Originally Posted by
megan
...You'll remember the following, why didn't you comply?
The pilot is always going to be the poor bunny who gets stood in front of the firing squad after an accident, because surely after every accident the subsequent inquiry will find he failed to comply with the FOM in some way. And if the same pilot religiously followed the requirements of the FOM and parked the bus a few times because of it then management is not going to be happy about it and he risks being marched out the door with a don't come back Monday letter. That is the reality of the situation, it's a no win.
Some of the FOM I worked under in PNG were so ridiculously onerous there was no way to comply and get the job done. Such as requiring a 10% power margin for all external load jobs, for example. They are written by people who like a lot of words, who like big thick manuals, who have no practical insight to the needless complexities of their own making, etc. When I started agitating about making changes to manuals because what was written was stupid and stopping me from getting the job done it was viewed by management as being a trouble maker. I was happy to do all the legwork to make the changes, but treading on the toes of those in the company who were responsible for producing these rubbish operational documents seriously upsets the apple cart.
In the operation you referred to for sure there were incidents where luck was shining on them. Plenty of other examples. An S76 out of maintenance arriving at Tuna with no oil in the TRGB. But fundamentally I think the operation had such a good safety record for the reasons you mentioned, plus the pilots were all competent and operationally astute. Although I do remember a few closed door Monday morning parades in MM's office after he found out about the occasional weekend shenanigans, stories which had become highly embellished I point out, which might have stretched operational flexibility a bit too far. Especially if a company aircraft had been observed on the Tuna via Sperm Whale Head low level route.