Continuous Improvement Loops in Aviation—Part 1

Commercial planes are one of the safest ways to get around. Accidents are rare, and your likelihood of dying in a plane is very small compared to all other modes of transportation. However, this was not always the case. Safety in modern aviation is the result of many improvement iterations. Let’s have a look at how aviation improved one of its aspects, namely the passengers’ knowledge of what to do in the case of an emergency.

Introduction

Airplanes are a very safe way to get around (unless you are flying over or near Russia nowadays). Currently, there are around 0.3 fatal accidents per million flights. But this was not always the case. In the 1950s, when commercial air travel became available (the jet age), there were 40 fatal accidents per million flights. This dropped to 15 accidents per million flights in the 1970s, 2 per million in the 2000s, and 0.3 fatal accidents per million flights nowadays (source: Boeing: Statistical Summary of Commercial Jet Airplane Accidents, September 2023).

There are many reasons why aviation safety has improved so drastically, including technical changes, material changes, testing procedures, maintenance standards, checklists (very powerful tool!), better training, radar, GPS, standards, minimum number of flight attendants and their training (and yes, over 90% of the training of flight attendants is for emergencies, so show them some respect!), and many more. This blog post will look in particular at how flight attendants inform the passengers on what to do in an emergency.

Structured Improvement by the FAA

President Roosevelt established the Civil Aeronautics Administration in 1938. This organization was the predecessor of the Federal Aviation Agency (FAA), founded in 1958, and renamed the Federal Aviation Administration in 1967 as part of the U.S. Department of Transportation. Their purpose was to regulate civil aviation in the United States and surrounding international waters.

One of their tasks was the promotion of safety in aviation. Like many other safety rules, these were usually “written in blood” (i.e., an accident happened, the FAA investigated the accident, tried to understand the causes, and then issued recommendations to improve safety). Some suggestions also came from meetings where they looked at how to improve safety in general, not based on any specific accident.

Since 1967 they have numbered these suggestions. The very first numbered suggestion was A-67-001, with A for aviation, 67 for the year 1967, and 1 as a sequential number. This suggestion was based on the crash of a Beechcraft plane in California in 1963, they recommended a reevaluation of the fuel system on the Beechcraft model 95-355, which was successfully implemented.

Generally, any improvement idea was just a suggestion, often phrased very generally. They then worked on implementing these recommendations. Like in industry, some recommendations were good and could be implemented, while others fell short of their goal. Ideally they would get a “Closed—Acceptable Action,” “Closed—Acceptable Alternate Action,” or sometimes even a “Closed—Exceeds Recommended Action” when the goals were met or even exceeded.

Sometimes when they failed, the issue was “Closed—Unacceptable Action” or, if the other parties involved simply did not respond, a “Closed—Unacceptable Action/No Response Received.” And sometimes the recommendations became irrelevant with other improvements (e.g., “Closed—No Longer Applicable” or “Closed—Superseded”).

What we have here is quite similar to a PDCA cycle. They investigate an accident, make a suggestion, and then see if the suggestion can be implemented. Due to the number of different players involved, this may take some time, and it can easily be a decade between the suggestion and its closure.

The FAA has issued thousands of suggestions and saved many lives (maybe even yours). Looking at all suggestions is just too much for a small blog post series, though; hence I will focus on how to teach the passengers about safety measures.

Current State of Passenger Safety Instructions

If you have ever flown on a commercial aircraft, you are probably familiar with the safety procedures (at least you should be. Pay attention next time!). They show you how to use the seat belt, where the emergency exits are (pointing out the illumination to it), where to find the life vests (or generally flotation devices), and when and how to use the oxygen mask, and they point out the safety card.

If you bother to look at the safety card (please do), you find again the emergency exits, how to use them, maybe even distinguishing between a water landing and a…um…land-landing?, information on life vests (including for children), oxygen mask (also including children), how to open the doors, and the brace position (how to squeeze yourself between your seat and the next one so you don’t get thrown around in case of an impact), and more.

In many cases you will also be shown a safety video, and many airlines put in a lot of effort into making it fun in an attempt to get you to pay attention (please do). One of my favorite ones is The Lord of the Rings safety videos from Air New Zealand, but there are many more cool videos of other airlines found online. Airlines also use these videos to improve their brand reputation.

Passenger Safety Instructions in Early Commercial Aviation

The first scheduled commercial flight took place between St. Petersburg and Tampa, Florida, in 1914, only twelve years after the first flight of the Wright brothers. The Benoist XIV aircraft, a small biplane, had space for one passenger in the open cockpit besides the pilot. Yet they carried 1205 passengers over Tampa Bay within their three months of operation.

The first modern commercial airliner was the Boeing 247, in use from the 1930s. Around that time, the first passenger safety instructions as well as the first safety cards were used, albeit those cards were not common until the 1940s. Focus was on the emergency exits and the use of seat belts (provided the plane had seat belts). It also advised passengers not to throw things out the windrow.

In 1935 came the first higher-altitude commercial planes over the Alps, requiring supplemental oxygen in the not-yet-pressurized cabins. Pamphlets were handed to the passengers on when and how to use the oxygen. Overall, quite a few changes and improvements were made, but mostly only on the initiative of a company. Back then, these passenger safety instructions were voluntary, and not all airlines bothered with them.

In my next post, continuing this discussion, I will look at how the FAA and its predecessor organizations used a structured approach to improve passenger safety. But for now, go out, pay attention to safety briefings, and organize your industry!

Selected Sources

Among the many sources, including FAA reports, I found the following series of articles very readable:

The History of Safety Cards, Part One; Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, Part Six, and Part Seven.

You can look up safety suggestions on the NTSB website Carol Search, where you will find the full FAA safety reports.