When are Company SOP's Dangerous?
 

Fellow professionals,
Are we in danger of loosing the plot. I have seen SOP’s develop over the years with the express aim of increasing flight safety. What a laudable aim. After all number one rule in all aviation activities DO NOT HIT GROUND .........that is unintentionally!
However in this increasingly litigious society have some companies lost the plot?
While the aircraft manufacturers are spending considerable sums on human factor research resulting in simplification of procedures , I refer to the latest B737NG checklist. Some operators however have steadily gone the other way. SOP’s for virtually every thing making the silent cockpit quickly a thing of the past. SOP’s so complicated that the only thing that curiously is’nt included is the best and most important
FLY THE BLOODY AEROPLANE Tell me I’m wrong but when does blind adherence to sops in itself ( if those sops are complicated ) become a serious flight safety hazard.
I look forward to your feedback with great interest.
Many thanks
Saddest

Blind obedience to anything is dangerous !

Obedience by fools, guidance for wise men !!

Can you give us examples?

A few years ago when I was a First Officer, I was completing a visual approach to a North of England airfield.

There was other traffic in the circuit ahead of us and we were instructed to join a 4 mile final (1300 QNH). We were a little high so I disconnected the A/P, and asked for gear down whilst still at Flap 1. I also asked for the landing checklist to flaps, in order to get the checklist out the way, therefore enabling the two of us to have 'heads up', during the manually flown visual positioning to land i.e. good airmanship.

The reply from the Captain was that the landing checks only come with Flap 15, therefore we should not break SOP and we should delay doing them until this point.

The company had recently had a big drive to 'hit home' how important it was not to deviate from SOP's. In principle I have no problem with this, but the way that some people have interpreted this is worrying. Common Sense and Airmanship seem to have been sacrificed for fear of a sentence written in a manual.

An SOP can still fly you into the side of a mountain if you don't apply common sense. Sop's cannot be written for every conceivable situation, and it seems that the rigidity and lack of flexibilty within some operators is restricting a pilot's ability to 'think outside of the box'.

In my six years of flying I am lucky enough to have only had two major situations aboard my aircraft. Both were multiple failures that could not be covered satisfactorily by the QRH or the company SOP's. 'Seat of the pants' flying and unconventional thinking were required. Unfortunately I fear that in future we may have lost the ability to move outside the envelope to find a course of action that will get one out a hole.

Rant over...

Coming from a military background where SOPs were probably invented, they are nothing more than their title suggests - Standard Operating Procedures. Flexibility is essential and non-standard procedures are often used for this reason - that is why we use humans in the cockpit for goodness sake. As long as we all understand and know the standard way of operating we can choose to deviate provided that we inform each other along the way as necessary to stay safe.

The obedience of fools always causes trouble.

Your forerunners did a spectacular job flying almost solo in twin- and four engine RAF transports/bombers from 1940-45. Not to forget the Canadians etc.:)

The SOPs then, even if worshiped at the 'altar of paper and ink', could not have prevented pilots from overriding it when needed. Those were normal procedures until over land when flak etc started a fire and engine failures.
Was the flight ops manual adhered to at the expense of survival? Abnormal situations and ATC handling happen quite often in peacetime.

Our 'Approach Check' is normally begun when 'slats/flaps 5' are extended. But if the approach is already briefed, why wait to read the details to each other when Approach Control is keeping us high on downwind for what might be a fairly short final, with various headings and we still need to identify the flying pilot's ILS freq. and comply with what might end up as a lousy, unknown intercept altitude etc? Tail de-icing must also be manually selected. The busiest time during the approach, slowing, turning and changing altitudes, is the worst time to read each other a few numbers-IF the DA is set, we have the correct ILS freq. and course window for the 'handling pilot'. With early vectors, the 'handling pilot' does not need to be any longer on the previous VOR freq, or have his course on the last enroute radial. The DA bug (decision alt.) should have been set during the descent or sooner, unless Approach asks us to use a different runway (remember-if you don't like the new option, just say "unable").The checklist can catch these at the best time.

The guys designing procedural changes at their desks at Fleet Standards etc DO NOT always KNOW what is the best time for us. A situation in a 122-seat narrowbody jet on a 30 minute leg (the 5th of the day) can change much faster than in a 350-seat widebody. Some of the 'procedure boys' mostly flew widebodies and never in a narrowbody with only two pilots. WE level off...WE twist the autopilot turn knob. In many of our planes, no computers are onboard, except for air data, EGPWS/TCAS etc. Ernest Gann has a chapter subtitle somewhere in "Fate Is The Hunter": "Books Will Not Cushion a Meeting of Metal And Rock" :ouch: , or words to that effect.

I agree, that too much SOP's are a safety hazard.
Nowadays aircrafts are made to make life for pilots easier. Some expanded SOP's of a lot of companies are just doing the opposite. They are able to distract from the basic: FLY THE AIRCRAFT FIRST.
Now it's FOLLOW THE SOP FIRST. This leads to some big surprises during daily operation. Not any situation can be brought into a "SOP-regulation".
In a new situation this may force some pilots at first to look for the appropriate SOP instead of looking how to react and to act to bring the a/c back into the right way.
I have the impression that in some companies, the outgrowth of the SOP's have just the function to build a memorial for the appropriate responsible department and the members of this workgroup

I remember a case in the sim. Our instructor’s mantra was “that’s not a recall item, use the check list”. I waited until the inevitable happened and the autopilot tripped off (it happened quite a bit in that sim) and asked the non-handling pilot for the “Autopilot disconnect checklist”. Yes folks, it’s not a recall item.
Common sense should be an SOP. Sadly it should also be more common.
Kirk out………….

SOP's are a good thing but should never be used as a substitute for brains!

as bigger the company is you are flying for, as bigger is the need for SOP's!
they should be a guideline how to operate and not the law. but in some instances you meet your fellow pilot to do the next sector with you for the first time and you need some sort of common language, we have 150 expats from 36 nations, so you think you can do witout SOP's? good luck!!

Covered where I work with the comment "non standard" blah blah blah:ok:

Interesting topic and the answer inevitably is not straightforward.On one hand you have to have a set of sops to cover normal and abnormal ops;the experienced pilot will say where is the room for common sense and airmanship and this has validity and relevance.However...you cannot have it all ways;in the 'brave new world' that we live in the entry level of experience has been reduced to 170 hours flight time with the prospect of (God forbid!) further reduction for the new ill- conceived MPL (my opinion) and attendant further reduction of flying experience for the future occupants of the rhs of the 737/A320 types that these tyros are supposed to fill.No disrespect intended to the future generation of pilots who are often exceedingly competent and motivated but they will be there as a result of economics,politics and regulatory incompetence(off the fence now!) and the one qualification they will not have is experience.With experience you can make the sensible 'judgement call' to modify an sop;without it you can't.The Ryanair/easy etc style ops need rigid adherance to sops,imho this is the only way the new generation of inexperienced pilots can be safely accomodated. I am worldly enough to know that north American and Antipodean ops are completely different with vastly enhanced experience levels required to fly their entry level airline jets and probably a different philosophy regarding rigid adherance to sops.Essentially you can only use common sense and airmanship if you have the experience to fall back on in the first place.

I'm sorry, but there's nothing wrong with that piece of advice. If you want to treat any checklist as a recall item when it isn't, get your story straight for the inevitable occasion you get it wrong !
And don't play games with your trainer-he will always win !!

So you let the aircraft roll inverted while reading the QRH? There exceptions to every rule and these should be acknowledged, even by the mighty trainer. To acknowledge these facts displays a knowledge of the real world as well as SOPs. Airline rules are important of course but the laws of physics still carry the death penalty.

Right up to the point where he crashed it.

Boy did I chuckle to myself.

Since when was it about winning?

;)

Here here SR71! More than a couple of nights stop in the real world I'd say.

why dont you like SOP´s ?
 

hi guys

just a little question to everybody. why dont you like the SOP´s.? sounds like everybody who is in here wants to invent flying again by them self. most of the SOP´s and limits have been paid with a costly price, some even whith the ultimate...

sorry guys, there is nothing new to invent. flying heavy type is mostly boring. if you do it according the book its propably even a bit more boring. get used to it. or get a new girlfriend of by a new motorbike or start surfing....

our company got a new SOP that you have to be established on final in 1000´ and the previous rule was that in VMC you could be established in 500´. the youtcry was huge. some felt that they have lost a part of their human rights.

such a rubbish. i wish i were established every time before 1000´ and if we were not, something went wrong. it was still ok, but not as safe...

ok... when the book does not cover every failure, you have to get innovative, but lets be honest. when was the last time that happened to you?

stick to rules and SOP´s thats what we get paid for, i dont like to wear that silly uniformhat either, but i get paid for that too...

blue skies

L

sops
 

dear collegues, Sop,s , checks list, flows, all have been invented for increase safety, no matter who is flying the aircraft, green, yellow or red.
the real thing is to follow procedures, not to follow bad:{ habits.

James T

Aviate, Navigate, Communicate.