Glo
I agree. Some of the recent ASR's are shocking, although the blame should not be placed entirely on management. Company culture is undoubtedly a concern but individuals must also be held accountable for some of these arse covering reports, otherwise why would so many of us find them cringeworthy and embarrassing? We work for the same Company after all, do we not? It would also be good to have the data from all of the most recent events and see if experience and age was indeed a contributory factor. Not for one minute do any of us assume high hours makes a good pilot. It doesn't. What would you rather take, 3000 hrs of good experience and a solid training background with a young sharp mind, or a 12,000 hr F/O who's worked with multiple different Companies and has never had a command? Fuel Off is correct in that we shouldn't generalise.
However the fact remains that experience levels have definitely reduced, not just in EK but throughout the industry. Two recent events, both subject to investigations by the UK AAIB, have involved young Captains, one aged 30, the other only 26. Both were Easy Jet. What about one of our own events where, for example, an incorrect turn occurred after take off with the autopilot being engaged at 80ft. 80ft! Why so damn early? Airmanship issues such as this will only get worse. Modern pilots today do not have the same healthy suspicion of their environment and equipment as those before them. It's not a criticism of the Y/X generation, merely an observation.They have been brought up and trained in an environment where reliability is indeed far greater than before, so they have less exposure to faults and failures. They do not possess a data base of previous experience or knowledge gained from these failures to apply a known template to solve them. We are training, and becoming ourselves, reliable system operators, not resilient pilots. We call them 'the children of the magenta line'. If we don't want them to blindly follow the magenta line, don't train them to do so.
On descent into home base and little traffic, VMC;
Cpt. "noises!" followed by Autopilot disconnect at 9000'
F/O "Oh...er...autopilot disconnect" As he promptly re engages it.
Cpt. "Yes, that was me, I disengaged it"
F/O "Why.....er....is there a problem?" Looking somewhat startled and confused.
Cpt. "No, no problem. I just wanted to fly it" as he disengages it again.
Pause
F/O "....But... we haven't even got our landing clearance yet!"
Cpt.
Harry