Uplinker,

An interesting idea, but when incentivising behaviour, beware of the unintended consequences which can sometimes be totally unexpected.

Definitely. I remember when they first brought in excess fuel carriage tables in my company. You had two groups who tried to get to opposite ends of the table, treating it like a competition, while the rest of us just took what we deemed appropriate on the day. The dangerous bit, IMO, was when some individuals vying for the top spot started returning negative excesses - they were using get-outs in our fuel policy designed to be used on rare occasions every time they flew...

As the CEO of a failing multinational (I'm not), I always get​​ bonus payments for, erm, doing my job. And, as it happens, invariably when I fail to do my job as well. I thought we had this bonus payment sector tied down, but it seems there are whispers that pilots should have a slice of the pie too. Not on my watch, no siree.

Seriously though, where does this stop? Should our cloakroom attendant be rewarded for not losing any coats? Or draping them properly on a hanger? If you find it impossible to track every coat you get, or can't hang them properly, you can have some more training. If that doesn't work, perhaps cloakrooms aren't for you.

"Stable approaches, touchdowns within the touchdown zone, and, say, three manually flown approaches every six months" shouldn't these be minimum requirements? If this isn't happening, or it's not being measured and recorded, surely something has gone seriously wrong?

@rb14, yes, I know it sounds counterintuitive, but humans need incentives. In the 1970's we should have all worn seatbelts, but we didn't. Now we do, because it became socially unacceptable not to.

Pilots should do everything right, but quite clearly they don't. You could use a stick and prosecute all errors. Or you could use a carrot and reward, or otherwise incentivise safe behaviour.

League tables for fuel is frankly xxxxxx dangerous. I have heard of really stupid and dangerous behaviour, such as one moron who flew back to a partially SNOWTAM ed UK with just 300kg extra fuel..............:mad:

So, never for fuel, I agree.

But if we had league tables or part of our pay was, say, £2.50 for every approach we flew that was fully stable at 1000', and a touchdown within the touchdown zone, it might start to change attitudes to risk taking and provide an incentive to encourage safe behaviour; it could work.

And how do you measure safe behaviour in a fair and objective way?

FDR readouts? CVR readouts? Cockpit videos? Fellow cockpit crew member reports? ATC reports? Cabin crew reports? Check rides? Passenger satisfaction?

No thank you.

Uplinker

It may start a trend to duck under. Financial incentives may not be what they appear. That's why salaries are rarely have one fixed figure per month. Basic salary can be reduced and then made up by giving a little for this and a little for that. Basically it's motivation to do a job well. It could be financial or appreciation of sincere effort some other way.

On the other hand of spectrum, you have people taking more than half an hour of extra fuel to an almost deserted 2-runway airport in severe CAVOK, just because 15 years ago they had to fly one turn in a hold one day. There's extreme cases on both sides.

If you're not stable at your gate and have not touched down in the touchdown zone or at the point that you should have for a safe landing (those two might not co-incide), you should go-around. We shouldn't reward people for doing what's expected of them.

What's next, a fiver for lifting your bottom off the seat and doing a walkaround when it's raining?

Where this might come into its own would be on training days, where the ‘spread’ of touchdowns were shown.
The analogy are the graphics shown as to where the ball pitches on the wicket during Test Matches etc. Analysed into various ‘zones’ as percentages and groupings. [Apologies to our American friends talking about a cricket match that can last 5 days]

AND / OR

Anonymous monthly publications of the ‘spread’, together with CP tea and biscuits, or sometimes without, as necessary.
Perhaps even individual performances sent confidentially. The difficulty then comes as to the impact caused by ‘inexperienced’ FOs learning their trade.

On balance UPLINKER’s idea is worth a closer look.

Some interesting reactions !

How can we incentivise pilots not to continue unstable approaches or long floats?

"Well pilots are paid to do their jobs properly". Yes, of course, but we have recently had two fatal crashes where unstable approaches, and in one case, a very long float ended in disaster. And this is in today's modern piloting, with CRM and SEPs etc. I am merely thinking aloud about possible ways chief pilots might push the balance towards a safer mindset.

Being both properly stable at 1000' and touching within the touchdown zone, would apparently be easy to program into FDM, and some way of incentivising these twin goals might start to reinforce the message to all?

Be wary of league tables; they can be a two-edged sword. Many years ago, a colleague on an annual assessment. "fewer days off sick; that's good" then "You tend to carry more fuel than most". His reply; "Yep, more fuel, less stress, fewer days off sick"

I was under impression most sensible airlines already have that in their FDM, and for me personally, not having to go and see the chief pilot for tea with no biscuits, is a great incentive to not bust the gate or land long.

Whilst the side discussion on monitoring, margins, etc, covers many aspects, how would this be applied to the accident situation. What additional distance would be expected to be added, and what is the origin of the baseline data.

Most regulatory agencies and operators require an additional distance safety margin to over baseline landing data; e.g. using OLD the minimum recommended addition is 15% (FAA, EASA), in some manuals this is listed as FOLD Factored Operational Distances (Airbus) - a significantly different concept from 'actual' distances or AFM distances with other factors.

What landing distance safety margin keeps you out of the office ?

What is this operators policy, national policy, is it recommended or mandated ?

So was I...Long landing/excessive time in the flare/Float, whatever you want to call it, is certainly analysed in our FDM and occasionally the more extreme events receive some suitably redacted publicity..

While "real men don't go around" or loss of face is ingrained in the brains of some culturally afflicted pilots, clearly this sort of insane mindset is here to stay. All the lectures on CRM, TEM or whatever is the latest ICAO buzzword (invariably paid lip service by the company), won't change a thing.

We have to live with it because history has shown us these sort of accident contributory causes will continue to feature in accident reports. Unfortunately the strong possibility of a crash being caused by a cultural bent is never mentioned in accident reports possibly due to a subtle application of political correctness. Also, the nature of this type of mindset usually means it cannot be proved beyond doubt.

Flight safety technical advances may reduce the number of accidents but they cannot erase 2000 years of culture.

'Long landing/excessive time in the flare/Float, … is certainly analysed in our FDM' # 357

That is an important aspect, but not the only one. Of greater importance is where the aircraft stopped - sufficiently slow, vs where it could have stopped; from this a comparison between the planned safety margin and actual available in the conditions, a check both on human contribution and the reported runway conditions.

Re several contributing factors - how many in this accident ?
The info-graphic on slide 20, 'Overrun Characteristics' https://www.icao.int/EURNAT/Other%20...FR%20PPT01.pdf (slow loading file) shows the issues, indicating the relative frequency or overall significance.

* GRF - Global Reporting Format - for runway condition; to be introduced this year together with revised landing distance performance which can be related to the reported conditions.
Also:- https://www.icao.int/EURNAT/Other%20...hp%20PPT06.pdf
and
https://www.icao.int/Meetings/grf201...-%20Airbus.pdf

a lot of thread creep here. A great discussion for elsewhere!

Anyone have any updates on the subject of this thread?
Any developments in the investigation?

"On Aug 25th 2020 the NTSB announced, they have appointed an accredited representative to assist the AAIB of India with the investigation according to ICAO Annex 13."

India Express B738 at Kozhikode on Aug 7th 2020, overran runway and fell into valley

Before being misunderstood, misquoted, called an idiot etc... Calculated, briefed and carried out within limits there should be (Is?) no issue with a tailwind landing. Fact... Moving on...

... there appears to be a relatively high percentage of over runs during this period of massively reduced traffic in the global skies. I am currently camping out waiting for the aircraft to arrive at Curitiba in the South south of Brazil, the terminal is tucked up at the beginning of runway 33. the tendency here during this period of fewer movements is to take off on 33 and land on 15 to reduce taxiing times. Does anybody else play the following thought game: that we are spending more time these days performing tailwind landing (takeoffs too) to save on taxi time as it is much more likely for reciprocal operations to be granted and as such, there is still the same percentage of pilots willing to push the limits which is contributing to this?

or am I overthonking this and talking utter muffjank?

overthonking or utter muffjank
 

In case I am mistaken, the issue with tailwind landings involves flare judgement at higher ground speeds. The aircraft feels the same - same airspeed, but visual feed back differs due to the 'unusual' ground and vertical speeds, thus can be misjudged, such that the variability in flare time and distance are much larger (certification speed allowance is 150% wind speed), i.e. the aircraft is more likely to float - a long landing.
Many pilots will have operated in moderate tailwinds, the industry seems to depend on the capability re changing runways or not. However, with increasing tailwinds, beyond normal ATC changeover limits, pilots lack experience and practice.

The risks in tailwinds above 10 kts increase rapidly.

Many years ago the recommended maximum was 10 kts (ICAO), this has been systematically allowed to drift to up to 15 kts. e.g. aircraft had 10 kt tail limit, customer request for 15 kts (night noise abatement) was reluctantly agreed providing that the AFM specifically limited to that operator and airport, and with additional training; 10 yrs later the AFM clearance for 15 kts was standard without limits or warnings - we forget, then fail to relearn hard lessons from accidents.

Risk during landing has increased - drift into failure - for convenience, noise, weather (particularly if wet or gusting wind), without due regard to mitigations - runway grooving, overrun area, runway condition reporting, accuracy / interpretation of landing data.

Neither 'overthonking or utter muffjank'; the reality of operations, which continually surprise us.

"What we observe is not nature herself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning."

FlyingStone

Which ‘extreme’ would you rather have when flying as a passenger? I know which one I’d prefer.