F/O decisions CRM

[Blackcoffeenosugar]

Hi all! I have had a lot of discussions with colleagues and find it very interesting to hear how people would act in diffrent situations.
So I am hoping for replys from fellow F/Os on what they would do.
In both scenarios Captain is PF.
1. Say you are flying with a Captain that you get on with, and he is flying the approach to fast, you decide not to comment, but you have an SOP with a stabilized approach consept (Meaning at 500ft RA you should be on glide, and on track at Vref+20/-0) You are now at Vref+40 and hardly slowing down. So you call "500 NOT stabilized!" at 470RA you call "go-around!"
The captain elects not to. Do you take controls and perform a G/A?
The runway is twise the landing roll required. Do you write a report?
After landing the Captain explains that it is always captains desgression to to what ever.

2. You are on approch to a mid-sized (2500M) airport and cleared for an ILS approch. The Captain is "hot and high" (not talking about apperances here) and can see the field and know that there is no way of making a straight-in approach from where you are, so you ask the captain if you should request a visual approach with an orbit to lose the excess altitude. The captain agrees and you get the clearance, but then the captain will not do the orbit and says "I can do it" followed by a 15 degree pitch down and 3000VSI resulting in a GPWS "Sink rate!" You think he can make it, but just bearly... What do you do? Do you take controls? Do you write a report?

[Rainboe]

1- Getting on with or not makes no difference to your actions. The answer required is to do what you should do. Point out you are outside the parameters and insist on what you should do. I do not like the idea of wrestling with the controls and it should not be done unless there is significant danger from those actions evident. On the ground you should as a priority report the matter further before continuing.
2- Orbits are actively discouraged these days. If you are in a position where you have to orbit, you should go around and try again. You should call Go around and insist, if not and you feel any risk, forcibly take control and announce what you are doing. Full reports and ASRs will be required, report to Flight Manager before continuing.

(the word required is 'discretion')

[fireflybob]

Firstly follow company SOPs of course.

If the Captain is doing something which is outside the SOP but clearly NOT unsafe (scenario no 1 I think) then my opinion is that as you have advised him that the approach is outside the SOP you have done your job so far. What you do on the ground is another matter!

If a dangerous situation is developing then, in extremis, you might have to take over but, as has been said, its not too safe to have two pilots wrestling over the controls!

Remember though that if he is working hard (dare I say "maxed out") the first sense which goes in a practical sense is hearing. Quite literally he may not have heard your call outs etc. You now need a "pattern interrupt" - touch him (yes!) on the arm or shoulder to get his attention and repeat your concerns.

Hope this helps!

[Permafrost_ATPL]

1) I'd give it one more "Captain, you MUST go around" after the initial go-around call. Whether I'd announce "I have control" would depend mostly on how he reacts. If he says nothing and just carries on, you would have to worry about incapacitation. If he just says something like "look, it'll be fine, I've been doing this for long enough", I'd let him carry on as long as it does not get too scary (i.e. you're half-way down the runway and he's still trying to land). Like Blackcoffee said , wrestling the controls should be left for a fairly desperate situation. I WOULD write a report though.

Don't know about your company, but mine uses FLIDRAS and captains are well aware that not going around at the gate (500ft) when outside the envelope will result in tea with no biscuits. Therefore ignoring a call for go-around tilts the scale strongly towards incapacitation.

2) Again, as long as it does not look like it's about to go out of control, I'd just write a report (and follow up on it). Wrestling is the last option.

P

[Not to scale]

If the captain decides to operate outwith the SOPs and in your judgment it is, or is likely to become unsafe, simply transmit " XXX 123 going around"...

The captain is then faced with no real option but to go around. Failing to respond might reasonably be taken to be incapacitation ?.... you assume control iaw SOPs.

:=

[wileydog3]

Hi all! I have had a lot of discussions with colleagues and find it very interesting to hear how people would act in diffrent situations.

So I am hoping for replys from fellow F/Os on what they would do.
In both scenarios Captain is PF.

You might think about doing some stuff during the preflight such as "I try to abide by the SOPs, especially the stable approach criteria. Do you?"

In many cases, the rogues are well known to the F/Os so why not address the problem before you get into the air?

Friend of mine was flying with a known rogue. The rogue said, "I fly by the book", a comment my friend knew to be a lie. Friend said, "Which book are you talking about. I use the company book."

The rogue Capt laughed but flew a fairly standard book operation.

[Kit d'Rection KG]

The longer you worry about this sort of thing, the longer it will take you to get into the left seat.

Once you're in the left seat, you don't need to worry any more.

[Kit d'Rection KG]

Sorry if the above seems harsh, but it's true.

[411A]

Spot on, kit d'reactionKG, but of course that may well not be what First Officers want to hear.
Going into print is another matter altogether, and has landed more than a few F/O's in deep doggie do-do...perhaps not right away, but later on, when they are up for Command assessment.

Chief Pilots/senior check pilots remember well, make no mistake.:E

[BraceBrace]

Good CRM to me is not an FO that "keeps quiet" and all of a sudden takes a decision that the captain has to comply with on the spot. As you said yourself "you decide not to comment". Why would you do that? Where's the "crew" in that situation? Why would you wait up to decision point and "attack" the captain with a split decision "out of the blue"?

Good CRM is not calling out for a required go-around, it's calling that his speed is too high way before that because if he is not correcting at that point. You did fly the approach together. You had to be monitoring him. He might simply be fixating on something else... a captain is only human and very capable of doing this.

(ps: I'm an F/O if you would doubt that, but in these situations you can perfectly immagine the F/O having the same problem. And I hope my captain will not shut up and wait up to 500ft AGL to throw a go-around call at me...)

Case 2 is very different. If you were close the ground, pitching down 15° and 3000fpm descent... ever tried this with a passenger jet? (I HOPE NOT).

[Rainboe]

Excellent call BraceBrace. Unrealistic scenarios, but it smacks of keeping relatively quiet until hitting him with a snap judgement, from someone inexperienced. I have been hit with such a call from a very in-experienced co-pilot, and it had to be over-riden. I think I was right not to automatically go-around and show that you can be above the ideal 3 degrees and still happily get in. I would like to see more attempt at a joint operation- communication is lacking from both sides.

[MorningGlory]

I agree with the other comments; don't wait until the last minute to call go around at your company landing gate... Make sure you fire a few warning shots first, if you're still high early on maybe fire the first shot.. 'we're still high john, not looking too good. we MAY have to go around at 500 you know!!'

another warning shot 'still high john' His last chance then demand 'GO-AROUND' you have the CVR and you've given the Capt every opportunity to know you views!!

[Permafrost_ATPL]

Going into print is another matter altogether, and has landed more than a few F/O's in deep doggie do-do

Thank god for FLIDRAS. Means that kind of "keep quiet until you get 4 stripes" attitude is (hopefully) eroding away... IF SOPs say go around at 500' if oustide the envelope (within reason, obviously, not much you can do about speed excursions in gusts) and the captain ignores it, FOs should not feel bullied into doing nothing. Otherwise what's the point of having SOPs...

Agree with previous posts on not coming out of the blue at 500' though. You should comment on the likelihood of an upcoming go around if you don't think you'll be stable at the gate. It's only fair.

P

[barit1]

If you have not seen the C-5 Dover accident (precipitated by a Reverser Unlock warning) sim video, look it up; it is alarming in its lack of CRM. The PF built himself an unrecoverable situation, and no one said anything or stopped the looming pileup. One has to ask why none of the others up front felt compelled to speak up, then intercede.

[flash8]

Well of course the "classic" CRM case was the PA/KLM ground disaster, which arguably would have been averted if the FO (or FE) voiced their concerns (which the CVR shows they did have) a little bit more vocally and/or took action.

I'm afraid where I work, it would take a brave FO indeed to question some Captains, not as bad as the Koreans... but its there.

[alf5071h]

The background to these types of situations and some good advice is given in the paper ‘PACE’. (www.crm-devel.org/resources/paper/PACE.PDF)

The scenarios posed are never that clear cut, situations are dynamic and depend on perception, and thus it is necessary to consider how they arose.
Having a good SOP is essential. It provides the ‘rule’ – the boundary of safe operation, and a common base for crew awareness and call out. Thus if the aircraft is at a limit, then both pilots should know what to call and what action is required. A failure to act might be due to lack of awareness by the pilot flying (PF) – then the non flying pilot (NFP/MP) should make a call. Alternatively, the PF could be deliberately breaking the rule, in which case s/he should provide an explanation at the time and/or the NFP provide an alert/seek explanation.

A major factor in these situations is timing. When considering an aircraft 20 kts fast at 500ft, then the limit boundary (SOP) can be anticipated. At best, the aircraft could be expected decelerate at 2 kts/sec (20kts in 10 sec – EFIS speed trend) – any faster might be deemed windshear or be very destabilizing to the flight path. Thus with a descent rate of 10 ft/sec (600ft/min) a deceleration should commence at least 100ft above the limit altitude. A more practical situation is with a lower deceleration starting 200ft above, i.e. 700ft.
At this altitude a helpful speed awareness call could be made – ‘Skipper we require 145 kts at 500’. Note the informality (PACE) and the provision of a speed value, the latter helps the PF’s awareness and reduces mental workload in reconsidering what value equates to Vref+20 or what is the SOP etc. The principle here is for every call that may create a ‘problem’ (action required) then provide a solution or guidance to aid the required awareness / action – but don’t tell the Captain what to do.
If the message requires reinforcement, then provide a statement of ‘because’, i.e. ‘don’t forget that this is a short / wet runway’, or ‘we are at max landing weight’.
There are skills associated with verbal intervention; e.g. situation awareness and the ‘PACE’ of communication. A first officer must continuously improve these skills and experience through learning (observation and remembering situations / visualizations) such as the aircraft’s deceleration capability, and how this varies with weight, head wind (always remember numbers). Practice building a mental model of all of the factors in an approach and landing, and an awareness of how close to the boundary an operation can be and/or the rate of deviation; see ALAR ( http://www.flightsafety.org/ppt/managing_threat.ppt ) for background information. Debrief yourself after every flight – what did you learn, why; what was not known – then find out.

If SOPs have been exceeded and no explanation given at the time (or an unsatisfactory explanation) then it is essential that the situation and decision making involved be debriefed. Ask the Captain for the reasoning behind his decision, what were the factors he considered and why. If these differ significantly from your perception of the situation (and SOPs) then asking him to discuss these issues.
If the outcome is unsatisfactory then avoid confrontation. If company procedures require a report then fill it in, there is always the option of confidential reporting, both internally and externally. Always consider that you may have misunderstood the situation / explanation. Thus seek the advice of another Captain before acting, but don’t write the event off as your mistake – more often than not it is the situation or the SOP that creates the opportunity for error, and these must be reported.

[fireflybob]

One question I would is pose is whether (generally) the industry is seeing more situations where aircraft are ending up "hot and high" and therefore missing the approach gate compared to ten or twenty years ago?

In the "olden" days before FMC path descents etc the whole thing had to be done manually. All the way down the descent you were working out the ACTUAL track miles to touchdown, what height you would like to be (this would include various parameters such as distance to slow up to min clean speed, wind component, anti ice on etc) and then adjusting as necessary (increase speed, speedbrake use, slow up and start to configure). You almost got to the stage where you could do this in your sleep (we often did!) and it became a matter of pride to end up at the commencement of the approach at the correct speed, height and configuration depending on the circumstances (IMC/VMC etc.)

I am all for all the latest gadgets which are now fitted to modern aircraft and indeed they should be used in an optimum way to make the job easier. But are we relying too much on things such as FMC predictions to correct the descent profile?

Yes we need to have clear parameters with respect to approach gates and whether to execute a go-around but surely this is a symptom and not a cure?Get the descent planning and execution right and understand how to vary the profile and the probablity of having to execute a go-around is greatly reduced.

[411A]

Yep, no doubt about it, older IS better.
At least THEN, pilots could rapidly figure out if they WERE high (or low) during descent, instead of just accepting what's in the box, and not questioning it.

Put a new guy in an old jet without FMS and they right and truly would be lost, I expect.

The same for takeoff speeds.
How often in the past has the WRONG weight been entered, and the speeds thus produced are accepted as gospel, whereas they are NOWHERE near to being correct.:rolleyes: :rolleyes:

[411A]

Gosh, wildweasel81, it's even easier than converting to metres, just close the taps at 100-110 miles, and point the nose down...:E

[Homer_J]

I guess this might be relevant to the discussion. It happened on my final line check after initial line training. We were flying a visual approach. The captain was flying and I was going to land. He got to 1000ft and offered me controls. We were established on the runway heading, but with 4 whites. I contemplated calling a go around, but figured that since the captain was the base captain, and the chap watching me was the head of training I felt it might be a little aggressive(if thats the right word for it) on my first time out to do that. So i simple took control and sorted it out so that at the 500ft call we had two reds two whites. Afterwards his only debrief point was that I should have called a go around.

My current thinking is that if a go around is called a go around should be flown. If the other person choses not to he or she should quickly state there reason. In this case, and i can only talk about TPs its usually quite easy to lose that 20kts and sort it out. If they were going to fly a quicker profile they should have mentioned that in the briefing.

If someone operates outside the SOPS and in your mind acts dangerously talk about it afterwards. We all do it in the sim. Debriefing ourselves is part of the sim process and a big part of CRM. If your happy with there explanation then fine, if not tell them you are going to file an ASR. They can't stop you and its not going to put a black mark against you. It may be that there doing it rather often, and you're the first person to stand up to them. It would begin to be a problem if you were filing ASRs left, right, and centre.

[fireflybob]

Homer_J I do not understand your posting when you say:-

The captain was flying and I was going to land. He got to 1000ft and offered me controls.

Was the approach planned this way?

[Blackcoffeenosugar]

I am so happy with all these answers and I am hoping for more.
I feel the need to elabarate the scenarios somewhat; both have happend, both were in T/Ps (agile ones but over 20t) both in flagcarriers. The captains are not the same, but both flew russian build heavy jets before. The F/O is not the same and none of the F/Os are inexperienced. Language was a big problem as both captains only spoke very basic english. (To them, hardly working and working hard are synonym) One of the cases was reported. But the only result was that the F/O was told of for criticising the captain. So the lesson was :oh: .
Here is another scenario:
The captains approach breif includes flying a CATII approch to a CATI airfield. You protest, but he sets RA to 100, and seems to take no notice of you. You tell him again that this airport has no CATII, but he tells you that he has his own personal minimas!
(as you can probably tell from the spelling I am not a native english speaker myself)

[Carmoisine]

Blackcoffeenosugar, We could sit here and make up scenarios all day, it is all a bit pointless though, sitting at our Computers we all do the right thing and know all the answers. How you will react in the heat of the moment is another thing entirely.

As for ignoring SOPs, approach gates and airfram limitations etc, it is a difficult position for any Captain to put in an F/O in intentionally and most appreciate this and don't do it in the first place. Thankfully foolish remarks and attitudes like 411As are becoming less common in the industry.

In relation to unstable approaches, A large European low cost airline I am familiar with has had a high incident rate recently. I had the opportunity to see these incidents replayed on a computer program that used the FLIDRAS data to display the flightpath with a display of the aircraft from the outside in relation to the airfield and the runway (think Flightsim style) with the engine parameters and the Primary flight display (ADI, VSI etc). These incidents were quite shocking and frightening into how dangerous a situation and how far they were allowed to develop before a halt was called. No Crew sets out to intentionally let these happen.

Interestingly they were all flown by the Captain. This is a point made not that the F/Os can get one up on the Captains but it shows thet Captain suffer from Task overload/saturation along with F/Os. They suffer to such a point that they become incapacitated to an extent. However in the case of the F/O being the Pilot flying the natural Cockpit Gradient means a Capt would have no hesitation in calling a Go Around when an unstable situation develops. When a Captain gets overloaded, and lets face it; is suffering a form if incapacitation, for a F/O to assert his/her position is by the very virtue of the gradient and rank not always the easiest thing to do.

The company I am familiar with has changed the callouts on approach from "500" (Feet) to "500, Continue" in the case of all being well to "500, Go Around" in the case of an unstable approach. The thinking being that it obliges the F/O to say something, and not sit in Silence. It is also a timely prompt for a Capt. suffering a mild form of incapacitation.

A "text book" example of this scenario:http://www.aaiu.ie/upload/general/6946-0.pdf

[Blackcoffeenosugar]

Carmosine, thank you very much for that!
I just want to point out that none of the scenarios are made up!!

[Carmoisine]

Well then you need to start filing some reports, it sounds like you are part of an appaling (Lack of) Safety Culture. If it doesn't change then time to find a new job before you find yourself being a part of a large smoking hole in the ground.

[Blackcoffeenosugar]

I left! But it was difficult leaving with nowhere to go. Life changes when you have no income.:{ The company did not see this as a problem, and there were plenty more of those examples. Although I have worked for other airlines before, I but began to wonder whether this was normal. Therefore the answers to this thread are very appreciated, and they are reassuring for me to read. Proving to me that most of you see this the same way I do. And that leaving with no job to go to was infact a good idea.

Heheh now that is all sorted though! Got a new job and am now back on track!:O
Again, thanks very much everybody!

[Telstar]

Life changes when you have no income

Well at least you are still alive, which you might not have been if you refused to heed the many hard lessons that have been learned for you by your aviation predecessors, the company culture you describe does not seem to fit this description.

Good luck with your new Job!:ok: