AerocatS2A
My only question is, at what point do you decide that you need to act beyond or in addition to the supplied checklist?
For me... after I have completed the abnormal/non normal/emergency checklist, I mentally sit back for a moment and ask myself "am I absolutely certain that I know what's going on, and am I absolutely satisfied that I have done everything that I possibly can to mitigate risk?" If the answer to both is "yes", then job done and let's land this sucker (or whatever). But if there is the slightest doubt - and that can be just an uneasy feeling from either pilot - then it's time to dig a little deeper.
I can recall one incident where we would have shut down an engine out over the North Sea on a stormy night if we had followed the checklist religiously. However, the application of a little lateral thinking led us to the conclusion that what we were looking at (indication-wise) wasn't what was actually happening. The engine continued to run just fine for the rest of the flight...
As I mentioned, I have no difficulty with the crew's actions in this case - although I'm sure the skipper might have second thoughts next time! No, what discourages me is the attitude that "if the book says it, it must be the truth". That is a fallacy that has cropped time and time again in accident investigations. The other is the idea that if you do everything by the book, sit back with a self-satisfied smile on your face and subsequently crash and hurt people, you are automatically immune from blame because you followed the procedure. Anyone who believes that should watch the investigation into the CTV building collapse during the Christchurch earthquake. Plenty of people are being ripped to shreds for not helping as much as they could have, even though they can truthfully say it wasn't their job at the time. The point being made by the investigators is simple - "you were there, it doesn't matter whether it was your job or not, you were in a position to help and you didn't do so to the best of your ability". Duty of care.
When I was doing my F27 and 146 type ratings in the early '90s, our instructors would throw us curve balls constantly to see how we would react. They wanted to see us use the checklists correctly and follow SOPs... but what they REALLY wanted to see is whether we could think outside the box and come up with a solution that wasn't written down anywhere. They wanted to know if there was a mind at work in the pilot's head, as opposed to an automatic procedure-following piece of wetware.
Going back to the incident at hand, could somebody please explain why a) Air Nelson felt it necessary to re-write the checklist; and b) if the re-write was better than the original, why didn't DHC adopt it?
I already know the answer, but I'd be interested to know if anyone else does...
