Arnold SAFETY Consulting Disasters Don’t Just Happen
GOVERNMENT REGULATIONS Eric Arnold, President of Arnold Safety In the fog, Captain van Zant could not see the Pan Am jet. He was
Eric Arnold, President of Arnold Safety Consulting, Inc. is a former U.S. Department of Transportation agent, with over 33 years regulatory and transportation compliance experience, and has been an OABA member for the past 20 years. His column will appear periodically in Showtime magazine. As part of your OABA dues, Mr. Arnold is available for free consultations regarding the FMCSA rules and regulations.
All the rules and regulations in the world will not prevent accidents without common sense and awareness of basic safety principles. As stated by the National Geographic documentary series Seconds From Disaster, “Disasters don’t just happen. They are a chain of critical events.” You can substitute the word “accidents” for “disasters”. There is really no difference between a disaster and an accident except frequency and the amount of damage. A few years ago, my wife’s cousin went to work at his place of
employment, which was a restaurant. He fell in the kitchen, hit his head, and ended up dead within 48 hours. While it didn’t make the newspapers, it certainly was a disaster for our family. I’m sure my cousin-in-law didn’t think a disaster would befall him while working at a restaurant, but a chain of critical events can happen anytime, anywhere, especially if you don’t expect it. These critical events leading to disaster often involve hastiness. Benjamin Franklin once famously said, “Haste makes waste.” Often, haste is caused in one way or another by money. Finally, hubris is another common factor. Most people never expect a disaster. Here are four (4) famous disasters and their root causes.
THE TITANIC It has been said you can go to any corner of the globe, and the
being warned of ice in their area, the captain was running at full speed to establish an impressive cross-Atlantic speed for Titanic’s maiden voyage. The Titanic was widely regarded as ‘unsinkable,’ in perhaps the most famous example of ‘it can’t happen here.’
TENERIFE AIRPORT DISASTER On March 27, 1977, two 747 passenger jets collided on the
runway of Los Rodeos Airport on the Spanish island of Tenerife. These jets were diverted, along with numerous other planes, to Los Rodeos because their intended destination airport, Gran Canaria Airport was closed due to terrorist activity. In addition to the small was enveloped by a thick fog. One of the jumbo jets was a Dutch KLM plane piloted by Jacob
Veldhuyzen van Zanten. The KLM plane had taxied to the head of the
KLM to hold its position, as another jumbo jet, operated by Pan Am, was taxiing on the same runway. This would never happen at a major airport, but Los Rodeos was not designed for modern jumbo jets and was only being used due to the emergency at Gran Canaria airport.
16 OABA ShowTime Magazine • NOVEMBER 2024
anxious to get airborne. If he didn’t take off soon, the airport could be closed due to the fog, meaning he would have to spend the night in Tenerife with a planeload of unhappy passengers. After waiting a few moments, van Zant lost his patience. He assumed the Pan Am jet
he threw his throttles all the way forward into takeoff position and raced down the runway. Unfortunately, the Pan Am jet had not cleared the runway. The
mph, sending the KLM jet cartwheeling down the runway. All aboard the KLM were killed. Most aboard the Pan Am were killed. Altogether
history. Van Zant’s haste was the primary cause.
DEEPWATER HORIZON On April 20, 2010, the offshore drilling rig, Deepwater Horizon
exploded. It failed to properly cap a well it had drilled, with the result
killing (11) eleven. In addition, it caused a massive oil spill into the Gulf of Mexico. The rig had suffered numerous delays in drilling the Macondo
well. British Petroleum (BP) was eager to cap the well, and move
well, then move, often hundreds of miles away under its own power
capping the Macondo well, the Horizon crew were getting mixed test results as to whether the well was stable. Ultimately, they concluded the well was stable, largely because they desperately wanted it to be stable. It was not. Instead of being stable, it exploded. The primary cause of the disaster was shoddy maintenance on the Horizon and
AMERICAN AIRLINES FLIGHT 191 completely fall off the airplane while taking off at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport. The plane banked in a sharp, uncontrolled turn, crashing into a trailer park, killing 273 persons. It remains the worst aviation disaster in United States history. It was caused by American Airlines cutting corners in maintenance.
Investigators discovered when American serviced the engines on its
man-hours of work. Rather than dissembling and servicing the engines piece by piece, American was removing the entire assembled engine unit from the wing and supporting it with a forklift. While saving time and money, it occasionally had the unintended consequence of damaging the mounting bracket connecting the engine unit to the wing, which is what happened to Flight 191. The damaged bracket gave way under the stress of takeoff, which caused the entire engine to shear off the wing.
Remember to ask yourself the next time you are event leading to a disaster?”
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