What would you do?

[SASless]

One day your Safety Officer walks into your office and tells you "statistically we are do for a fatal accident." He predicates his statement upon the historical fleet average hours between fatal crashes. You have aircraft in forty-five locations consisting of a mix of VFR Single Engine Aircraft and IFR multi-engine aircraft.

As the Managing Director, what do you do?

[Whirlygig]

Firstly, I would correct his English and explain that the word is "due" and secondly, I would explain statistics and probability to him! :}

If I roll a die three times and get sixes each time, what is the probability of me getting a six on the fourth roll?

Assuming I'm running a tight ship anyway (all maintenance and training up to date etc), and that the operation has been accident-free for the last x numbers of years, I would ensure that complacency doesn't set in and that standards are maintained.

Cheers

Whirls

[heliski22]

Sick Leave or early retirement come to mind..........:)

[Ready2Fly]

1. Hire somebody so that i can blame him/her in case all turns down into pieces.
OR
2. Sell the company before that day comes
OR
3. Read a book to get even more up to speed on statistics, have a word with the training director / CP to check where we are in terms of standards _and_ following them and make sure all company regulations are in place and everybody in charge lives them to the standard required. If somebody does not comply (because he/she knows all better then anybody else), discuss it 1:1 and get rid of that person if they refuse to follow as long as your history is clean.
AND
4. Discuss the principles of statistics with your safety director (but make sure you got the basics from that damn book first, at least if he did).

[jolly girl]

Why do you ask?

If I was a manager, I would find this statement melodramatic and (personally) question my safety manager’s motives.

My response to these statements would be to sit my safety manager down and discuss the following:

What data is driving this statement?
What have we identified as the biggest contributors to these events?
What data/methods did you use to identify these risks/threats?
What is our current exposure to these risks/threats?
What mitigation have we implemented to reduce exposure to these risks?
Are there additional forms of mitigation/elimination we have yet to implement?
Which aircraft/locations do you feel are at the biggest risk?
What is it about these aircraft/locations that increase our exposure?
Is there anything we can do to minimize/mitigate exposure in these specific locations? Show me the data driving these statements.

[SASless]

Whirls,

The existing company stats were based upon past occurrences which still resulted despite training, standards, etc meeting all requirements legal and administrative. The Safety guy has a point.....by risk analysis his numbers are correct...they are at the number of hours where an accident should be expected. The training guy and CP say they have met all the requirements, engineering says nothing is amiss in his shop. Yet the forecast remains.

If you average one fatal accident per year and it is thirteen months since the last one....would not even a bean counter sense the other shoe is waiting to fall?

You are a numbers cruncher among your many talents (plucking a Banjo not being one of them I hear), statistical sampling has a place in forecasting events within a business as evidenced by the use of Actuaries by insurance companies.

Should the MD take overt action or merely cross his fingers, stroke his rabbit foot, and whistle in the dark?

[Whirlygig]

If you average one fatal accident per year and it is thirteen months since the last one....
That works for finance as funds accrued or prepaid for an "expected" financial disaster can always be released if pending financial disaster does not occur. However, just because a previous average has been one accident per year, does not mean that the 31st December is a dodgy day on which to go flying.

What caused these accidents? They may have been one a year but were they all in, say, May? Was there a common factor?

I once heard (although I suspect it was an apocryphal tale) that the French Government realised that more schoolchildren were in killed in coaches in July than in any other month. So they made it illegal for schoolchildren to ride in a coach in July!!!

Cheers

Whirls




PS - Oi, I have a banjo gig tomorrow night so there :p

[the beater]

I'd try to teach him something about probability and then force him to eat a copy of 'Rozencrantz and Guildenstern are dead'. :ok:

[chop_chop]

If the organisation had taken no action following the previous events, then you may reasonably expect another event in the near future (or not - that's probability for you!). But it's highly likely that each event was followed by an investigation and changes to procedures - therefore making a recurrence much less likely.

[leopold bloom]

Increase your insurance?:confused:

[Whirlygig]

Increase your insurance?:confused:

Now THAT's an accountant's answer!!! :}

Cheers

Whirls

[Senior Pilot]

One day your Safety Officer walks into your office and tells you "statistically we are do for a fatal accident." He predicates his statement upon the historical fleet average hours between fatal crashes. You have aircraft in forty-five locations consisting of a mix of VFR Single Engine Aircraft and IFR multi-engine aircraft.

As the Managing Director, what do you do?

Ask him why people continue to fly aboard Qantas aircraft?

;)

[SASless]

SP,

The question would be more along the lines of what are the folks in OZ doing right that every other airline appears to not be doing right that facilitates the Qantas safety record?

[Ioan]

The Safety guy has a point.....by risk analysis his numbers are correct...they are at the number of hours where an accident should be expected. The training guy and CP say they have met all the requirements, engineering says nothing is amiss in his shop. Yet the forecast remains.

Interesting thread this. Especially since from a personal perspective, being at near 300 hours TT I'm pretty well smack bang in the 'killing zone'.

A couple statistics however direct from the police driver's handbook which give pause for thought:
*if you have had an accident in one three-year period you are twice as likely to have another accident in the next three years
*if you have had an accident for which you could be held at least partly responsible, you are four times more likely to have a similar accident in the next year

... Drivers tend to repeat the type of accidents they have. if you have hit another vehicle from behind you are twice as likely as the average driver to do so again

I can only hazard a guess but I think it's likely that the same is true for aviation, do a small number of pilots account for a significantly larger number of accidents? Perhaps pilots who're happy accepting higher levels of risk, or pilots who don't learn from their mistakes? If so, conversely if you've gone a long period without having an accident it's likely you and others (eg engineering) are getting things right.

Also... yeah your Safety Officer could do with a lesson in basic stats; excluding factors such as complacency through familiarity, the probability of you having a fatal accident on your next flight is likely very similar to the probability of you having a fatal accident on the last few... since you've obviously survived this long I wouldn't lose too much sleep over it!! :ok:

[west lakes]

meeting all requirements legal and administrative.

And thereby, from a safety point of view perhaps, hangs the tail. I'm sure that in the case of previous incidents the above was true
So what has been done to get out of the "minimum" requirements
What has been done to, possibly, exceed the minimum

If nothing well??

If the organisation had taken no action following the previous events

Just a word of interest. many folks on these threads seem to be against the ideas of Health & Safety and are happy to blame it for some of their woes!!
Consider this, most of the AirLaw, SOP's etc you operate to were formulated as a result of accidents & exist for your Health & Safety when flying, so whats the problem on the ground??
I have been involved with H & S for years and take the view that it is there to ensure myself & my colleagues go home in the same "condition" we arrived at work in try that thought sometime!

[Whirlygig]

Westie, I don't think anyone really has anything against Health & Safety per se but maybe they do have something against the manner in which it is implemented; certainly, I doubt anyone would blame it fpr their "woes"!!!

H&S in my office means we can't have kettles but have to use a water boiler attached to the kitchen wall. Fair enough you may think, but it has
been installed over a stainless steel draining board which means that any boiling water which drips onto it can bounce up to arm height!!! The same implementation which said I couldn't have my handbag by the side of my desk whilst not repairing the loose floorboards at the side!!!

However. statistics, probability and expectation theories can produce any "result" you want!!!

Cheers

Whirls


Anyway, what are you doing here!!!????

[Freewheel]

Cut the brakes on the safety officer's company car.

2 problems solved!

[havoc]

If you dont believe in stats then how about this approach:

The Safety guy walks in and hands you a paper with the following:

"The next aircraft accident for our company will be a ________________ involving (pilot) ______________."

Interesting this was given to us in an air assault unit. Since you know your peers, you may know who is at risk, weak aviator, hot dog...etc. If your name came up, the Safety guy pulled you aside, to make you aware of concerns and hopefully a chance to change it.


What data is driving this statement?
What have we identified as the biggest contributors to these events?
What data/methods did you use to identify these risks/threats?
What is our current exposure to these risks/threats?
What mitigation have we implemented to reduce exposure to these risks?
Are there additional forms of mitigation/elimination we have yet to implement?
Which aircraft/locations do you feel are at the biggest risk?
What is it about these aircraft/locations that increase our exposure?
Is there anything we can do to minimize/mitigate exposure in these specific locations?

One source is data gathered from reports submitted from the bases (EMS company). You still would have flawed data in the reporting because someone will not submit a report if they feel it will be used against them later, not worth reporting or "better not say anything, self protection". Worst case nothing will change.

[What Limits]

Our last accident was two years ago.

Before that we had one or two per year.

We do not expect to have another.

Perhaps we are doing the right thing by ignoring the statisticians !!

[Whirlygig]

If you dont believe in stats then how about this approach:

The Safety guy walks in and hands you a paper with the following:

"The next aircraft accident for our company will be a ________________ involving (pilot) ______________."

Then I'd have employed the seventh son of the seventh son of Gypsy Rose Lee!!!!

Or, as in the case of the French Government, I'd sack the pilot and sell the aircraft; that way, I would know I'd never have another accident!!!

Cheers

Whirls

[helicfii]

I would eat a ham sandwich.

[Shawn Coyle]

An interesting question indeed.
I'm reminded of the story about an Air Force base commander who was told that they never had an accident on the Thursday. Thursday also happened to be the day the base had it's practice crash practice. So the base commander decided they would have crash practice every day....
Seriously, I like the question for which pilot is going to have the crash. Answers to that one would be most revealing as the rest of the crew ought to have some idea of who was going to screw up and possibly even why.
But that data would be incredibly dangerous - if an accident did happen involving the named pilot, the lawsuits would never stop!

[SilsoeSid]

One day your Safety Officer walks into your office and tells you "statistically we are due for a fatal accident."

As the Managing Director, what do you do?


Tell him to go away for a coffe and think about the last word in his statement.

On his return, before he has chance to come back with a smart answer, ask him if all the companys CRM training and records are up to date.

Ignoring his smart answer to your initial request, and assuming that all the training & records and the companys incident & accident SOP are up to date, have an early stack, perhaps even call a company BBQ!


By these moves, you have taken all reasonable action to avoid an accident and ensured records are up to date for the inevitable post 'incident' investigation.

If nothing actually happens, at worst everything is up to date in the companys safety dept and you would appear to be a good, social, employee friendly kind of boss.


Problem is though, the fatal accident will now statistically happen to someone on the way home, pii$$ed after the BBQ :\

[topendtorque]

Especially since from a personal perspective, being at near 300 hours TT I'm pretty well smack bang in the 'killing zone'.



No you're not, it may be surprising to you, and others, that in the rotary world the worst area is 900 to 1200 hours. I.E. at the area that you have learnt to manipulate the aircraft very well, and, think that at the same time you are Gods gift to the rotary industry.

The fixed wing industry talk about the Three hundred hour threshold as something akin the bridal threshold, but, if you have a head on you at all, you should be juuuuust starting to think - now -- what is it that I don't know about the mothers'? At about two thousand hours you should be starting to think,- now -- I think I know what it is that I have to learn.

That is of course if you are lucky enough to be in an area of the industry where you are constantly being challenged by ALL of the problems of low level manipulative peril.

If of course you are in an area where you simply fly in straight lines, then you may blissfully sail on blissfully unaware of statistics or their breeding ground, blissfully protected by the modern engineering that we all skite about, you know engines that go forever, etc.

Which brings me back to the original rhetorical, of course there are statistics, more statistics and at the end - damm lies.

Obviously the first answer to Sasless' question is that the saftey office missed his calling and knows nothing about rotary pilots.

As we all know, or should do, of course there IS going to be an accident soon, as we are rheumy eyed introverts by nature and become more disposessed of the idea of 'no pain' by the longer the accident of history has failed to record an accident.

The real answer to the d***head is --, we know that, now f*** off and if we have one tomorrow then we will blame you. By the way is your third party liability up to date.

[jolly girl]

Havoc –
You are correct, there is a certain element of reporting error in internal self-reports. But the safety manager should be looking for clues both internally and externally and not relying solely on internal metrics.

SAS –
The more I think about your question the more I feel your “safety manager” is playing the victim.

As you well know, the HEMS industry is in crisis – HEMS pilot is currently the most hazardous profession in the US and ER doctors are advocating against the use of HEMS except in cases of suspected brain injury. Every time another twisted Lifeguard flight is shown on the news the perception of HEMS, and in fact the entire helicopter industry is degraded. To perform effectively, a manager needs to understand the threats/risks/costs involved in all aspects of an operation; if my safety manager came to me with this statement I would wonder where they have been for the last year, what they have been doing and why they are keeping secrets from me.

I think a better strategy for your manager would have been for him/her to the Managing Director 12 months prior, made a case that fatal accidents are the largest unpredictable and unnecessary cost to the company, and explain that the steady recurrence of accidents is a threat to future business (including examples of direct costs (replacement costs, insurance premiums, litigation) and an estimate of indirect costs (turnover, loss of future revenue). This would be followed by a plan to determine the threats to safety at the operation (analysis of internal/external incidents/accidents using some standardized system such as SHEL-L or HFACS; if you are a HEMS operator, Burt Boquet has already done this work for you) and then a method to review the findings and develop strategies to eliminate/mitigate the biggest threats/risks. These plans would include both costs and quantitative measures to compare against, so during quarterly (monthly?) reviews of these efforts Safety can demonstrate to Management the effectiveness of their efforts. One fatal every thirteen months is pretty harsh; in this example it should be pretty easy to make a business case for safety. If your manager doesn’t do it, it’s only a matter of time before plaintiff’s attorneys does the work for him.

[griffothefog]

SaS,
I know your question was from a director/managers response... but from a pilots point of veiw, if you try and nick my mojo..f**ck off would be my first response. I do not need some asshole reading my cards :eek:
I would fire his arse....................:ok:

[cyclicmicky]

One day your Safety Officer walks into your office and tells you "statistically we are due for a fatal accident."

As the Managing Director, what do you do?


Take him somewhere quiet and beat the **** out of him for believing such ****e, and being stupid enough to approach the MD with his statistical bull****:= ...even Churchill knew statistics are a pile of crap propagated by imbeciles.
How did it go...lies, damned lies and statistics...something along those lines.

You make your own safety...nobody can do it for you.

[FairWeatherFlyer]

even Churchill knew statistics are a pile of crap propagated by imbeciles.

I was never a history scholar, but distant memories from fellow students and their discussions on OR at college suggest that this may not be an accurate depiction of Churchill's stance, assuming we are talking about the same Sir Winston dude?

http://books.google.co.uk/books?q=history+operational+research+churchill+try+slide+rul e&btnG=Search+Books

(I think he was a bit of a fan of the Ultra decrypts too.)

[Helipolarbear]

Hey SASLESS......You need to sit down and have a long chat with Yerself!!!!:}

[NickLappos]

SASless,

The statement he made proves that the safety officer needs to be fired because he is too stupid.

Anyone who understands statistics (that means most of the ppruners below are disqualified) knows that there is no such logic as "statistically, we are due for an accident."

Why? Suppose you tossed a coin that 50 times, and it came up heads 50 times. Is the coin "statistically due" for coming up tails? Absolutely no, since each toss has the same odds (50 - 50) as any other toss.

Another way to see it is to ask the coin where its memory is, the memory that knows how it landed the last 50 times. THE COIN HAS NO MECHANISM TO RECALL WHAT IT DID IN THE PAST. Only humans try to connect the past with the future in that way.

Similarly, the fool/safety officer should know, the actions his crews are taking are succeeding, since they are not having accidents.

[topendtorque]

Statistics are used by most rather as a drunk would use a streetlight...

more for support than for the illumination it gives

True to, or, too true.

Me, I'd rather colour my statistics with the harsh light of experience,
rather than have it illuminated by anything one might see under a dim street light.

[Ioan]

it may be surprising to you, and others, that in the rotary world the worst area is 900 to 1200 hours. I.E. at the area that you have learnt to manipulate the aircraft very well, and, think that at the same time you are Gods gift to the rotary industry.

Interesting, goes to prove you shouldn't make assumptions.

But... damn... still 900 hours 'til divinity then :sad::sad:

;)

[PatMcgroin]

I would attempt to put my wife on as many flights as possible!:E

[SASless]

Ioan.....do remember there are deviations from statistical data....one can become a data point at any time.

[[email protected]]

Sasless - I think the answer lies in your second post - 'the training guy says they have met all the requirements and engineering says his part of shop is all in order.'

Meeting requirements by ticking boxes a la Health and safety fiasco does not guarantee safety, only covers your ass against prosecution. I have to do an hour a month IF - I can satisfy the requirement by bimbling around the sky with the holds and stab in or I can exercise my IF skills by doing it all stab out with hard exercises dictated by the co-pilot - which is most likely to help me avoid an accident when IIMC?

Any engineering manager who can sit back and say everything is OK is clearly not in touch with the front-line of his engineering empire - there are always issues that need resolving and never enough money/time to do things as well as humanly possible.

If the attitudes you portray really are from an Oz airline then the safety guy is probably correct in his assessment since the management seems complacent because they have merely covered their backsides by meeting legal minimum requirements.

If I was MD I would make sure I visited all the locations, incognito if possible, to see for myself what was actually going on at the coal face.

[heli1]

Do what I do ...always carry a piece of a wrecked helicopter on board....the statistics for a crash happening under this circumstance is virtually zero..and if it does happen you will have the pleasure of knowing that the AIB will be totally foxed !!

[Geoffersincornwall]

The philosophy of using regulatory standards as a reference for your operarting standards has, unfortunately, one large hole in it! The normal way life goes is that despite our best efforts we occasionally fail to meet or targets consistantly. Sometimes we do well and sometimes we fall short. If the Regs are your template then falling short means busting the Regs. As these regulations are frequently the Lowest Acceptable Standard then busting them takes us into territory which is not only non-compliant but also double-dodgy.

Through the auspices of an effective Safety Management System and a well written Ops Manual it is possible to define higher standards than those specified in the Regs and thereby protect the operation from those 'WHOOPSSSS!!!' days when things go awry. All it takes is ........

The will .......
The money ......
and
The will to spend the money.

Now we are sorting the would-be-heli-ops-manager-boys from the men.

As Whirly says, if you think spending money on a pucka set-up is expensive, try having an accident. It could set your oil company client back between 100 and 150 million bucks and you would pick up a sizeable bill too.

G

:ok:

[Brian Abraham]

the actions his crews are taking are succeeding, since they are not having accidents.
Flew for quite some time for an organisation who saw rules, regulations etc as an impediment to getting the job done. The fact that they had never had an accident in nearly thirty years of operation had management believing that there was no need to do anything to address the shortcomings. In that time of course there were a number of extremely close calls, mostly near CFIT events (Nicks favourite) which arose principally from a VFR operation operating in IMC. A veil of secrecy always descended around any such event so that upper management remained in the dark, and of course no documentation of such incidents was ever made.