A view from IFALPA
A. TISDAL
Irish Air Line Pilots Association, Dublin Airport, Ireland
E-mail: atisdal@eircom.net Abstract
The paper elaborates on the role that airline pilots play in facilitating the safe transport of radioactive material and how the International Federation of Air Line Pilots Associations (IFALPA) uses a Dangerous Goods Committee to address radioac-tive-material transport issues. Through this committee, the interests of the pilots are carried to the regulatory bodies, and information from those bodies is carried back to the pilots. The function of IFALPA and its Dangerous Goods Committee are described, and a viewpoint of the end-users of the Regulations is provided.
1. INTRODUCTION
I am Vice-Chairman of the Dangerous Goods Committee of the Interna-tional Federation of Air Line Pilots Association (IFALPA) and have been directly involved in the carriage of radioactive materials since 1987, when my committee first heard of plans to ship nuclear fuel by air.
IFALPA is a non-governmental organization (NGO) based at Interpilot House in Surrey near Runnymeade, in the United Kingdom. It has offices also in Montreal (within the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) building) and Mexico City, with a combined permanent secretarial staff of about twenty.
IFALPA exists to represent the interests of member pilots at an interna-tional level. The federation is structured to provide a democratic forum, to promote a common viewpoint, and the federation tries to interact with all the major aviation bodies. It was founded in 1948 by thirteen associations and now has ninety-five member organizations representing over 120 000 pilots, about two thirds of the global commercial pilot population. It is a large organization, but it is important to remember that everyone within it has the same objective in the end: aviation safety.
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Figure 1 shows a rather poignant photograph, taken in New York prior to 11 September 2001.
2. IFALPA’S MISSION
IFALPA’s mission statement is “to be the global voice of airline pilots, promoting the highest level of aviation safety standards worldwide and to provide support and representation to all of its member associations.”
This statement was taken from our excellent award winning web site at www.ifalpa.org, where news releases are available with regularly issued aviation-safety bulletins.
3. IFALPA’S FUNCTION Among other things, IFALPA:
— Presses for the adoption of international standards and their implemen-tation at a national level,
— Uses the ICAO, the Joint Aviation Authority (JAA), the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA), the International Air Transport Association (IATA) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); in fact, IFALPA uses any organization that can effect a global standard or regulation,
FIG. 1. An Aer Lingus aircraft with the World Trade Center towers in the background.
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— Tries to provide communicating channels among member associations and between these organizations and their government departments that apply the regulations.
Let me provide two recent examples of lack of harmonization in flight operations. Globally all aircraft fly at fixed altitudes — flight levels — that are usually measured in hundreds of feet. In China and the Russian Federation, however, they are measured in metres. Not ideal, so in these two regions we apply a conversion factor to our altimeters.
Recently I flew across the Atlantic and through Canadian airspace at 38 000 ft or flight level 380. I could not enter US airspace at this flight level, as it would not be legal until the following month.
These examples illustrate that although we’ve come a long way towards global standardization, we still have a long way to go.
4. ORGANIZATION OF IFALPA
IFALPA is organized into specialist committees that are made up of active pilots who give of their spare time to share their expertise. The committees’
prime task is maintaining detailed policy manuals that serve as briefs for IFALPA representatives. In structure, these policy manuals usually mirror ICAO’s annexes. They are basically the wish lists of the pilot community.
The decisions and policy statements from the committees are discussed and ratified at annual conferences.
5. THE SPECIALIST COMMITTEES
The eleven specialist committees, composed of line pilots nominated for their particular expertise or interest, meet once or twice per year to review their policy statements, to discuss and foster new developments in aviation, and to share details of incidents, problems and solutions.
6. THE TECHNICAL COMMITTEES
There are seven technical committees, as follows:
— Accident Analysis,
— Aircraft Design,
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— Air Traffic Services,
— Airport & Ground Environment,
— Medical,
— Security,
— Dangerous Goods.
Figure 2 shows a photograph that I took from a cockpit as we were taxiing off the runway at the old airport in Hong Kong. This illustrates the fact that all seven technical committees would probably have discussed this accident.
7. FUNCTIONS OF THE IFALPA DANGEROUS GOODS COMMITTEE
I am vice-chairman of the Dangerous Goods Committee, known as HAZMAT in the United States. This committee monitors developments in the carriage of dangerous goods; reviews ICAO’s Annex 18, the Technical Instruc-tions for Carriage of Dangerous Goods and IATA’s Dangerous Goods Regula-tions, helps to develop emergency-response procedures and training material.
Through this committee, I and others have represented IFALPA at IAEA
FIG. 2. Aircraft after an accident.
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meetings on the transport of radioactive material. We have also had represent-atives from the IAEA participate in our committee meetings. As a result, the committee regularly discusses the carriage of radioactive material.
8. AIR TRANSPORT OF RADIOACTIVE MATERIAL Figure 3 shows the belly hold of a passenger aircraft.
The top of the hold is the floor of the passenger cabin. A passenger may sit close to a radioactive package.
Radioactive material can be shipped safely by air, but only if all proper precautions are taken. Accidents, we agree, are rare. Nobody has yet been injured by the radiation, but continued vigilance is needed because a single incident would have a disastrous effect in the present sensitive climate. It will be hard work to maintain existing standards.
FIG. 3. Belly hold of a passenger aircraft with cargo.
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IFALPA will continue to offer opinions and expertise to the IAEA, which, in the past ten years, has radically changed how it does business.
9. COMPLEXITY IN THE REGULATIONS
A word of caution: many new cost-driven shippers are complaining about being overwhelmed by masses of complex dangerous-goods regulations. This is resulting in deliberate non-compliance with the regulations. These shippers often use excuses such as high training costs or staff turnover; it is happening also among shippers of radioactive material.
When caught, the guilty airline’s reaction to a punitive fine is often a refusal to carry all dangerous goods. This is happening in the United States, and it is becoming a global problem.
If we are going to continue to serve the medical and industrial fields that require timely transport of radionuclides, we will have to grasp these complexity and training issues expeditiously.
10. THE END-USER’S VIEWPOINT
Pilots see themselves as goalkeepers, the last line of defence in the safety team. We have to trust the other team members and trust in the system as a whole. Confidence in that system has been shaken by recent events, which is why I now sit behind a bullet-proof door and why some US pilots are armed.
With regard to the transport of dangerous goods, if there is any ambiguity or error in the paperwork that is presented to the pilot prior to departure, he will always take the safest option, which is to offload the cargo in question.
11. CONCLUSION
We have come a long way in aviation, as indeed has the nuclear industry.
Much remains to be done. The complexity issue, security, training, benefit analysis are all areas that need to be addressed and very soon.
It is unlikely that the next 100 years will see as much change as the past 100, but we must try to look forward, to imagine how the regulations will be seen in 2103.
With the dramatic advances that we have made, increasingly complex systems can actually be made simple for the end-user, the pilot. I implore the IAEA, for the sake of the pilots, to keep the regulations simple.
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