Ryanair pilot demoted after incident

[captainpaddy]

Jambo,

I understand your reservations about the effect of management culture on Joe Bloggs flying the line. However, would you agree that there are two main reasons why this guy could have done what he did.

Either he is a plonker with a bad attitude, no concept of CRM, and a monkey level of knowledge that means he can only operate effectively when things go right but inevitably scratches his armpits and makes strange noises when things go wrong. Or.... (or perhaps more realistically - And....)

Company culture filtered down from the top has had an adverse effect on the excess mental capacity of line pilots resulting in decisions that even the pilot himself would agree are ridiculous. Sort of like the idea that when you stretch fifty pieces of metal to their theoretical limits, some will be fine, some will be at breaking point and others will have broken already.

In case one, I blame the Company management while still being reluctant to point at training as I have seen how trainers can be forced to make decisions based on written guidance which is used literally. Monkey though he may be, RYR allowed him access to their equipment.

In case two, I blame the Company management.

It is not enough to say the guy had crap CRM and that's why it happened. Then all walk away and say it was a storm in a tea cup because he's been weeded out now and all is well. While I realise that you can keep going into more detail for ever if you're not careful, why was his CRM crap? And, more importantly, the company is running the risk of using normal line flights to discover which of their pilots are up to the job and which aren't. That's what training and checking is supposed to be for. You will always have a few slip through the loop, but I fear that this could be the first signs of the epidemic. For every public domain, media highlighted, AAIU report there are at least a dozen internally handled cases that the public aren't aware of.