Originally Posted by
Ian W
Or to put it simply all the holes in the cheese matter
In some cases, the cheese also matters.
Aviation is managed by exception. The SMS programs output stats that drive managers to implementing changes to show that some action was undertaken. Each change carries inherent risk of unintended consequences that need to be considered, however if the Max debacle has shown anything, it is that there are limits to current ability to reliably assess consequences of actions, and that state of affairs will continue to be the status quo until we have some level of AI that does not suffer the limits of imagination that humans do. As we are about as good as it gets, not expecting that to happen anytime soon.
Separately, looking back longingly with rose glasses at the past competency does not assure a solution comes from going back to the future... I'm not that sure that the statistics support the fact that hand flying skills trump SA enhancement. I is an easy
The reliance on SMS as outlined in Doc 9859 essentially keeps the industry in a bandaid solution on a mobius strip. The bright point in recent musings has been the fact that Reason is now associated to an extent with Holnagel, and that gives hope that the non linear causation camp of Holnagel will get some traction through the historical importance of Reason's work. I hope to survive long enough to see that implemented, at which time there will be a meaningful change to risk management in the industry. I have quoted Santayana and Burke recently elsewhere, and that is not inconsistent with my concerns with SMS and our risk processes today, We are obliged to look back for comprehension, but the risks of today and tomorrow are not an extrapolation of what happened before, they are altered by our actions, by the changes in the dynamic system we are in, and by Sod's(Murphy's) Law of Quantum Physics.
Separately, I'm not that certain that a longing look back at the past to the age of hand flying really makes up for what is essentially a continued softness in SA maintenance and the lack of SA enhancement training. I think we are about to embark on a questionable "back to the future" policy that will still not resolve the problem that underlies almost all of our events, that of SA failures.