Emirates: New "Acid" test after Recurrent SIM!
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For some strange reason, this thread is getting bumped down to the 2nd page of threads due to inaccurate post date & time stamp.
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Fatigue is cumulative. Of course it catches up eventually. You can mitigate it with experience for awhile, but if there isn't as much experience as there once was...er...emm...
never mind.
Architects of their own demise. Same as it ever was.
never mind.
Architects of their own demise. Same as it ever was.
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A source (inside EK) tells me that Training Department communication (sent to the Instructors) is NOT a spoof. Oh how the mighty fall and one does have to wonder how they ever got themselves into such a precarious place?! 
Everyone knows how this point was reached. It's been mentioned for 7+ yrs, just never taken seriously.
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Shocking! A total embarrassment to aviation! They just don't get it. This has been created entirely by the people at the top. Fear Fear Fear! Experienced levels at an all time low in every role! Rule with the iron fist. When will anyone at the top realise that they themselves are creating the next smoking hole! lets train! Be allowed to train! Have a student ask questions and help them. I get fed up with people stating they learn more on the line than during training. The fear of being graded a 2 for asking the instructor to explain something that is not understood! It is a complete joke!! Is there any other airline that operates like this. WE all came from somewhere before. Open training. Support the student! Help the student! Im fed up with this place! If i only I could leave!!!! Well done Emirates!!!!! Well done for destroying many careers and destroying the love of a what should be a great job. Well Done!!
short flights long nights
The wheels have really, well and truely, fallen off now. Reading between the lines, it seems to me, they are looking even harder for scapegoats now. Anything to prevent them having to admit what has caused this huge fcuking mess in the first place. What the hell has happened to a once great airline?
Al of us on here knows where this could be heading....but those on the third and ninth floor continue to do nothing...but blame the 'lazy' pilots, yet again.
Al of us on here knows where this could be heading....but those on the third and ninth floor continue to do nothing...but blame the 'lazy' pilots, yet again.
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Any other major carrier in the world conducting "surprise unannounced" line checks to try and catch their pilots out off guard and unprepared for a check ride?
From 1st Nov for every single flight, we are to sit in the briefing room wondering if a checker may or may not pitch up? How does this improve airmanship or SA? Guys will be get stressed out over this, loose sleep and when the third guy doesn't appear and the mini "fight or flight" fades, crew performance may well fall below that of a standard line flight.
From 1st Nov for every single flight, we are to sit in the briefing room wondering if a checker may or may not pitch up? How does this improve airmanship or SA? Guys will be get stressed out over this, loose sleep and when the third guy doesn't appear and the mini "fight or flight" fades, crew performance may well fall below that of a standard line flight.
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Where's the problem? You should be able to pass a line check on any of your line flights... If you only pass because you prepare more than for a normal flight, you should not be in the hot seat anyways
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I am prepared to take the heat. But I stand my point. If you specifically need to prepare for a Line Check, which is nothing more than a regular Line Flight, you should not be in an operational role.
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True. But I think the point is that all this will create is an added level of undue pressure, causing stress levels to be increased which will in turn increase the likelihood of mistakes being made, missed calls etc etc. They will then turn round and condem you on the back of this.
You're right at any stage, day or night we should be able to go into a sim and fly any procedure, deal with any emergency and have a successful outcome. With zero prep. This scenario doesn't mirror that and they are very very wrong if they think it does.
If someone was to go and sit next to a receptionist and tell her that "today if you make a singal spelling mistake in any of your typing, you're fired. And I'm going to sit here and watch everything you type." What's going to happen? They'll make a spelling mistake in the first sentence they write. Does this prove they are incompetent and totally unsuitable? No. It demonstrates a perfectly normal human psychological reaction to being put under that level of scrutiny without notice. A 'startle effect' of sorts if you will.
Once again they have an opportunity for change, to make things better and again it would seem they're going to f this up too.
You're right at any stage, day or night we should be able to go into a sim and fly any procedure, deal with any emergency and have a successful outcome. With zero prep. This scenario doesn't mirror that and they are very very wrong if they think it does.
If someone was to go and sit next to a receptionist and tell her that "today if you make a singal spelling mistake in any of your typing, you're fired. And I'm going to sit here and watch everything you type." What's going to happen? They'll make a spelling mistake in the first sentence they write. Does this prove they are incompetent and totally unsuitable? No. It demonstrates a perfectly normal human psychological reaction to being put under that level of scrutiny without notice. A 'startle effect' of sorts if you will.
Once again they have an opportunity for change, to make things better and again it would seem they're going to f this up too.
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True. But I think the point is that all this will create is an added level of undue pressure, causing stress levels to be increased which will in turn increase the likelihood of mistakes being made, missed calls etc etc. They will then turn round and condem you on the back of this.
You're right at any stage, day or night we should be able to go into a sim and fly any procedure, deal with any emergency and have a successful outcome. With zero prep. This scenario doesn't mirror that and they are very very wrong if they think it does.
If someone was to go and sit next to a receptionist and tell her that "today if you make a singal spelling mistake in any of your typing, you're fired. And I'm going to sit here and watch everything you type." What's going to happen? They'll make a spelling mistake in the first sentence they write. Does this prove they are incompetent and totally unsuitable? No. It demonstrates a perfectly normal human psychological reaction to being put under that level of scrutiny without notice. A 'startle effect' of sorts if you will.
Once again they have an opportunity for change, to make things better and again it would seem they're going to f this up too.
You're right at any stage, day or night we should be able to go into a sim and fly any procedure, deal with any emergency and have a successful outcome. With zero prep. This scenario doesn't mirror that and they are very very wrong if they think it does.
If someone was to go and sit next to a receptionist and tell her that "today if you make a singal spelling mistake in any of your typing, you're fired. And I'm going to sit here and watch everything you type." What's going to happen? They'll make a spelling mistake in the first sentence they write. Does this prove they are incompetent and totally unsuitable? No. It demonstrates a perfectly normal human psychological reaction to being put under that level of scrutiny without notice. A 'startle effect' of sorts if you will.
Once again they have an opportunity for change, to make things better and again it would seem they're going to f this up too.
If an unannounced check increases the level of pressure as such that you cannot perform properly anymore, one might have to think about if the chosen profession is the right one. There seems to be a problem that we have pilots that do not perform up to the required standards (and I don't want to point fingers at the colleagues in DME, as we don't know enough to judge). I believe this is an appropriate mean to filter them out and give them the chance to improve with training.
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Agree 100%, however, in the recent past years, the vast majority was proud of the famous ¨no spoon fed¨training system. So, things happens and now people wants to rethink and disagree with a system that everyone knew was not the best?
Again, agree, but hard to swallow guys. With all due respect.
Again, agree, but hard to swallow guys. With all due respect.
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Bad Apple Theory?
Let's assume this missive is true. Then EK's training department believe the company has a problem and the cause is a few "bad apples". And if it wasn't for these few bad apples these events would not have happened. The cause we are told is because these people have poor situational awareness and are ineffective in monitoring the pilot flying. There also appears to be a lack of understanding of the automation.
So the proposed solution is to do spot checks on "No notice" line checks, make people pay attention, grass up your colleagues and to be more rigorous when training i.e. all pilots are now flying under the company's safety cosh. So presumably once the bad apples have been identified and disposed of, safety will be restored and the management will be able to sleep soundly knowing everything has been fixed.
If only the real world was as simple as the solution proposed. I'll suggest management nightmares will shortly start. Nastily little reports will be posted by disgruntled, small minded individuals. The check and training staff will be viewed as executioners, normally solid and reliable pilots will start under-performing and training be viewed as a threat rather than an opportunity to learn. This will result in the wrong people being flung out and absolutely no improvement in safety in fact possible the opposite.
So what might be the real problem? The first and most obvious is that the wrong people have and are probably still being recruited. Whilst many obviously have the "right stuff" there are still too many who might be regarded as below standard. I know of some are not left alone whilst their colleagues take a comfort break. And does the company's demands of residency in the Emirates dissuade many people who be regarded as the right stuff from joining and those with experience from leaving. After all, I don't know if any other company in the world with a leaving list. Then we have the way this company trains and operates. The assumption is that the SOP's are perfect and if crew's stick to this, respond to every R/T call and "pay more attention" then all will be fine. But just how will their training improve their crew's situational awareness? And are they actually up to the task of training flight crew from all around the world (Just shout louder at these bloody foreigners)? And is the culture at EK part if the problem? I don't know of any proper company that encourages staff to "dob their mates in" yet this note requests just that. Nobody likes a grass all this will achieve is a truly poisonous atmosphere. And of course we come to the interesting aspect of rostering and rest. Could this possibly be a contributor to EK's recent spate of incidents?
Who ever wrote "Standards on the Line" has almost certainly stopped the real root cause of EK's incidents from coming to light if for no other reason than it ignores the basic fact that aircraft are flown by Mk I human beings. Apart from doing virtually every thing right, they occasionally do things wrong. You reduce the number and severity of things going wrong by training, encouraging and supporting everybody. Trapping, punishing and humiliating those who commit errors will certainly stop some things from going wrong but will never, ever stop all of them. But by creating a poisonous environment both on the line and in the sim. EK's training department will cut off the supply of real information it desperately needs in order to fix the real underlying faults that exist in its operations; FDM data is pretty useless in supplying the human story behind the numbers.
If I were EK management I would check out your insurance cover and seek out some strong sleeping medication. I think you will need both after the training department had terrorised your pilot corps.
PM
So the proposed solution is to do spot checks on "No notice" line checks, make people pay attention, grass up your colleagues and to be more rigorous when training i.e. all pilots are now flying under the company's safety cosh. So presumably once the bad apples have been identified and disposed of, safety will be restored and the management will be able to sleep soundly knowing everything has been fixed.
If only the real world was as simple as the solution proposed. I'll suggest management nightmares will shortly start. Nastily little reports will be posted by disgruntled, small minded individuals. The check and training staff will be viewed as executioners, normally solid and reliable pilots will start under-performing and training be viewed as a threat rather than an opportunity to learn. This will result in the wrong people being flung out and absolutely no improvement in safety in fact possible the opposite.
So what might be the real problem? The first and most obvious is that the wrong people have and are probably still being recruited. Whilst many obviously have the "right stuff" there are still too many who might be regarded as below standard. I know of some are not left alone whilst their colleagues take a comfort break. And does the company's demands of residency in the Emirates dissuade many people who be regarded as the right stuff from joining and those with experience from leaving. After all, I don't know if any other company in the world with a leaving list. Then we have the way this company trains and operates. The assumption is that the SOP's are perfect and if crew's stick to this, respond to every R/T call and "pay more attention" then all will be fine. But just how will their training improve their crew's situational awareness? And are they actually up to the task of training flight crew from all around the world (Just shout louder at these bloody foreigners)? And is the culture at EK part if the problem? I don't know of any proper company that encourages staff to "dob their mates in" yet this note requests just that. Nobody likes a grass all this will achieve is a truly poisonous atmosphere. And of course we come to the interesting aspect of rostering and rest. Could this possibly be a contributor to EK's recent spate of incidents?
Who ever wrote "Standards on the Line" has almost certainly stopped the real root cause of EK's incidents from coming to light if for no other reason than it ignores the basic fact that aircraft are flown by Mk I human beings. Apart from doing virtually every thing right, they occasionally do things wrong. You reduce the number and severity of things going wrong by training, encouraging and supporting everybody. Trapping, punishing and humiliating those who commit errors will certainly stop some things from going wrong but will never, ever stop all of them. But by creating a poisonous environment both on the line and in the sim. EK's training department will cut off the supply of real information it desperately needs in order to fix the real underlying faults that exist in its operations; FDM data is pretty useless in supplying the human story behind the numbers.
If I were EK management I would check out your insurance cover and seek out some strong sleeping medication. I think you will need both after the training department had terrorised your pilot corps.
PM
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Professor Sidney Dekker on Why Things Go Wrong... wouldn't you just love this guy to do an audit on the culture within EK (and over FZ too) ?... and he's pilot as well (B737 rated) !
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Any other major carrier in the world conducting "surprise unannounced" line checks to try and catch their pilots out off guard and unprepared for a check ride?
From 1st Nov for every single flight, we are to sit in the briefing room wondering if a checker may or may not pitch up? How does this improve airmanship or SA?
From 1st Nov for every single flight, we are to sit in the briefing room wondering if a checker may or may not pitch up? How does this improve airmanship or SA?
Usually the line check with U.S. carriers is cordial and instructive unless you are not doing your job and something goes wrong during the flight. Don't know the failure rate but where I've worked, they are not out to get you in my opinion. I had a line check with a low fuel weather divert a few years ago and I put the check airman to work looking up alternates and communicating with dispatch. He was very pleased with the CRM and so was I.
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EKs ‘acid’ test
The real acid test is would you want to put your loved ones on an airline that has a training department that thinks like that.
Baled out of EK last year. Never looked back... exept in disgust.
Baled out of EK last year. Never looked back... exept in disgust.
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In reviewing the events of the last few months we have asked ourselves what are we doing wrong? What are we missing? What’s the root cause?
They could have a very, very safe airline if they wanted but instead everything needs to be the biggest, longest, fastest, tallest, shiniest, most profitable, etc. And it has to be now. TODAY.
If you look up "cultural hubris", Dubai is riddled with examples. That's okay, they are a shallow culture so no one expects anything different but when they add "cheapest" into the equation things begin to fall apart.
This latest event is no surprise. The letter is no surprise. Nothing is any longer a surprise. It is a testament to the stiffness of their upper lips that management can stand behind a letter like this without blinking.
I'd say the "root cause" is the hubris, greed, ready means and lack of any semblance of restraint, whatsoever, of the people in charge.