The Flight International headline is ‘back to basics’, but the commentary and thread focusses on manual flight skills; what about all of the other professional skills of fight. There are only a few accidents specifically identifying handing issues, which is disproportionate to the overwhelming number of successful operations, presumably involving manual flight. This data would suggest that the industry does not have a serious problem.
However, this does not dismiss that there is a problem, but it is an issue apparently relating to specific circumstances and contributing factors which need to be better understood.
I doubt if a true ‘back to basics’ training programme could be established – time or money; nor that an extensive change is necessary as current operational scenarios differ from those pre-automation and require new skills.
The problems appear to be associated with the advent of automation, but not necessarily directly due to automation. The beliefs that automation would reduce workload and training underestimated the risk of unforeseen changes or knock-on effects – even greater capability or unintended application. Automation has reduced physical workload at the expense of mental workload, but training and operations have not adjusted to this. We cannot expect crews to understand all of the implications of automation malfunctions and thus there is a need to assist with problem solving; and occasionally where crews need to revert to manual flight in surprising circumstances, they may be ill prepared.
Yet the industry still expects crews to manage with less knowledge, less experience, and reduced opportunity to refresh skills – a belief that “…the strategies of CRM, SOPs, and professional culture will mitigate these threats… professional culture is the weakest…” (ICON report 2001).
The problems involve assumptions that previous skills are adequately trained and can still be called on, less training is required for automation, crews will be able to manage complex operations, and poor standards of emergent automation interfaces are not a significant threat. The industry expects too much of the human and thus must heed the advice of James Reason – it is difficult to change the human condition (
training), but we can change the conditions of work; thus the industry should look at the tasks in rare situations which the crews are expected to manage, and then consider reducing, improving, or avoiding them.
ICON Report “The Human Factors Implications for Flight Safety of Recent Developments in the Airline Industry” 2001