Article about PPRUNE from 2008
 

Not sure why this just showed up on the Google search...

The Professional Pilots' Rumour Network is a publicly accessible online forum where airline pilots discuss their work. So if you want to maintain the belief that you are in safe hands, warns Oliver Burkeman, stay as far away from it as possible


If you are made nervous by the idea that flight is an imperfect business, no less beset by human error and infighting and dysfunctional personalities than any other line of work, you should definitely avoid the Professional Pilots' Rumour Network (PPRuNe), an online forum which is, perhaps surprisingly, publicly accessible at pprune.org. But if you ignore this advice and visit anyway, you may find it difficult to leave. The site's existence is hardly a secret: it's been around since the turn of the millennium, and its members are regularly quoted by journalists seeking insider reactions to crashes, near-misses and air-rage incidents.


https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...1/transport.uk

I don't know why PPRuNe is so scary for non-professionals

Because people don't want to see themselves flying aeroplanes.... They want to believe human nature has been culled during flight school.

I find it reassuring. Some pretty dire stuff happens occasionally but everyone learns from it and my next flight is hopefully safer as a result. It's why I can still fly despite watching all those documentaries about aircraft crashes.

It's not as bad as twitter, reading the pages of some of the pilots on there quickly dispels the myth that pilots are highly intelligent and well disciplined people. It's somewhat disturbing what some, especially the new generation of, pilots are like.

That is assuming everybody on pprune is a professional pilot.

An assumption probably as risky as assuming everyone on Fleet Street is a professional journalist...:}

I was talking about twitter.
Also, I think this modification to your comment is more appropriate:
:E

Journalists could learn a lot in Jet Blast.

Nuclear Power Industry Too
 

Following the Three Mile Island disaster, the nuclear power industry turned to pilot training professionals to learn how teach nuclear power operators how to deal with emergencies.

And a number of other industries (e.g, rail and oil & gas) are working to adapt the concepts of CRM, checklists and human factors awareness. All great stuff, so it is somewhat concerning to read the occasional post that indicates in some ways the industry seems to be going backwards regarding basic skills.

What an ignorant assessment. In fact, despite the surprising discovery that pilots are human, it ought to be reassuring to read just how much attention and detail is paid to safety by professional pilots (well, perhaps some countries excepted). Passengers have little idea how many SOPS are in place for even the most rare emergencies, and just how “boring” their average flight is.

Back to my original comment above, all those accidents and brown trouser moments that weren't quite have all added to those SOPs to help stop repeats.

It's also a source of useful information, such as which airlines to avoid. Sometimes stated pretty clearly, other times just deduced from reading between the lines.

There is still a definite strata of hierarchy in medicine, but also an increased legalisation of both the decision making and reflection / review / serious impact assessment process that is actively at odds with the improvements in aviation.

You only have to look at the Bawa-Garba case in the UK to see both of these things. Her real-time dealings with he consultant in the case, who ultimately threw her under the bus, sounded spookily like some of the (up and down) status issues that CRM is intended to address. Much attention to individual's perceptions of their roles rather than the big picture of the right outcome for the patient.

The subsequent decisions that doctors' reflections on incidents, which they are supposed to use for learning and appraisal purposes, could be entered into evidence in court to prove neglect or negligence has had the immediate effect that doctors will now commit nothing to paper. This is a huge step backwards in the learning and improving process but, ultimately, if you make people afraid for their livelihoods, they will choose that.

From an SLF perspective, this is a fascinating forum, and for the most part resolutely unscary - apart from the occasional sense that there are clearly multiple ways to skin the cat of flying a particular aircraft type, given the pages of opinion about flight modes, switch settings, autopilot / throttle / etc behaviour, that perhaps leave one with the unnerving sense that something a little less complex may, in fact, be better all round.

Quote: 'It's somewhat disturbing what some, especially the new generation of, pilots are like.'

Be careful! I suspect you may find that is a two-way street.

Something, something, like watching sausage being made. Etc.

Engineering was a lot like that as well.:ooh:

From 1898, so plus ca change, etc. Don't let the SLF know the real truth....