Originally Posted by
matt_hooks
And Moggiee.......can you honestly say that you would not be prone to making exactly the same mistakes as the crew at Kegworth did, given the information that they had, and the incorrect technical detail that they had been given?
Yes I firmly believe that I can - because I was trained to:
1) Not change the roles of the pilots (PF/PNF) in the middle of an emergency,
2) to use engine instrumentation to identify which engine has failed/partially failed rather than intangibles such as smoke and noise and
3) make full use of my cabin crew as eyes and ears down the back.
By recognising the fact that the crew rushed a decision and did NOT make full use of the instrumentation which (for all its design faults) was showing FOUR separate abnormal indications for a problem on the left engine, we can learn that the methodical approach to diagnosis brings a greater chance of a correct diagnosis. This is not pointing the finger of blame so much as identifying causes for the accident.
By the way, as well as the previously mentioned incident I have had 3 other engine failures, one RTO, smoke in the cabin/flightdeck, hydraulic failures, gear problems etc. None of these were mis-identified because we took our time and used the available information to identify the problems. The Kegworth crew used one piece of erroneous information (airconditioning design) in place of
FOUR engine indications to identify which engine was giving trouble.
Engine problems should be identified by using engine instruments as a start point, not last resort. It's not that difficult a concept to take on board, I don't think. You only get one chance to "get it right first time".
For the previous posters:
The crew did the "Engine failure and shutdown" checklist because there was no "Fire" and at that time the QRH did not contain a "High Vibration" checklist.
ZORST Re: MCC - yes there ARE tangible benefits. Airlines that I have dealt with have reported lower training costs on type ratings with
WELL TRAINED MCC graduates than they experienced before MCC came along. There are bad MCC courses and good MCC courses - just as there are good and bad examples of
ALL courses.
Several of my colleagues from the FTO at which I work have moved on from PPL instructing to joining large airlines and feedback from them says that they felt that the MCC course they did gave them a biog leg up (not least because they were already familiar with an SOP that had 95%+ commonality with the one at the airline they joined).
When I did my first multi-crew TR I had no CRM or MCC training - and found that whilst the transition to a 4 jet airliner was a piece of cake on the flying front, the multi-crew relationship was a different kettle of fish. Having seen MCC graduates at work, I can see the benefits.
Still, that's digressing from the point of the thread.