When analyzing an aircraft accident, there are events which precede the occurrence referred to as an error chain. They are the main factors that lead to the crash or any other outcome that is not desirable. In aviation, these factors usually crop from such human factors such as pilot error instead of mechanical failures.A study by Boeing revealed that 55% of airline accident from 1959-2005 were as a result of human error whereas a mechanical malfunction caused just 17%.Tenerife disaster was an example of a chain of events disaster, and unfortunately, one of the worst, where many factors led to the accident such as severe weather(fog) a bomb threat which resulted to air jammingor congestion, human mistakes all led to the most dreaded crash.The terminal event is basically what ensures an error whether human, environmental, mechanical or any other. In this chapter, we shall delve into a discussion of factors that lead to an aircraft accident in a report prepared by the aircraft accident report.

It explains the occurrences of an accident MD-82 which was an American aircraft which overran the runway when landing at LittleRock airport. Factors discussed in this report include issues of concern raised by the flight crew including their performance, decisions they made during the adverse weather, the pilot being overworked hence led to fatigue, weather information broadcasting, emergency reaction, how fragile the airport facilities were that would have contributed to the accident. Recommendations are made to the FAA and the weather service.

National Transportation Safety Board is the body assigned the work to investigate the occurrences of road, rail, highway and the various transport accidents in different modes of transport and consequently are the ones who prepared the report.

The captain He was 48 years old, employed by American airlines in 1979 July. He had an airline certificate for transport pilot and an FAA 1^st class medical certificate given to him in the year 1999 February and had no limitations. He was rated using MD-80 aircraft and Boeing 727 and qualified as a flight engineer on August 1979 and as a first officer in 1985 while as a captain in 1988. On July 1991 he trained as an MD-80 captain and was a Lieutenant colonel in the united states army specifically in the Airforce. Generally, the primary analysis of the pilot’s ability and qualification was out of the question due to his long span experience.

The crew members made general mistakes though during the flight relating to flight management and completing the routine tasks was also not done in the right manner which included callouts. They did not appear to be accurately calculating the effects of the weather and considering their added weight altogether especially the thunderstorm that had already reached the airport. The board also recognized that the crew was not adequately supplied with information on the ports weather but were only given a general overview of the existing weather conditions which in return did not prepare them well on the prevailing weather conditions.However, the board was quick to realize that the crew member performance during the said flight was generally degraded as evidenced by their poor decision making and many operational errors.Their performance was inconsistent with the expected performance considering the captain was a chief pilot, and his 1^st officer was trained in Americans standards.

Due to what had been established in the post accident interviews, describing the captain as a person who was old fashioned, intelligent, highly skilled, a professional who used his common sense together with his assistant. He or she to be above average and competent led to other crew members deviate their attention from the cockpit given the men who were cruising had a reputation. The captain was told to possess excellent technical skills and guiding ability.

Stress-bad weather as a threat was seen to have caused stress among the pilots when negotiating on how to land as research shows that making of decisions could be weak as the mind deviates to solving one problem ignoring the other factors of the environment which might be considered adverse too. In return to this assessing, other factors may be incomplete and impaired decision results regardless of the expertise. Evaluation of an alternative route could also be altered by stress giving the inclination to progress in the planned direction and plan till the course is too late to deviate from and any move to veer would still be disastrous.

The weather support was also evaluated, and reports show they had been working all of the cabs on that fateful night and was not dealing with any other flight except the 1420 flight hence it had his full attention. He is said to have responded to all the requests by the crew as indicated by the CVR. At some time the team and the controller had discussed changing the runway from 22L to 4R, and the controller responded with the change to 4R ILS; this was due to the wind shift. Information on the wind direction and speed was also given to the crew by the controller and information was updated up to four times before landing. The board did not find any instance the controller did not furnish the team with the updated information on the weather though it was rapidly changing the last several minutes, the board concluded.Though the weather condition was accurately reported from the tower by the controller, he seems not to be confident with the results of the depiction since he is heard asking the pilots how the runway looks from the plane’s radar which was way better than his. It was also confirmed by the information he gave to the Memphis controller who was enquiring on the weather state at little rock and replied that his radar was not that good on weather prediction.

The radar used at ATC was also noted to be specifically for the depiction of air traffic rather than for checking the weather conditions. If a better detector with the ability to give near real-time color were installed, the operator would have been able to advise the crew of the high reflective thunderstorm presence over the port. The board could not ascertain completely whether the near real-time radar could be able to have assisted the team changes the course of action due to the high workload. Nonetheless, the ATC radar could have provided more precise information on the state of the weather at the airport to the crew.

Delays in relaying of flight dispatch was an issue to reckon with according to the findings of the research team since the FAA does not release it immediately, even 15 minutes after. FAA does not provide part 121 offices access to TDWR radar info until they have compared images with other weather observations to correct beam height as well as distance faults. Hence the information is not relayed to the dispatcher in real time.

The above factors are considered to have contributed significantly to the flight 1420 to crash. They are just some of the human factors that if mitigated would enable evade the disaster though still useful to future occurrence of a similar catastrophe.

Do you need high quality Custom Essay Writing Services?