This is a very interesting and well-debated thread.
It is fine to say that most accidents are the result of human error…but what we don’t know is how many potential accidents are avoided by human intervention. We can see it in cases such as the Hudson ditching and QF32, but we cannot see how many times absolutely nothing happens solely because a human intervened.
I was struck by FDMII’s observation earlier in the thread:
Another thing - the notion that the aircraft commander IS the legal commander responsible for the safety of the flight, and in the end is the sole decision-maker on board the aircraft is gradually being made subservient to the audit process where such authority is "modified". Certainly the commander must answer for each and every action, but the assessment of such action must be based upon a broader set of "rules" than mere standard documentation.
At the heart of the automation dependency issue may lie a question of the pilot’s autonomy itself. It is indeed hard to remember, after so many years of administrative theory and systems management, that our capable and competent aviator actually remains a fully autonomous actor in the whole scheme of things. The regulatory obligation is and always has been that the pilot is the final authority as to the operation of the aircraft and command of the crew, no matter how much a whole cast of corporate characters would like to water him down. That authority presupposes a role for free will and transcends the conditions of employment, making the pilot-employee something of a greased pig for all styles of management.
Taylorism, which lies at the root of most management schools of thought, was very much aimed at diminishing craftsmanship in the name of efficiency. For the craftsman, this was a disaster; yet on the precipice of an exploding industrialist economy, there was no time to apprentice craftsmen and no money to pay for their exquisite, and wildly inefficient, labor. Taylorism, conveniently, was also an open door through which class discrimination could be imposed and managed.
Automation is Tayloristic. It removes the craftsman and replaces him with efficiency, consistency and predictability. From a management perspective, this is ideal. It is cost-effective and appears to yield the necessary degree of safety. For a management class schooled in what Dekker calls “Newtonian scientism”, it makes perfect sense. The problem arises when we encounter a nonlinear environment…think weather but also complex technical systems…because Taylorism and Newtonian scientism are very much linear frames of reference, and automation, although exposed to nonlinearities through complex systems, is expected to operate linearly.
The challenge for future pilots is to produce a culture which retains the autonomy that they must have to counter nonlinear environments, executes the obligation toward public safety that they are entrusted with, and accommodates the changes in technology that are necessary to create efficiency and meet commercial demand. To my mind, that is first and foremost accomplished through the protection of margins.
We track down the centerline of the runway for a reason…to protect the 75 foot margins on either side. In fact, this is the primary responsibility of the pilot…to make decisions and inputs that protect the design margins, the regulatory margins, and the system margins. One of those margins is our ability to manually fly the aircraft. Another is our ability to keep the autoflight system tracking the “centerline” it was intended to track. Another would be to arrive at the final approach fix…at the
alternate airport… with a realistically adequate quantity of fuel…enough for, say, a gear indicator light not working. The list is extensive, and you won’t get much help from the company, because the beancounters just can’t figure out how to measure the effectiveness of margins. Therein lies the craftsmanship today. How well can we use our authority to protect the margins?