Safety culture in GA.
 

With the sad loss of yet another pilot this week surely the industry should be asking itself, is there a culture of silence on safety, or does the industry and the pilots themselves seem to happily except that pilots will continue to die doing this job over and over again and we sadly never seem to learn from what caused it to happen in the first place.

Other industries no matter what the accident investigate and at least attempt to introduce measures to ensure that it doesn’t happen again. Sadly we all seem to continue with the attitude of accident in aviation will happen so there is nothing we can do, yet ask anyone ‘quietly’ in lower levels of GA they will tell you of concerns. In the same boat we have had operators that were known to be dodgy, yet when CASA closed them down all and sundry, including the very pilots and engineers that complained about them in the first place came out in support of the operator heavily criticise the regulator?

I have a few mates currently flying in Northern Australia, and talking to them all they ALL are concerned about both the safety of the aircraft they fly, and the complete lack of a safety culture of the organisation that they work at.

Anyone with PPL level human factors experience knows about the swiss cheese model, yet why do companies in northern Australia seem to enjoy under quoting each other to the point of the fact that no one makes money unless they skimp on engineering, or doesn’t pay the pilots the award, or refuses to fly under IFR flight rules in IMC etc. Sadly next to this CASA is either blind or just doesn’t care that the wool is pulled over the FOIs eyes at audit time, and that CASA airworthiness inspectors seems to only go to ensuring that a/c have the correct placards in the cockpit, rather than checking to ensure that things are replaced on a/c when they are supposed to be, rather than letting them fail before replacing them.

Upon looking into the crash of the Chalks Mallard in the U.S in 2005 nearly every pilot that worked in that company put their concerns in writing to the company about maintenance concerns about their aircraft, of the 6 captains working for the company, 3 resigned in the 12 months before the crash, 2 of them didn’t even have a job to go to, because they were THAT concerned about the state of the aircraft. After it crashed and people died, the FAA and the NTSB asked each of these pilots, if you were that concerned about it, why did not a single person contact the FAA or NTSB.

This is what I am asking, do we also in aviation have a ‘cone of silence’ about dodgy practices in both engineering and operations, because it’s ‘just the way it is’, and everyone is concerned about standing up for safety and being labelled a troublemaker and never being employed in the industry again. One of the pilots in the Chalks case was accused by the employer of being ‘scared’ of flying and being a troublemaker for standing up for his concerns about the fact that the company had no culture of safety. He was threatned with suspension, and being removed to F/O duties because of his letters before his eventual resignation. In the same voice however, NTSB criticised the FAA inspector for not picking up on the faults in the company, and the FAA also seemed to have a culture of believing that the company had been around a long time and would be doing the right thing as they were considered the ‘leader’ in operations of the Mallard.

What is the answer, the aircraft are getting older, the margins are getting thinner, fuel is getting more expensive, what does the industry do to improve the stats of the amount of people that continue to die in it, or do we just ignore it, and continue to including this loss of life as just a cost of doing business.

great post mate, this is has been running through my mind all day

as to the answer, all i could think of today was introducing some sort of ageing aircraft regulation....doesnt solve everything but will get these 30+ year old airframes with who knows what kind of ex maintenance schedules off the market

only the tip of the iceberg I know, but something has to be done

I'm one of those concerned blokes flying up in north australia. There isn't a day that goes by where I don't worry about what could and might happen.

But we're put in a fairly precarious position.....

It's very easy to sit back and say "stand up for yourself and demand to the boss that safety standards are kept".

But in reality, if doing this risks getting you either a) unfavourable treatment from that boss or b) the sack (more probably), what options do you have?

I know there will be various replies to this thread that go something like -
"if that's the treatment you get, then do you really want to fly for that operator?"

Well the answer is, no, I don't want to work for them given corner cutting. But it took me such a long time and a sh!t load of effort to get this job that I'll be damned if I have to do it all over again, just to be treated in the same way.

What's the answer? I'm not really sure. Maybe a more comprehensive input from CASA. Probably too unrealistic and expensive to implement, but more regular audits? More CASA employees on the ground making visits to operators? The list could go on and on.....

Anyway, this is a really interesting thread but alas, one I don't think will come up with a realistic answer.

At the risk of sounding cynical, it is the view of many pilots over the years that your statement above echoes the facts of life in general aviation "Up North". In other words a big yawn and a tired, "So - what's new about that?" Same with much of Australian GA.

CASA regulators can't be everywhere and remember that many FOI are themselves former general aviation pilots who have experienced the same cycle up north or elsewhere. In other words they are not fazed because they know it will never improve.

Along with their chief pilots who are ultimately responsible for the behaviour of their pilots and engineers, there are too many shonky operators - and Australia is a huge land impossible for CASA to police effectively. In any case local magistrates know SFA about aviation and let culprits go free with a smack on the wrist.

CASA, through its official magazine Flight Safety Australia, (with all its advertisements for aviation products) can only "educate" just like the TV advertisements on drink driving. In the opinion of many, both a great waste of money.

It's nice to be altruistic about the need to change safety cultures but it ain't never going to happen. Same applies to the safety cultures (now that's an oxymoron) of Asian, Middle East and African aviation. I can just see the next headline - 737 crashes and burns in Asia while landing too fast on a wet runway. Real men don't go around is their mantra. It's our culture, man..

Far better for the heart to sit down and enjoy a nice cup of tea and a good book rather than bash your brains trying to fix flight safety up north.:ok:

... perhaps, but as a professional pilot you should be demanding the highest standards of yourself - and as 95% of GA is a single pilot operation that takes care of most of the problem. Far more accidents are due to "pilot error" than a mechanical failure.

Case in point: I joined a GA freight company, flying piston twins on bankruns. I found the pilots there regularly (i.e. every morning) flying one or two hundred kilos overweight for the first take-off out of the city heading west.

Shifty GA operator, or just bad pilots?

I asked them why they were doing it, and they said that the operation always filled full tanks in the city (cheaper fuel) and loaded whatever freight turned up (max load for the day is always at the city heading out, and you drop off load at each destination west-bound). I simply refused to do that and instead loaded max fuel at the midday stop, and half fuel in the city. I didn't ask the boss, just flew the aircraft legally.

When the boss noticed the fuel bills, I explained what I was doing, and why, and he was fine with it. He actually had no idea that the aircraft were leaving overweight, and said that that practice had started when the run was new, before the freight load increased.

All it took was one guy saying "Hey - this isn't legal, and as such it isn't right." In my experience a lot of GA pilots don't have the confidence to do that.

You can't complain about your job being on the line for speaking up, if you've never tried speaking up.

tSome years ago, I reported to CASA that an owner/chief pilot may have a mental illness and was behaving in a way that was a safety threat. The FOI told me that "you understand that if we investigate this, you will probably never work in aviation again".

Well I did and I still do.

The problem Puff is called "The double bind problem" aka damned if you do and damned if you don't.

There are a number of contributing factors, one of which is that confusing and draconian nature of Australian Aviation legislation and regulations.

Then there is that nature of CASA....

Then there is the taxation treatment of aviation....

pilots can make a difference
 

I have been in GA for 7 years and worked for 5 operators and I have thought about this topic a great deal, ie how unsafe GA is and how can we make GA the safest it can be. Not one of the operators I have worked for had a great safety culture. I don't think it is just one issue that needs to be addressed; Legislation and 'grey' areas certainly don't help, old aircraft and dodgy maintenance have always been a worry, operators who push pilots and CPs who are puppets. The thing that I find the most worrying and perhaps the most difficult to address is the pilots themselves. There seems to be ( just from my perspective and experience) so much willingness to push the boundaries and the rules. In one job I had, I regularly was a passenger on company flights and first hand saw the way other pilots flew. My estimate is that about 80% of those pilots regularly broke rules all the time. You name they did it. From flying overweight, refueling with passengers on board and flying vfr flights in IMC (you could almost say that this was an SOP for some pilots). And it isn't just breaking the rules that is a concern but always pushing the boundaries and always choosing the riskiest option eg instead of back tracking and using a full length ( I am not talking a 3km runway either) taking a very short intersection departure to save 2 minutes and a drop of fuel. I could mention a million a one examples, I am sure you get the drift.
Yes that are lots of things that contribute to a strong safety culture but I am convinced more and more the the pilots themselves are the weakest link. Unfortunately if you give many an inch they take a mile.

As a pilot who is very serious about safety it is very difficult to know what to do sometimes. What do you do when the 'worst' pilot in your company is the CP? What do you do when CASA give the company the big thumbs up when you know they only have to dig a little deeper to find "stuff". What do you do when you return to a departure point because the weather meant it was unsafe and illegal to continue flying and yet the owner screams at the ops staff to send a real f***ing pilot?

I personally don't know what to do about all the problems in GA except that to adopt certain attitudes. In my opinion pilots that are serious about safety in GA can do two things: 1) make sure that you constantly critique yourself and your standards. Make sure your knowledge is sharp and get 'help' for the things you are not so good at. Make sure you are the best pilot you can be and always aim for excellence instead of mediocrity. 2) Have the attitude to try and improve some things at every GA company you work. It may be small, it may not seem to have a huge impact. It doesn't mean you have to make a song a dance, threaten to phone CASA or jump and down - it could just be that you make an effort to 'teach' the ops manager a thing or two about the challenges of flying in poor weather. It could mean that you find another location for drum fuel to be located. It could mean that you instigate regular pilot meetings where you talk about safety issues. There are so many things that we can do to improve things. Yes it is bloody hard and many time I have felt like I was banging my head against a wall! But if every pilot adopts these attitudes and we work together more than it will go a long way.

Bogdan

Well said mate!!!

CASA claim to be concerned about ageing aircraft, and so they should be. Messrs Cessna, Piper and Beech never anticipated that their aircraft would be in service for 40 years and 30,000 hours.

But until CASA gets off its collective arse and puts experienced airworthiness people out in the field, armed with flashlights and inspection mirrors and the will to crawl into confined spaces and look at structures, part numbers etc we sit on a ticking time-bomb. One day very soon there will be a fatal accident due to an old worn-out or improperly maintained aircraft. Unless it kills a dozen high-profile mining executives, nothing much will happen for another couple of years while ATSB investigates and recommends. All this time we will still be exposed to this risk.

Ditto with flight operations. Instead of ramping pilots to make sure their charts are the latest amendment and their licence is in their pocket with a signature on the right page (whoop-de-doo) how about weighing the pax and cargo, dipping the fuel tanks, doing some calculations, testing the navigation systems and instruments? Oh, and sitting in on checkrides on very short notice.

Desk-top audits are a cop-out.

Safety at any level never lone the bottom end (GA) starts with the pilot him/herself.
Aviation is a business where the main aim is to make money. From QF to Joe Bloggs charter the bottom line is what governs what condition the 'tools' are kept in.
Safety in aviation world over is tenuous at the best of times the only guaranteed (well close to it) safety net that you have for yr own personal safety is you yourself, yr own decisions.
Remember CASA are made up of people no different than the rest of us they can't control the industry any better than you or I could, nobody could, it's all about risks, calculated risks & YOU hold the 'calculator':ok:
If you feel unsafe go thru the normal channels & if that doesn't fix it get out !!! There's no prizes for hero's in this game


Wmk2

Wally, noble words... But.... While most of us old crusties can afford to bail out any time we become compromised, the kids struggling for that magic 3000 hours (or whatever the airlines want this week), are not in such a strong position. Therefore it is down to CASA to do what their mandate says.

I have already been shot at in another thread for saying this but...

To you guys out there blasting around this beautiful country this is my advice.

Know your own limits.
Know you aircraft's systems.
Know the rules that apply to you and your operation.
Use them all to your advantage.

Solve problems; Dont say "No I wont do it." Say "I wont do it that way but how about this."

In the end it is your life and the life of your passengers that will pay the ultimate price if you don't take a stand.

I agree Wally in essence, but seeing some of these bottom end GA companies that don't have a safety culture and leave it up to the pilots manage their own standards and 'safety gap', doesn't work; as peer pressure and competition gets the worst of the pilot. When a pilot doesn't join in with the group, they get osterized.
The culture needs to be set from top of the organisation down for them to stand any chance on improving safety.

"Mach" I hear yr buddy & concur but it has to be said...."what price a life"
Those 'kids' won't become bitter & twisted old codgers like us :E if they don't take hold of the safety reign themselves, no one else is gunna do it sadly:sad:

'tmpffish' I also hear ya & yr right but there are many a pilot lying up there against some forgotten hill due a lack of a structured safety culture and being as green as a blade of grass works against these kids in this ****ty industry.

CASA= "Can't Always Save Aviators"


Wmk2

Puff, all you needed to do was look closer to home around the time of the Chalks Mallard in the U.S in 2005; ie Transair.

Similar situation and CASA was fully aware of who was leaving and so on.

All covered up and 18months later, 15 killed in Nth Qld and sometime later, another 3 in PNG :mad:

Workplace Safety Approach vs CASA Approach
 

What I can't reconcile in my head is that if I happen to be the owner/operator of an electrical trade business in Australia and one of my employee electricians gets electrocuted, Workplace Safety would move heaven and earth to undertake a thorough review of my company's safety procedures and regulatory compliance with a view to building a legal case against me - possibly resulting in the demise of my business and the cancellation of my electrical licence.

If a commercial pilot gets killed or seriously injured in GA, why doesn't CASA apply the same level of diligence that Workplace Safety would apply; after all a pilot getting killed whilst on duty could also be construed as a Workplace Safety accident, couldn't it? Why are shonky operators, therefore, allowed to continue business? Shouldn't their licences be cancelled as well if they are deemed to criminally negligent?

Glad to stir some debate, quite sad with some of the replies though. Safety is no accident in ANY industry, look at industries such as the maritime/trades(worksites) and mining which had horrific standards in workplace accidents.

Whilst they are all STILL dangerous the culture of safety in all of them has improved when the regulators, the companies AND the staff said enough was enough. Sadly for safety to really matter, it takes EVERYONE involved to carry though with it properly. Companies have mantles of 'Zero Harm, workplace committees, workplace health and safety officers, audits etc. Yes some of it's a bit over the top, but again it's all about a culture. The easiest way to get sacked these days it's for unsafe acts in the workplace.

Safety on large contructions sites didn't come about for no reasons, eventually the workers got sick of losing their mates and started to ALL refuse to do dangerous and dodgy things, eventually the company HAD to improve safety if they wanted the job to be done.

Nothing in aviation will change until senior pilots, led by managements own push for safety to instill in new inexperienced pilots that the safe option is the ONLY option, and that dangerous acts and breaking the law will result in discipline or being sacked. That other pilots stick together, if one refuses to fly an aircraft because its unairworthy, that they ALL refuse to fly it. That pilots that turnback because of weather are congratulated rather than critised. I'm waiting for the responses basically saying I live in a dreamland, sadly it's only in aviation, because anywhere else those things above are the norm and whats expected of employees.

Examples of things you will never see in aviation, an old labourer having a go at a young fella on a worksite trying to carry too many building materials, saw this bloke pull him aside and basically tell him there were no prizes for being a hero, get someone to help you lift heavy things, and stop being a dic*head. He said that when he was younger it was a competition to see what sort of man you were and you were egged on by everyone else to carry more and more, and the more the carried the better you were. Those same blokes by 40 were in agony with back problems and most barely worked after their 40s with chronic injuries. He told this bloke that there was no one around smart enough to tell me I was being stupid, and he had all sorts of body injuries because of it. This is an example of peer to peer pushing safety. Work colleages looking after each other.

Transport company getting mechanics to fix vehicles on the side of the road when they broke down, over the year several were injured(one killed) due to being hit or run over by passing traffic. Agreements between the company and the union means that now all the vehicles are towed back to the workshop and repairs undertaken in the controlled envionment in the workshop. Anyone that breaks this rule, even on the mantle of trying to save the company money on towing fees is disciplined for risking themselves, do it too often and you will be fired for it. Example of the company and the employees working together.

Imagine the above in aviation, Centaurus mentions Asia and their culture, even they on the whole just haven't sat on their hands and said we're going to do nothing. Look at the safety records in the past of Thai and Korean, they haven't had fatals in years, Korean really has tried to change its culture after it's row of accidents. I'm not saying they are perfect, but at least they didn't just say, well we're asian we don't go around and we'll kill some people once in a while live with it.

Look at airline accidents where in some cases pilots were at fault, but because of them pilots now have EGPWS vs GPWS, they have TCAS and do jet upset training along with CRM to name a few. All of these have come out of previous accidents where operators have attempted to fix whatever caused it. Accidents are always sad, it's tragic when we don't learn and try to stop what caused it in the first place from happening over and over again.

Wally is right, old blokes do have the balls to say no, older blokes won't be pushed into things by CPs, and most of the time CPs wouldn't even bother to try it, but the older guys also have the hours and the experience and are FAR more likely to be able to find work if they did walk on the grounds of safety. Younger guys are in the negative in all the above, and sadly in some cases the older guys don't support, mentor and help younger pilots that are pushed into unsafe acts by employers, they did it when they were young and inexperienced and see no problem with it now.

Whats improved to fix GA safety, ASIC cards and 6 foot fences around the airport ?

Centaurus is right, perhaps I should have a cuppa and put it down to 'just aviation', but I really feel each time a family has to bury their son, daughter, husband/wife is owed that the other people involved in the industry actually care about their loss, and will do everything they can to try and stop another family having to go through what they are, rather than just put it into the too hard basket.

Puff, you need to read the decision handed down only last week from the Administrative Appeals tribunal in the case of Avtex V CASA.

Alot of the material presented during this hearing was based on a very poor safety culture from the company and the senior member who presided over this hearing has gone into alot of detail regarding this exact issue when handing down his decision.

It makes a good read.

Agree with dirty. A good read and some interesting statements by a few of the drivers.

If anyone in the game at the moment feels like speaking up in their operation but feels they cant for fear of ridicule or dismissal. Have a read and see what road you are heading down. It might be hard to speak up. But it will be harder to see another needless preventable accident occuring that could possibly have been avoided with a 10 minute chat.