Joint training for flight and cabin crew?

[Nicholas49]

I am not sure whether this is the correct forum, mods please move if not.

My question is simple: do flight and cabin crew ever train for emergency procedures together?

I understand pilots undergo a six-monthly simulator check in a 'flight-deck only' sim and I imagine that cabin crew also train for emergencies in a cabin simulator. However, I wondered whether you ever practise emergency evacuations (for example) with an entire crew? Is it practicable to do this? i.e. are there full-size simulators with a flight deck and cabin? Or do you train separately and then put it together only if the situation arises in the real world?

Thanks for your help.
Nick

[OzExpat]

Being as nobody else has responded so far, I'll step in and say... why would it be necessary? The fact is that, no matter what the emergency is, the folks up the front are going to have their own problems. Communication between flight deck and cabin crew is what makes the difference - this is because there is a recognition that cabin crew have their own procedures and they will obviously differ from those of the flight deck crew.

Are you a reporter, trying to get some free education?

[Nicholas49]

I don't know why it would be necessary, but I thought that since an emergency would involve co-ordination by the entire crew it might be practised as such. Example: the captain orders an evacuation from the flight deck, is this scenario practised by cabin crew with a trainer giving the order 'pretending' to be the commander?

To clarify: I am not a reporter. I am a regular passenger who has used this forum to ask reasonable, intelligent questions to further my understanding of aviation. I have always been very grateful for the helpful replies from the professionals.

Nick

[Capt Pit Bull]

I have worked at one company that did joint CRM refreshers for flight and cabin crew. It worked rather well. Amongst other things, we did run through abnormal situations in slow time, with both 'sides' of the team outlining their workload and problems. This was classroom based though rather than sim; apart from anything else you don't get sims with cabins bolted on the back.

[BOAC]

BA have a mock-up a/c cabin with a cockpit in which some joint events can be played. A useful exercise.

[CD]

In Canada, the air operator has the option to conduct joint training, including fire fighting exercises or evacuation drills, as part of annual CRM training:

Advisory Circular 0177 - Crew Resource Management Training (http://www.tc.gc.ca/civilaviation/commerce/circulars/ac0117.htm)

[crjlover]

in the airline where I work the annual recurent training is done partially together btw cabin and flight crew. These parts are CRM and practical exercises. For this we have a mock-up of one of our airplane.The cabin is the same as the real airplane the flight deck has not istruments but photos of all the displays and pannels but has a working intercom. Last but not least we can simulate various lights conditions, smoke in cabin, emergency slide deploy (not the real one we have an air bottle to inflate).

[Genghis the Engineer]

We have cabin and flight deck crew do CRM & sea survival together.

G

[exeng]

My experience is the opposite of yours. 'Playing' is my experience. I tried to take it seriously but nobody else did - lots of giggling etc.

Nevertheless a whole lot better than SEP in West Africa.


Regards
Exeng

[BOAC]

lots of giggling etc. - yes, but we all know why, don't we.....:)

Actually, on a serious note, I always found it useful to be one of the 'pilots' sat in the cabin as a passenger to see what actually happens on my calls.

[Piltdown Man]

We do train together but generally we are kept apart. The main reason is that once we call for an evacuation, the show is over, for all intents and purposes from our side. The cabin crew then follow their evacuation procedures, there is no "undo button".

However, the last time we had a joint session it turned into a bit of a bun fight. There we saw some real differences between cabin crew and flight deck. It appears that cabin crew might not follow your orders when it comes to dealing with violent and disruptive passengers. In our classroom sessions we had very senior cabin crew members state that they would not ever (even in the most extreme cases) handcuff and then secure a violent PAP to a seat for the safety of others, "...in case there was an evacuation." Mmmmm?

PM

[bfisk]

We do cabin -, fire - and evacuation drills together with cabin crew (flight nurses in my case, as I'm flight crew on an air ambulance operation).

[mutt]

I thought that joint training was a LOSA requirement! Although we don't do joint practical training due to religious reasons !


Nickolas49, we have a massive cabin evacuation trainer with motion, it permits crew to do dry or wet evacuation training.

Mutt

[Proptart]

My company operates corporate aircraft (which may or may not have cc on board) and regional aircraft (1 to 3 cc).
All our pilots must learn evac commands as well as cabin preps. If something happens to the lone cc on board, the pilots have to take over, obviously flying comes first, but if the cc is incapacitated onlanding/impact the pilots can then come out and take over the cabin evacuation. The first few years they weren't so keen on the commands, but some of them could give cabin crew a run for their money now. We trains front & back end crew together as much as possible..we find it simply fosters better communication and coordination.
Cheers:)

[flyblue]

We have joint cockpit/cabin sim sessions once a year during the CRM recurrent that involve safety drills. The scenario changes every year, and we have a debriefing followed by a joint CRM course afterwards. It's been very effective for understanding the problems involved in cockpit/cabin teamwork and respective work, both ways.