Hola Jolly -
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CRM - a conundrum - is it an understatement...?
I got thrown into the CRM zoology in its early days, the mid-1970s, as I was an instructor for PanAm during a layoff as line pilot. While I was happily making an idiot of myself in classrooms, CPT and simulators, teaching the knowledge of the 707s and 727s to flight crews (who often knew much more than I did myself), a pilot training manager threw a booklet on my desk, called CRM. He asked me to teach something along the lines of that subject. The booklet had been stolen from UAL, apparently they were the precursors of CRM among the USA airlines to try to analyse CRM. I also received a 16mm movie reel coming from Finnair, who apparently were the first in Europe with early forms of the CRM.
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Back then, we dealt with recurrent training of god-captains and cockpit-nazis. PanAm had, being the "world's most experienced airline" was also the "world's most experienced" in notorious crashes of 707s. Most accidents were actually more because of lack of situation awareness, inexistant ATC, and number of CFIT circumstances, not necessarily a lack of CRM.
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CRM came in full bloom with, you cited, the UAL DC8 crash, when running out of fuel and ideas in PDX. Then the FAA started to require actual CRM training. I became "CRM Facilitator" (the instructors do not instruct CRM...!). Parallel to that, the wording SOP became in fashion as well, where crews follow blind, a certain procedure of an emergency check-list failing to understand the consequence of what becomes "inoperative" when i.e. you pull a certain CB, or shut down a valve in the fuel or hydraulic system...
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There are crews whose only concern in life, is to call any sentence in a cockpit as a form of CRM, who sneeze with strict (and blind) SOP, and disregard limitations in name of "superior" airmanship. All that started in the 1980s, got fully implemented in the 1990s, and what do we have now in this new century...? Shall I volunteer to say a lack of certain piloting skills...?
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Being now an outsider, in South America, and ending my pilot career, I laugh or cry to see what happens with the airline crews of the first world. Pardon me to say, I can put a tag on the origin of each crew groups, by their concepts of CRM, SOP and pilot skills or airmanship. And I am personally not exempt of such.
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You do not give a prescription of CRM to pilots. They are born, or not with the CRM aptitudes. An "Initial" CRM course is valid up to a point. CRM should not be a subject of "recurrent classroom training" but merely be a part of simulator training, combined with intelligent use of SOPs tailored to circumstances.
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You will not see South American pilots having CFIT in Colombian mountains, it is the place where North Americans (or Europeans) will run into troubles. African airline pilots know how to handle an airspace devoid of ATC, and the Japanese or other Asians try to figure how to say to their captain that they are "too low" on the ILS without being required to commit hara-kiri.
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The old PanAmigos like myself kept in touch with each other for long when we went to other airlines and we exchanged notes of "how it was like" to give dual of oceanic flights to the Delta "professional" captains, or explaining to a Korean first officer how to make a position report in... is it Engliche...?
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Yes, Jolly Girl, we need some CRM, some amount of SOP, above average aircraft system knowledge (too bad, but I had plenty of that when I learned to fly airlines as a flight engineer prior to be a first officer) and we need, above all good "common sense". Like I mention to many friends, I had to survive captains ex-DC6 who had no idea how to handle a 727 jet, and now my first officer had to give me dual on the FMS while they zap entries on a keyboard that is not "Qwerty" (while I pilot an old 747 which they occasionally fail to do).
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In other terms, my retirement was definitely warranted. I miss my old days with real pilots. By chance, I was able to maintain much of these concepts as a training manager... but now, since they will be an "all Airbus" fleet soon, I can only pass along the good words of wisdom to the few who still respect the past "steam power gages", manual ILS approach and full length runways for takeoff, even flying into MNPS airspace...! I know I will be missed at my airline. At least I made them laugh in the classrooms or simulators. Must be the reason they will keep me as a "training consultant"...
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If you fly, Jolly Lady, read some of my posts. They will get you asleep. Yet, all are meant for one purpose only... avoid accidents. When you line up on that runway, repeat after me - trims, flaps, spoilers. I guarantee the plane will get into the air safely. The rest is up to you.
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Happy contrails