Huckfield)—whom I am glad to see here—initiated an Adjournment debate on the subject of near collisions between aircraft. I do not seek to inflict upon the House a Second Reading, as it were, of his excellent speech on that theme, although the scale of the dangers he mentioned would normally merit repetition and hammering home.

Instead, I wish to deal with the general question of air safety, at a time when our finite airspace is becoming jammed with literally soaring traffic flows. Only last Thursday, within minutes of hearing of this forthcoming debate, I was reading the Press headlines which told of the Wolverhampton crash, and that accident reminds us that citizens asleep in their beds, no less than passengers, lie under the shadow of violent death from the sky.

On 5th February there was a reported near-miss over Wirral, where my constituency lies, when the Aer Lingus 737 Sierra Echo narrowly avoided a twinengined light aircraft flying at the same height and only seconds away. With larger and faster passenger aircraft coming into operation, the risk of major disaster due to a crash or a collision is mounting. The dreadful accident at Stockport in June, 1967, is still fresh in our memories, particularly in the North-West, but the tragedy would have been even more horrifying had the big Canadair C4 crashed upon crowded homes and streets.

Accidents and death are not peculiar risks of air transport, as any motorist or pedestrian knows, but any complacency is unjustified, on at least two scores.

First, the air accident statistics, particularly of fatalities, are far less comforting when calculated in terms of journey times rather than mileage. Secondly, the passenger involved in an air crash is rather more likely than the motorist to find that his first crash will prove to be his last.

Increases in speed or size usually involve increases in complexity, and despite the sophisticated fail-safe mechanisms of the modern airliner, the margins of safety are in the last analysis critically dependent upon the human factor. Simply jacking up the technology and calling in the computers will still leave human beings ultimately responsible for handling crises and emergencies on a supersonic airliner, say, travelling at half a mile a second. This proposition is surely indisputable, tonight of all nights, as brave men struggle heroically to return from the lonely far side of the moon.

The increasing size of aircraft also presents a new dimension of danger. Deficiencies in airworthiness, or pilot error on a Boeing Jumbo 747, could kill the equivalent of the crowded population of this House on Budget Day, not to mention the thousands of people lying beneath the flight path. These dangers are obviously accentuated by the risk of collision, and I should be glad if my right hon. Friend would give us an up-to-date report on the progress being made with Mediator, over which some serious reservations were expressed this week by B.A.L.P.A. I should also appreciate his comments on the growing American interest in precision area coverage systems, since the need to maximise use of controlled air space by converting the corridors into effective dual carriageways is becoming daily more urgent.

Nevertheless, even if collision risk was eliminated, planes would still crash, as at Stockport and again at Perpignan, where one of my young constituents tragically lost her life. Since many, if not most, of such crashes tend to occur upon landing or take-off, I should be grateful for information about recent advances which I understand Britain has pioneered on runway surfaces and braking systems. Certainly there can be no room for complacency in improving landing and take off procedures, since it took the crash of the Afghan 727 in January, 1969, to precipitate the regulations which at last came into force last September and which require foreign airliners to observe the same landing rules as do British pilots.

On this same point, I should appreciate further clarification of the height controls upon aircraft crossing my constituency bound to and from Speke Airport, Liverpool. My right hon. Friend informed me on 25th March that no specific minimum heights are required in the case of aircraft flying over Bebington…in accordance with normal aviation practice; no unusual risk exists in the borough in so far as such operations are concerned and it is not proposed to introduce any special restrictions."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 25th March, 1970; Vol. 798, c. 1431.] Yet my right hon. Friend's predecessor had earlier informed me that planes passing over Higher Bebington could be expected to be no lower than 1,200 feet at that stage of their glide path, and I am somewhat disconcerted to find that apparently they can fly at roof top level without infringing any regulations.

Furthermore, what would be defined as an "unusual risk"? Has any town in the country installations which, unlike Bebington, do involve unusual risk and require special safeguards? Since the western and southern shore of the Mersey estuary is festooned with oil refineries, storage tanks filled with high volatile products, power stations with chimneys, and numerous industries such as ship building and Unilever's huge complex, I should have thought this was an area in which roof-skipping aircraft should be discouraged by law. I could not help noting the comments of some of those in the vicinity of last week's crash in the Midlands, to the effect that they had been expecting this crash for some time, and without wishing to sound unnecessarily alarmist, I hope my right hon. Friend will say something tonight to reassure those—not only in my constituency—who have been disturbed at the apparent implications of his answer last month.

I have already mentioned the Stockport and Perpignan crashes, and the House will recall that subsequently a Special Review was ordered of the safety performance of United Kingdom airline operators. The Edwards Report also examined the safety problem, linked as it is to the financial strength, size and resources of the operator, and the Government have now proposed certain structural changes involving the Air Registration Board, the A.T.L.B. and the air traffic control services. Since January this year, there have been rumbles of discontent from B.A.L.P.A. and others about the merging of safety and economic considerations under a common controlling body, and I should like to hear the latest Government thinking on this vital organisational principle. There is surely a strong case for an independent and financially separate air safety authority, particularly when one appreciates the risks which arise when aircraft and tour operators with inadequate resources try to compete in the air transport industry. There are powerful lobbies in this industry, and it would be dangerous for any new safety regulations to be jeopardised by the special pleading of those claiming financial hardship.

This is particularly important when we recall the findings of the Special Review about the safety performance of B.E.A. and B.O.A.C. on the one hand, and the private operators on the other. It may sound harsh, but those statistics of significantly higher accident rates among the independent airlines surely prove that in commercial aviation there is no room for misplaced sentiment about the small man. My right hon. Friend is perfectly well aware of the lobbies which seek to disguise this fact, and I hope he will not pander to the latest flurry of silly talk about creeping nationalisation.

Mr. F. V. Corfield (Gloucestershire, South)

To be fair, I think that the hon. Gentleman will agree that the figures for B.U.A. do not tally with the overall condemnation of the independent sector.

Mr. Brooks

The figures in the special review straddled all independent operators and showed significantly, a two to one ratio of accidents, in their disfavour compared with B.E.A. and B.O.A.C. The fact is that if we want to survive in an age of vastly increasing air transport, the two State airlines should be given every encouragement. As the special review showed, this is not ideology, but a stark fact.

I have mentioned B.A.L.P.A. on two occasions already, and it is right that we should listen carefully to the pilots whose own lives, as well as those of their passengers, depend upon effective safety procedures. But I wish to broach a subject on which I detect a certain coyness in our public discussions of aviation danger: the rôle of the pilot and the aircrew generally.

In an interesting Appendix M to the Special Review published in May, 1968, certain suggestions were made based on the evidence that 60 per cent. of notified accidents were attributable to pilot error, compared to only 30 per cent. attributable to deficiencies in airworthiness. The author, Captain Taylor, who was one of the independent advisers to the review, demanded a frontal attack upon this problem, and asked for much greater medical and scientific research into the underlying reasons for pilot error.

This is obviously sensible, particularly at a time when public opinion is beginning to grasp the frequently decisive rôle of the human being in road accidents. The airline pilot on today's increasingly congested airways is facing more complex pressures than the family motorist, and it would be foolish to underestimate the psychological tensions and perceptual difficulties he endures. These pressures were succinctly illustrated in an article in The Guardian on 4th February by an experienced international airline pilot. He described how the strictly professional vocabulary of aeronautical radio-telephony might be supplemented by a verbal dog-fight should the radar controller order a reduction in speed at the very moment when the plane is caught in the turbulence of a thunderstorm and requires to maintain a high speed for aero-dynamic reasons.

Again, in The Times on 7th March, Walter Tye stated baldly: We know least of all about man—in this case, pilots and crew. This is not altogether surprising because what we need to know is not only how man usually behaves but how he will act occasionally, possibly in very unusual circumstances. I appreciate of course that the trained airline pilot of today is not likely to be someone who wilts under stress; I accept that the operators subject their pilots and crew to stringent tests, not only into their technical competence. But nevertheless, with the bulk of accidents apparently arising from so-called pilot error, it is commonsense to see how far the cockpit workload can be simplified to let the pilot sit and stare, as it were, during the collision-critical stage of flight—notably during arrival in the milling congestion of the terminal areas. As the author of The Guardian article put it: a pilot with hands flashing madly round the cockpit adjusting things is already overloaded. If something goes wrong panic may follow. And sometimes things do indeed happen as crowded airliners come into terminal areas for stacking or landing. Not least, there is the risk of light private aircraft getting tangled up with them, and this brings me to one of the major anxieties I have tonight. It is part of the general problem of mix between traffics, a problem which we solved in the case of the railways by a clear segregation of track, and in the case of the roads by a far less satisfactory, and now desperately belated effort to separate by lane markings, crash barriers, raised footpaths and so on.

In the case of air traffic, the problem is similar in kind, but immensely complicated by the three dimensional nature of the medium. Military traffics, ranging from supersonic fighters to troop transports, are mixed with civil traffics which range from the Dakota to the Jumbo, and soon to the Concorde perhaps, and from the huge jet with its forecast problems of turbulent wake to the glider which rides the thermals. Mixed up with all this variegated traffic, subject to various and different air traffic control systems and devices, is the private light aircraft traffic. Its scale is considerable, and as a recent controversy at Luton made clear, we shall hear much more of the difficulty of combining public transport aircraft with private light aircraft bent on business or pleasure.

On Monday my right hon. Friend gave me some details of this traffic. There are today 1,232 aircraft of an all-up weight of 6,000 lb. and below registered by the Board of Trade in the name of private individuals in Great Britain, and in addition some 342 privately-owned gliders registered with the British Gliding Association. The total number of landings by such aircraft are not known, but I was told that for the airports at which almost all the commercial flying takes place there were roughly a quarter of a million landings in 1969 of aircraft on private, aero-club and local pleasure flights.

This traffic is separated both vertically and laterally from the public transport aircraft, which operate, of course, as my right hon. Friend explained: mainly along the airways and in other controlled airspace in which aircraft are only allowed if they are suitably equipped and their pilots suitably licensed. Yet when Sierra Echo came near to collision with an Aero Commander over Wirral two months ago, there was certainly—according to The Times report—no vertical separation, and precious little lateral separation. Clearly, something had gone wrong, and there are repeated allegations from both the United States and here that the extent of such near misses are substantially underestimated.

I know that my right hon. Friend discounted such allegations on 25th November in response to a specific intervention from my hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Leslie Huckfield). But with respect, it is clearly stated in paragraph 79 of the Special Review that …there is at present no need for information on aircraft 'incidents' to be notified to the Department. This means that many events that may affect the safety of an aircraft are not reported and accordingly no remedial action can be taken. The review went on to recommend that the Board of Trade and the Air Registration Board should require that all occurrences that could endanger aircraft should be brought to light and used by operators for accident prevention purposes. This applies to all incidents, and not simply near-misses, and I should be glad to know tonight whether the Government have any proposals to encourage such information to come forward. Obviously, operators are unlikely to wish to report incidents which might reflect adversely on their competence—and, possibly, most unfairly so—and I can see the case for ensuring confidentiality. Nevertheless, I should have thought that where air traffic controllers themselves identify such near-misses—and presumably this will become easier once secondary radar coverage is generally available—there should be a severe penalty imposed upon those who have infringed controlled airspace and, moreover, have not reported any possible hazards.

On 25th March, an article by James Stuart appeared in the Evening Standard which reiterated the extent of the risk. He alleged it to be between three and five times greater than official estimates as far as the South-East was concerned, and he made one particular grave allegation upon which, I feel, my right hon. Friend should comment. He said: A light aircraft could flip across the path of an airliner—even a Jumbo Jet—without any- one knowing it was there. In the free zones, so called, around the airports, in what are called visual flight rules, a private aircraft can fly up to 5,000 ft. These areas include the "stacks" where airliners are held to wait their turn for landing at Watford, Epsom (for Heathrow) and Mayfield (for Gatwick). And usually over these free zones airliners taking off from either Heathrow or Gatwick are normally "held" to 3,000 to 4,000 ft. I feel that that statement, together with the rest of that article, needs to be taken seriously, particularly if it is to be the case, as Mr. Stuart also states, that by 1980 the British Light Aviation Centre has estimated that there will be about 60,000 private pilots in this country. As an article in The Guardian pointed out on 15th November last, only two months earlier, in the U.S.A., 83 passengers had been killed when their DC9 was speared in mid-air by a small private plane, and the moral for Britain needs no further emphasis on my part.

The present anxiety over Mediator seems linked to the fear by the pilot that he is being left to the mercy of the radar controller, whose gadgets are in the last resort vulnerable to indiscipline in the airways. Most private pilots are likely to be careful, since their own lives are at stake—although the same argument might apply to car drivers, but clearly does not. Yet the minority, lacking the sophisticated electronic equipment of a VC10 or a 747, could, either through foolishness or inadvertence, cause disasters to these giant planes and havoc to people down below in London or elsewhere.

Last August, The Times in an editorial called for a full-scale inquiry into the uses of Britain's airspace so that both heavy and light aviation can live together happily—and in safety". I urge the Government to consider some such inquiry, particularly at a moment when the third London Airport will throw a further huge variable into the present traditional mix of traffics.

The subject of air safety is so immense that I must resist the temptation not to conclude this debate. My main concern tonight is with pilot error, with the mix of traffics, with the future organisation of air safety in the light of Edwards and with the introduction of the Mediator automated air traffic control which, we are promised, will become operational during the 1970s. This is more than enough to seek my right hon. Friend's comments upon, but before sitting down I would ask him whether the Government have any further thoughts on piracy and bomb risks. In particular, may we expect further checks on passengers and their luggage proceeding through British airports, both on a routine basis and by means of spot checks?

For example, can we anticipate regular checks by metal detectors capable of identifying bombs, guns and, for that matter, swords? I realise that this is too vast a problem to be dealt with satisfactorily in such a debate as this, but in view of the spate of recent incidents, which could so easily jeopardise lives, and even the continued rate of growth of civil air transport, I think that massive research into this type of problem—and there is no point in stinting expenditure when we consider that a single armed gunman firing wildly in a Concorde at 60,000 ft. could cost £10 million of aircraft alone—would be well justified, not least as a deterrent to the maniacs who sometimes board the aircraft in which we fly.

10.55 p.m.

Mr. Leslie Huckfield (Nuneaton)

May I first congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bebington (Mr. Brooks) for raising yet again this important subject, and for the excellent way in which he has put forward many detailed points. I ask my right hon. Friend if he will give some definite and further information on one point. I have for a long time now raised various matters concerning air safety in this House, on the Adjournment debate which my hon. Friend has already mentioned, in numerous Parliamentary Questions and on other occasions. On most of the questions I have raised I have been told that answers will be given once Linesman/Mediator, which is a new computer-based system of air traffic control, becomes operable. This week serious doubts have been expressed by the British Airline Pilots' Association about the efficacy of Linesman/Mediator. Will my right hon. Friend tell us what phase Linesman/Mediator has reached, what is the difficulty which means that we have to slip back to phase three-quarters, and what exactly will Linesman/Mediator do when it becomes operable?

10.56 p.m.

The Minister of State, Board of Trade (Mr. Goronwy Roberts)

My hon. Friend the Member for Bebington (Mr. Brooks) has, with the eloquence and precision which the House has come to expect of him, raised the matter of air safety, the importance of which can hardly be exaggerated. We are all in emphatic agreement with him when he warns against complacency and undue alarmism. I am glad to have this opportunity of assuring the House once more that my Department constantly and urgently examines how to improve even further the safeguards we now have against accidents in the air. My hon. Friend raised a large number of points, which I shall do my best to deal with in the limited time left to me.

He rightly and effectively raised two matters of immediate interest to his constituents in Bebington. He will recall that I informed the House of the circumstances of the air miss over Wallasey on 5th February on the following day. I am glad to be able to tell him tonight that the official investigations have been completed. A report has been prepared and will be considered by the Air Miss Working Group at its next meeting which takes place tomorrow. I can assure the House that such remedial action as may be necessary will certainly be taken, having regard to the recommendations which may be made by the Air Miss Working Group.

My hon. Friend also asked for clarification of the rules governing the flight of aircraft to and from Speke airport, which directly affect his constituency. He asked in particular for clarification of the reply I gave to his Question on 25th March. I shall take a minute or two to spell out what the rules are for him and for the record, which I know he will wish to consult and discuss with his constituents.

The law concerning low flying is contained in Rule 5 of the Rules of the Air and Air Traffic Control Regulations, 1969. This states that an aircraft other than a helicopter shall not fly over any congested area of a city, town or settlement below:

1. (i)such height as would enable the aircraft to alight clear of the area and without danger to persons or property on the surface, in the event of failure of a power unit, or
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2. (ii)a height of 1,500 ft. above the highest fixed object within 2,000 ft. of the aircraft

whichever is the higher.

However, the rules specifically exclude taking-off, landing or practising approaches to landing.

The misunderstanding that has arisen on the answer which I gave in the House may be because of an unintentional omission by my hon. Friend of an extremely important phrase in the middle of the first sentence of my answer. If I may quote myself—and on re-examination I find that I said precisely what I ought to have said— No specific minimum heights are required in the case of aircraft flying over Bebington in the course of landing or practising approaches to landing at Speke…".—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 25th March, 1970; Vol. 798, c. 1431.] It is not a statement that no specific minimum heights are required, full stop. It is a statement that no specific minimum heights are required in the circumstances stated. Indeed, it is clear that minimum height restrictions are somewhat impracticable when making approaches to land or practising landing or taking off. However, it is right I should draw attention to Article 40 of the Air Navigation Order, 1966, which applies in these circumstances as well as more generally. This article states that a person shall not wilfully or negligently cause or permit an aircraft to endanger any person or property. There is no record of any infringement of this article having been committed in the Bebington area.

Equally, I am well aware, from the representations made to me personally and in the House by my hon. Friend on behalf of his constituents, that there is concern in Bebington and no doubt in adjacent areas. Not many representations from local residents have reached me personally. This is not to say that we are immune to any apprehensions or anxieties which beset people who live close to airports such as Speke.

Perhaps I can help by informing my hon. Friend and his constituents that the flying training conversion programme, which has been carried out by Cambrian airways on BAC 1–11 aircraft and which probably have caused disturbance—mainly noise—should be completed by the first week in May. He may wish to convey that information to his con- stituents in the appropriate way. I would also add that a letter addressed to me, with a copy to him, by a young lady who rejoices in the name of Miss Roberts is being very carefully considered in my Department. She raises a number of very reasonable points relating to the position in Bebington.

I turn from local questions which my hon. Friend rightly raised to one or two of the larger issues to which he referred. I refer in particular to the question of research into the underlying reasons for pilot error. While this particular matter was not made the subject of a recommendation by the Special Review, the need for more precise knowledge about the job of the airline pilot and in particular the circumstances in which he is likely to make serious errors is accepted.

As Captain Taylor said in the appendix to the Special Review …only by a deeper understanding of the complex forces at work in regard to the pilot in his particular environment can we hope to make real progress towards a solution of the 'pilot error' accident phenomenon. There is no quick or simple solution to the problem. We are tackling it now so far as is possible in the short term, and at the same time we are exploring with the Ministry of Technology what can be done in the long term. I have more detail here, but I see that time is speeding by. I fear I have no time to embroider what I have said beyond that we are fully seized of the importance of the point.

My hon. Friend also voiced reservations about the Government's proposal to make safety regulation part of an integrated body also dealing with economic regulations of the industry rather than retain a separate body. I do not think the House would expect me to comment extensively on this point, as the preparation of legislation is proceeding. But I would invite my hon. Friend, for whom I have very great respect as one who is not bound by any preconceived dogma in these matters, to consider whether safety standards necessarily are put at risk. An integrated authority, combining the resources and information on various aspects of the airline industry, can pull knowledge together and in that way increase the chances of a more coherent and effective safety policy. I put it to my hon. Friend, because I know that his mind is not closed.

He and my hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Leslie Huckfield) asked about Mediator. Here again, I must truncate my remarks. We expect the first stage of Mediator to be introduced in the spring of next year. I am somewhat puzzled by the doubts expressed by B.A.L.P.A. and some people in air traffic control B.A.L.P.A. has certainly been kept informed. I know of no reason for the assertions which the Association is reported to have made.

A.T.C. personnel are fully informed of the progress of Mediator. Indeed, the system has been designed largely by air traffic controllers and has been developed as a result of trials at the evaluation unit at Hurn, in which practising controllers have taken part.

It is wrong to suggest, as has been suggested, that Mediator is based on obsolete military radar. Mediator is based mainly on civil radar, and some military radar provides a valuable increase to its coverage.

Area navigation facilities were—inevitably—mentioned. Given the presence of my hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton, there is a guarantee that this point would be raised—

The Question having been proposed after Ten o'clock, and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned at seven minutes past Eleven o'clock.