DAY 2….Groundschool
Situational Awareness. I can remember that breaking down a few times during the IR! Well, it’s about slightly more than wondering where the hell you are in a hold! This was immediately brought when we watched a video on the now infamous incident involving the American Airlines 757 that crashed into high terrain at Cali in South America. It is a shocking incident demonstrating non-existent CRM, poor Situational Awareness and a complete breakdown of the SHELL model. One thing I learned about flying is that you need to be ahead of the game. Thinking about what’s ahead and as our lecturer said, ‘NEVER FLY SOMEWHERE THAT YOU’RE BRAIN HASN’T BEEN BEFORE.’ In a multi-crew aircraft there is another person that must be kept in this ‘loop.’ You must work together effectively at all times. Well, this didn’t happen at Cali and a lot of people died as a result. Very thought provoking stuff.
With Situational Awareness in mind, the rest of the day was devoted to Event Management, Communications and Decision Making in the context of a Muli-Crew. One thing that I would say is that this all makes total sense when you speak about it in a classroom. You wonder why previous events like Cali, Tenerife or the L1011 that crashed into the Florida Everglades were ever allowed to happen? However it is easy to see why, especially when you get into a real life muli-crew operating environmet, as I did in the MCC. With all our previous experience as single crew pilots, we effectively live and die by our own decisions. In a multi-crew situation, especially when you are ‘up against it,’ it is very easy to revert into ‘single pilot’ mode. You then immediately take the second person out of the equation. This is a big No No when it comes to multi-crew flying and CRM and is how disasters happen. It’s something that I really took away with me when the course had came to an end.