Pre-departrure emergency brief

[luvmuhud]

Ladies and Gents,

I'm sure all airlines require some sort of departure brief, but what about an emergency brief?

Does your outfit require you to conduct a brief on the ground, to cover actions in the event of an abort, malfunctions post V1, etc?

(Mine, strangely, does not. I know we must be right, because we are the best airline in the world, according to Skytrax, but I'm interested in just how many other misguided airlines there are out there.)

[Dash8driver1312]

We are very misguided. We have an emergencies brief of actions before 80kts, before V1, after V1, and the crew discusses a memory item once a day.

Terribly misguided.

[despegue]

First flight of the day (or each new crew composition), Emergency brief covering before 80kts, after 80kts, after V1

Before every departure: Emergency brief covering Acceleration altitude, company and/or published escape route, ACTUAL plan...

Takes maybe 2 minutes maximum:ok:

During the flight, Crews are encouraged to discuss scenarios, what-if's and QRH checklists.

Manual Raw data flying encouraged, both Take-off and Approach, whenever Wx and traffic allows, which is still the best way to improve safety.:D

[JeroenC]

Reasons to stop before 80 and before V1. Actions for RTO and what to do in case of loss of cabin pressure. Emergency turn procedure if applicable, MSA. TEM: Threat and Error Management: wx, birds, airspace (class E), crosswind (handling), etc.

[Lord Spandex Masher]

"Standard handling and emergencies" plus any differences or specifics.

Unless none of you lot know what you're doing.

And why TF is "threats today are.......blah" creeping in to some briefs.

Keep saying that and the threat is me.



Birds!!!!!!????

[Mach E Avelli]

The problem with never doing an emergency brief is that complacency and forgetfulness will ensure that you screw it up when it happens for real.
But the other extreme is regurgitating the same old :mad: parrot-fashion every time you go to work - or worse, on every sector.
Unless your SOP prohibits a bit of free thinking, try to be original without being non conformist and use your own words, not the bog standard stuff. A briefing should be short, succinct and pertinent to the situation. There's nothing worse than having to listen to some complex plan when the most logical course in the event of a failure could be a visual circuit.
Or, you can do an effective briefing as a form of question and answer. E.g. "If one goes bang before v1, what do you expect me to do, and what are your actions?"
Having done the emergency brief on first flight, thereafter it should be enough to just mention anything specific to that takeoff that may be worth emphasising, such as icing or an early turn to avoid terrain.
Agree with the above post. TEM psycho babble at briefing time only pads it out beyond some pilots' attention spans (mine being one). Not to say TEM isn't a worthy subject like CRM, but in a briefing?
As for birds - if they are really, really a threat, why would you be taking off before having them shot? Airspace? Maybe if the departure is very close to prohibited or active danger areas, but otherwise, why mention it?
And what's so special about crosswind handling that it warrants briefing? Isn't that part of every pilot's daily repertoire?
A briefing should be brief, not 'War and Peace'

[+TSRA]

A briefing should be brief, not 'War and Peace'

Haha...I'm going to use that every time I meet a new FO.

We use one of those fan dangled "risk-based briefings" and I've got to tell you that the first time you use it, it's great...so long as its a new airport, new surroundings, maybe new to the airplane...other than that, its can be a long, drawn out spiel to satisfy the non-pilot in the safety department (and I'm serious, the guy who came up with ours is not a pilot). Derogatory as I sound, it has helped once or twice so I give it the credit it is due.

Now, in saying all that our SOP does allow us to think, so if its the third time into an airport today or if its an airport we visit every day, then the structure of the briefing allows us to remove everything but the charts and speeds.

Back on topic...we also brief one emergency per day, SOP calls and all to the checklist. I try and vary it up each day - an engine failure here, an onboard fire there...severe turbulence when I get bored...

[West Coast]

And why TF is "threats today are.......blah" creeping in to some briefs.

Over here we thank Delta for that.

W weather
A airport
N NOTAM's
T threats

Have to name the single greatest threat for the leg and how we're going to mitigate it.

If there's a threat such as WS, brief it, the recovery procedure, crew actions, etc. Sometimes however there isn't an obvious greatest threat. Now we've turned into the boy who cries wolf. It's of minimal use to randomly pick something and somehow mitigate it. Birds and complacency are the two I see commonly used when there isn't a real, obvious threat.

Not a fan.

[luvmuhud]

Interesting.

I thought as much. My current employer (as previously stated, the BEST airline in the world) not only NEVER conducts emergency briefs, but there is also very little specific guidance on what to abort for, and HOW to conduct the event.

I suspect there are crews I fly with who only think about malfunctions during the takeoff roll every 6 months on regulatory sims. (I'm sure that in the past, I would have to include myself here!)

IMHO, it is far better to have a well rehearsed emergency brief 'parroted' off before every takeoff, than to be surprised by an event when it happens for real. Well rehearsed briefs/drills are sometimes painful, but they DO help shift some time critical actions into the 'unconsciously competent' part of our brain.

I read through an Emirates pre-departure emergency brief recently, and although verbose, it was very comprehensive…to the point of discussing FM inputs for a time critical engine-out return to land.

Anyways, thanks for the replies.

lmh