"Safe Airline" vs. Unsafe Culture. We're discussing the wrong thing!

[Agaricus bisporus]

It seems to me that we are missing the point - or perhaps emphasising the wrong point in the current debate about an (any) airline's "safety".

This has been highlighted by a recent TV documentary that imo raised some very valuable and important concerns but seems to have largely missed the fundamental point.

Surely it is obvious that an airline that has not suffered an accident is not necessarily "safe", nor that one that has is "unsafe" rather than perhaps unfortunate. This definition of "safe" seems to be enshrined in black and whits rather than in shades of grey.

It is the likelihood of an accident that affects safety, not the bare statistics of whether one has occurred.

Dissecting a modern Eu company's fuel policy in order to determine "safety" is doomed to failure as we've seen, for the simple reason that the fuel policy is determined by legal requirements from the regulating authority. We all use essentially the same policy. This, then, is a cul-de-sac.

The three FR aircraft that diverted to VLC all seem to have applied and carefully stuck to the FR fuel policy (which I daresay differs hardly not one jot from most other EU airlines') and are thus unimpeachable. From that point of view...

When a journo starts a debate with an airline about something as specifically defined as a fuel policy it would be a good idea if he was sure what the phrase actually meant - because the airline knows full well that their fuel policy is fully approved by the regulator, published in the Ops Manual chapter and verse and if you want to challenge it you are effectively challenging the correctness of the approval from their CAA. That is the basis the FR denials were made from and were doubtless legally correct.

What should be of concern is the culture and company pressure on the decision makers (the flightdeck) that restricts their proper decision making. But this isn't strictly fuel policy. That culture is not written down in any comprehensive manner in any manual and is thus a subjective argument, and very hard to prove but it is aspect that turned the three diversions into a manifestation of something really scary. The prevention or discouraging (by conditioning perhaps) of crews from making airmanlike decisions. That is a safety issue - and a very serious one, but don't confuse it with "fuel policy" per se. Because the lawyers and company spokesmen wont - and they'll be correct.

Not much mileage in questioning the fuel policy - rather the practical implementation of it which is quite another matter - and that's where the spotlight should fall.

We have for some years now been developing airlines that recruit few/no-one but zero hour cadets and train them in a Company controlled manner. These supremely well trained paragons (I jest not) eventually become Captains, than taining Captains and the cycle continues. All very well on paper - hard to make a safety case out of that but...

But...we end up with a flight deck community of company trained clones who know nothing of aviation in general - nothing of standard practices - something many companies want weeded out - and who think that all aviation is conducted the same way.

Thus the company slowly develops its own culture which may be a good or a bad thing. But if it is developed so new pilots learn from day one that it is wrong, reprehensible or just plain risky for personal reasons to carry a bit of extra fuel when there are CBs about you've got a culture that may in some circumstances trend towards more hazard than it should. Add to this a culture where you daren't go sick because you think this is the way airlines work, you fly fatigued after traipsing around Europe on days off arranging your own hotac and transport and you're swinging the odds to an unnecessary degree.

Does this make for a "safe" operation? Clearly not, and, just like the fuel policy, the spokesman can indignantly defend the company's impeccable "safety" record" as it is, like the fuel policy, there in black and white. It's not necessarily correct or honest, but it is an undeniable statistic, and can thus be spun as "the facts".

Difficult to present this to the public in a documentary as so little of it is quantifiable but the skills that really make aviation safer are absorbed over the years by exposure to many different cultures and ideas, and in a strict cloned monoculture those pilots risk ending up genetically weak in paces and critically malnourished. We all know that too much interbreeding is a bad thing - but that's exactly what so many companies are doing with their pilot force.

If your entire flock of sheep is suffering beri-beri due to an inadequate diet it's pretty hollow to assert they're perfectly healthy on the basis that none have died. Yet. Just as it is to crow your's are healthier than your neighbours because one of his healthy flock died of a broken leg.

A "Safe airline" is demonstrably NOT one that has an impeccable accident record, that is far too a shallow assessment for such a serious subject.

A safe airline is one with a safe culture. Not just a legally untouchable Ops Manual.

Did I mention Airmansh.......?

Oh bugger..it's not in the manual. Sorry.

I'll get my coat.

[Heathrow Harry]

"We have for some years now been developing airlines that recruit few/no-one but zero hour cadets and train them in a Company controlled manner. These supremely well trained paragons (I jest not) eventually become Captains, than raining Captains and the cycle continues. All very well on paper - hard to make a safety case out of that but...

But...we end up with a flight deck community of company trained clones who know nothing of aviation in general - nothing of standard practices - something many companies want weeded out - and who think that all aviation is conducted the same way."

But the accident rate IS going down - so maybe that's the way to go...............

[ironbutt57]

spot on!!! Safety is determined by the Commander's ability to use his authority unimpeded to assure flight safety...

[captjns]

Safety culture starts at the top, with management. Then their ethos and or mantra is promulgated to flight ops, which is forced upon the troops. Unfortunately, the zero to heros don't know any better, and those that do are reprimanded for exercising "Safe Judgement" which against the "Safety Culture" which has been established by management.

Sort of like the "North Korean philosophy".

[south coast]

Good thread and a very tricky problem to solve.

Perhaps this thread could be joined to the current discussion on a separate thread in Terms and Endearment, called "Ryanair sacks Captain Goss" which is going down a similar path.

[pull-up-terrain]

The FAA seem to realise this and have implemented that 1500 hour rule for operating aircraft in rpt operations. I believe Indonesia has/is about to implement a 1500 hour rule for expat pilots. Maybe one day when there is a plane crash in europe similar to the circumstances of the Colgan Air crash, the European authorities will pull their socks up and actually do something about it.

[mad_jock]

We already have had

http://www.aaiu.ie/sites/default/files/upload/general/13067-PRELIMINARY_REPORT_2011_005-0.PDF

It won't change in Europe due to the RHS position being a revenue stream for alot of airlines.

[mutley320]

Agaricus... Thank you. Well said.

[CargoOne]

Chance of diversion vs carriage of extra fuel has nothing to do with safety, this is commercial decision.

What makes you think that zero hours cadets are less safe than others who flew another few hundreds in Cessna? Please no BS like "common sense" because I do not see any common sense here. Do you have a reference to some study which has proven it?

Your post smells like "bring me back my old good Pan Am", nothing to do with safety, all about personal comfort and perks

[BOAC]

The three FR aircraft that diverted to VLC all seem to have applied and carefully stuck to the FR fuel policy - so you are agreeing that they all took the extra fuel they required over PLOG? Good. Whether they had to 'justify it' either 'before' or 'after' of course is a moot point.

However, what they do not appear to have done, and it is not 'written' anywhere in any airline OM I know of, is divert at the right time. Although I recall they all diverted from altitude with more than CMR, waiting in the hold to near CMR is pointless and wrong. I expect this lesson has been absorbed at RY - and needs to be over the whole of aviation.

It has already been pointed out on the previous thread that no matter how many extra tonnes of fuel you load, if you use it up before diverting you will still be 'short'. The 'safety culture' we need is that which enables the right decisions at the right time, and 'experience' helps here. This is what the 'rookies' should be learning from the 'oldies', but as you say, the P2F to LHS cycle degrades that process.

[Lord Spandex Masher]

Edzackery! Trouble is BOAC that takes more airmanship than just whacking on a tonne for Granny.

[BOAC]

How does the song go, LSM? "It ain't what you do it's the way that you do it...."

Second verse "It ain't what you got it's the way that you use it...."?

[Lord Spandex Masher]

"...and that's what gets results". :ok:

[Tee Emm]

Your post smells like "bring me back my old good Pan Am", nothing to do with safety, all about personal comfort and perks

A sniping cynical comment and certainly not the type of reply one would expect from a gentleman:=

[Agaricus bisporus]

- so you are agreeing that they all took the extra fuel they required over PLOG?

I'm agreeing nothing of the sort!
My understanding was that they took a hundred or two extra - maybe I'm wrong.

But whether they took 200 extra when they should have taken 1000 or whether they took the 1000 and hung around at MAD too long is by the by. Either case indicates severely faulty of judgement or - I am suggesting - impaired judgement due to company pressure and culture to take it to the edge, be that lowest uplift or last minute in the hold. It suggests to me that something unusual is affecting their thought processes; had just one flight done this there would be nothing to say, but three simultaneously makes a case for a pattern. A pretty good case, I'd say.
And that pattern, we understand from all the evidence is a fear of non-compliance with an inflexible and accusatory commercial culture as opposed to a healthy safety culture.
Regardless of a clear and present danger such as extensive forecast and existing CBs in the worst managed airspace in Europe - and the knowleghe that diversions there are few and far between and likely unable to cope with a fraction of the traffic involved.

[BEagle]

As I'm currently in the business of creating a fuel calculation system which includes both legal reserve requirements and the flexibility to allow users to edit the assumptions - for example, to limit the FL assumed for diversion to the alternate rather than using 'best FL' figures, I am naturally quite interested in this topic.

However, when this topic was first discussed following the 'Spanish experience', it was clear to me that many 'professional pilots' don't actually understand the definition of 'final reserve' or even 'alternate' fuel. Typically, some thought that 'alternate fuel' included a 5% contigency allowance while others thought that, even when an alternate was required, 30 min holding fuel had to be included at destination, rather than at the alternate.

Having studied the IAA report, the reserve fuel carried by the affected aircraft seems to me to be entirely in line with EASA requirements. But when there is a strong possibility of being air-trafficked in a less than competent manner, a wise captain should bear that in mind when deciding alternate fuel, in my view.

If a diversion is managed normally, the aircraft will land at the alternate with final reserve (30 min) plus any unused contingency. The problem comes when the diversion cannot be managed normally, due to weather/poor ATC/other aircraft also diverting - and that's when the captain's airmanship decision is validated. Should an airline's management policy discourage, or even penalise, a captain using his/her experience and judgment to decide the reserve fuel to be carried, then that airline should well be open to question.

In my personal opinion, I thought that the Ch4 programme was naive and sensationalist. Frankly, I didn't see the point of it.

I choose not to fly Ryanair not because of any perceived safety issues, but for various other reasons.

[safetypee]

A ‘Reasoned’ classic: Achieving a safe culture: theory and practice. (http://46.65.185.13/reports/21may09-Potential/21may09-JReason.pdf)

And in similar vogue: Safety Culture – Theory and Practice. (http://ftp.rta.nato.int/public//PubFulltext/RTO/MP/RTO-MP-032///MP-032-08.pdf)

[south coast]

Did the three FR planes land at their diversion with their final reserves still intact?

If so, I don't see any talking point, except perhaps they declared fuel maydays incorrectly because as far as I understand the mayday should only be declared if the final reserves will be burned before landing?

I understand the point at which one has to divert is so one may arrive at the diversion airport and land with the final reserve still remaining, which in turn dictates what is the latest point/time one should start the diversion.

If one wants to hang around at destination waiting leaving only the minimum fuel available to get to the diversion field, plus final reserves, and land immediately without consideration for other traffic and other potentially unforeseen situations then I think the crew are the ones who are being unsafe.

For example I would always divert with diversion fuel + final reserve + a 'what if factor' and if that reduces the time I can hang around waiting then that's a decision me and my colleague have to come to and defend.

I think it's a high risk game to play to divert with diversion fuel and final reserves only and arrogant to think that one can then declare a fuel mayday to jump queues to guarantee landing with final reserves.

[mad_jock]

To be honest BEagle in my experience it doesn't actually matter how much over plan you carry. You could have an extra 30 to an hour onboard it wouldn't make any difference.

Operations will always try and get you to stay in the hold to see if things clear up until you reach your min fuel before divert.

The running on min fuel + a little bit to be honest doesn't bother me. If I decide that its not going to work I divert early and that additional fuel is used as a safety buffer for my divert not for getting into destination.

So the extra stipulated by ops on the fuel plan is the company insurance that I won't have to divert. The extra I put on is mine to use how I see fit which for me is to have more options on the divert. The only way to get more company extra is to divert and make it cheaper to carry more fuel on a route.

To me the fuel policy is reasonable enough if not worded aggressively, but I have yet to see if there are repercussions of an early divert possibly not even bothering even reaching destination. If they are applying pressure for using airmanship and experience and defining when the commander is allowed to divert and penalising them when ops think they should have stayed longer thats a completely different situation.

[BEagle]

If one wants to hang around at destination waiting leaving only the minimum fuel available to get to the diversion field and land immediately without consideration for other traffic and other potentially unforeseen situations then I think the crew are the ones who are being unsafe.



That would mean arriving at the alternate without final reserve - which would be illegal.

[Agaricus bisporus]

Having studied the IAA report, the reserve fuel carried by the affected aircraft seems to me to be entirely in line with EASA requirements.

My point exactly (correct in the fair weather case - which this wasn't), except for the item missed out;
Extra Fuel. As deemed necessary by the commander according to circumstances.

So if they ran short of fuel they either planned and executed a flight profile but with insufficient uplift, or, they planned and uplifted correctly for a given flight profile but then modified modified the profile in flight to one that left them short.

Both are wrong. The point is, why did this happen to not just one, but three aircraft simultaneously? It looks far more like six individuals making three separate decisions from the met and route data (which to my knowledge has not been questioned) and all three made a similar error.

imo flying into forecast TS with minimum EASA fuel is NOT good judgement. It may not be "wrong" as it complies with EASA as stated above, but that's only half the story isn't it? The rest of the story, that word we don't mention any more, isn't in the manual.

This is surely one of the clearest examples we've yet had of the mentality that says "if the book say's can, might or must it's compulsory", if the book doesn't mention it then it's forbidden.

It is a far from unusual take amongst modern cadets.

One would hope that it doesn't take a three figure bodycount to confirm the dangers of fly-by-numbers but I fear it may. And the toothless poodle of the IAA most certainly won't be any help there.

I'm not bashing FR here, just using them as an example as it is topical, there are others out there. It could be any of them.

[BOAC]

My understanding was that they took a hundred or two extra - maybe I'm wrong. - that is where you are wrong. It is always a good idea to have the facts at hand when you start an Oozlum bird fuel flap again. To save you the boredom of actually reading the facts, the extra uplifts were:
613kg
293kg (calculated 400kg over requirement due PLOG arrival runway allocation) and
892kg.imo flying into forecast TS with minimum EASA fuel is NOT good judgement - irrelevant, but agreed. So, who did?

So, why did this happen to not just one, but three aircraft simultaneously? Ia) It didn't - there were separated in time. Why three RYs?
b) Well, three happened to arrive in the critical 'window'. Why did Lan Chiole lose an engine on diversion to VLC - some say it ran out of fuel? How many other a/c diverted that evening?

I do not think you can criticise 892 kg or 613 kg extra - or can you? I'd be interested to hear if so. I do not for one minute accept excessive 'pressure' on fuel uplifts, nor do I like the way MOL runs things, but it does not look as if this was relevant, does it? As said, it is all about what you do with your extra 1 hours fuel when you arrive at dest. IF you hold for 1 hour and then divert, why did you not take 2 hours...................This is surely one of the clearest examples we've yet had of the mentality that says "if the book say's can, might or must it's compulsory", - no it is not, is it? How much would YOU have loaded extra and how long would you have held?

[J.O.]

AB:

Finally, someone has found the touchstone that should be the focus of the debate. Thank you for bringing some sense and logical perspective to the issue.

All the finger waving at individual pilots and regulators does nothing to address the root cause, which is that deeply engrained cultures have a momentum that is difficult to overcome. That is why pilots who've become accustomed to adding fuel whenever they want, often "just because", and who are accustomed to being able to make that call without question, now rail at the notion that they may have to justify their decision - a decision which comes with a cost that is statistically proven to be unnecessary - most of the time. That is also why a management style that punishes decisions based on airmanship and experience is one which is destined to fail - eventually. If you kick a dog enough times, it eventually either bites back or simply runs away. But the billionaire owners and shareholders - who use a punitive management style to maximize shareholder value - only care about being able to milk the system as long as possible. When that inevitable day comes, they won't be the ones left unemployed and on the street, or worse, laying in a morgue. They'll continue to flit about in their private jets from mansion to mansion, thumbing their noses at the fools who helped to line their pockets.

Cultures tend only to change when they get a severe shock to the system. The question is whether that shock will come in the form of a serious accident, or something such as a pilot group acting in solidarity and saying enough is enough. Sadly, I think the former is more likely than the latter.

[BOAC]

Quite right, JO - but it is unfortunately the 'regulators' who we need to address. Not only does the FTL monster need to be paraded publicly, but the ?airline management driven? gradual 'approved' eating away at 'contingency fuel' towards some sort of useless 'statistical' figure should be reversed.

[south coast]

That would mean arriving at the alternate without final reserve - which would be illegal.

Agreed, which is why I asked at the beginning of my post if their final reserve was intact?

Apologies BEagle, the bit you highlighted should have also included 'plus final reserves'...it was meant to highlight having zero buffer when diverting.

[Agaricus bisporus]

I do not think you can criticise 892 kg or 613 kg extra - or can you? I'd be interested to hear if so. I do not for one minute accept excessive 'pressure' on fuel uplifts, nor do I like the way MOL runs things, but it does not look as if this was relevant, does it? As said, it is all about what you do with your extra 1 hours fuel when you arrive at dest. IF you hold for 1 hour and then divert, why did you not take 2 hours...................

BOAC, had you actually read what I'd written you'd see that's merely parroting it...Same goes for most of the rest of your ill-thought out post.
Sorry you seem so anti Airman....I thought you were made of sterner stuff.

[BOAC]

Parrots AND Oozlum birds now. This is what I readSo if they ran short of fuel they either planned and executed a flight profile but with insufficient uplift, or, they planned and uplifted correctly for a given flight profile but then modified modified the profile in flight to one that left them short.

Can we agree your facts were wrong, anyway?Agreed, which is why I asked at the beginning of my post if their final reserve was intact? - again - it is in the report! Not for two. 75kg and 41kg below. and all three were quite correct to declare MAYDAY, especially with LanChile in the sky and Spanish ATC sounding very stressed at VLC in particular.

[Agaricus bisporus]

BOAC, don't you know the difference between "if" and "as" ? Do please take the trouble to read what is actually written, not just what you want to fulminate about this afternoon.

Try reading it again and get the point I'm making rather than setting out to pedantically dismantle the odd detail put in for illustration.

[RAT 5]

Guys, Please let's not turn this thread into a repeat of the 'other thread' that is re-hashing and thrashing this fuel issue to death. Agaricus Bisporus's point is about wider industry issues & safety cultures than just fuel. It is fact that some pilots are living pretty piss-poor lifestyles for not a lot of remuneration. Due to travelling in supposed off duty time they are not as fully rested and recharged, both mentally & physically, as their roster would suggest. Their remuneration package does not include many normal items that an income of €100,000pa would usually include. This has a deeper psychological effect than perhaps we realise. Lack of faith & trust in your leaders/managers also has the same effect. Reduced sleep over a few days with too little time to fully recover; a disruptive and unbalanced family life due to time away; All these, in accumulation, will have a detrimental effect on your performance and decision making, eventually.
It is on these issues that IMHO we should be focusing, not a side issue of one element of an operation. Look at the bigger picture and see the wood beyond the trees.
Sadly, as long as there are rules, and the companies & authorities can confirm everything is within the rules, then nothing will happen. The 'spirit' of the rules has been abused for years; the strict auditing of the rules has on occasions been scant. The debate needs to be much more thorough and open. How? AH the $64,000 question. If the unions try to open peoples' eyes they are shouted down by the financial minded companies. The XAA's seem to have deaf ears and blind eyes.
Unions have not brought down airlines; managers have. Remember that when the accusation of greed is levelled at you. The employees have a longer term interest in the health of a company than any manager. Not many top cats stay there for 30 years. Wanting a pay rise after 5 years, with increasing work & productivity, does not seem harsh or greedy: wanting a pension scheme does not seem greedy: wanting some health insurance and regular income does not seem greedy: wanting to be treated with respect and appreciation as a €100,000pa earning ambassador for your company does not seem greedy. Until these things are the norm IMHO there will always be an underlying resentment and dis-satisfaction and that can not be a positive thing regarding safety.

[Heathrow Harry]

Unions are as much to blame as management in many cases - things like scope clauses in the USA were clearly in pilots interests but no-one elses...........

[aguadalte]

The newly released amendment 36 to ICAO Annex 6 Part I, complemented by ICAO DOC 9976 Fuel Planing and Fuel Management Manual (FPFMM), although apparently keeping the same requirements for Fuel Planing and Fuel Management, bring to light an all new philosophy for Contingency Fuel and Trip Fuel needs. It brings also an all new philosophy in re to the substitution of ETOPS for Extended Diversion Time Ops (that now apply to all aircraft, including 2+ engined ones.
But to keep in line with this thread, Trip Fuel must now account for expected weather deviations/delays as well as ATC delays:


Annex 6, Part I, 4.3.6.2 states:
4.3.6 Fuel requirements
4.3.6.2 The amount of usable fuel to be carried shall, as a minimum, be based on:
a) the following data;
1) current aeroplane-specific data derived from a fuel consumption monitoring system, if
available; or
2) if current aeroplane-specific data is not available, data provided by the aeroplane
manufacturer; and
b) the operating conditions for the planned flight including:
1) anticipated aeroplane mass;
2) Notices to Airmen;
3) current meteorological reports or a combination of current reports and forecasts;
4) air traffic services procedures, restrictions and anticipated delays; and
5) the effects of deferred maintenance items and/or configuration deviations.

Annex 6, Part I, 4.3.6.3 states:
4.3.6 Fuel requirements
4.3.6.3 The pre-flight calculation of usable fuel required shall include:
a) taxi fuel, which shall be an amount of fuel expected to be consumed before take-off;
b) trip fuel, which shall be the amount of fuel required to enable the aeroplane to fly from take-off or
the point of in-flight re-planning until landing at the destination aerodrome taking into account the
operating conditions of 4.3.6.2 b);
c) contingency fuel, which shall be the amount of fuel required to compensate for unforeseen
factors. It shall be 5 per cent of the planned trip fuel or of the fuel required from the point of in
flight re-planning based on the consumption rate used to plan the trip fuel but in any case shall
not be lower than the amount required to fly for five minutes at holding speed at 450 m (1 500 ft)
above the destination aerodrome in standard conditions;
Note.— Unforeseen factors are those which could have an influence on the fuel consumption to the
destination aerodrome, such as deviations of an individual aeroplane from the expected fuel consumption
data, deviations from forecast meteorological conditions, extended taxi times before take-off, and
deviations from planned routings and/or cruising levels/altitudes.
d) destination alternate fuel, which shall be:
1) where a destination alternate aerodrome is required, the amount of fuel required to enable
the aeroplane to:
i) perform a missed approach at the destination aerodrome;
ii) climb to the expected cruising altitude;
iii) fly the expected routing;
iv) descend to the point where the expected approach is initiated; and
v) conduct the approach and landing at the destination alternate aerodrome; or
2) where two destination alternate aerodromes are required, the amount of fuel, as calculated in
4.3.6.3 d) 1), required to enable the aeroplane to proceed to the destination alternate
aerodrome which requires the greater amount of alternate fuel; or
3) where a flight is operated without a destination alternate aerodrome, the amount of fuel
required to enable the aeroplane to hold for 15 minutes at 450 m (1 500 ft) above destination
aerodrome elevation in standard conditions; or
4) where the aerodrome of intended landing is an isolated aerodrome:
i) for a reciprocating engine aeroplane, the amount of fuel required to fly for 45 minutes
plus 15 per cent of the flight time planned to be spent at cruising level, including final
reserve fuel, or two hours, whichever is less; or
4‐26
ii) for a turbine engine aeroplane, the amount of fuel required to fly for two hours at normal
cruise consumption above the destination aerodrome, including final reserve fuel;
e) final reserve fuel, which shall be the amount of fuel calculated using the estimated mass on
arrival at the destination alternate aerodrome or the destination aerodrome, when no destination
alternate aerodrome is required:
1) for a reciprocating engine aeroplane, the amount of fuel required to fly 45 minutes, under
speed and altitude conditions specified by the State of the Operator; or
2) for a turbine engine aeroplane, the amount of fuel to fly for 30 minutes at holding speed at
450 m (1 500 ft) above aerodrome elevation in standard conditions;
f) additional fuel, which shall be the supplementary amount of fuel required if the minimum fuel
calculated in accordance with 4.3.6.3 b), c), d) and e) is not sufficient to:
1) allow the aeroplane to descend as necessary and proceed to an alternate aerodrome in the
event of engine failure or loss of pressurization, whichever requires the greater amount of fuel
based on the assumption that such a failure occurs at the most critical point along the route;
i) fly for 15 minutes at holding speed at 450 m (1 500 ft) above aerodrome elevation in
standard conditions; and
ii) make an approach and landing;
2) allow an aeroplane engaged in EDTO to comply with the EDTO critical fuel scenario as
established by the State of the Operator
3) meet additional requirements not covered above;
Note 1.— Fuel planning for a failure that occurs at the most critical point along a route
(4.3.6.3 f) 1)) may place the aeroplane in a fuel emergency situation based on 4.3.7.2.
Note 2.—Guidance on EDTO critical fuel scenarios are contained in Attachment D;
g) discretionary fuel, which shall be the extra amount of fuel to be carried at the discretion of the
pilot-in-command.


4.19 Pre-flight fuel planning – trip fuel
Traditionally trip fuel was the fuel required to fly from the Origin aerodrome to the Destination
aerodrome. Amendment 36 to Annex 6 Part I further expands on the required foreseen factors
such as meteorological conditions, and air traffic delays that need to be included when
calculating trip fuel. Provision 4.3.6.3 b) requires the consideration of operating conditions
described in 4.3.6.2 b) when computing trip fuel.

[BOAC]

Rat - I fully agree - it is just that the erroneous comments needed correcting - yet again, just as on the original thread.

Now to the 'other' 50% of his post - and to yours. Where we are is where we are and it is not easily going to change. As long as there is a queue of young keen things waiting to pay and fly, very little will change at the 'lower levels' of aviation. Only a 'supply and demand' mismatch will drive up T&C and all the other bits you mention BUT the problem is that the young keen thing is not too bothered by most of that. Burning midnight oil? Easy - do it all the time. Pension - way ahead, worry later. Commuting in 'my time' and uniform at my expense - no real family life to upset, and hey! It's a jet job!

You see 'Barking Mad' conducting a vociferous campaign against fatigue - how much support is he getting, for example?

AB also said "It is the likelihood of an accident that affects safety..." - and how is that avoided? A good safety culture, good SOPs and good training plus quality crews will go a long way to mitigate, whereas a cowboy operation with good T&C and paying good money and allowing full freedom for Captains may well be 'unsafe' - perhaps poor maintenance, weak training, gash SOPs etc. As AB said, it is almost impossible to determine the classification. A 'safe' airline is only 'safe' until proven otherwise. A long-time aviation insurance broker once told me the tale of KLM, several years ago, asking for an advantageous renewal of their policy on the basis of 'xx years of a good safety record'. They were refused, as their broker said "I think you are due for an accident". Guess what happened. One relieved man.

I firmly believe, and have done for a long time, that the glut of cosy 'self-regulation' we see needs to be terminated. We need enquiring and picky Flt Ops inspectors, not bedazzled by all the company HQs and systems and management structures, but asking pertinent questions and taking aboard genuine crew concerns. As Barking says, for all the laudable efforts of CHIRP, PT and the team, the answers are very often anaemic and ineffective.

(Back to fuel:sad:) The latest amendment to fuel planning Annex 6 goes some way to the aim, but gives plenty of scope for management to determine 'what is reasonable' - and still knock back contingency - and STILL does not include contingency in alternate fuel. Once again, the great arbiter on how much fuel one is 'allowed' to take is to take PLOG if that is what is wanted (or PLOG+300) - and divert if need be at a suitable point. It is not 'dangerous' and diversions soon sharpen the views of the 'suits'. I saw great reluctance to not add "xxx kg for Granny" in my time and I think this thoughtless excess has contributed to where we are now.

PS Maybe an appropriate place to ask - what happens to a RY crew who divert and need HOTAC? Who pays?

[Al Murdoch]

Last time I diverted in Ryanair, the company paid for the hotel. And jolly nice it was too.

[lomapaseo]

That would mean arriving at the alternate without final reserve - which would be illegal.

Could we have a statutory fuel-related definition of what is meant by arriving at a diversion airport?

I believe these kind of judgments do have some basis in regulation. Best we not play the same game as the newspapers in bringing in shock and horror after the fact.

[Sober Lark]

Safe Airline vs. unsafe culture. The only real problem with air travel these days is that it has become so statistically safe that it creates another problem called complacency.

[J.O.]

While that may be true, it's the management types who suffer from complacency far more than the front line employees. It's called normalization of deviance and it's as much a management problem as a technical one. It's just that when the front liners suffer form it, the consequences are often more severe.

[BEagle]

Could we have a statutory fuel-related definition of what is meant by arriving at a diversion airport?


In my opinion, arriving at the holding fix with Σ (final reserve) + (approach fuel).

Some FCOMs assume a VFR approach; however, it would surely be prudent to assume an IFR approach.

[homerj]

Agaricus , I hope this thread gets the interest it deserves because you've hit the nail on the head

[McBruce]

Converting lts to kgs - its been known for skippers to do a bit of fudging to eek a few 100kgs ontop of the 300kgs that was previously allowed.... Why? Well it could be debated about given the current topic. Why not just record it correctly as per the manual?

[4468]

I agree with the poster who says the policy regarding the carriage of extra fuel is simply a commercial issue. It only becomes a safety issue if the crews make the wrong calculations whilst airborne. That decision can be as safe or as dangerous as you want it to be. It can be dangerous with an extra 5 tonnes, or safe with minimums. In this instance I would contend they took timely decisions which ultimately delivered them, and their passengers, safely to their alternate airfield. Whether or not they were ALL correct to declare a mayday is probably the only point worthy of discussion here. IIRC at least one landed with more than reserve fuel. So what's the problem?

TBH the issue of 'committing' to a destination is probably more contentious, and that happens day in, day out at LHR.

Obviously it doesn't help that the OP seemed unaware of how much extra was being carried by the subjects of his outburst.

Would it help if I add I've been flying for 30 odd years, and therefore not a child of the magenta line? Whatever that's supposed to mean.

[PAXboy]

As Pax for over 48 years, a reader of numerous such threads here and having worked in many different types of company and in different countries:

Only two things will change the Normalisation of Deviance and the complacency of men: Death and Money.

Since we are not going to see politicians tell the aviation industry + regulators to reconsider their actions of the last ten years (i.e. Money) we have to wait for Death to do it for them. Death is also money, of course.

It is a pity that the media waste time taking shots at FR when they should be investigating the regulators.

[Dan Winterland]

Spot on! Some " low cost " operators appear to push the legal limits despite circumstances which warrant otherwise. They constantly appear to see what they can get away with. This can only have one consequence, but yet they continue. It's as if they realise it's going to happen, but don't care. Either they arrogantly think they can get away with a hull loss without too much damage to the share price, or the individuals making the policy naively consider that they are protected by the regulations which they follow to the letter.

This is where the regulators have to step in. These company's operations manuals are authorised by the regulators. Slap a 25% contingency fuel figure on them until they show they can come up with a fuel policy which allows the crew to exercise their good judgement. I operate in Asia and the proliferation of this type of operation is clearly having an effect on the safety statistics. I was rather heartened to see that the Phillipine CAA have just suspended the AOC of one of their worst offenders.

Low cost, as we know largely means low overheads to maximise profits. Safety should never be seen as a cost which can be trimmed.

[autoflight]

Minimum fuel allows us standard taxi fuel use, 5% extra to destination. missed approach, prompt access to alternate route and an expeditous arrival at alternate, landing with 30 minutes holding intact.

To accept near minimum fuel at departure, the captain needs to be quite confident that above can be reasonably achieved. If the destination is busy and many other aircraft are likely to be also heading for that same alternate, also with minimum fuel, it is not sufficient to rely on a mayday call to make up for the poor departure fuel choice. The mayday calls are evidence that the departure fuels were insufficient!

I do not think there are regulations that indicate the calculated minimum fuel is sufficient for the planned flight. It is simply an amount that cannot be legally reduced. If a captain allows the company to decide that the regulated minimum plus 300Kg (or some other arbitary amount) is the maximum fuel, who is the captain??

The degree of pilot error, if any, in acceptance of the departure fuels should be investigated by regulatory authorities. The authorities have created the potential for further maydays and risk of fuel exhaustion.

[framer]

The mayday calls are evidence that the departure fuels were insufficient!
I agree with everything you say Auto flight but the above isn't quite correct in my opinion. Sometimes the departure fuel was sufficient but the decision to divert was not made, or made too late.
When you accept flight plan minimum fuel , you are accepting that you will make a clear and concise decision to divert earlier than if you had added discretionary fuel. Either are fine in my view as long as you understand the need to make potentially unpalatable decisions early in the piece.

[autoflight]

Framer, I respect your input and agree that you are correct.

Of course, if crew do actually have sufficient fuel considering all the known and reasonably forseeable circumstances and they operate in a way that does not take account of all these circumstances, then the mayday call is the result of an operating problem of the crew. Either way, it is pilot error.

The following are foreseeable circumstances:

Weather closes destination.


Alternate weather causes delays due IFR procedural arrivals.


Half a dozen aircraft ahead on missed approach / approach / holding now decide to go to the only reasonable alternate. Two of them have no margin fuel and soon declare maydays.


Expeditious route to alternate not possible due CB


Due NOTAM and WIP at alternate, must taxy to the end for 180, then long backtrack required to vacate, further slowing arrivals


ATC language difficulties due normally only local operators


One of the foreign crew is unfamiliar with the airfield and they did not have access to the NOTAMS. They and the controller struggle with communication and a valuable couple of minutes are wasted vacating the only usable runway.


With precious little margin fuel remaining, an aircraft behind, calls a fuel mayday. Even a crew that had an extra 30 minutes because they carried a little extra and diverted from TOD instead of a missed approach, might need to react with their own mayday by this point

Not to claim that all of these forseeable circumstances must be allowed for but let us accept that running out of fuel is sufficiently important that adverse events must be considered in the choice of departure fuel. This brings the question about how much do we allow for? That is why we have a captain, and the answer certainly is not "nothing".

[south coast]

With regards to the Ryanair fuel memo posted on a different thread I think it is clear there are various opinions on the minimum fuel and diversion scenario, but what I still find most interesting is the lack of actual facts regarding what happens to someone who takes extra fuel for a reasonable reason.

The memo seeks to (positively) encourage people not to tanker unnecessarily, but all operators request crew to do that.

Posters keep coming back to the 'pressure' not to carry extra fuel, but I see little factual evidence of what happens to someone who puts the safety of the plane ahead of that memo which would always be defended by the company as an instruction not to incur unnecessary costs while not compromising safety.

So, can anyone offer any evidence of actual negative action against someone who basically deviates from the memo because he/she felt safety would be compromised if extra fuel wasn't taken?

[RAT 5]

Guys: This thread is being hi-jacked by the fuel debate. It has been done to death in another thread. A.B's original question is about much more broader issues than just fuel. Could we please address those. One could argue that cloned captains with only 4 years in the cockpit (3000hrs)are not as safe as the norm a few years ago of 5000hrs = 8yrs. How's that come about? Reliance on technology and reliability, more radar, more ILS's and an SOP book like an encyclopaedia? Maybe, but the experience levels are without doubt much diluted. The overall cockpit experience could be a s low as 4000hrs which is less than just the captain a few years ago. If to consider 5000hrs fro captain and 1500hrs for F/O then you have about 11 years total experience versus 5 now. An F/O with less than 1 year on a modern jet is a yes man because they know too little, except SOP's, to object/suggest.

What other aspects in the industry have diluted the safety barriers, in your humble opinions?

[4468]

The whole concept of 'hours = quality" is utterly specious. Pick the right people, give them quality training, and you'll have a good pilot. How do you think the military survive with 1000hr pilots in a Typhoon, flying 100-200 hours a year?

There are many, many high hour, low skill pilots in this industry. The most you can say about hours is, only the next one's important!

I have no idea what Ryanair's safety culture is like, but I do know some other worldwide carriers, including one just across the channel, give me far more cause for concern.

This all sounds like Ryanair bashing to me. And from people who seem to think the youth of today somehow aren't up to scratch.

[south coast]

That's simple, paying for a job....simple outcome is it devalues the worth of the job if the employer no longer has to pay someone to do that, which means at least a minimum level of respect is required from the employer, but when people will pay for a position, it tells the same employers, this is now a service that can be sold and it has become a money generator and requires little to zero respect from the employer.

The loco's have unarguably latched on to this concept in a massive way!

[LNIDA]

Interesting posts on this thread and far better than the FR bashing mantra elsewhere.

Fuel has always been an emotive issue with pilots, views range from the 'you can never have enough' crowd to fly on fumes junkies, as ever there is a balance and this is variable depending on a great many number of factors.

My own view is that i take what i need, i don't have to justify that in my company, but i would have no problem doing so if required, more often than not that is min plog fuel, i will put extra on for CB's and for sure extra for Spanish ATC in the BCN,ALC,MAD triangle if weather is anything other than stable.

Our company predicted fuel burns are very very accurate and are constantly updated right up to departure time with weather inputs and passenger load, these are uploaded on turnarounds (25 mins turnarounds) this gives me confidence in the figures, my company also allows me to reduce min fuel if i so wish taking into account very short taxy routes or shorter SID/STAR routing (we always use longest SID/STAR at planning stage)

They also provide training on fuel planning and lots of useful stuff on line about fuel saving, THE BIG difference is there is no culture of pressure on our crews, the reporting is open, my base and route structure is that my average sector length on the NG is over 5:30 and up to 7 hours, its not at all unusual to have a min fuel requirement that is at max fuel capacity, ie i can't put any more on even if i wished to !!! so i can only reduce burn by reducing payload in other words off loading passengers or tech stop........

We have lots of ex FR pilots so i don't buy into the clone culture, far from it, they know what the culture is there and what it is here and that's why they vote with their feet, it is a one way strret with zero flow in the opposite direction.

FR count upon the professionalism of their pilots to keep themselves and therefore the company safe.

C4 was a wasted opportunity, it should have started with how successful Ryanair is and why, by dissecting their costs base and should have asked the following very simple question, how is that an airline that pays market price for fuel, aircraft, navigation charges and so on manages to achieve a CASK that is 15 points below any other European operator, its a little like asking how Lance Amrstrong managed to win the TDF 7 times in a row, that would be proper investigative journalism.

Shine a light on the employment structure of its pilots, the ongoing tax investigations of its pilots the national insurance payments, lack of any holiday pay, sick pay, standby pay, zero hour contracts, positioning, crew food or access to food or storage of food onboard, water, out of base hotac, duty travel on days off, sims on days off, of course non of these are safety issues in their own right and FR are right to point to their impressive safety record, but they do seem to be trying to turn the clock back 50 years, but in any event the public are not interested in the plight of pilots who earn $150k moaning about food when the average income in Europe is probably $50k MOL knows this only to well.

[autoflight]

My interest in fuel based it being something so easy to control, that buys time in flight to sort out other problems.

Another so easy to control item is effective internal and external pre flight checks. Hundreds of times I have observed inadequate checking of operational manuals and essential certificates and also minimum care external checks. All this stuff should be so second nature.

Actual example at Hong Kong Kai Tac some years ago. Night time, pouring rain, crowded tarmac and lots of activity. Pax on board, cargo doors closed. I am wearing disposable rain gear and hearing protection and have a water proof torch with 3 size C alkaline batteries and a halogen bulb. Carefully inspect as much of my A320 as is possible. Especially also looking for any evidence of scrapes or dents from ground vehicles. This is my last chance to pick up damage. Everyone is waiting, for another 6 or 7 minutes but I can justify that.

Another nearby aircraft final walk around is in progress. The crew member has a dinky penlight torch with a couple of little batteries, a tiny bulb and a reflector just bigger than the bulb. Pax are boarding from a bus and baggage is still being loaded. The guy is in a hurry because the APU noise is deafening and he is as wet as shag due no rain gear. His walk around takes 2 minutes and with the driving rain and his crappy torch, there is very little he can see anyway.

I like to think that any collision with my aircraft will be noticed and reported, but I don't just hope. It is unforgivable to find out after airborne, when for such little effort, that risk can be minimised.

Take care my friends.

[Agaricus bisporus]

The problem of pilots being or feeling unwilling to make decisions freely has doubtless been with us since the first builder employed a pilot to fly his flimsy creation. Ever since then we've generally got better and safer at what we do. We've now reached a point where the technical aspects represent precious little hazard and the safety critical technology of aircraft is probably reaching it's peak.

We have SOPs and procedures that make the flying side pretty safe too, but there is much room for improvement yet. (see the CFIT rates for instance) By far the biggest improvement to flight safety in the last three decades was CRM, or Human Factors as we called it at first. I venture to suggest this has transformed safety in that time.

ATC can certainly be improved, both in more efficient routing, integrated environment (I'm talking Europe in particular - which is what I know), and often better language and controllers (eg Spain, Greece, Italy etc.)

Some of these are not in the purview of the pilots to alter, despite it being in their interest.

What is in the purview of the pilots to alter is the management of the direct environment they work in where it affects safety or their freedom to run a safe operation, and this brings in the Company, because it is the Company that enables or restricts those freedoms.

We all operate under strictly defined AOCs and their relevant manuals which may be viewed by some as excessively detailed (fly-by-numbers) or not, according to your viewpoint. They are, though, pretty bulletproof in their coverage.

But we know, from a CRM point of view, that strict and blind adherence to the manuals and with nothing in addition leaves vast gaps in the safe and smooth conduct of an operation. There's no human aspect, no psychology, no emotion and no judgement. That's vital - and entirely unwritten between the company and the pilots.

Vis crewing/rostering applying rules that were written as individual limits as collective targets - something that the Institute of Aviation Medicine who developed them never considered anyone would be daft enough to do - and for which they are manifestly unsuited. There has to be some human consideration in the rostering policy - telling the crew "Stop complaining, it's legal" when they've got max duty - min rest all month is all very well. It IS legal. But way outside the spirit of the law. And if there is ever an accident down to this the company will indignantly maintain "absolute compliance with European regs" and "all safety rules complied with". Where have we just heard that statement? A TV documentary on the incident won't turn up anything because it WAS legal. It wasn't right, morally honest or, perhaps in reality, safe.

I once worked for a scheduled UK airline of whose fleet not one single aircraft was airworthy. Some had two or three no-despatch faults. There were no defect sheets in any of the tech logs, they just weren't there. Captains wrote a page or two of defects on the back of the Met to hand to the next crew so they knew what was wrong with their crock of shy te. The company culture was that you couldn't sign an aircraft tech without risking your job. That may or may not have been true but declare the a/c tech away from main base and you would have your FO almost in tears begging you not to and an angry, acrimonious interview w/o coffee next day. No pressure then! You flew overloaded ditto. You broke minima as a matter of course. Twin crew aircraft ferried by a single pilot. But they operated like this for years afaik, and every single pilot I've ever met from tis company tells me similar horror stories. Every single one. Over 20 years or so! Yet they never had an accident. (Well, they did, but they never filed the accident report so it never happened, did it...?). Thus they have a 100% safety record...
And they were reported to the CAA repeatedly, and nothing was ever done.
The culture of fear that ruled that dreadful outfit completely overwhelmed the professionalism of every poor sod that got a precious job there until they could get out - we have to eat after all.

But there's no paper-trail there for defects (no paper, see?), no paper-trail to "prove" pressure to fly overloaded because to safeguard your job you fudged it, no paper trail to say you can't sign an aircraft tech - indeed the manager would go ape if such a suggestion was made, and the CP would castigate and ridicule you for unprofessionalism and inexperience for failing to make a landing in 150ft cloudbase from and NDB. There never will be "proof" of this sort of thing, it's existence can only be deduced from circumstances and outcomes. That's why it is so pernicious.

Don't mistake me, I'm not suggesting for a minute this is commonplace, I'm sure it was by far the worst in the UK but echos of that Company mindset still exist here and there. I use that as an example of just how dreadful things can get and yet not be corrected by the system because everything is fine on paper and the management can deny all knowledge and accuse the whistleblowers of being wreckers. Where have we heard that recently?

Now, back to the Madrid/Valencia thing which I again use, please note, merely as a vehicle to illustrate the general point.

It is quite clear that all three crews landed with legally acceptable amounts of fuel. It is equally clear that they made varying efforts to add extra in view of the conditions. It is clear that the commenced their diversions with a legal amount on board. It is thus clear that the Company's statement of full compliance is unimpeachable. But was it safe? Well, no accident ensued ergo it must be.

Yet three crews flew into Europe's worst managed airspace with a PROB40 TS forecast with at most 20 mins extra fuel? They diverted in evidently chaotic ATC environment from a 4 runway intercontinental hub to a single-runway hicksville alternate that struggles to cope with it's own light traffic - two with circa 300Kg in hand, one with 150 unless BOAC wants to correct my figures. Its doesn't seem very imaginative, does it?

It also doesn't seem very likely to me that three crews would all cut themselves so short unless there was some common factor - in those conditions. imho their fuel margins were a fraction of what I'd want to go to VLC under those conditions. So why did this happen?

It certainly wasn't because they liked smashing around in the VIBAS hold for fun.
Something held them, all three, until things were on the brink or close to it even for clear and standard conditions, which was manifestly not the case. But it was all legal, wasn't it? (I'm not criticising the crew, just echoing the spokesman's mantra)

Could it be that all three were on max duty (I don't know if the Skatsta flight could have made a third sector but the others were stuck in VLC if they went there)? That is an indication - just an indication mind you - of a possible company pressure. Not necessarily one expressed at the time but maybe a generic pressure to make the destination at all costs - why else would anyone get to 150Kg of clear wx diversion fuel under those conditions? Whatever it was must have been a powerful influence. But there sure as hell isn't a paper trail! And it was legal. Ergo safe.

As someone said above it doesn't matter how much extra fuel you took, if you declare a fuel mayday you didn't take enough. I'd add to that or you did not correctly manage what you had. The additional fuel uplifted on those three flights strike me (again imo) as - well - unimaginative, shall we say, given the conditions even taking reduced mileage for 18 into account - which is often a recipe for even more chaos than usual at MAD. Please don't think I'm criticising the crew, I'm not. I'm wondering why so little extra was taken. Remember, MAD, July, PROB40 TS. Go figure!

If a company culture can browbeat scores of pilots over many tears to fly unserviceable aircraft, fail to report defects and bust minima as routine is it not plain as daylight that pressure can discourage people from uplifting as much fuel as they wanted? Is the existence of a fuel table - a list of shame - and gritty chittys from the management if you are in the last third all but guaranteed to achieve this? Ask a psychologist, but I've a fair idea of the answer.

You've got buy yer job, no sick pay, no hols, sims on days off etc etc, sacked if you even think of a union (a universal right, isn't it? Except the Company's manufactured a previously un-thought-of employment system to make it all but unworkable)

Add to that whatever verbal and practical "guidance" crews receive in training, initial and recurrent to reduce fuel uplift to minimums and it soon develops a mindset that extra fuel is "wrong" and much extra fuel is "very wrong" . Then this is reinforced by "reasons in writing" which on the face of it is innocuous enough, but in conjunction with the rest is the icing on the cake.

Is it any wonder this sort of thing happens in such a culture of fear?

Right - try to view the above as an abstract illustration rather than referring to a specific incident - it just happens to be a convenient one.

Now - to the point. I know, I've got nothing else to do this afternoon but I think this is important. Is anybody still there?

CRM

Thirty years ago someone came up with the idea that dictatorial and overbearing Trident Captains might be a safety hazard and did something about it. The idea was widely poo-poohed but caught on eventually and I think created one of the biggest improvement in safety ever.

Is there not a dramatic similarity between an overbearing Captain who instils fear and stymies initiative in an FO by bluster, bombast and belittlement :(and a company that does the same to all their crew? The difference is in the first you only have a poorly managed aeroplane, in the other it affect the whole fleet.

Many times I've heard people walk into the office and mutter darkly, "Hmpf. CRM stops here!" I've worked for companies where there was almost a visible double red line across the office door and a notice to that effect. That is clearly wrong an needs to be addressed.

All the adherence to all the SOPs in the world does not maximise safety - indeed it will compromise it - if the Captain is an overbearing aggressive and accusatory sob.

Isn't it about time CRM became Company Resource Management and we began to eradicate the Boss and Boy attitude that some companies have developed, just as we work to eradicate it on the flightdeck? CRM2 needs to involve crews (all of them), crewing, rostering, standards, management - the whole company, not just aircrew. If we did that we could see benefits approaching those of CRM1. We could do it - the Authority won't, but we could press for it.

We need to. Before there's a body count. Im sure the beancounters didn't like CRM1, they'll like CRM2 even less when they have to join in, but isn't this the next big thing in flight safety?

It's my view that episodes as I've described above are symptoms of an overbearing management stifling the initiative and good judgement of crews to the extent that it may compromise flight safety. If I am right - and shoot me down if you can, then it needs to be dealt with.

Sadly experience tells us nothing will happen until there is a body count, and a big one too.

Were it not so.

[Kerosene Kraut]

You can still see today some FO's have to carry their Captain's trolleys and to walk meters behind them. Would they really dare to react to any possible grave mistake by their boss in the air? Are they a true team?

[BOAC]

is it not plain as daylight that pressure can discourage people from uplifting as much fuel as they wanted? Is the existence of a fuel table - a list of shame - and gritty chittys from the management if you are in the last third all but guaranteed to achieve this? Ask a psychologist, but I've a fair idea of the answer.
- it is unfortunate you are still harping on about this MAD/VLC incident and 'returning' to fuel. I do not see why you and many others cannot understand. If the pressure is there to take no more than PLOG+300 then do it. Divert when you judge the situation requires it - that is what being a professional pilot is all about, not whinging about fuel league tables, letters and the like. You can get yourself right to the top by taking PLOG+300 or less. A raft of diversions for RY would so on shift the suits as the profits slide. Don't like the club rules? Either break them or leave the club.

What on earth is the relevance of 'max duty'? You are doing a gross injustice to the professionalism of the 3 captains involved if you think they 'hung on' around MAD to avoid a night stop (at company expense). I suppose they might have, but I strongly doubt it. There was a lack of appreciation amongst all crews as to where they were and when they should have diverted, as I have said before. I trust this has been addressed by the company training.

We do not really know either what the 'support' from the RHS was. There may have been a reason to 'hang on' - we just do not know (well, some do, I guess). Diverting is hard work and I have done it with the occasional chocolate fireguard in the RHS, and also with a superb, supportive co-pilot or three, but envisaging the young RHS dissolving in tears or panicking does not make life easy in the LHS - been there, done that (except it was the LHS.that 'broke'...:)).

Liker Rat says, can we leave this fuel thing alone? To summarise - taking PLOG that night would have been fine - instant div on first delay - or earlier even. No, I would not have done it, nor would I recommend it, but it is not UNSAFE as has been pointed out by other highly professional pilots on the other thread. I note that having slated the crews' uplifts (erroneously) you still have not told me what extra you would have taken? (Sorry, Rat)

[Agaricus bisporus]

Jeez BOAC, for feksake read what I've written will you?

What do you find hard to understand about it being an example to illustrate a point, not a pop at FR??? How many times did I repeat that to try to keep the nitpicking sniping down?

If you aren't interested in the point or it's just too long for your attention-span please don't reply to cherry-picked fragments that you've misread anyway. Just stay under your rock for heaven's sake?

taking PLOG that night would have been fine - instant div on first delay

PLOG fuel to MAD in july with PROB40 TS? BOAC, I know you can be outspoken fella but I had no idea you are completely barking mad, or blind drunk. That is the daftest thing I've ever heard! If you can justify that with such a forecast I can't visualise a situation where it would EVER be necessary to take extra fuel...:ugh:

[BOAC]

"for feksake read what I've written will you?"

"an example to illustrate a point" - trouble is, it doesn'thttp://images.ibsrv.net/ibsrv/res/src:www.pprune.org/get/images/smilies/shiner.gif

PS You still haven't educated me on your extra fuel uplift................

[south coast]

Where are the CAA's (IAA) in all of this?

One would think, if the managements of company X,Y & Z do nothing to promote a good safety culture, then the CAAs would surely be inundated with anonymous letters/emails/calls with examples and concerns.

One would think since there is no come back to the author of any issues raised, the culture of fear within companies X, Y & Z would not be a factor in stopping individuals reporting what may be considered unsafe?

Why would CAAs turn a 'blind eye' to facts of unsafe operations?

Why would crew who fear they are employed within an organisation that does not promote a good safety culture not contact their regulator on mass?

[Agaricus bisporus]

SC, lets leave the IAA out of this. I've said again and again this thread is not about this specific incident, but using the incident to illustrate another point. If you want to ask specific questions about the IAA there are other FR bashing threads elsewhere. This is not one of them.

[GlueBall]

The biggest safety threat comes from a self-made clusterf**k of airline instructors and training captains who are rabid on total automation.

Today's industry produces pilots who have an acute aversion of manual flight; pilots who are challenged when disconnecting A/P & A/T; pilots who, when offered, will decline a visual approach in clear daylight. They won't ever accept a 5 mile base, they insist on flying a full ILS procedure.

Any wonder why pilots stall during cruise mid Atlantic, or hit the sea wall during a non precision approach on a clear day?

It's scary. Real scary.

[Dannyboy39]

To look at engineering (I don't think it has been mentioned yet?):

If you look at Southwest Flt 812 PHX-SMF in 2011 when a structural failure caused a rapid decompression and resulting emergency landing in Yuma, there was no instruction to inspect the fuselage at a certain number of cycles.

Many ADs/SBs come from incidents reported back by operators. In this case, an emergency AD was supplied by the FAA for aircraft that exceeded 30000/C - for most airlines that is 25 years of flying! In Europe certainly there are very few aircraft that would've exceeded this threshold so this occurrence obviously wouldn't have been found.

Would you agree that engineering is very much trial and error? There is no such thing as safe and unsafe.

All airlines have to provide a concise AMP which needs to be rubber stamped by the relevant regulatory authority and obviously after usually 400/H a hangar inspection will carry out a number of airworthiness tasks to maintain high levels of safety.

[Lord Spandex Masher]

PLOG fuel to MAD in july with PROB40 TS? BOAC, I know you can be outspoken fella but I had no idea you are completely barking mad, or blind drunk. That is the daftest thing I've ever heard! If you can justify that with such a forecast I can't visualise a situation where it would EVER be necessary to take extra fuel...

Out of interest would you have operated a flight, in the above situation, if you could get no more than minimum fuel on board (weight limited)? Or would it have been to dangerous? Or daft?

If you would then it's not daft or dangerous.

Sorry Rat5;)

[FullWings]

Maybe some of it is born of past experience, advertising and expectation?

* Air travel, by and large, getting safer, even as it expands.
* Flights timed (and measured) to the minute, punctuality very important.
* Despatch reliability, comfort, noise, etc. all improving as fleets modernise.
* People are told (and expect) that they will get there on time, on price.
* Flying is presented as a seamless alternative to other means.

So pressure from customers as well as management. Not only that, it is possible to take questionable actions (in retrospect), on the basis that it's good for your clients and everyone who's a team player wants that, don't they? Part of what we see might not be people caving in to threats from the airline(s) but from a genuine desire to do what appears to be the right thing as a team that's 'onside'.

Maybe after you've taken "plog" fuel for 20 sectors, it becomes more difficult to justify extra as it feels "wrong" somehow? When I first got my command, the boss *told* me not to worry about fuel and that he'd be happier knowing I wasn't being distracted by it in the early stages. Later, I had a period of benign weather and took almost a month of minimum fuel (with no problems) then did a trip to the far east - the FOs both wanted more fuel and my initial reaction was to think "that's spoiling my record" and shortly afterwards "thank **** someone's thinking straight!". I was a bit shocked that I'd managed to lapse into minimum = good, even when it wasn't; needless to say we took a fair bit extra which we needed most of at the other end.

I think other posters are near the mark when they point to regulation, company ethos, training and "normalisation of deviance" being munged up together to make an unholy brew. There are multiple reasons and it is somewhat unfair to single out any person or organisation. FR get a lot stick but considering the size of their operation their incident rate is probably pretty low.

[fireflybob]

If you go back to the 1960s/1970s during CPL training there was much emphasis on the responsibilities and legalities (Air Law) of being an Aircraft Commander (how often is that term used these days? - one usually hears the term "Captain"). How much emphasis does CPL training these days give to the responsibilities of being an aircraft Commander?

Since then we have seen a continual eroding of the authority and respect shown towards the Aircraft Commander from various Operators. Whilst I am in favour of CRM and the like we seem to be breeding aircraft "managers" these days.

There are occasions when the person in charge (especially where lives are on the line) has to have the moral courage (aka b***s) to do the right thing (= leadership) as opposed to doing "things right" (= management). This would include (but not be limited to) the carriage of fuel above flight plan. This would also include going against the (Company) "party line" (in the sense of applying a greater margin of safety).

In a Company which I once flew for significant changes in procedures were announced which, in my opinion, were more to do with concerns to do with who would get the blame if anything went wrong; these procedures were, in my opinion (and those of other pilots I talked to), less "safe". I was flabbergasted that the pilots were never consulted about said changes. With CRM Commanders are encouraged (rightly) to consider fellow crew member's views on operational decisions, yet it would seem the Company had the attitude of "we know best" QED

[RAT 5]

Let's say I am the CEO of an airline. I would like my HR dept to hire people whom I could trust to be good ambassadors of my company and its culture: people who would like to invest themselves in a career to promote my own philosophy and product to the customers. I would then like my training dept. to promote captains whom I could trust to be special ambassadors for my company and promote its safe, customer caring product to the passengers and public where-ever they are. Captains whom I could trust to make sound judgement for the safety of the flight while regarding the sound commercial aspect of the hand that feeds them. I would monitor performance for good business reasons and advise where necessary and trust the message was received and agreed upon. I would listen to concerns and maintain trust.
If I couldn't trust my captains to do that simple job then I had the wrong guys. I would expect them to trust me in return, and be proud to be my ambassador, and we would have a professional trusting relationship.
How often does that happen today? Answers on a postcard to...........

[flarepilot]

you can have the best procedures, best people, best planes and still have some bad luck.

you can have marginal procedures, marginal people, beat up planes and be lucky.

for many years I've asked the question of my peers: is it better to be good or to be lucky.

everyone says lucky.

[RAT 5]

Ask Dirty Harry! Punk.

[Dannyboy39]

"Best planes"

I know I'm being picky here, but how do you define a good plane and a bad plane? Obviously some models have poorer reliability records, inefficient and noisier, but surely the job, whether its good or bad, is to transport passengers from A to B?

Surely the most important thing is that its serviceable and maintained IAW company SOPs, its AMP and industry regulations, whether it be a B757 of a 25-year vintage or a shiny brand new A320 with sharklets straight out of Toulouse?

[Aldente]

As someone said above it doesn't matter how much extra fuel you took, if you declare a fuel mayday you didn't take enough. I'd add to that or you did not correctly manage what you had.

My sentiments exactly - nothing to do with fuel load or company policy, but surely more prudent in such scenarios to make an earlier decision to divert?

:confused:

[Sober Lark]

Dannyboy, Not really fair Concorde skewed the statistics the way she did.

Back to Safety vs Culture. I often wonder how much of the safety inspectors and regulators instructions is simply based on trust. How good is regulation oversight in Europe?

[autoflight]

This excellent thread cannot ignore the poor safety culture exposed by the need for triple fuel maydays. Since captain choice of fuel quantity is such a common event, consideration of that issue is more practical than, for example a B777 crash where few of us are actually current.

Many times, near minimum fuel would have had me concerned about the progress of my flights. I always removed those concerns with additional margin fuel. Airlines never queried my fuel choice.

Some airlines may seek to distance themselves from minimum fuel pressure and greater liability with company instructions like:


Company policy is to take minimum fuel.


More than XXX Kg extra requires a short report of the circumstances.

Captain is responsible for safe fuel quantity for each flight. In the rare event that this fuel turns out to be insufficient, diversion for added fuel is accepted. If there is no suitable diversion airfield, conserve fuel and declare a fuel mayday.
What has happened in the last decade? The answer is to be found within pprune, where occasional bursts of clear thought collectively identify particular airlines that have yet to dramatically demonstrate their poor safety culture. Here we go again. Luck vs skill.

If one airline becomes very profitable by enforcing a particular culture on flight crew, that airline has the capacity to expand and take market share from other operators. To stay in business, competitors need to also take on board the profit based culture. As they do so the original particular culture airline needs to more aggressively expand its successful business model. Finally all have similar safety culture, subordinate to profit.

How can pilots and regulatory authorities, identify the degree of safety subordination and determine the minimum permitted level? Well, I think pilots have identified that unacceptable management pressure currently degrades safety. Now it is up to regulators to come to the same conclusion. The solution is clouded by other foreign operators being able to operate with poor safety cultures. I can think of one or two north asian airlines for a start.

EU administration is not well regarded by many, but somehow an enquiry and a united approach to the safety aspects of airline management is needed. Pilot representation is essential.

[south coast]

Well, I think pilots have identified that unacceptable management pressure currently degrades safety. Now it is up to regulators to come to the same conclusion

Surely responsible and professional crews need to play their part as well by reporting unsafe or illegal activity with their organisation.

The CAAs make it even easier by allowing anonymity too.

But I fear a huge part of the problem we have in aviation is just a mirror of a problem we have in society in general these days...apathy.

eg. "I don't like this fuel load because of X, Y & Z, but the company say we shouldn't take extra because it affects profitability and if I do, I might get in trouble or lose my job, but I really don't like it..."

Flight goes ok, at least to the point no emergency or Pans were declared, perhaps final reserve was on board on landing, perhaps it wasn't.

How many crew are taking the time to file a safety report with their authority because they feel they can't do it within the structure of their company.

I fear not many and this is down to the rise of a hugely apathetic society with regards to principles and making an effort over and above when one believes they have finished their duties.

"Ah, the flight ended up going ok, no one died, I am tired and my duty is finished, I am not going to potentially make trouble for myself by writing a report in my own time, I'm off to the hotel"

Apathy, it's destroying our society and when society's mindset changes in general, then surely those people within society also bring that state of mind into whatever job they happen to do too.

[RAT 5]

Well, I think pilots have identified that unacceptable management pressure currently degrades safety. Now it is up to regulators to come to the same conclusion.

This falls into the category of many things I've experienced in my career: there is a perceived or real problem, but as yet no smoking hole; the XAA seem hesitant to agree because they do not see a solution if they acknowledge the problem, or it will be too inconvenient to implement the solution. Under the carpet with it. That carpet is very lumpy now.


How many crew are taking the time to file a safety report with their authority because they feel they can't do it within the structure of their company.

Big difference between an employee in a union airline and a contractor in a non-union airline. One will keep their job for stirring it, the other will be on their bike. Both might be correct, but will the XAA back the latter to the hilt. It won't matter because a contractor is always vulnerable.

[4468]

There appears here to be the assumption that the more fuel you carry, the safer you are, and vice versa. This is not correct.

It is only the decision making process prior to, and once airborne that is important.

If you require 10 tonnes of fuel to fly your Boebus from A-B, but your company in their infinite wisdom tells you, you can only carry 9 tonnes, the flight can be conducted perfectly safely. (Certainly if it's within Europe) It just will not reach the destination.

If you don't reach your destination frequently enough, expect the company to allow you to carry more fuel. That's a commercial decision. The captain's decision as to where s/he goes, is what makes the flight safe. Nothing to do with the amount of fuel.

Fuel policies are written to allow an a/c to divert and land at it's planned alternate with only Reserve Fuel (30 mins) remaining. Since a pan should be declared if you feel you may land with less than Reserve, and a Mayday if you will land with less than Reserve, it should be no great surprise that diverting a/c sometimes declare a Mayday should it?

This definitely isn't the first time, and won't be the last!

There are of course situations in which is acceptable to commence an approach knowing that if you were to Go Around from the missed approach point, insufficient fuel may remain in the tanks to reach your nominated diversion. There are other circumstances in which it is acceptable to dispense with all destination alternates prior to take off!

How dangerous.:rolleyes:

[Aldente]

Dark,narrow, twisty, country road on a winter's night in heavy rain with a slippery road surface.

Speed limit (in UK) 60 mph.

I'm doing 59 mph.

Legal? Yes

Advisable? Probably not

Safe? NO!

Have I made my point?

PS
Been doing it for years and never had an accident......

[Lord Spandex Masher]

No! Carrying minimum fuel won't result in instantaneous death.

[Kerosene]

Not legal, reckless.

[Agaricus bisporus]

Or, your car may do up to 60 on a two lane road
It may do up to 60 in rain
It may do up to 60 in fog
It may to up to 60 over a hump-back bridge
It may do up to 60 at night
It may take a corner at up to 60

All quite clear? A list of sensible limits.

So, you take your car on a wet, foggy 2 lane road at night over a hump back bridge with a corner right after it at 60 and...that's modern rostering.

If you survive the company indignantly cries about a 100% safety record, impeccable training, what are you slanderng us for?

If you die they maintain it was perfectly legal, no rules were infringed, accidents happen.

[Dream Buster]

FullWings - spot on with your post #62 referring to 'Normalisation of Deviance'.

For those who are unaware of the concept:

Professionalism/Diane Vaughan and the normalization of deviance - Wikibooks, open books for an open world (http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Professionalism/Diane_Vaughan_and_the_normalization_of_deviance)


Examples:

The 1986 Challenger space shuttle launch decision.

or

The decision to keep driving a vehicle - after losing a head light.....


Almost impossible for present pilots :eek: to keep ALL their decisions both legal and decent?

As a 'past' pilot :ouch:, I can write these things.

[autoflight]

I see a response trend on this and some other threads where low safety culture airlines are exposed. A good number of posts give examples of poor safety culture and some suggest, and give examples of, alternative philosophies and procedures that would add to a safety culture.

I accept that all have their opportunity for input and different alternatives are normally welcome by all.

A study of the responses defending poor safety management indicates that some are suffering from Stockholm Syndrome. Company management has them by the balls. Fail to toe the party line exactly and risk reduced flying hours and reduced salary. Any suggestion of complaints “outside the company structure” are bad for self employed contractors. Pilots are locked in by contracts or lack of other positions. One could even say held captive. Managements are well aware of Stockholm Syndrome and in fact it is starting to look like it is part of their business models. Sufferers will enthusiastically defend their captors.

Those enthusiastically defending minimum fuel have got something wrong with them. Now we know what it is.

[chillpill]

This is a good thread.

GluBall, I would take issue about your comment that ... 'The biggest safety threat comes from a self-made clusterf**k of airline instructors and training captains who are rabid on total automation'...

There is a huge number of trainers out there who are not 'rabid on total automation' but are really trying to balance the need for an 'appropriate level' of automation, whilst respecting your very valid point that,

... 'Today's industry produces pilots who have an acute aversion of manual flight; pilots who are challenged when disconnecting A/P & A/T; pilots who, when offered, will decline a visual approach in clear daylight. They won't ever accept a 5 mile base, they insist on flying a full ILS procedure'...

This issue raised so well, goes way beyond the trainers and even training management. We need a fundamental shift in the regulation of this to catch up with what is actually going on out there with our reliable, safe automated machines.

[GlueBall]

On my last line check I was chided by a senior line-check airman for having come off the A/P & A/T "too early" during a vectored ILS approach in VMC at 4000 feet. His lecture was that I should have kept A/P & A/T engaged until at least AFTER intercept of localizer. He had reminded me that SOP required maximum use of automation in all phases of flight.

Four years ago I had declined extension of my check airman appointment because I did not (and still don't) agree with maximum automation philosophy. After many moons on the B74 and 20K+ hours, I'm still being lectured on new ways to fly this old bird. Ten years ago this was not so much an SOP issue.

The industry continues a dangerous trend away from manual piloting skills. :{

[Tee Emm]

Some time ago I discussed automation addiction with a 737 colleague. He related a recent experience of coming into Sydney NSW where the first officer was PF. They were cleared visually to intercept the ILS localiser and were approaching on an intercept angle of around 25 degrees 17 miles from the runway in clear weather. With the automatics still engaged, the F/O asked if she could disconnect the autopilot and hand fly as she had an instrument rating coming up and wanted to practice her hand flying. The captain had no problem with that.

ATC said clear for final. However the F/O continued using the autopilot. The captain suggested she turn off the autopilot and fly by hand - after all she had requested it in the first place. The F/O said she would leave the autopilot engaged for an automatic intercept until the 737 was established on final at about seven mile out. The captain queried this by saying if you want to practice hand flying then do so now. The F/O said she wasn't confident of being able to intercept the localiser by hand flying and would rather wait until the aircraft was established on the extended centre line.

Once on final (and fully visual in CAVOK), the F/O did the click click thing and started down on the glide path. The captain then suggested that if she was serious about hand flying down the ILS maybe she should switch off the flight director as well as the autothrottles and fly raw data. After all, the sun was shining and there was no wind.

The F/O said she wanted to leave the FD on in case of a go-around. The captain said you don't need a FD to conduct a GA. Nevertheless, the 3000 hour F/O was so underconfident of hand flying the 737 in perfect weather and field in sight that she stuck with the FD and auto throttles until very short final..

What a sad indictment of company procedures that some pilots are scared of hand flying raw data in good weather - let alone in clouds. These are indeed children of the magenta line. And there are captains like that, too.

[Agaricus bisporus]

Things have come to a pretty pass when "Professional" pilots are underconfident at flying an instrument approach manually in VMC and don't even consider it in IMC! I have watched the reluctance to fly manually in IMC creeping over the industry over the last 10 years or so with amazement but when so many Captains evidently disapprove of manual flying at all is it any wonder the new monoculture generation of FOs develop the thinking that it must be a slightly dodgy procedure that really isn't the right thing to do - and certainly not if you can't see where you're going...

I reckon FOs ask me if they can handfly once, maybe twice a month, 20 days work per month, that's 10% OF FOs max (3% of sectors) Plus - I am not one of the discouragers, quite the opposite! However, you do have to think of pax comfort and when you're being hoiked around with the coffee spilling on a heavy handed approach you do wonder if the automatics aren't there for a reason!

This is yet another example of how strange and unintended deviations develop in a monoculture.

In another 5-10 years we'll have an entire generation of pilots who never think of manual flight at all and will do all they can to prevent it.

The bean-counters' inclination after the Aasiana problem will be to further regulate manual flying.
The training system will try to improve it.
The safety officer will see that more rules go into the book about it.
The manufacturer will add more automated protection to counter human failings.
The one man and a dog cockpit is getting ever closer, isn't it?

[16024]

Just to play devils advocate for a bit: I do find myself hand flying less than I used to, and ironically it's because of the safety culture! With most airlines AFM saying something along the lines of: "the regulations say you must be stable at 500 but we want you stable at 1000", and most busy airports demanding 16024 (hey, hey!) that gives little margin for error. My own company takes no prisoners if you don't have it nailed by 1000, so there's a lot going on in one mile there.
And returning reluctantly to the plog+ uplift part of the debate, BOAC says in post 10 that most AFMs make no mention of when to divert, before going back to telling everybody how unprofessional they are. Well I had a bit of an old browse through my last 3 company part As and they all say something very similar: take account of traffic and weather where you are, where you might end up, and all points in between, to make sure you get there with enough fuel. Paraphrasing, of course but that's about it. You don't even need a********p or common sense.
You do need enough fuel to begin with, though...

[BOAC]

Well I had a bit of an old browse through my last 3 company part As - I bet none of them tell you not to stay in the hold until near CMR, though, do they? telling everybody how unprofessional they are - Hmm - cannot see that line, old chap. I did say that I thought they made mistakes in when to divert, but not that they were 'unprofessional'. Assuming you are, you should know that even 'professionals' are allowed mistakes here and there. I actually think they handled events quite 'professionally' given the cards they were dealt.

[PAXboy]

south coast
Posters keep coming back to the 'pressure' not to carry extra fuel, but I see little factual evidence of what happens to someone who puts the safety of the plane ahead of that memo which would always be defended by the company as an instruction not to incur unnecessary costs while not compromising safety.

So, can anyone offer any evidence of actual negative action against someone who basically deviates from the memo because he/she felt safety would be compromised if extra fuel wasn't taken?
Ah, but if it could be proved then the mgmt would have used a different method! Sorry to sound so suspicious but, having worked in many other lines of commerce and loval govt (but not airlines) for over 35 years, I know how difficult it is to prove this.

The whole point is that months/years of a 'raised eyebrow' and 'a certain tone of voice' are not in the HR rule book. We know from personal friendships and relationships how we learn what others want and do not want - without them being specific. So it is at work.

You also notice that a particularly good pilot/staff member is passed over for promotion - and you know that good person is one that you'd trust with your life. Then you see some 'flash harry' get promoted ahead of his time and everyone knows that he's an @rse licker. In commerce it happens every day and it's happened to me because I was too independently minded. People can get fired, made redundant or moved sideways or 'promoted' to a job that will ensure they leaves. It is an everyday event.

But in your world, the Seniority method of promotion means that mgmt have to find other ways of promoting the ones who do what they are told. From what I read (in this thread and elsewhere) the selection criteria is where these decisions are being made.

By way of pertinent illustration of my expressed view (post #41)
Only two things will change the Normalisation of Deviance and the complacency of men: Death and Money.See: BBC News - Bank of America intern death sparks debate over hours (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-23779779)
Someone has died and NOW there is a debate. QED.

[fireflybob]

Slightly off the thread but still very relevant to this debate it's worth listening to the clip from Matthew Syed below (starts at 14.20). His book "Bounce" is a good read where he talks about the "myth of talent and the power of practice".

Another good read allied to this is "Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell where he argues (correctly in my opinion, backed up by various stories and case studies) that to become really competent at anything you have to do (at least) 10,000 hours experience but not just "any" experience but one of constant and never ending improvement by way of mentoring etc.

Returning to the issue of safety and skilled/competent pilots, pilots who cut their teeth on basic jets (round dial instruments, no EFIS, no autothrottle, basic autopilot etc) and have done thousands of hours hand flying same are "hard wired" for manual flight. They may be a little rusty but it's no big issue to disengage the automatics and hand fly if they are forced to do so by either system failures or choose to do so as a better option. The new generation of pilots lack the skills to confidently hand fly the a/c in all situations simple because they have not had the practice over thousands of hours flying. How we address this conundrum is a pressing issue for the airline industry.

Here is the link - (start at 14.20):

Matthew Syed (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b038hghk)

[Sober Lark]

Do you think an airlines risk management culture has become more influenced by margins than by safety? Your fuel example appears to be an acceptable (to management at least) residual risk.

[BARKINGMAD]

"Do you think an airlines risk management culture has become more influenced by margins than by safety? Your fuel example appears to be an acceptable (to management at least) residual risk." asks Sober Lark.

Read pages 161/162 of the UAE 744F accident report and then ponder your question.

It would appear that "Flight Safety is NO Accident" no longer applies, and our eventual demise, possibly along with the unfortunate SLF, has been costed and risk analysed to be acceptable at a certain rate?!

[Irish Steve]

It would appear that "Flight Safety is NO Accident" no longer applies, and our eventual demise, possibly along with the unfortunate SLF, has been costed and risk analysed to be acceptable at a certain rate?!

I am going to put up some thoughts, some possibly very provocative, and some that I am not going to get drawn on in depth in order to avoid lots of problems, and I am not saying I have answers to some of the issues, but they are ( I think) all part of the scenario that the original poster was trying to raise 80 some messages ago.

The quote above is nothing new, the underlying reason being that the bean counters that perform the calculation are never anywhere near the scene of the accident, or the grieving relatives, or the recriminations that reverberate around the company for a long time after an "acceptable risk" incident.

I've just read the thread. and I'm going to try to put a few other thoughts back into the arena.

Standard Operating Procedures are exactly what that says. STANDARD. If the aircraft has a crew that has lived by the magenta line for a long time, what do they do, and how do they do it, when faced with a scenario that is not covered by SOP's? If things have suddenly gone very pear shaped, trying to determine if the scenario is covered by SOP's or not, before even acting may well be the first danger. Having an adequate knowledge of the aircraft and its systems is then the next requirement.

In too many situations, slavish reliance on ever increasingly complex SOP's has become the replacement for knowledge and skill. Is that because of the changes in the skill levels of the people coming in? For many years, the core of aviation flight crew were the people that had "retired" from (often compulsory) military service, and for the military, training costs were not an issue, they did whatever it took to produce the required result. Now, that route does not have the same throughput, so a new way to produce the people with the skills is required. Do the new systems produce the skills in the way that is required?

Are there flight training organisations that have Instructors who are pilots for a carrier, but fly (and are paid) without logging their "instructing" hours to avoid "difficulties" with their employer or the relevant regulator in terms of rest periods, maximum duty time, things like that?

A good few years ago, one of the airlines I did some work with replaced the senior training captains in the simulator with relatively low time first officers as the simulator operator/instructor. Was that a good move, or did it hasten the decline in the skills that were passed on to the next generation of pilots, in that the younger first officers were probably unaware of the gotchas that the aircraft was capable of, so didn't modify their scenarios to include the gotchas in the training pattern.

A long time ago, I was working on a research project with a major manufacturer on human factors on the flight deck. In order to make the simulation as realistic as possible, we needed to do some research on manual reversion on the A320, which is one of those thing that according to a recent CH 4 program can't happen easily, as there are 5 computers that all have to fail before it reaches desperation point. We visited a simulator in Europe, and tried some of the pre determined scenarios that were part of getting the information we needed. We had to abandon the research in that area at that simulator, as it transpired that "the statistical analysis of the chances of that scenario occuring is so low, it does not form part of our training" The scenario that we could not perform was an approach and landing in manual reversion, but the simulator we were using was not stable in straight and level flight, if disrupted into phugoids, instead of reverting over time to stable flight, it departed stable flight and became unrecoverable. Not what we expected, and not what we were given to understand was the performance of the aircraft. On investigating further we were told "the chances of it happening are so low, it it does happen, the chances of a successful landing are also so low, there's no point spending a lot of time and money training for it, so the flight model does not accurately replicate that area of the envelope"

We found a simulator in North America that was capable of being operated to the level we needed, and went over and did our research which ended up being incorporated into the flight model of the device, and also came out with some interesting results, but that's another story for another time, a non type rated crew performed a manual reversion go around, which supposedly wasn't possible.

Is it acceptable that for economic reasons, pilots are not trained in all aspects of handling the aircraft in degraded mode?


In another but related area, SOP's and the complexity of the problems meant that a heavy and skilled crew had to spend a very long time working checklists after the uncontained engine failure on the A380.
Given the degree of structural damage, and the other damage, would the outcome have been the same if the weather in the area of the accident had been significant CB activity, or the edge of a typhoon, or similar, or would the outcome have been a possibly catastrophic structural failure before they finished working through the seemingly endless check list problems?

Is it right or appropriate for an airline to harass a web site operator for posting factual reports about aviation incidents that have no editorial slant, or "journalistic licence", and have been verified from multiple sources. To avoid any doubt, the site I am referring to is "Aviation Herald", which is VERY selective in the manner of reporting, and does not cover general aviation or non reportable incidents. They received strong legal threats from a low cost carrier as a result of publishing information from regulators that was in the public domain. Is that the way that a safety conscious airline should be operating? (while I know the operator, I have no involvement with Aviation Herald)

Behind the scenes, it's reaching the stage where an aircraft is deemed unable to fly until the weight of the paperwork is equal to the weight of the airframe, and increasingly, the right piece of paper with the right rubber stamp on it is deemed more essential than the skill and experience of the people carrying out the task. Trying to make sense of a Continuing Airworthiness Maintenance exposition is reaching the point where the easiest way to describe is is bull***t baffling brains, but in too many cases, its another example of bean counters covering their vulnerable anatomy from being kicked by anyone.

Effective supervision should mean more than a tired and hard pressed supervisor putting his rubber stamp on 20 different lines on a piece of paper, yes, the paperwork trail is perfect, but does that mean the task has been correctly completed?

On another occasion,.as the ramp agent handling the flight, I stopped a Malev 737 from departing after a night stop until I had a satisfactory explanation of why the alternate static ports were covered by aluminium speed tape. Turned out it has flown like that for 2 days after an airframe wash at home base. The worrying thing was the response of the management after the event, it was made very clear to me that if anything was put in writing, the repercussions would not be good. It should have been an MOR to the relevant AA, but it didn't happen.

There are other areas, but I'm not going there now, the main aim is to try and put the focus of thought back on to the underlying issues that are becoming of increasing concern to some inside the industry.

In some respects, I'm happy that I am now too old to be in a seat at the sharp end of a modern airliner, some of the changes that have happened over the last 30 years that I've been associated with aviation are not as comfortable as I would like them to be.

[Centaurus]

I have kept a daily diary all of my flying career from when I first flew a Mustang when I was 21, to when I was forced to retire from airline flying due age 60 rule a long time ago. The majority was on the 737-200 where hand flying was normal until it was time to plug in the automatic pilot at 15,000 ft on the climb and again disconnect at 15,000 on descent. No LNAV or VNAV - just INS,NDB/ILS and VOR and profile descent DME v height. In those days these were considered as normal pilot skills. And best of all we enjoyed the flying and the knowledge and confidence we could hack it.

It was when I first flew the 737 Classics with a European charter operator 25 years ago, that I met my first example of automatic addiction and that was among the cadet first officers with whom I flew. Some had only 250 hours in their log books and yet they were legally second in command with all that entailed if something happened to me. Nice chaps all - but almost totally addicted even then to button pushing because that was what they were taught in the simulator and line flying.

I well remember when somewhere over Europe on a fine day I decided to disconnect the automatics at 31,000 ft and practice hand flying following a VOR radial.

The F/O was staggered and got all tensed up and even said he would have to put his shoulder harness on because I was hand flying! I told him not to be so bloody stupid. But the poor bugger was genuinely frightened of manual flying above flaps up speed. ... Shades later of the Air France A330 loss of control into the Atlantic.

That was all those years ago and we still read about the potential dangers of automation addiction. My old diary notes recorded regular observations of automation addiction so there is no embellishment of what I saw at first hand. Being still involved with flight training (simulators) I am quite convinced that nothing will ever change and that automation dependency is here for good.

When the first glass cockpits came along, some wit observed that he could now type at 80 words a minute, but he couldn't fly for nuts. 40 years later things haven't changed much.

Despite published accident reports indicating pilots' poor instrument flying ability has been the cause of fatal unusual attitudes in IMC, there has been no serious attempts by aircraft manufactures or airlines to improve or encourage basic manual instrument flying skills to counter the clear lack of basic handling ability in IMC that has characterised todays flight decks. Lip service maybe - but that's about all. Even visual approaches in fine weather are cause for alarm in some ethnic cultures. The Asiana 777 crash at SFO is a case in point.

The pendulum will never again swing back to the days when pilots were real pilots and not autopilot data input managers. My advice to those (including me) who continually bemoan the steady march of still more sophisticated and pilot-proof automation is to accept that is the way of the future. Time to get a life and read a good book instead of worrying needlessly about automation dependency.

As a Boeing 787 designer told one of his simulator instructors (and believe me it is a true story) "The 787 was designed on the assumption it will be flown by incompetent pilots". That says it all....:ok:

[Sober Lark]

Barkingmad, thanks for referring me to p161/162 of the N571UP final report. The figures mentioned are all part of the statistical measurement of risk data. Risks for all airlines have to be quantified, measurements have to be made, data described and forecasts made and anyone involved in insurance cannot escape the need to use such numbers. Based on this an appropriate insurance premium is charged and cover provided. Insurance is based on the possibility of an event happening within the period of cover. If the event was a certainty then it probably wouldn't be insurable.