HC Deb 27 March 1986 vol 94 cc1124-30 1.35 pm
Mr. Michael McNair-Wilson (Newbury)

I declare an interest as deputy chairman of the all-party air safety group.

Nineteen eighty-five was the worst year ever for civil aviation fatalities throughout the world. A total of 1,984 people were killed in major airline accidents. That is a horrifying number, yet in percentage terms those fatalities represent considerably fewer than 1 per cent. of passengers carried by the world's airlines. That figure shows the underlying safety of flying. Bearing in mind the size and complexity of a modern airliner, those figures speak volumes for the reliability and efficiency of airliners. Yet, because of those accidents, one must admit that an unease has crept into the minds of many would-be air travellers. I believe that that unease is founded on the fact that so many of the deaths seem to result from circumstances well within existing technology and that have caused other fatal injuries over the years.

The argument runs thus: if those risks were known already, why had nothing been done to eliminate them? What is more, the defence that the risk was too slight to warrant the expenditure on the necessary safety precautions is not much comfort to the bereaved or to those who have lain in hospital as a result of such accidents. They may fairly argue that if an airline says that it takes good care of you it means what it says, as it does when it says that it puts people first, or talks of its efficiency. People may presume that when an airline boasts about its passenger seats it is implying that it combines strength with comfort and design—not that, too often, they are 10g seats in a 20g aircraft for a 40g man, or, in other words, that they are not stressed for the strains with which they may have to deal.

Last but by no means least, there is a general assumption that, as weaknesses or faults are discovered by airlines, these faults are notified to some central authority that, after consultation with the aircraft makers, issues advice to all operators of that aeroplane. Sadly, almost all those assumptions are mistaken. Certainly airlines care about carrying passengers. That is why they exist. However, whether they are as safety-conscious as they could be depends on one's expectations and on the amount that airline passengers are prepared to pay for increased safety.

In fact, airline advertisements never refer to safety. No matter from which country the company flies, the emphasis is on punctuality, good service, comfort, food and very often the good looks of the air hostesses. There is virtually never any emphasis on safety. It may be that airlines do not believe that safety is a sales feature. Perhaps they wish to give the impression that flying is so intrinsically safe that safety may be taken for granted. As I have said, flying is remarkably safe. It is 16 times safer today than it was in 1950. However, whereas in 1984 the odds on being killed in a civil air crash were one in 3.7 million, in 1985 those odds had shortened to one in 600,000 passengers carried.

More worrying still are the number of near misses reported, which must give cause for concern because of their possible consequences if they had become accidents.

It is not easy to pinpoint the reasons for increased accidents and fatalities because they have such a wide variety of causes and characteristics. We can only say that every nation operating an airline has a responsibility—as do the manufacturers, the engine makers and the component suppliers. They, in turn, must follow the rules laid down by the national and international safety authorities, of which the Federal Aviation Administration in America and our Civil Aviation Authority are among the better known. It is to those bodies and to the International Civil Aviation Organisation that we must turn to discover the regulations and how they are administered.

ICAO possesses the accident investigation group, which was described to me recently as having no money and no teeth. It seeks to update safety regulations on an international basis, but it is often slow to act. When my hon. Friend the Minister replies perhaps he will tell me whether the ICAO air navigation commission has yet updated the regulations relating to co-ordination between civil and military authorities, and to interception, following the shooting down of the Korean Boeing 747 by Russian fighters over the Sea of Japan in 1983.

Until the time of that disaster there was no ICAO requirement for civil aircraft to have the VHF international distress frequency selected at all times. That means that, if a civil aircraft wanders off course and is intercepted, radio contact can be made by the interceptor aircraft.

The Korean 747 was off course for three hours, but, apparently, was unaware of the interception that had been made by the Russian aircraft until it was too late. Perhaps my hon. Friend will tell me that the position is now different and that the ICAO regulations have been updated. If so, I am unaware of it. The long intervals that appear to take place in the updating of international safety regulations gives me considerable cause for concern.

Nearer home, how does the CAA measure up as a watchdog for our air safety? The main criticism that I have heard of it is that it reacts after the event because it possesses neither a research centre nor the funds to carry out research into safety. It is certainly true that too often it follows the American FAA or US National Transportation Safety Board in what they do. While the FAA introduced its fire resistance standard for aircraft passenger seats in October 1984, for example, the CAA introduced its regulations in June 1985 and updated them in January 1986, admittedly to a higher standard.

One cannot help feeling that that updating took place because of the dreadful fire disaster at Manchester airport last August when 55 people died in a British Airways Boeing 737 while it was still on the ground. Having seen the burnt-out fuselage of that aircraft, I can only say that it is a miracle that anyone escaped alive, especially as the interior furnishings and lockers were completely destroyed by the fire, as were most of the seats. Passengers using the mid-fuselage emergency exit found that they had to clamber across three seats to reach those exits, or, if they were in the forward part of the cabin, to pass one at a time through a narrow space between the forward galleys, only to discover that one of the forward exit doors had jammed shut for precious seconds which might have saved lives.

When I saw the fuselage by courtesy of the air accident investigation branch, I was told that normally evacuation tests on aircraft require that only 50 per cent. of emergency exists needed to be open to prove that they were satisfactory. Needless to say, the front exit doors had not been included in that test.

I make those points, not to anticipate the findings of the inquest which is soon to be held on that crash or the inquiry which will be held later this year, but because those hazards could have been anticipated. The tragic effect of fire in an airliner cabin is well known, just as it is known that most passengers die from the hydrogen cyanide and carbon monoxide fumes given off by burning polyurethane seats. But it is only now that we are demanding fire blocking materials. By the same token, evacuation procedures using a mix of exits could have been introduced so that all the exits are tested on British civil airlines. And what about the galleys on the 737? They should have been recognised for what they are, a barrier to evacuation.

All this is hindsight, but so too are the CAA regulations of January 1986 which now contain instructions on how to improve certain mid-cabin emergency exits and on how to provide floor level emergency escape path lighting. They also contain a number of other improvements, but what else should we be looking at? What about the blocked off over-wing exits on the 747? What about the large bits that regularly fall off aircraft in Berkshire after aircraft have taken off from London airport? No airline ever seems to claim those bits. What about the strength of passenger seats, the benefits of shoulder and lap straps rather than seat belts, and overhead lockers that are less flammable and have burst-proof locks to spare passengers a torrent of heavy objects falling on their heads in an accident? The list is long.

In 1982 the magazine Flight, under the heading "1,850 needless crash victims", commented that a recent report on cabin safety in large transport aircraft prepared by the United States National Transportation Safety Board showed that the authorities have been almost asleep on the question of crash forces in cabin safety for years. That is quite an indictment. Other questions spring to mind about the safety of operating large twin-engined aircraft like the Airbus over long stretches of sea. That issue is facing us at the moment and not enough has been said about it, either by the CAA or by the Department of Transport. Cracks were recently discovered in the fuselages of aging jumbo jets and the CAA is following, and admitting that it is following, the directives issued by the Federal Aviation Administration.

All these matters deserve research and consideration. When he gave the Brancker memorial lecture in February, Sir John Dent, chairman of the Civil Aviation Authority, said: It is not the job of the CAA to sponsor research on aviation development and advances in technology in the field. That is the job of aircraft manufacturers, the avionics industry and the materials industry, but it is our job to understand the safety implications of developments in technology and use and to be able to set meaningful safety standards and tests. It used to be that the Government research establishments were fully available for research but economic stringency and perhaps some divergence of civil and defence research have largely closed off those resources. The situation is worrying, not least because our influence in international circles is directly dependent on our knowledge of and contribution to aviation safety. His words are timely and important if we want air safety to be given its proper priority. One solution would be to fund the CAA and the accident investigation branch so that they could emulate the wider roles of the FAA and the NTSB in America. Such a solution would probably be both wasteful of resources and administratively unworkable on the scale we could afford.

Some suggest that the Airworthiness Requirements Board could fulfil the role, but it is something of a part-time body and scarcely suitable. Thus, one is drawn to the conclusion that a new body is needed standing apart from the CAA, the AAIB and the ARB but working closely with them. In effect, I am suggesting a national aviation safety centre. If such a centre was created, its obvious home would seem to be the College of Aeronautics at Cranfield. As I am sure my hon. Friend is aware, Cranfield has a long and distinguished record in aviation research. Its work on all aspects of aircraft design, manufacture and operation is recognised internationally. I suggest that it could fulfil the role of an aviation safety centre and give back to the United Kingdom the research facility to invest in air safety before the event, which must be to the benefit of the tens of millions of air passengers who fly in and out of the United Kingdom every year and the hundreds of millions of passengers who fly internationally.

1.50 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mr. Michael Spicer)

I am sure that the House will be extremely grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Mr. McNair-Wilson) for having raised the issue of air safety. As my hon. Friend knows, responsibility for civil aviation rests by statute with the Civil Aviation Authority. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State appoints the chairman of the authority and the members of its board and he must satisfy himself that the authority is discharging properly the various responsibilities which Parliament has entrusted to the CAA to ensure safety. However, neither my right hon. Friend nor I must seek to usurp the authority's responsibilities.

I am sure that the House will be the first to recognise that all the expertise in this crucial area lies with the authority, not with politicians and their officials. Not that many years ago, before the authority was set up, responsibility was divided between a number of bodies. Not surprisingly, this division of responsibility was not entirely satisfactory, so much so that the Edwards committee, which examined these matters extremely carefully in producing its report on British air transport in the 1970s, found: A situation has arisen in which each authority has felt obliged to act only within its own limited field of responsibility. The committee concluded that it would be better to create conditions which guarded against that happening. It saw advantage in a pooling of responsibilities and information on safety.

Almost inevitably, as a result of its own logic, the committee was driven to recommend the formation of the Civil Aviation Authority, with a unified responsibility for safety matters. I believe that that logic still holds true today. The authority has a spectrum of safety responsibilities. Its safety services group has nearly 700 staff. Its role is to set standards and to satisfy itself that airlines are competent, that Britain's airports and aerodromes are safe, that pilots are properly trained and medically fit, and that aircraft are designed, built and maintained to the highest standards.

The duty of the national air traffic services is to ensure that aircraft can fly safely in Britain's crowded air space. It supplies air traffic control services, licenses controllers and inspects aerodromes to ensure that proper standards are maintained.

Mr. Michael McNair-Wilson

rose——

Mr. Spicer

I shall give way to my hon. Friend, but I ask him to understand that I am under some pressure because of the timing of debates.

Mr. McNair-Wilson

It seems that what my hon. Friend says may be true of the CAA, but how can it be an effective safety regulator if it cannot research into the possible causes of future accidents?

Mr. Spicer

If my hon. Friend gives me the opportunity, and if the House will bear with me—I suspect that I shall stretch the time that has been alloted for this debate—I shall address myself directly to that issue.

The CAA's concerns for safety extend beyond the purely domestic. It maintains the closest contact with regulatory authorities overseas and plays a major role in the counsels of the International Civil Aviation Organisation. In my direct experience, the ICAO can move swiftly on occasions. I have in mind especially its reaction and response recently to aviation security. In direct response to my hon. Friend's question, the ICAO has agreed an amendment to the Chicago convention to cover the military interception of civil aircraft. The amendment needs to be ratified by a sufficient number of states if it is to be brought into force. A recurring problem stems from the need for mutual and international co-operation within the ICAO. I do not see, however, how we can overcome the need for compliance by member states.

My hon. Friend fears that international co-operation is at a low ebb and of a low quality. Sir John Dent, the authority's chairman, was right to voice his worries about some recent developments. Clearly the CAA and the Government must work to ensure that the traditional international spirit of co-operation in aviation safety matters is maintained, but we should not over-dramatise the problem.

Close co-operation is still the norm, not the exception. for example, there is a close relationship between all the major European agencies on joint airworthiness standards. Contact between the CAA and the FAA in the United States, following the Manchester disaster to which my hon. Friend referred, took place almost by the hour. As my hon. Friend will know, personnel from the FAA are permanently in Britain and, similarly, CAA personnel stay with the FAA.

My hon. Friend has also expressed concern about the sealing of overwing emergency exits on Boeing 747s. In response to that, the FAA organised, at the CAA's request, an evacuation test using a British Airways crew. I can report that the 90-second evacuation standard was met.

Mr. Robert Hughes (Aberdeen, North)

With or without plimsolls?

Mr. Spicer

I suspect that that point was well taken on board before that evacuation. I am not sure, but I should be surprised if, after all the publicity, plimsolls were worn on this occasion. However, that would need to be confirmed.

Nevertheless, we must try, if only by the example set by the CAA, to ensure that some of the difficulties which have arisen recently do not recur.

My hon. Friend has asked about safety research. As he will know, safety research is currently funded by a combination of Government Departments, the CAA and the manufacturing and airline industries. It may be that the contribution from the industry will have to increase in the future. We are currently considering the whole question with the CAA and the Department of Trade and Industry. We shall certainly take into account the real concerns that my hon. Friend has expressed today and the points that he has raised in that context.

I suspect that it will be no solution simply to fund research programmes carried out by an independent body. It has been suggested that the Government should give Cranfield Institute of Aviation Research £2 million for unsponsored research. That would not help for at least two reasons. First, if there is a funding problem, it is no solution simply to say that the Government can solve it by giving a relatively small sum to one particular institution. My hon. Friend will probably accept that what is needed is a long-term viable solution. But, more importantly, research into aviation safety is co-ordinated by the Civil Aviation Research and Development Board.

We must avoid the danger of fragmenting the United Kingdom's research effort and in the process getting priorities wrong. It would be even less attractive to expect a body such as the Cranfield institute to devise or even recommend standards for safety, as my hon. Friend rather ingeniously suggested this afternoon.

As I have already mentioned, the strength of the CAA as a regulator of safety lies in the integration within one authority of responsibility for all the different areas of safety. We simply cannot begin to strip out certain areas and give them to some other body, however responsible or expert it may be. Not only would the authority begin to lose international credibility; we would also return inevitably to the days of the 1960s and before when too many organisations had responsibilities for safety questions. The Edwards report warned of the problems of divided responsibility. It gave us the solution in the form of the CAA, and that solution has worked well. It would be a serious mistake to begin to unpick the authority's role in safety matters.

It is, of course, true that no single body can carry out safety research on its own. No one has all the expertise. The CAA draws on research carried out in a number of centres, both here and overseas, in setting standards. But experience worldwide has shown that separating the setting of standards from their enforcement is a mistake.

The test of whether the present arrangements work, and of whether the CAA has properly discharged its responsibilities, lies in the safety record of civil aviation in this country. If we look at the general safety record over the past decade, the picture is reassuring, although we and the CAA must, as has been rightly insisted upon by hon. Members, guard against complacency. As my hon. Friend has said, 1985 was a bad year. But, as I think he conceded, in only three years in the previous decade were there fatal accidents involving fixed-wing aircraft of over 2,300 kg on the British register, carrying passengers for public transport. The record for passenger public transport operations involving helicopters was almost equally good, despite the harsh North sea environment in which so many services operate.

During the same period, the incidence of risk-bearing air misses involving civil aircraft more than halved, although the skies over the United Kingdom have become more and more crowded. The record is a good one, but, as I have said, we cannot risk complacency. That is why the CAA acted so swiftly after the tragic events at Manchester. Within hours of the accident, all similarly engined aircraft on the British register were subject to new inspection criteria and, where necessary, were grounded until safety checks had been completed. As evidence has emerged from the accident investigation, the authority has acted swiftly to introduce new standards for emergency exits and escape route markings. New regulations dealing with the fire resistance of seats were introduced three months before the accident. The authority has acted with the same speed and good sense over the question of cracks in Boeing 747s.

Neither the authority nor Parliament can ever take lightly the safety of aviation in this country. The standards of safety which the CAA demands may be the best achievable today, but it can and does strive to see how those standards can be improved. Parliament made a wise decision when it brought within one authority the responsibility for all the many aspects of safety regulations. We must not disturb that arrangement either by seeking to take away from the CAA matters in which it, and it alone, is expert, or by seeking to undermine its authority in other ways. It is right that we should all be concerned to ensure that the CAA promotes and maintains the highest safety standards. The record clearly shows that the authority has done that, and that where necessary it will act swiftly to remedy problems that unexpectedly come to light. However, I repeat that my hon. Friend has done us a great service by bringing this issue before us today.