What about the travelling public and crew and the poor hill walkers on the lump,
This is why these sorts of things ought to be discussed periodically on PPRuNe .. the reality is that there are elements within the Industry which simply do not do a reasonable job at meeting their sensible obligations .. forget about what the black and white of the rules might be. Is it not sensible to do whatever is reasonable to keep the CFITs at bay ? Many of us can cite numerous instances of pilots AND operators knowingly (but often in ignorance) sidestepping their responsibilities.
since we all recognise that (a) (i) is ideal but not universal,
regretably true.
I have had a number of ops eng mates in various airlines tell me unsettling stories of quite unacceptable philosophical policies.
Maybe I'm just a nervous nellie and the other fellow is being reasonable, if accepting a much higher inherent risk ? Ask me, or OS, whether we ignore or attend to the failure case all the way up to a safe height when doing ops engs things ? Maybe both of us are just far too conservative for our own good ?
(b) (ii) is extremely common?
.. and is that not a major concern to all of us ? Keep in mind that the guys and gals in the pointy end are the first to arrive at the scene of the accident ...
Who's problem is it then? Is that not the issue?
[Putting the passenger to one side - his/her only means of exercising control (for the small proportion of passengers who might have any idea of the underlying matters in question) is to vote with the feet.]
First and foremost, it's the commander's problem. However, that is a facile observation as it is simply not practicable for the typical pilot to do the sums. Therefore it must be the operator's problem. The thrust of the argument must revolve around corporate responsibility, liability and obligation.
Are the regulators being thorough enough in this age of SMS and self-regulation?
The Regulator comes a distant third and, really, can only do the audit thing in arrears. Sadly, some regulators appear not to have enough technical competence in house to be able to audit competently in the first place ...
There is an 'acceptable' fatal accident rate in all forms of transportation - (bad luck if you happen to fall into it)
Indeed .. and aviation certification philosophy talks in terms of orders of risk within the design, certification, and manufacturing processes. The problems escalate (in respect of the present thread's subject matter) when the pilot is unable, and the operator unwilling to address and meet the risk requirements inherent in the regulatory process.
Would you try to return to the company procedure track if safe means to do so exist? Yes, I meant this
Fine sentiments .. but, as before, what does it mean and how do you measure it ?
...there are "such" carriers that does not have the required procedures, analysis and whatever. What's left to do in that case?
Unfortunately there is no simple answer...
(a) operational personnel ought to exercise pressure.
Individually, this is a nonsensical wishlist due to the authority gradient but, in such cases as we see where unions have some strength such group pressure can be effective.
For instance, the Australian domestic arena, up until the mid-80s, was one such example where the relevant union was able to work fairly co-operatively with the operators .. but had the Industrial 4-by-4 lump of timber in reserve should that be necessary. I can't speak to the International group but, given that QF's ops engineering folk were both highly professional and well-integrated within management decision systems, the result was much the same.
(b) the operator's Board-equivalents ought to be questioning and testing the executive areas .. at the end of the day, both are exposed to eventual legal redress. That this doesn't work in all cases does not reduce its philosophical and corporate importance.
(c) the Government ought to be addressing its Signatory obligations through its delegated Regulator. We could talk all day about the strengths and weaknesses of any given Regulator.
What does this mean ? .. and how does the pilot measure it ? I had in mind something like being in VMC, no significant obstacle towards the EO procedure
Sounds good. However ...
(a) VMC generally is not a useful option for two reasons -
(i) commercial (and heavy military, for that matter) operations are conducted by day/night, and often in adverse met conditions so the eyeball strategy lacks routine credibility
(ii) for most heavy aircraft (and the typical light twin, for that matter) the OEI body angle after takeoff precludes the pilot's being able to see where he/she is going.
and, for the OEI case, eyeballing shallow gradients and estimating clearances is pretty well an impossible task.
no significant obstacle
Ah .. this is an oft-raised possibility. Problem is how do you decide whether a given obstacle is significant or, indeed, the critical obstacle for the section of the departure ? Without doing the ops eng sums, it is just not a feasible routine strategy. Even in the case of a single, isolated obstacle, that obstacle may either be critical or, indeed, of no real significance to the published procedure.
Caveat - sometimes we (as ops engineers) impose a requirement for the PNF to sight a particular obstacle as a marker during an escape procedure but that is a whole different ballgame to routinely asking the crew to wing it after the noise reduces ...
Don't patronise me BOAC.
We all understand that sometimes discussions can get a bit focussed. However, reasonable comments or friendly banter ought to be taken in our stride. As always, a good tactic is ten deep breaths and a cup of char before reacting .... we (ie all of you good folk, including me), as the PPRuNe thread discussion stakeholders, need and should seek input from the widest possible group of technically competent folk .. so we must, necessarily, be able to tolerate a range of styles and presentation in order to achieve that wider goal.