Re #509, I would agree that HF is not the main theme of the report, but re-reading it, there is a reasonable balance between the ‘technical’ and human issues. Perhaps the BFU sensed (correctly) that HF dominant reports don’t get much action, particularly in EASA.
The technical issues are relatively insignificant – they represent ‘how the aircraft is’ and that pilots are expected to have the necessary skills to fly it. How and where they get these skills is another issue.
The comments on manufacturer’s manuals may be pedantic; manuals can always be criticized as they represent an author’s viewpoint at the time of writing and may only consider the foreseeable circumstances.
If an item is not in the AFM limitations section then it is not a limit, only advice, but by using the FCOM in lieu of an AFM (EU-OPS) the point is overlooked, – a problem of regulation.
Many aspects of piloting skill have to be assumed, thus they are open to interpretation, judgement, etc; even after a successful check we can still have a bad day. Unfortunately, in the current litigious climate, making assumptions is increasingly unacceptable and most issues to be written down as SOPs etc.
In general, the report avoids judging the Captain’s decision. We must beware of hindsight, there’s often a better way to do something when all of the ‘facts’ are known.
Decisions taken at the time are ‘correct’; they are made on the information available. Errors can only be allocated after the event – the outcome was not as expected. The pilot’s task is to avoid an unexpected outcome by thinking ahead.
In this incident the decison outcome may have resulted from either a poor situation assessment or the choice of inappropriate action, most of which is driven by the depth of knowledge and controlled thinking – the use of knowledge.
The report discusses ‘thinking’ (decision making) and judges the processes as adequate in circumstances. The weakness appears to be in the information which supported the situational assessment, both the physical situation and the background knowledge.
A major problem for the industry is that crosswind operations are poorly defined.
The discussion on maximum demonstrated crosswind (MDCw) perhaps misses some points.
The method of wind measurement for the tests may not be the same as for operations, although in this instance there were. However, when using ATC averaged wind data (over the preceding 2 min and ‘gusts’ recorded as a maximum value in the preceding 10 min), the MDCw value could actually be achieved in relatively benign conditions yet reported as more severe. Landings in each direction and multiple landings should reduce the error.
Also in operations, the reported wind may not represent the actual conditions (most times). Furthermore, gusts are not predictable so perhaps pilots need to allow for this; but the regulations don’t provide any margin.
Thus, perhaps the operator’s limit should include gusts and have a margin for reporting error (10%); so a 38 kt MDCw would be a 34 kt operating limit including gusts.
The incident crew appears to have lacked guidance in these issues, and particularly having made a well considered judgement, the attempted landing was justified.
Whether the First Officer or the Captain should have flown the landing is debatable.
With hindsight (the report), if the Captain has more experience in the conditions and in the aircraft then the safest option would be with him, but then how do FOs ever gain experience.
It could be feasible that a new Captain had never experienced high crosswinds, thus this Captain has to ‘learn’ during the first crosswind encounter – the same situation that the FO was in, but in this instance with overseeing support.
This point is similar to the problems arising from assumptions about skill and piloting capability, and may also argue for a safety margin in the crosswind limit.
Perhaps a lower crosswind limit would have triggered the Captain to consider the other runway, but then if there was a similar result, hindsight bias could have criticized poor CRM, lack of ALAR awareness, choice of NPA, etc.
No plan (or decision) survives contact with the enemy.
The manufacturer can always be cited for mis-judging the ‘average skill’ requirements when certificating crosswind operations.
How is average skill defined? CS 25 defines aircraft design standards, where (how) are the equivalent human standards defined. There is little or no harmonization in worldwide skills training or even in daily operation – we do have bad days; and then we probably all judge ourselves as above average.
I agree that airmanship is critical in these situations, but my definition of airmanship includes knowledge, which in this instance requires understanding of how MDCw is obtained, the lack of margin in MDCw values, the meteorological variability of wind / gusts, and the range of error in reporting wind speed and direction. If it is unrealistic to expect retention / recall of this knowledge then the crew need a safety margin, either self applied or a hard limit. The latter is more practical.
Perhaps this incident is a reflection of the modern industry with increasing litigious and commercially pressurized operations. The more we are driven by these aspects, the more difficult it becomes to provide an equivalent level of safety and to use beneficial human attributes.
As current operations increasingly require airmanship intervention, the more difficult it becomes to gain and apply airmanship due to so-called safety interventions and regulations.
Does our future lay with an automaton, constrained by ‘impossible’ laws and inadequate SOPs, striving to prevent reoccurrence of a minor scrape; or are we to maximize our use of human flexibility and adaptability, both for safety (avoiding the big dings) and maintaining commercial advantage?
I suspect that reality is somewhere in between, but who defines the compromise?