Stall warnings in high capacity aircraft: The Australian context 2008 to 2012

Ownership of intellectual property rights in this publication Unless otherwise noted, copyright (and any other intellectual property rights, if any) in this publication is owned by the Commonwealth of Australia. Creative Commons licence With the exception of the Coat of Arms, ATSB logo, and photos and graphics in which a third party holds copyright, this publication is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Australia licence. Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Australia Licence is a standard form license agreement that allows you to copy, distribute, transmit and adapt this publication provided that you attribute the work. The ATSB's preference is that you attribute this publication (and any material sourced from it) using the following wording: Source: Australian Transport Safety Bureau Copyright in material obtained from other agencies, private individuals or organisations, belongs to those agencies, individuals or organisations. Where you want to use their material you will need to contact them directly. Why the ATSB did this research Stall warning events have always been an area of interest for airlines and aviation safety investigators as they indicate that an aircraft is operating at the margins of safe flight. As these occurrences are reportable to the ATSB, the ATSB can analyse trends across airlines and Australia. By publishing such analysis, it is hoped that the wider aviation industry will be able to learn from the experience of others. A review of 245 stall warnings and stall warning system events reported to the ATSB over a 5– year period showed that almost all were low risk events which were momentary in duration, and were responded to promptly and effectively by the flight crew to ensure positive control of the aircraft was maintained. No occurrences resulted in a stall or an irrecoverable loss of aircraft control, and only a few were associated with minor injuries to passengers or crew (generally those that occurred in severe turbulence) or a temporary control issue. About 70 per cent of stall warnings reported to the ATSB were genuine warnings of an approaching stall, with the remainder being stall warning system problems. In only a minority of cases were system problems reported that resulted in false or spurious stall warnings such as a stick shaker activation. Stall warnings (and in particular stick shaker activations) were well reported by Australian air transport operators, and occurred in a range of flight phases and aircraft configurations, not exclusively those related to low …