Government crash tests

Movies of crashes

The government and NASA have for over 40 years performed airplane crash tests. The reason that they do this is to improve the safety of airplanes. Scientists at NASA say, "Right now there are less than two accidents per million flights, but if air traffic triples as predicted within the next 20 years, even today's low rate will be unacceptable."

The way NASA performs the crash tests are by taking beat up airplanes, and putting sensors, cameras, and other machines into the airplanes so the scientists can examine the crashes.

In the 50's they took old World War II planes that were so beat up that they flew them to the crash site with the doors open incase the pilots needed to jump. Then they paint the airplane white and dye the fuel red, for easier photography. The planes are controlled by a remote control so scientists can have control of the airplane without having to be inside of the airplane.

Most of all the scientists are looking to prevent fires. They did this by switching from piston engines to turbojets. Then they designed an inerting system, which means that they put 50 holes into the engine for a spray system. Other improvements from crash tests are better restraining harnesses for passengers, design of seats to reduce impact forces, and lightning hazards.

By 2,007 NASA is expecting to lower aircraft accident rate by 5%, and by 2022 they are expecting to lower it by 10%.

Information taken from www.nasa.gov