G-LAWX S92 Incident AAIB

[Torquetalk]

Originally Posted by Heathcliff

Question him, then. He does offer for anyone to do so if they wish but said he would not respond further to the thread. Alternatively, if you just want to keep villifying someone on a forum where you feel anonymous, then carry on, but you will not learn anything. Which is, after all, what you are asking to do.

Heathcliff, I would say that your continued readiness to defend DrSM and attempts to shut up those offering critical comment on the flight is not actually in the interests of flight safety or learning lessons. There is, in fact, much to learn from what happened (in the report) and the point is to learn it through discussion and applying the lessons into practice and not have to learn it the hard way. The fact that these are acutally lessons that should have already been learnt and involve mistakes that need not be repeated, especially by someone teaching the subject, is a perfectly reasonable criticism which an apology does not nullify. If those charged with teaching and implementation of good practice don't actually do it, there is not much reason to be optimistic about future flight safety.
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[Undecided]

I have been critical of the Commanders action in previous posts. Having read Dr SM's post in detail my views have changed very little. He is insistent that the CAA followed a Just Culture which lead to their decision not to revoke his licence or apply any punitive actions. He says that this is because they accepted the information he gave them but also says he isn't going to share the details with us of what he told them. He says that the CAA understood. It is almost as if he wants us to believe that there is more to the story which the CAA know and the AAIB don't.
Way too much smoke and mirrors for me, if Dr SM is genuinely interested in being open and honest and making things safer then don't say your piece and then say you are not going to respond further on this forum. There have been some excellent questions asked over the last few posts - if he wants to assist with safety, come back and answer them so we can all learn from his mistakes. I hadn't considered the issue of the internal report before but it is an interesting one - as AM and SM he was marking his own homework. Why doesn't he share with us how he marked himself?

[Heathcliff]

Originally Posted by megan

I'm afraid I don't see where he made the offer.

Ah, maybe I misread it: " I have no issues talking about it with anyone who genuinely wants to learn something about avoiding this again." Maybe that wasn't meant for posters on here as I thought - hence my ONE attempt to steer the questioning to where I thought it would be answered - although I thought DrSM was referring to his course too.

I'm not convinced the ire expressed by some repeatedly against one individual is entirely about flight safety, and I certainly don't see how posting that on here improves it when no public discourse will be entered into whereby lessons could be learned, but in my mostly silent years on here I've noticed that's the lifeblood of this forum. I suspect I have become too old for the internet! I shall retire forthwith as I seem no better at it than anyone else. Godspeed.

[Undecided]

Heathcliff, I have been one of those that have been critical of the conduct of the flight so I suspect that your comment is made (at least partially) at me.
You are probably correct that there are two points here - one is expressing ire and the other is learning to prevent reoccurrence. As far as flight safety is concerned there have been some excellent points raised as to where it all went wrong however it appears that there are no new lessons to be learnt here so the real question, which remains unanswered is - why did it all go so badly wrong? By this I mean why were the SOP's so poor and why weren't those that were there not adhered to? Why did Dr SM chose to push on and on and on, ignoring all wisdom and common sense even once the aircraft has almost impacted the ground? I guess the only person who can really answer this question is Dr SM but he has chosen not to engage and help us with this bar telling us to be cautious without explaining why he himself wasn't.
The other point is expressing ire. When incidents like this occur (thankfully they are rare), personally I am both relieved that the result was not far worse but frustrated (and yes probably angry) that behaviour like this is tolerated within our industry. I am not without fault and I have done things which, with the benefit of hindsight, I would do differently, but for me - this lack of adherence to any kind established procedures is reckless and it damages the reputation of the whole industry. It is akin to the driver that cuts you up on the motorway doing 120mph - I believe it to be unnecessary and dangerous so I don't shed a tear when such drivers are banned but I do get frustrated if they are caught but not punished.
To put this is perspective, have a read of this article.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...elicopter.html
Personally I believe that the gentlemen concerned (Mr Voice) was reckless and it was good that some kind of punitive action followed. I assume that DrSM also felt that the action was reckless as I would imagine it would have been impossible to secure a conviction without a statement from him as the pilot. So I wonder what the view from fellow readers is with regards to whether there is any comparison (in terms of endangering the helicopter) with the way Mr Voice acted when he chose to shine his torch and the way that Dr SM acted when he chose to operate the helicopter in the way that he did?