Zonk Air Accident



Zonk Air Accident

[Name of the Writer]

[Name of the Institution]

Zonk Air Accident

Introduction

Air travel industry is a vast industry. Many people make use of this industry to travel daily from one place to another. Air crafts are also largely used to carry the luggage or the cargo from one place to another. Most of the times, the option of traveling by air is opted in case of traveling internationally. Locally, people mostly prefer to travel by their own personal conveyance, via bus or by train.

Considering its heavy utility in the travel industry, there are multiple incidents of accidents and mishaps happening every now and then. Such an instance of the accident took place with an aircraft of Zonk Air after the airplane had just taken off. The air machine was carrying approximately 6 people, four passengers, and two pilots. The details and the major factors that became a cause of this accident have been explained as follows.

Discussion

Whenever there is an accident or incident, regarding any modes of travel, there is somewhere any human factor also involved in it. Whether there is an accident of a small car or a big airplane, there is always a fault of some human involvement in it. Same happened in the case of Zonk Air Accident. There were multiple factors involved in the destruction of Zonk Air Aircraft as well. Some of them were mechanical but most of them were human factors. Some of them have been elaborated below:

Factor 1

The first and foremost human factor was the undertraining of the pilot. As mentioned in the investigation report, the pilot was very undertrained and inexperienced. He did not have sufficient experience to fly a commercial airplane, as he had not tried on his learning over any commercial airplane. It was found after the accident of the aircraft that the pilot had only 1 year of experience, he had almost no flying experience and mostly stayed on the ground.

Moreover, the investigation report clearly states that the pilot had only tried his flying skills over tourist airplanes. He never flew any commercial airplanes. The records and the investigation report clearly states that the pilot was not formally trained in flying a commercial aircraft CITATION SFT \l 1033 (Dillion, 2010). He had very less time in the air and was never properly trained for flying a commercial airplane, and that also for such a big company. He had got his training from a local flying club in Arizona, which was now out of business. Prior to working at Zonk Air, the unlucky pilot has worked for a solar penal company, only flying a light twin for them.

Factor 2

The second and most grave factor was the negligence from the side of the manager or the owner of the airplane. It was found that the aircraft was confiscated from the possession of a smuggler. The airplane once belonged to a smuggler and it was taken from his hanger, after a deadly encounter in which he was killed. The manager or the owner knew from the very moment that the plane has some faults, but he continued to ignore them and kept the airplane going, carrying the passengers.

The level of irresponsibility shown by the manager or the owner of the aircraft can be judged from the fact that he already knew that the plane was faulty, and was having some serious technical issues, but he still ignored it and allowed the airplane to go in the air. According to the investigation report, the pilot already knew10 days prior to the incident that the plane had some serious technical issues. The pilot had noticed that the plane had power loss issues and he also felt some leakages in the form of droplets below the right engine. He tried to explain this to the other line pilot but the information could not be duplicated. The owner was well aware of this fault but he ignored this as he thought that it is just the nature of this aircraft.

Furthermore, the records show that the airplane had undergone a repair just 15 hours before the reported unfortunate mishap. The problem was again in the right engine. It exhibited a “little” seep and the turbo waste engines were also adjusted. The pilot of the unfortunate airplane specifically called the opener or the manager to inform him that there were still small oil drips from the right engine but the owner, as usual took it very casually and told the pilot to carry on with the flight normally as it was a very normal thing with the aircrafts this old. This is not a small issue; the owner should have taken it very seriously and should have immediately grounded the airplane, but he allowed the aircraft to fly, which led to the mishap (Krause, 2003).

Conclusion

In a nutshell, it can be concluded that although the destruction of the Zonk Air aircraft happened due to the combination of many factors which included the technical and human factors both, the major contribution behind this unfortunate accident was of the human factors. If the company, Zonk Air, had hired a more professional and well-trained pilot, the chances of such an accident happening would have been very less. Moreover, there should have been an adequate arrangement for the training of the pilot. In addition to all this, the owner or manager should have taken the warning signs seriously, as the power loss issues and especially the leakage and spill problems, and should have grounded the air machine immediately.

References

BIBLIOGRAPHY \l 1033 Dillion, J. (2010). SFTY 330 – Aircraft Accident Investigation. Worldwide: College of Aeronautics.

Krause, S. S. (2003). Aircraft safety: accident investigations, analyses, and applications (p. 9). New York: McGraw-Hill.