Back to Square One
Well we all agree to formal training of the operations staff and in my company it was done in house with sub contractors being hired to fill in where applicable.....all was carried out with full CAA approval,
CM...I continue to support you on this issue of decision making...ultimately you are live with the action and the only one who can look out and see exactly what is what......obviously if ops make recommendations to you based on their own knowledge with the bigger picture in mind then as you rightfully have stated you can still overide this in the interest of a/c and pax safety.....etc
It is rather sad that in the event an accident occurs you can say with great confidence that the Captain will be guilty until proven guilty!!!!!!!!! I have witnessed many many incidents where senior management and other third parties duck for cover under such a situation......how many of our experts have witnessed a disaster and had to deal with the aftermath?
This also raises another issue......how many of our followers out there can tell me the implications of two senior Captains flying together when not on a training flight....maybe one of our more qualified dispatchers could answer this question?
Maybe this should be in another thread but its good to have the practical background of our followers as opposed to the theoretical ones. More food for thought I would like to mention being a SAR Coordinator was in regards to a major incident in Bass Strait Australia some time ago......An a/c ditched and one of the crew survived the initial impact and activated his beacon.
The qualified fully licenced CAA experts then initiated procedures as per their manuals for such emergencies and a fiasco of untold proportions commenced.
They followed their training and their manuals by the book....in the meantime a passing Ansett a/c picked up the beacon and circled the survivor...he actually waved at them. after many hours of Bureaucratic b... s... the Ansett a/c had to leave location due to fuel remaining.....by the time a search a/c (Fixed wing and Helicopter) was located the poor chap disappeared below the waves.
Now we come back to how red tape procedures can sometimes cripple what should have been a routine remedy.......because of CAA training they had to follow procedures and didnt use their own initiatives.....everyone knew that the adjacent Oil & Gas offshore field was supported by many choppers and the CAA didnt attempt to call upon any of the bases that scattered the coast.
The purpose of this story is to explain that no matter how formal or informal you want to make aviation it still take a senior operations man to take things by the horns and fix the problem or the captain flying his a/c.....no book can resolve such issues just your own experience and the fact that you are there in situ and know the true situation.....I have seen so many people die for no reason at all in both the Military and Civil Aviation so once again...if we here have a good system why change it....by all means put Jo Bloggs on a course or whatever and then leave it up to the CAA to vet each airline, which is what they do anyway.....no doubt this will stir up a few brain cells!!??
Peter