SIA Cockpit / Flight Ops Culture

[flying.monkeyz]

Through talking to SIA pilots and my own observations, I noticed that the culture of SIA pilots in the cockpit is still a tad on the authoritarian side. Junior officers tend to be reluctant to speak up if they see something wrong, hoping that someone else will voice up, or the problems will just disappear on their own.

Spoke to a retired SIA Captain over the weekend and interestingly he mentioned that SIA Captains in general do not see their FOs as an "extension" of their hands, rather FOs are just there to take and execute instructions from them. If that being the case, I believe there's a serious issue of CRM at SIA, and safety is potentially compromised.

Would any SIA pilots share your comments. Thanks.

[captjns]

Same Asian carrier.... different paint job, I guess.

[Skymaster337]

This is the culture of flying in Asia. You can make that same comment about 99% of the carriers over here.

[Fly3]

You sound like a journalist trawling for info and the sheep are following with no substantial information.

[bamboo30]

He is retired and it was the case when he was still flying, not anymore nowadays

[Garfs]

I dont fly for SQ and never have

However I have flown with a mix of Westerners and Asians. I find (generally) Asian captains to be like that (not all), and most expats Ive flown with to treat the co pilot as more as part of the crew (again not all westerners are like that), but generally based on my personal experience.

[CodyBlade]

You should try Kimchi mate, they still knock you on the back of your head if you voice out anything.

[taufupok]

Head slap? Capt. Leroy Jethro was there!

[aditya104]

This episode of Air Crash Investigation comes to mind:



One of the recommendations following the crash was:

Safety Recommendation No 2003-62: Korean Air continue to update their training and Flight Quality Assurance programmes, to accommodate Crew Resource Management evolution and industry developments, to address issues specific to their operational environment and ensure adaptation of imported training material to accommodate the Korean culture.

On another note, Korean Air hasn't had a fatal accident since that one in 1999. During the period 1997-99, they had 5 crashes in which the fatalities aggregated to 240.

I am reading Wikipedia right now and would like to share another interesting(unrelated though) find:

On 11 Sept, 2001: Korean Air Flight 85 from Seoul to Anchorage, Alaska, was forced to divert to Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada with an F-15 escort after a suspected hijacking, the flight landed safely in Whitehorse and the problem was a misunderstanding with the plane's transponder signal.

[slayerdude]

I certainly beg to differ....especially with safety being compromised .....I have intimate knowledge of the operations, training and crm health in the sq FLT decks. It's certainly in very good health and there certainly no problems with younger colleagues speaking up. There even is company placed mechanism for speaking up(support process) and further to this an infrastructure to protect whistle blowers. So views of a retired pilot should not be accepted for current good practices in the FLT decks of sq.

[parabellum]

Well I'm a retired SQ pilot but I happen to agree with you Slayerdude!

SQ make a very positive effort to overcome a cultural tendency that inhibits junior/younger people from speaking up to their seniors/elders and it is their credit that SQ have recognised this.

[slayerdude]

My apologies to you parabellum... The reference to retired sq pilot was not meant certainly for you or in general , but in reference to flying monkez's retired sq pilot. Apologies extended.....

[flying.monkeyz]

Taking the discussion a bit further, do you think SQ's cockpit culture is influenced by National Service?

[richard III]

Mate....if there is ONE thing that SQ does right is promoting a healthy cockpit environment, many things to criticize....but it's cockpit culture, definetily not. NS or not.

[King on a Wing]

Not true Richard.
One of the MOST dangerous cockpit environs is the one in SQ currently.
If the copilot 'recognizes' the captain 'knows' his stuff then you mate can do any blunder under the sun and he will not speak up.
I recently heard of a go around initiated at 30 feet on an approach into which should have long been aborted at something close to 1500 feet AGL.
The CVR read something like 'sink rate sink rate' silence 'glide slope glide slope' silence 'sink rate sink rate'. And then the captain announcing 'have you told him we have gone around?'
Go figure...
High, fast and hot.
Aborted at 30 feet.....????!
They were 4 feet from a tail strike.
Now THAT'S NOT a safe cockpit culture.
A lot in SQ is done to tick the boxes. This being just one of them.
Like I said, it could be better. A lot lot better.
KAL would be a distant second!
Cheers

[parabellum]

Thanks Slayerdude, no apology necessary!

One of the MOST dangerous cockpit environs is the one in SQ currently.

That is a very sweeping statement to make K on a W, as described by you the incident you mention should definitely not have happened, but one incident cannot be used to pass judgement on the entire airline and it's safety culture and philosophy and to suggest that SIA is worse than KAC is stretching the truth by a lot.

I assume you do actually work for SIA and are just a disgruntled employee, not simply spreading second and third hand rumours?

[White None]

Skymasters post a few back

This is the culture of flying in Asia. You can make that same comment about 99% of the carriers over here

That is just not true. It IS true that the bell-curve encompassing the spread of experience/training/professionalism etc etc, (however you wish to rate the quality of an airline) is very wide in the region. This does mean that not only are the few at the not so good extreme end genuinely worrying, but even above that there are a lot who are not at the, (subjective), standard that old world legacy carriers would claim to be. However, there are also some very professionally run airlines (with not necessarily pleasant systems) who recognise the threats endemic in the region and resulting from mixes of cultures and language skills in the cockpit, who deal with that by training and operating accordingly.

When you hear someone saying that 99% of anything is bad, it usually means that their situation is bad so they assume and/or subconsciously wish that everywhere else is the same, to justify and mitigate their frustration/concerns.

Aaah, enjoyed my Sunday morning Dump....... To the Pub!!

[RoyChadwick]

SIA day-to-day flight deck conduct

I've got to say I'm with Richard III on this.

When I was there I was impressed by the willingness to adapt and improve areas of their operation. In the main I found the F/O's charming and helpful. Most were happy to discuss and analyse how they had performed following each flight (one of the pleasures of long haul is to have time to do this in a bar post flight).

When I book flights as a full-paying passenger now I certainly wouldn't hesitate to choose SQ, whereas I know others I wouldn't consider at any cost.

Roy.

[flying.monkeyz]

Referring to King's comment: "you mate can do any blunder under the sun and he will not speak up".

For discussion sake, if an SIA FO sees his Captain doing a blunder and decided to take over and intervene, what is likely going to happen to the FO?

[rdr]

its quite normal for many pilots to put down their fellow professionals as this translates to giving them a sense of superiority and an ego boost.
when this is linked to "them who are not white," and we know best, it is not aviation, but straight forward racism.
in the end you can call it what you want, but isn't it a level of gross stupidity when one of the most successful carriers in the history of aviation, stands in the dock, opinionated by low lifers missing the big picture.