Quite an interesting read. It has an interesting walk through history and and the disasters that led us to where we are now with a very good safety record, and with various technical changes and bodies being set up over the years. It was interested to note that Mr Rolls (of Rolls-Royce) fame himself died at a young age experimenting with aviation. There is no speculation on what needs to be done now (thinking of the recent disaster), but I guess other places have material on that.
Unfortunately:
We’re sorry but this site is not accessible from the UK as it is part of our international service and is not funded by the licence fee. It is run commercially by BBC Worldwide, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the BBC, the profits made from it go back to BBC programme-makers to help fund great new BBC programmes. You can find out more about BBC Worldwide and its digital activities at "www.bbcworldwide.com.":http://www.bbcworldwide.com.__
I’m afraid my head’s spinning from that one.
That is bizzare!
What you need is a web proxy … I believe there are some for rent in Russia 
Well, they are not getting any ‘profits’ from me and I can access the article without a problem..
Thanks btw Piper Archer, nice article. A good reminder of the fact that the Brits paid the price for pioneering commercial air travel by jet, and our American friends reaped the benefits.
Actually the bet way to view iPlayer and ITV Player abroad is to use a “smart DNS” service. It is much cheaper and less trouble than a VPN. I use one from a company called Overplay, and have it set up on my smart tvs in Portugal. You can also set yourself up to appear to be in say the USA for geoblocked sites there. Does this BBC site need a subscription, of maybe it’s attached to a subscription to BBC World or similar
Oh. When I read the link I was at work (in the UK), but the internet connection is routed via German proxies – hence I was able to read it.
I don’t get the statement either. It was actually a fairly interesting read – nothing we didn’t already know anyhow, but interesting nevertheless. Sorry we cant see it in the UK.
Although I cannot cite the specific accidents, I can certainly think of many changes in design requirements which occurred directly from lessons learned from accidents.
On more modern good aircraft instrument panel designs, you will see that the rolled forward flange of the instrument panel is riveted over, rather than under the glare shield skin. Thus, when the fool who does not wear the shoulder harness, and smacks his head into the instrument panel, is protected by the captured glare shield skin being prevented from becoming a guillotine.
Speaking of shoulder harnesses, some of Cessna’s older versions had the tang over the pin on the lap belt. Not great, but the real problem was which half of the lap belt? If the shoulder harness tang is locked over the pin of the half of the lap belt which is not released to the same side as the origin of the shoulder harness. There you hang, inverted in the shoulder harness, unable to undo it, because you cannot get the tang off the pin under the weight of your body.
And lap belts… anyone ever seen the type which had the serrated buckle simply bind on the webbing? (no metal to metal contact). Nope, they were AD’d out of all planes. I do remember then from the early days, however it was found that crash forces would pull them more tight, and they were a misery to undo. Worse, if you sunk on the plane, the webbing would swell, and lock the buckle in close position forever. Many people drowned becasue of this.
Transport Canada limited the seating of Cessna 206H models to five, instead of six, even though they have six seats. A number of accidents occurred in which the back seat occupants could not exit easily through the back clamshell doors with the flaps down.
Throttle, propeller, mixture, carb heat, landing gear and flap knobs are all required to be in a particular relative position to each other, shape and colour, because of accidents resulting from the pilot feeling for, them moving the wrong one in the dark.
In less dramatic accidents, Cessna learned to put the rolled bead on the flap training edge, unlike the ailerons which still do not have them. The early flaps were like the ailerons, and are a forehead hazard.
In the less human factors realm, the bolt on spherical rod end joints on engine controls now specify a penny washer over them, so if you were out the ball and socket, the socket cannot fall all the way off the ball, and separate the control.
For pressurized aircraft, with a pressurized underfloor baggage area, blow out panels after a DC-10 or two blew out a baggage door, and the aircraft floor collapsed because of differential pressure, and took out flight controls and other systems which ran along the floor.
A book written by Dave Thurston (which I appreciated long before I came to like the Teal) called “Design for Safety”, is a great book, discussing such details in aircraft design….
There must be loads and loads of design changes which are the result of plane crashes.
I am still surprised at how vulnerable the fuel system pipework is on some aircraft types…
The other interesting thing is what changes will come as a result of MH370. Some are almost certain – regardless of what they find down there.
I think the most famous design change was the move to rounded windows on pressurised aircraft after the loss of several Comet 1’s when the pressure hull failed starting at a window corner
That, IMHO, was more due to ignorance of known metallurgy and materials science rather than due to anything else. The Comet designers were good but they made some big mistakes – like not realising that pressure testing the hull also work-hardened it.
