CRM Defined
2.1 CRM encompasses a wide range of knowledge, skills and attitudes including communications, situational awareness, problem solving, decision making, and teamwork; together with all the attendant sub-disciplines which each of these areas entails. The elements which comprise CRM are not new but have been recognised in one form or another since aviation began, usually under more general headings such as ‘Airmanship’, ‘Captaincy’, ‘Crew Co-operation’, etc. In the past, however, these terms have not been defined, structured or articulated in a formal way, and CRM can be seen as an attempt to remedy this deficiency. CRM can therefore be defined as a management system which makes optimum use of all available resources - equipment, procedures and people - to promote safety and enhance the efficiency of flight operations.
2.2 CRM is concerned not so much with the technical knowledge and skills required to fly and operate an aircraft but rather with the cognitive and interpersonal skills needed to manage the flight within an organised aviation system. In this context, cognitive skills are defined as the mental processes used for gaining and maintaining situational awareness, for solving problems and for taking decisions. Interpersonal skills are regarded as communications and a range of behavioural activities associated with teamwork. In aviation, as in other walks of life, these skill areas often overlap with each other, and they also overlap with the required technical skills. Furthermore, they are not confined to multi-crew aircraft, but also relate to single pilot operations, which invariably need to interface with other aircraft and with various ground support agencies in order to complete their missions successfully.
Question:
Is Airbus SAS advanced planes philosophy a threath to CRM? How to "work together" complex Systems in dealing with "extreme situations"? It´s possible address this issue just by training? It´s possible with the current Standards to safely manage (and operate) an advanced plane when unexpected (or unexpectable) situations arise?
Note: It came to my mind the "Flight Engineer". The third guy capable to manage the old systems (with another type of complexities) and able to act providing to the pilots the right and timely results.
How to deal with the low probability(*) but
possible events in a "complex plane"?
(*) Thales Pitot "failure" was not considered a so low probability occurrence. And AF was moving" to replace the sensors...Therefore not just possible but probable to fail and create "major" reconfig. of the advanced plane System.