Originally Posted by
portmanteau
Both ATC and pilots are expected to operate without making mistakes regardless of the circumstances.
Originally Posted by
LookingForAJob
Speak to some HF people about the error rate of the typical human, and about TRM/CRM and stuff like that!
Retired-US Center ATC here, longtime lurker. If you want to get a picture of the reality of what LFAJ means, and how things really work, just skip over to the SWA1380 thread and listen to the two live atc recordings on pg 2 linked by mkenig. Several professionals who speak on these recordings make minor or major errors, some of the more significant of which are corrected by others. Many phraseology errors and colloquialisms are ignored by all. How it works is, we all watch each other and listen and correct each others' many errors, on the ground, in the air, and in all radio transmissions. That's what it means to be a group of mistake-prone human beings and do successful work related to the imminent safety of others. Seeing things in this light makes it even harder to guess how CRM was being utilized leading up to the sad US-Bangla crash (RIP and condolences to all those affected), and leads me to wonder if significant incapacitation of flight crew might somehow be involved. Most similar what-are-they-doing-it doesn't-make-sense incidents I observed in my career turned out to have involved incapacitation of one sort or another. Out.