Air traffic experts know that dozens of flights pass in the same sky as your does. But how can it be possible that there are rare collisions between planes while there are airplanes crisscrossing the skies every hour and every day? Readers of Umuseke.com are eager to know how air traffic works.
For instance, in USA in one recent year, air carriers flew 6.8 billion miles and there was an average of only one accident for every 334,448.This shows how safer air traffic can be but countries differs in economic and technical skills that allow them to fly safely.
Now how does it work? What are skills needed for a professional pilot to do that profession. Who are the main actors to control the
safety of aircrafts?
The captain or pilot is the key person responsible for the safe operations of the aircraft. In same occasions where he/she cannot see other airplanes flying around him .Because of these situations, most nations have developed air control systems allowing them to keep track of every phase of flights.
Ground-based workers have responsibilities of ensuring safe spaces between aircrafts to avoid collisions. What all of these mean is that while the pilot is tending to his cockpit duties, there are many ground-based eyes and ears following the flight.
Pilot cockpit
The pilot regularly talks by radio not only to controllers at the departure and the destination airports but also to these at several points in between. All of these is done to monitor what the pilot cannot see yet especially in this age of high-speed aircraft.
Several options for a controller to avoid aircraft collisions.
1. He may choose to instruct the pilot to change heading or direction. This is called vectoring
2. He may direct a change in speed if, for example, one airplane is overtaking another
3. A very common way he may separate aircrafts is by directing a change in altitude.
That is a summarized and a quick study about how aircrafts are monitored to fly safely and anyone who flew with a plane knows that it costs much to travel in plane therefore travelers are happy to know all these efforts are made for the comfort and safety.
Nizeyimana Jean Pierre
UM– USEKE.RW
