Quote:
Originally Posted by fdr
We have become "politically correct", and warm, caring crew following the social engineering of CRM programs...
That's not (or shouldn't be) what CRM is about. Of the books I've read and the pilots I've been privileged to speak to, one thing that crops up regarding CRM is that one of best recorded examples of how to do it is the CVR recording of UA232. The contents are not "politically correct". Capt. Haynes' language is very salty - in fact he swears like a trooper in places, and understandably so. The conversation is generally polite, but far from touchy-feely - overall what comes across is a sense of 100% dedication to solving the problem at hand.
As a result, by the time that aircraft is pointed at the Sioux City runway every person on the flight deck has a clear idea of the job they have to do, and their jobs are assigned such that the best person for the task is in fact the one handling it. *That* is what I'm told CRM is supposed - and was always intended - to be.
DoZ
What part of the UA232 outcome was predicated on "CRM"? I am confused... (ref 1).
the following is not a criticism of the crew at all, but it is a statement against the undeserved kudos afforded to a program of questionable gains, on an industrial scale... I believe in enhancement by TEM, Risk Mgt, and particularly SA enhancement, as a adjunct to the core skills of a pilot, not as a cost effective replacement of piloting skills
the guys were still fighting the flight controls to impact. Understandable, hard to relinquish at any time, but they were not connected to anything. Where is the CRM in that?
The Captain is talking to the pilot handling the throttles who is the guy who had fortuitously used free time in a simulator to try to fly the aircraft using secondary effects. The flight in the simulator was not handled the same way, ie with the inherent delay of communication to a 2nd crew member to manipulate the controls... adding a delay to a 2nd order control process dealing with a time dependent short and long period phugoid. I would have been a believer that CRM was at play if the FO had been repositioned to the jump seat, the CC in the RHS so he can fly and manipulate the throttles without the delay in advice or interpretation to the control process. The FO was helpful in communications, but could have been doing that at another station.
Did the crew do a good job? damn right they did. Did "CRM" have much to do with it? Don't see it. The question is what difference would you expect form any other crew faced in the same situation? Even the JAL103 worked in a similar manner, with a far more critical control problem... although it was evident in that case that the crew had difficulty maintaining confidence in the difference their struggles would make to the outcome. They still did a great job to hang in the air as long as they did. Try that one sometime... there is about a 10 second delay to the thrust/pitch couple, and a slightly lesser delay to the asymmetric power application (modelled only with a tail, 103 had no vertical stab...). The use of split flaps was undertaken by that crew to attempt to re-trim the aircraft, which was courageous but also ended up with a change to the attitude that resulted in the aircraft finding the ground.
Assume that the Hudson submarine is also a "CRM" good show? It was competently handled, and the decision making made in a time critical environment. The outcome benefitted from the captains hobby of gliding... don't see any part of that where CRM played a factor to the outcome. In fact, I personally think that attributing the outcome of either 232 or 1549 to CRM is actually offensive, the crew competency was in fundamental skills of flying in both cases, had absolutely nothing to do with CRM versions 1-6.
IMHO, CRM is accepted as a reinforcement of existing skills to those that already innately have such grounding, they happen to be receptive to the information as an enhancement to their existing skill sets... management of tasks, time, workload, communication accuracy, threat recognition and error management etc.
The industry has taken the CRM mantra on for better or worse, as a potential enhancement in the areas related to human performance within a complex and close coupled task. The outcome has been that it has been considered we can take any person and run them through a CRM program and hey presto, achieve a competent crew member, don't have to teach them to even be able to fly, recognise or recover from a stall, or even remember that it is probably healthy to look occasionally at the airspeed indicator. How bad is the issue of the race to the bottom? Flying along one day a while back, over the north pole, asking the FO about his background, and the events that lead him into the profession of aviation... his answer was breathtaking, the airline responded before the taxi company did. I think he did the taxi company a service. The reason this had come up was in the ground taxiing, ATC has asked us to "follow the [TYPE] on our right". The FO asked which of the aircraft out there was the type mentioned, which was a surprise as he had been an FO on that type for over 2.5 years.
Does the industry have issues? sure does. Does CRM have a part to play? yes, it assists those interested in refining their knowledge and skills. Did it save 232 or 1549? Not in the slightest, and to grandiosely attribute the saves to CRM rather than the competent application of flying skills demeans the performance of the crews concerned. At the same time, while we can rail at 447 and similar events as being many things with some CRM context, such as TEM and SA failings, the fundamental failure is that on the day, there were no pilots in the cockpit.
The industry has been believing it's own propaganda, and drinking the Koolaid for so long that it has become an "established fact" that we all are supposed to believe.
"but the king has no clothes..."
PS... add UA811 and AQ243 to the stable of aircraft saves that should be attributed to the crew flight skill not CRM. Both of these, as in 232, 1549 were cases where the guys are dealing with a time critical event, herding cats, and they dealt with the outcome as they would have in any aircraft, as they had the basic skills embedded in the psyche, not a divide by zero error on the FMGCS/CDU as depicted by a magenta line.
Had Denny Fitch done LOFT rather than some old fashioned what if compound malfunctions... perhaps it would have been hard to attribute 232 as a CRM save... as the outcome may not have been so fantastic, although I suspect that Denny and Co had enough skill as a "pilot" to improve the outcome.
Is this just a rant? Not really;
Heres the thing:
The THY B738 was an failure of basic flying skills first and foremost, for which the interventions that could have been used at trained by a competent CRM program, of risk management, SA loss and recovery, and basic workload management, failed. Single pilot in a J3 cub, the crew on the day would have had the same sort of outcome, lights on, nobody minding the shop. [the AT failure is insidious, but what else was more important than flying the plane at the time of intercepting the G/S from above?].
There is a sort of symmetry... that with 3 pilots in the cockpit the plane is in need of a pilot, whereas if you put a non pilot passenger into the copilots seat of a B738 and permit them to undertake the takeoff merely results in a tail strike.
Please don't devalue Denny or Sully's skill as a pilot by calling their outcomes "shining examples of CRM". These guys had the piloting skills before, during and after, (and in spite of) any CRM course they undertook.
In my humble opinion...
“Your true nature is something never lost to you even in moments of delusion, nor is it gained at the moment of Enlightenment. It is the Nature of Suchness.” Huang Po Xiyun 黄檗希運
"there's a difference between a philosophy and a bumper sticker..." Charles Shultz
reference:
1. The Evolution of Crew Resource Management Training in Commercial
Aviation
Helmreich, R. L., Merritt, A.C. & Wilhelm, J.A. Department of Psychology
Aerospace Crew Research Project The University of Texas at Austin
URL:
http://homepage.psy.utexas.edu/homep...les/Pub235.pdf