Over the last 3-5 years the National Trasportation Safety Board has seen an increase in loss of control caused accidents nationwide.
Chief of NTSB’s Alaska Regional Office Clint Johnson spoke with us about the trend.
Johnson: “Typically what we do when we investigate accidents we look at each accident on a case by case basis. However in this case obviously we need to look at the trends, look to see if its a training issue, primary training issue that we can address, we’re still looking at the at this point.”
He said that a new technology known as angle-of-attack indicators installed in planes may help reduce those accidents.
Johnson: “Well the NTSB, especially in Alaska here has seen a real surge or a number of what we refer to as a loss of control accidents, in lamen’s terms that’s more of a stall, an aerodynamic stall where as again in very lamens terms not enough air flow over the wing to support flight. But what this new equipment does, the AOA or angle of attack indicator is it takes the guess work out of maintaining air speed and gives the pilot a very quick reference snapshot of how well and how efficient that wing is performing and thus hopefully being able to avoid those aerodynamic stalls.”
Johnson said that currently the NTSB has not issued an official recommendation for the new technology to be installed in Alaska’s planes however they do support it.