CAA a dereliction of duty
Long before a lot of the people on this forum can remember a BEA Trident crashed shortly after leaving LHR, the result of the inquiry into the accident was the basis for a lot of the CRM training that we now regularly receive in the airline industry.
One of the key factors in this accident was that the aircraft captain had been involved in a very heated argument just before leaving the crew room and this was undoubtedly a factor in the chain of events that resulted in this accident.
This was a classic CRM situation and Chirp was set up (funded by the CAA) to highlight CRM issues and help prevent the CRM related accidents.
Disputes with the worst elements of security staff who seem to invent pointless rules and are using the little power they possess to its full extent are as best disruptive and can be very stressful when it is clear that his is all part of some sort of game for the amusement of the security staff.
It is clear that the knee jerk reaction from security to any dispute with them is the sanction of removing the individuals airside pass and along with the pressure from the company to get he job done on time.
On one hand the individual can be instantly out of work with no formal form of redress and on the other hand they are likely to have at the very least a "hats on" interview with the management. This is a classic case when confidential reporting is necessary.
What I can't understand is why the CAA repeatedly pretends that this problem with UK security is not a flight safety issue and continues to ignore the advice form a respected independent body that the CAA is its self funding?
I can only conclude that the CAA is failing in it's duty of care to the traveling public and to those of us that they have issued licences to by not being active in addressing this problem.
The only question that is as yet unanswered is what size disaster do we have to have before the CAA re-learns one of the lessons of the BEA Trident crash?
Last edited by A and C; 5th August 2008 at 11:14.