AAIB Bulletin: Morecambe Bay

[hostile]

SIM trainings

I thought that it is the operator who operates their helicopters and keep the flight crew in best shape. Not the client . Simulator is the place where you are able to go thru all bad situations.

Hostile.

[Teefor Gage]

Originally Posted by hostile

I thought that it is the operator who operates their helicopters and keep the flight crew in best shape. Not the client . Simulator is the place where you are able to go thru all bad situations.

Not quite! Simulators are the only place where you can practice abnormal situations without increasing the risk to crew. As such, Sims are invaluable in the drive to "keep flight crew in best shape".
However, we are digressing from the original thread and implying that the use of the simulator in this particular case could have prevented the accident.
As previously stated by many others, lets not prejudge the investigation.

[roundwego]

CHC Safety statement from CEO;-

“For absolutely every decision we make, safety must always be the first consideration.”
- Sylvain Allard, CEO & President

CHC Europe management has added the unwritten proviso;-

"As long as it doesn't affect the bottom line"

CHC Europe (UK) has been very slow in adopting simulator training for pilots other than those who were undergoing sim training in Brintel & Bond. The majority of UK pilots do not get regular sim training. One of the reasons for this problem is their appallingly slow record of recruiting and training. It takes twice as long for CHC to make recruitment decisions and get people on line than their UK competitors. This has helped create an ongoing shortage of pilots hence the inability (even if they would include it in their budget) to roster all pilots for quality sim training.

[Blind]

It is client driven in some cases. I can only really comment on Aberdeen, but the L crews have used the sim for a long time and there wasn't an L2 sim. When the L2 sim was approved CHC chose not to use it but Mobil insisted on it which is why they are in the crazy situation where only some crews are checked on the sim, and they are the only crews mobil use.

I think this is crazy and have never understood how it can be justified. A number of L pilots have refused to go on to the L2 because of this. Even the Mobil "approved" crews go annually compared to biannually on the L.

Sorry this has gone off thread, but it was in answer to soggyboxers' question.

[check]

It is obvious that CHC UK do not have a contract for Shell, they insist on all pilots using a sim if one is available. CHC in Holland use simulators. For years first with KLM, KLE, Schreiner and CHC I went to WPB for the S76 and then 6 months later Stavanger for the S61.

One size does not fit all, some areas of CHC are up to speed in using simulators and enhancing pilot skills, awaress and knowledge of emergency procedures. Others like the UK, well what can you say!

[Geoffersincornwall]

Sims etc

One thing is for sure. Whatever the outcome we are likely to see the whole question of training, and particularly sim training revisited by CHC and probably others. Nobody can afford to be in a situation where your ops management and training is put under the microscope in the way that an investigation into a fatal accident does. There will always be holes and people will always be wiser after the event.

Check
You are right the Dutch authorities (pre JAA) introduced a rule that said that all operators WILL use a simulator if one is available. The reaction of the UK CAA will be interesting to observe for unlike many NAAs they can be sued for 'negligent regulation' and so they can be expected to change the rules on sim training if they are able to find enough 'just cause' and the industry does not fight such a move.

It is such a pity that we always seem to react AFTER the event despite the evidence from operations in other parts of the world or other parts of the aviation industry.

G

[coalface]

Geoffers, you make a good point but it is a shame that it might take a regulatory authority to enforce sim training. I don't think it will happen in the short term as the UK CAA seems completely toothless. For the past 6 years the CAA has allowed CHC to operate without any senior management with any aviation background. I am told that the AOC senior postholder was the equivilent of a commercial clerk not many years ago. The resources director to who the flight ops managers report to has no aviation background and by all accounts is completely out of her depth. Due to the attempt to create CHC "Europe" as a single company most of CHCs management's time seems to be taken up with trying to sort out politics and industrial problems among the different national entities which are all trying to protect their own local jobs and client base.

There seems to have been a deliberate senior management decision to ensure there is no-one in flight ops with any financial or budget authority because they know that pilots, pilot training and everything else which goes towards providing a safe operating system costs money.

Roundwego is right - they might talk the talk but they don't walk the walk.

PS. Please don't think that anything I have said implies any particular view on the cause of the thread subject accident. That is up to the AAIB. I just hope they look very carefully at the management structure of CHC in the UK

[Geoffersincornwall]

Night Landings

Just to give you a flavour of what it means to land on a platform at night here is a short video clip of a landing on one of the better platforms in the North Sea. believe me they come a lot worse than this. The movie was shot from the LH DV window of a 365 using a Fuji Finepix 4.0. The lurch mid sequence is when I had to arm the floats for my long-suffering skipper. Just look how black the world is on a dark moonless night. Now how do you fancy a bit of night vfr?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZLmjLHGQFY
G

[tistisnot]

I … remember ….. when ….. ‘Check’ was a young lad ….

KLM’s induction training included 40 hours of sim training! (Being a foreigner they concluded we obviously did not know how to fly on the correct side of the sky). How many companies have an induction course of note nowadays – even though it’s a requirement in the OMA/D?

Thereafter it was the sim, for both aircraft types, every 6 months!

The foray into Norwich, with KLM Era UK, upset the Brit operator who lost the contract – but their influence in the UK CAA meant that even with a S76B (which is capable of everything a new S76C+ can do) CAA Examiners were not interested in seeing the management of failures on AP’s, FD’s nor Radalt Hold functions but rather hands-on flying throughout – that’s how real men fly aircraft! Give credit where credit’s due though – they have certainly improved of late.

Yes KLM had a monopoly, yes they were influenced by mainline KLM (thank heavens) but they installed most of the equipment – and the procedures to go with it – 15 years ago.

What staggers me most is that non-Europeans sort of look at UK and the like as revered centres of JAA excellence demanding lengthy training and high standards; and yet here we are saying that a UK operator skimps on sending pilots to the simulator ….. nigh on scandalous.

[helimutt]

So now, using a thread about an accident, the cause of which is still unknown, people are having a go saying that a certain operator isn't doing enough sim training? Come on guys. Anyone have any facts and figures to back this up comparing to other operators, or is it all just one sided bullsh*t??

[SASless]

What staggers me most is that non-Europeans sort of look at UK and the like as revered centres of JAA excellence demanding lengthy training and high standards; and yet here we are saying that a UK operator skimps on sending pilots to the simulator ….. nigh on scandalous.

What rock did you crawl out from under pard? Most non-Europeans (which includes those of us on the west end of the Salt Water Divide) see the UK routine as anything but centers of high standards to be revered by anyone but the terminally thick amongst us.

Too right the UK demands lengthy training but for what reason beyond lining someone's pocket at great expense to those trying to enter the profession.

Surely anyone with a modicum of common sense can appreciate the unwieldy nature of the bureaucratic system you suffer under.

The UK system does some things right but as an entity it is simply an obstacle to getting anything done in a timely and efficient manner.

The existence and popularity of US and other foreign registered aircraft is evidence of that. One does not see UK registered aircraft in North America....wonder why that is.

[Geoffersincornwall]

we're going off thread again...........but what the hell...

Tistisnot

Lest we forget - good as they were, our Dutch colleagues thought that AVAD was for amateurs and pussycats .......... and paid the price. (20th Dec 1997)

SAS

Here we go again........let's not mistake 'cheap' for 'good'.

I've been around a wee bit and there are as many ways to 'skin the cat' as you care to find. However as Nick L constantly points out to me, the end results, in terms of accident stats at least is pretty much the same when you compare the JAA world with the FAA world.


In the world of Safety Management we talk about 'designing to succeed - v - designing to fail'. I have seen many an organisation that was designed to fail but did not, simply because the guys (and gals) that worked there constantly made up for the lack of management skills and resources. There are even organisations that despite putting lots of $$$ and a lot of effort into safety (designed to succeed) still manage to have accidents because good corporate oversight cannot make up for individuals who, despite everything, screw up.

It's been my experience that a lot depends on the quality of NAA oversight and this depends on the background of the personnel working as Flight Operations Inspectors. Around the globe you will find all sorts of people tasked with this important role.

In ascending order, this is how I rate them:

1. Military fixed wing
2. Military helo
3. Ex-military with no commercial experience
4. Any one who has been out there in the commercial helo world for a minimum of 10 years and earnt the respect of his colleagues (commercial or military background).

Yes, for those out there that don't realise it there are helicopter operations around the world policed by folk that wouldn't know a collective lever from a hole in the ground.

Helimutt

The facts speak for themselves. The amount of sim training received within the CHC 365 fleet has been zero. In the S76 fleet it was zero until last November and is now very limited. You can make of that what you will but as I have said previously the speculation about the need for sim training will only be reinforced by the accident regardless of the outcome simply because it has some validity, however uncomfortable that may be.


G

[tistisnot]

SaSless,

Don't jump to conclusions - that's my prerogative! I don't fly in UK; I fly with Argentinians, Chileans, Indians, Africans, North Americans and Asians ..... and it is a perception that many of these have about the 'JAA' Licence and system to which I was referring. I do not say it is right or wrong.

With the boom in revenue oil companies are now demanding newer equipments with all the kit. Perhaps if we had been stronger as an industry a few years ago, operators would have provided a lot of this as standard fits for them in the past - and that would have led consequently to more simulator work earlier. The figures are already available from OGP safety studies as to why this should be occurring. it doesn't take the brains of an archbishop to work out where we need to concentrate - sims provide excellent testing and proving of procedures, emergencies and CRM.

You have thousands of posts and I do not rant against those... allow me one now and again, thank you.

[helimutt]

So how many sim hours did Bond or Bristow do on all of the a/c they utilise? Not including new types, only those for recurrency/safety training. Again, how do the accident statistics stack up, and is it really glaringly obvious that CHC's possible lack of sim training has led to more accidents than other companies?
Remember, you can't include this particular incident as we don't know the cause yet.

[tistisnot]

Geoffers,

Our posts crossed! Now be careful - you quite rightly identified the cause of the S76 accident in previous posts as CRM failure.

Yes - I did state they bought 'most' of the equipments! I am an AVAD fan, not EGPWS (at present), although it did contribute in this instance - they acknowledged 100' ASL as a crew but it was ignored in the desire to find the platform visually - the age old two sets of eyes outside ignoring the turn below 500', subsequent loss of speed and increasing ROD ..... 'blowaway' did not help at that stage.

[Geoffersincornwall]

Tistisnot and Helimutt

The point I am making is that when you put an incident or accident under the microscope you can turn over a few rocks in the process and find underneath some 'embarassing' shortcomings. They need not be related to the direct cause of the accident but the fact that they appear in the analysis makes them very difficult to ignore and calls into question the wisdom an earlier decision to do, or not to do something. If you are familiar with the Zotov Error Map then you know what I mean. If not PM me and I'll send you more info.
G

[Hummingfrog]

Thread creep

This thread is now suffering from content creep and is now developing into a discussion on simulator training, which I feel has no bearing on this accident whatsoever. The CHC Dauphin TRE/IREs do a good job in keeping us current and always ask if there is anything we wish to practise.

These were 2 experienced pilots who died in this accident and the captain probably had more night landings on the 365N than I have (5000+). They realised something was amiss so went around but for some reason crashed.

Let us wait for the AIB to publish their full findings and hopefully learn from them. In the meantime a new thread on the benefits of simulator training could be started.
HF

Geoffers - it was never that dark going onto the U

[Brilliant Stuff]

Hummingfrog,
We did the maths a while back I believe Steve would have had something like 40.000 landings and take offs purely on the North Sea. I myself did 10.000 in 6 years. I counted them after every flight.


Whenever the sim question came up within the company we were always told they cost to much because we would have to go to France for them.
The Training captains were always under pressure to stay within their budget, as you can imagine this did not impress them one bit. We also were made to adopt a more company standardised checklist and sops even though this did not account for us making 5 landings an hour on average.

[DOUBLE BOGEY]

Mr Hummingfrog

I hear what you sat about the amount of landings carried out by the P1 in this case but was it not the P2 that was HP during the approach?

The significant issue in this incident is the go-around - Night VMC (which we all know becomes effectively a go-Around IMC once the lights have slid by the window)!!

This is an event which is unusual, especially for a pilot who is v. experienced in night deck landings, as most of his approaches will generally result in a successful landing.

I think the any speculation on the impact simulator training may or may not have made to this incident is just that, but I feel it is important to consider that simulator training provides the opportunity to "reflect" the problems of the real world retrospectively to hopefully prepare crews more fully for infrequent occurrences that are just to risky to do in the helicopter itself.

My understanding is that CHC have a new dynamic MD who for the past year has been working on the introduction of Simulator training for all Offshore pilots and crews and this is very commendable. It is hard to point the finger at management and categorically state that sim training should have been carried out in the past as without a mandate from the NAA the costs of conducting such training may make the Company un-competetive in the market place and predjudice its continued survival.

I hope that this incident will certainly highlight the benefits of sim training and bring to the forefront of the CAAs minds that this type of training is essential for certain types of helicopter operations. It should, in my opinion, be mandatory for offshore ops!

Just a footnote: As a "newbie" to PPRUNE am am bemused by the moral contingent who keep urging us not to stray from the original thread. Surely PPRUNE offers all a chance to state their minds and sometimes straying just a little bit can produce some amazing results - rather like "thinking outside the box"!! (WHATEVER THAT MEANS)

[Hummingfrog]

Double Bogey

Your comment about a go round is inaccurate

"This is an event which is unusual, especially for a pilot who is v. experienced in night deck landings, as most of his approaches will generally result in a successful landing."

A go round, as 332Mistress explained to you, is not an unusual occurrence for a shuttle pilot. Due to the nature of shuttling the next rig is not always ready to give deck available as you approach so we usually set up the approach expecting deck clearance sometime during the approach. If we don't get it we go around - this happens on a regular basis!

The comments about thread creep are usually mentioned to encourage people to start new threads if they have an idea they think needs exploring and not let a thread, which concerns 7 people dieing wander off into irrelevant discussions.

Although the P2 was the HP with 300+ hrs shuttling he may have over 300 night deck landings - nearly as many as a Puma pilot would get in 10 yrs!!

Shuttle pilots hand fly the a/c most of the time so while disorientation may be a factor in this accident I do find it hard to believe it was the initial trigger.

HF