Quincy Document

I found a very important document from the quincy accident:

it is the lock pin schematic for moving forward with my first new project.

New Project 2

Another New Project I will be doing is the effects of passenger involvement during takeoff and landing with Live TV not being turned off during critical phases of flight.

I flew jetblue and came up with some interesting thoughts for a new controversial article.

New Project

ARFF Drill at DAB

The drill conducted  was a success. The combined efforts of all emergency responders along with ARFF provided a very realistic and interesting environment that a classroom could never prepare us for. As with all drills, there were things that were outstanding, and things that could use polishing.

Some of the good things were:

·         Operations response time to the incident was amazing. The operations truck got on scene before our last occupant had reached the cone. (Myself and my fellow flight attendant)

·         When EVAC was trying to find the flight attendants, which would make occupant 30 and 31, we let them find us to make it more realistic. People tend to get lost and the number counts change throughout the first hour of the accident.

·         Switching the runway on ARFF was definitely a good idea.  ARFF had staged for our touchdown on Runway 7L, but because due to the severity of the incident onboard, our captain had decided there was no time for ops to clear the disabled aircraft already out on on 7L and we changed runways to runway 16. This challenged ARFF to use taxiways and cross the active runway a few times bringing the communication of ATC into account.

·         It was good we practiced on a regional aircraft, with very close to the amount of passengers who would be on the manifest since the past 7 major fatal accidents have been regional’s.

·         Use of forceful entry tools to get the flight deck occupants out.

Some of the things that needed constructive criticism:

·         Ops needed to take into consideration the isolation of the flight crew more seriously. It is something that may or may not be thought of, but the airline wants their flight attendants and pilots who are not transported to be isolated from the media and other sources of outside information. Since DAB was an out station for Oceania, the airline would not be able to take care of this because the airline doesn’t fly here. Ops would have to take us as the flight attendants somewhere to get a dereif by our airline.

·         In another drill, use the forceful entry on the cabin occupants. I understand that the flight crew were dummies and subjected to more smoke then we were, but in the real world lately, the flight deck crew have been at an advantage and the cabin occupants have been the ones needing help. Training of the forceful entry tools on cabin doors instead of making direct cuts into the fuselage may be beneficial.

Since there were more good things recognized, the drill was definitely a success. I can say as one of the flight attendants in this drill that an accident is something you can never truly prepare for. You may get trained, but what needs to happen is you need to fall back on this training. Airlines need to also screen their flight attendants heavily on their ability to perform under operations such as this.  I can attest to the fact that when given real passengers and not trained airline employees to evacuate, it’s not easy. We repeated the instructions several times to them and we still had four or so passengers attempt something completely different that would have endangered themselves or someone else’s life had this been a real accident with fire.

In regards to the post crash environment itself, I can only say you can never prepare yourself or tell yourself its only a drill. The entrapping feeling, the panic, the  smoke, the running, the sirens, the scene itself and seeing a carseat with a baby…I thought I was prepared to deal with this. When I saw the ARFF guy walking towards us with the carseat and the baby doll strapped in, it was a sick feeling even though he was a doll. Being trapped in the simulator in the dark and all you could hear were sirens coming towards you, was a very strange un-welcoming feeling.

The fact that this was a drill disappeared for my fellow flight attendant and I. We were standing together on a real airplane and the 29 other occupants who had survived the impact became our first and only priority.

It was an experience that I wish I could have everyone who flies go through. It was emotional yet educational. I had mixed emotions watching and timing different responses, and as we were “waiting” for them, it felt like a lifetime an how scary that can feel.  It also shows you as the flight crew how important their training is and that they truly need to take a command role in getting their post impact survivors out anyway possible because your response from these services may be delayed when you have an unanticipated impact.

All in all, it is an experience I will never forget, nor would want to. This drill was everything that Alert III stands for, and a true example of what the project is meant to cover. An accident that was a survivable impact for some or all and the occupants need to get out alive.

I thank all my fellow Embry Riddle students who helped out as well as the Daytona State College Students, ARFF personnel, EVAC, DBFD, DAB ops and everyone else who made this drill as successful as it was.

Ground Taxi Safety

GTX is a system that I designed that will help eliminate aircraft from taxing into the wrong position onto a runway that is closed or out of serivce.

The system will consist of an aircraft based system that would allow pilots to determine their position at any time while moving about all operations area, a solar powered ground transceivers mounted at different intervals to relay signals, and an interactive system to be utilized by ground controllers at airports to assign movements to aircraft on all operations areas of the airport.

The system would be a sun pass type box in teh cockpit that will display different LED on a moving blocklight system (Red, Amber, Green)

The goal is to eliminate accidents and runway collisions.