Non Punitive Culture
Non Punitive Culture
I work for an East Europe based airline; their OM has a statement in it as follows:
XXX AIR SUPPORTS A NON-PUNITIVE WORKING CULTURE AND ENCOURAGES INDIVIDUAL CREW MEMBERS TO FORWARD DETAILS OF ANY SAFETY, SECURITY, BEHAVIOURAL (CRM) AND FLIGHT IRREGULARITIES TO FLIGHT OPERATIONS IN ORDER TO KEEP FLIGHT STANDARDS HIGH.
HOWEVER WILFUL AND DELIBERATE VIOLATION OF FLIGHT OPERATIONS ORGANIZATION POLICIES AND/OR PROCEDURES WILL BE INVESTIGATED BY AIR SAFETY BOARD. DISCIPLINARY ACTIONS WILL BE TAKEN AS APPROPRIATE.
Unfortunately the words ‘Non Punitive’ have seemed to have been miss translated into ‘Punitive’.
All the pilots know that if they report anything, they will be invited for a chat with the DFO and if they don’t and it gets picked up by flight data monitoring then the same chat will occur. This will normally result in the Captain being downgraded to F/O and the F/O dismissed.
The latest incident occurred a few weeks ago when an aircraft lost radio contact over the middle of Europe for 40mins. Yes a serious event but not an unusual one. Every flight you hear calls on 121.5, XXX contact ______ on XXX.
After a quick and short Safety Board enquiry both pilots had their contracts terminated.
Maybe it’s me, but I always thought that the idea of ‘Non Punitive’ was to look at these events and find out how the company could improve its training/operation to stop it happing again.
In the company statement it says “wilful and deliberate violation”. I sure the pilots involved did not wilfully or deliberately lose radio communication.
I would be interested to hear how your company deals with this sort of thing.