Originally Posted by
john_tullamarine
However, in the absence of anything else going the pilot's way in extremis ... configuration, attitude and thrust is a good place to start when nothing much makes sense - unload the fear and then there is a chance for rational thought to occur.
Right - totally agree. But what makes startle effect especially insidious in an aviation context is that it takes time to "unload the fear", as you put it - even when the person concerned is very well-versed, experienced and trained to automatically respond, sometimes it can overwhelm even that. Making it even more dangerous is the fact that if the person afflicted is PF at the time, then they only have a limited amount of time to overcome the mental overload before the aircraft cannot be recovered. As a result, on top of a greater focus on drilling basic responses and handling, I think it would be an extremely good idea to train pilots on diagnosis of startle effect in colleagues and a cast-iron method of safely dealing with it - even taking control if necessary - until they have calmed down.
Sioux City was an exemplar for how to approach a lost cause, I suggest.
Indeed, and I would add to that example BA038, BA009, Cactus 1549 and the DHL A300 hit by SAM fire over Baghdad.
In the case of Sioux City I think that while the primary crew performed brilliantly by any standard, the addition of the late Capt. Fitch improved their chances significantly, not least because he brought a fresh pair of eyes and analysis to the situation - but also because his presence allowed Capt. Haynes to delegate the task of handling the throttles to him, reducing the task load on the rest of the crew.
I occasionally hear CRM dismissed as a "touchy-feely" exercise, to which I like to point to the UA232 CVR as a rebuttal. I've heard it said that the recording is one of the best existing examples of CRM used in extremis, and I wholeheartedly agree. Not only that, but there's nothing "touchy-feely" about the recording at all!
A lot of the folks were killed but the miracle that any survived remains ..
Indeed, and - while it's a sign of the man Denny Fitch was - I always found it very sad that in every interview given he was still clearly troubled by the fact that not everyone survived.
Whether the beancounters acknowledge it or not .. when all the aces have disappeared, only the flightcrew remains to sort it out.
Absolutely, but management in aviation needs to recognise it too - if not more so.