Loss of Control In Flight (LOC-I) – Time to Re-define?

Loss of Control In Flight (LOC-I) has been the primary fatal accident category for all sectors of aviation and all types of aircraft, around the world for the past 55 years. Although accident rates for commercial jets have decreased from 11 fatal accidents per million departures in 1960 to less than 0.3 in 2015, LOC-I continues to dominate the statistics. Highly publicised accidents such as Air France 447, which crashed into the Atlantic Ocean during a flight from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to Paris, France in 2009, have raised public awareness of LOC-I. This and other tragic high profile LOC-I events, have motivated aircraft manufacturers, pilot training organisations, flight simulator manufacturers, research institutions and regulators to intervene. Before intervention, a clear definition of the problem is required. Current definitions are limited to non-recoverable events and the majority of previous studies have concentrated on fatal events only. This is a missed opportunity where lessons maybe learned from near misses and recorded flight data to enhance prevention and recovery strategies. This paper presents a revised definition of LOC-I considering it as a recoverable event encompassing prevention and recovery factors.