Whilst the UK CAA are to be congratulated for taking/continuing safety activities as described in the report, at times it appears they do not know what is actually happening at the workface; – over reliance on data and analysis. More ‘dual-hating’ experience may help.
I doubt that the MOR system will identify many meaningful precursors of events. The reporting system appears to lack a comprehensive investigative process, as used in accidents; how can an operator self report and self analyse accurately. Note the disparity in EGPWS reporting.
FDM has a lot of potential, but this again places responsibility (and cost) on the operator – for what? So that the CAA can know what is happening? Operators may choose to invest in their own data sets and safety initiatives instead.
Loss of control could be more accurately described as Lack of Control. This view could provide some insight to the precursors, whether these are manual or automatic flight skills – or perhaps they are more skills of judgement than of physically controlling the aircraft.
It would be helpful to see examples of how new training methods for automation and the skills of monitoring could be implemented. Are these to be left to the operator, again more training load, and responsibility passed to the sharp end?
I am surprised that the overrun task force did not involve anyone from performance certification, given the many difficulties in implementing this. Also that the lack of pre-landing performance assessment was not discussed; there’s an interesting independent
study and EASA have noted the problem.
More training is a constant theme. Is this a sign of an underlying ‘blame and train’ view?
If the UK safety record is as good as claimed, then why should the CAA expect more from the same – training; how will this generate additional safety improvements?
The initiative is a good effort and an exemplar for other authorities, but I’m left with a feeling that the CAA might benefit from a new look at human factors and the modern ideas of safety management (resilience). Also, take a look at the problems (and solutions / cost) from an operator’s viewpoint.