PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Three airlines drop self-reporting safety program
Old 2nd Jan 2009, 03:49
  #33 (permalink)  
llondel
 
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: San Jose
Posts: 727
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
I think the other aspect of all of this is that the lawyers, having saturated the medical profession, have turned to aviation, so that any admission of a mistake could be the one that invites a lawsuit (costing time, money and giving bad PR). Some management types have obviously decided that the best way to safeguard the company is to act on reports by 'retraining' crew or firing them, showing by their actions that it was individuals at fault and not the company should it come to court.

Ultimately it's going to cost them more - how much does a hull loss with fatalities cost a company if it turns out later that similar incidents had occurred previously but avoided the fatal outcome? Some time in the next few years it'll happen, and the fatal event would have been avoidable if only there had been a sensible mechanism for reporting the first.

Unfortunately there isn't really a good method of anonymous reporting because for many incidents enough detail is needed that the flight in question can be identified.
llondel is offline