It’s not just about having good SOPs, it’s about compliance and the cultural acceptance of non compliance. It’s all very well for the company to produce perfect Ops Manuals and perfect training in the simulator but if there is a general acceptance of, and by crews to informally adopt “I know a better way of doing this” routines, it leads to the slippery slope downwards. Compliance requires good, sensible and workable SOPs and good monitoring on a day to day basis. It also requires a high level of training, not just technical but also cultural, to ensure good compliance. The number of organisational changes and economic pressures on some North Sea helicopter operators had caused a degradation of standards and standards monitoring which allowed a significant amount of SOP variations to the point when all the holes lined up and the accident occurred.
Last edited by roundwego; 22nd Oct 2020 at 21:06.