Does a pilot really need to be trained how to "monitor"?
The FAA’s and NTSB’s problem is that they have created it for themselves. Their continued labelling of the human as a failure, concluding the need for more training and assessment adds little to the quest for improved safety, but increases the confusion and complexity of training and operation.
Operations are very safe; however on rare occasions, weaknesses in the safety process disrupt normal defences. As long as investigation and regulatory activity continues to focus on the human as the weakest defensive link, as something which must be improved, then the greater the problem of identifying what should be trained and assessed – how to improve the human.
There are many academic views of this, but the one which stands above all others is that ‘it is difficult to change the human condition, but it is possible to change the conditions of work’ (J Reason) – identify and monitor those aspects which influence human behaviour.
Thus for ‘monitoring’, how can we assess that which we cannot identify or train? Should we assess individual pilots, crews, operators; assess what, what objective, what standard, what training; safety involves all aspects, their relationships, their potential to add to the process, and the means of improving this. This is much more than training and assessment.
It is important to appreciate the effects of change. Older systems required a high degree of monitoring, this is less so now. We still need to monitor the vital instruments, but which ones are vital, when, where, how. This depends on context, understanding the situation, the task, and realisation of the overall safety objective – balanced by economics.
Modern monitoring is less focussed on instruments or systems, but more on the objective and means of achieving it – the process of flying, situation awareness, and management.
The FAA and NTSB might achieve a more meaningful output by including themselves in any criticism of human activity, revise their misguided beliefs to match the current safe operational world, to appreciate what has changed and what is required in future scenarios.
These high level organisations should improve their awareness and implementation of the safety initiatives required for an already safe industry.
Operations are very safe; however on rare occasions, weaknesses in the safety process disrupt normal defences. As long as investigation and regulatory activity continues to focus on the human as the weakest defensive link, as something which must be improved, then the greater the problem of identifying what should be trained and assessed – how to improve the human.
There are many academic views of this, but the one which stands above all others is that ‘it is difficult to change the human condition, but it is possible to change the conditions of work’ (J Reason) – identify and monitor those aspects which influence human behaviour.
Thus for ‘monitoring’, how can we assess that which we cannot identify or train? Should we assess individual pilots, crews, operators; assess what, what objective, what standard, what training; safety involves all aspects, their relationships, their potential to add to the process, and the means of improving this. This is much more than training and assessment.
It is important to appreciate the effects of change. Older systems required a high degree of monitoring, this is less so now. We still need to monitor the vital instruments, but which ones are vital, when, where, how. This depends on context, understanding the situation, the task, and realisation of the overall safety objective – balanced by economics.
Modern monitoring is less focussed on instruments or systems, but more on the objective and means of achieving it – the process of flying, situation awareness, and management.
The FAA and NTSB might achieve a more meaningful output by including themselves in any criticism of human activity, revise their misguided beliefs to match the current safe operational world, to appreciate what has changed and what is required in future scenarios.
These high level organisations should improve their awareness and implementation of the safety initiatives required for an already safe industry.
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I've got to go with Megan on this. EICAS alert you when limits are reached and perhaps it better to do something proactive to a trend than wait to be reactive. On B737, even B757/767 there are quite a few items that you would like to know about that are not on EICAS. I went B732 - B767. We did not dump old habits just because it was a new toy. I was appalled after joining a fledgling airline who have transited from B727 (i.e. with an FE) to B757/767. I used to do an overhead scan at TOC and a glance around every so often.
One day, on a jump seat, the instructor captain berated the F/O PF for looking at the overhead panel. He said it was unnecessary because there was EICAS. Just relax. He was also one of the "follow follow follow the FD" brigade.
I wonder if the A330 Atlantic glider might have fared better if the monitoring process and been more critical and considerate. No doubt there are many examples where different outcomes could have occurred with better techniques.
One day, on a jump seat, the instructor captain berated the F/O PF for looking at the overhead panel. He said it was unnecessary because there was EICAS. Just relax. He was also one of the "follow follow follow the FD" brigade.
I wonder if the A330 Atlantic glider might have fared better if the monitoring process and been more critical and considerate. No doubt there are many examples where different outcomes could have occurred with better techniques.
One day, on a jump seat, the instructor captain berated the F/O PF for looking at the overhead panel. He said it was unnecessary because there was EICAS
Departing in CAVOK, the Indonesian check pilot cleared the LH seat pilot for a left turn after take off. As the pilot commenced the turn he took a quick glance over his shoulder to check for visual traffic. The check pilot instantly froze the simulator and demanded why the pilot looked outside.
The pilot explained it was an instinctive quick look for traffic as weather was CAVOK. The check captain berated him loudly saying "you don't need to look outside even in good weather - trust the TCAS."
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Humans, by nature, are rather poor monitors.
I believe that humans are very good monitors, if they want to, know what to monitor and are not distracted.
The tricky part however is to notice whether somebody else is just relaxing, or monitoring his environment. That makes the job for FAA inspectors quite tricky ideed. It only is easy if there is something to notice, and the person supposed to be monitoring is not noticing it. As long as everything runs perfect, you can not tell the difference.
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I am absolutely not sure about that. At the times when humans still had to hunt for their dinner, and had to take care not to become some raptors snack either, monitoring was an essential part of surviving.
But in IMC without outside visual reference, we're very bad at detecting a slow uncommanded roll, a gradual loss in altitude, deterioration of speed / energy, etc. All items which should be part of any pilot's basic instrument scan.
We've had many many examples of these kinds of failures over the years. Eastern Airlines Flight 401, the Asiana crash at SFO, the recent AirAsia crash in Indonesia, etc. In each of these accidents none of the multiple crew members detected that something was wrong until it was too late.
If we only rely on pilot monitoring to detect slow deterioration of aircraft state, then accidents like above will continue to happen. Even if the FAA mandates additional training, hand flying, etc., it's human nature that we're not very good at certain tasks. So I think there is a diminishing returns in FAA's approach to monitoring.
Alerting -- automated callouts, warnings, etc., is part of the solution. But sometimes we're good at ignoring those, too.
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Reference Karl Weick and his brilliant definition of mindfulness:
"A rich awareness of discriminatory detail"
So one of the open questions is: can we make the detail more discriminatory? This is one of my big concerns with the digital vs analog display issue, but there are many more cases where I am not sure the question has been taken as seriously as need be.
"But in IMC without outside visual reference, we're very bad at detecting a slow uncommanded roll, a gradual loss in altitude, deterioration of speed / energy, etc. All items which should be part of any pilot's basic instrument scan."
One of the "features" of the human component of our airborne system is that it adapts to its environment - meaning its skills, awareness, attention, behaviors are affected by its experiences. The modern automated flight deck has done wonders to performance, enabled operations, and so on, but it has also, unintentionally, changed routine pilot behavior. One of those behaviors, I believe, is the instrument scan - its quality of perception and its frequency. Given the evidence of extended airspeed degradation (over a period of minutes) demonstrated in the data of some accidents over the last several years.
I think we need some deliberate flight deck display design to both compensate for and correct this trend in pilot behavior. A cacaphony of new alerts, hand slaps, and training emphases, alone, are inadequate and unsustainable. Our flight deck displays systems must not only support instrument flight they must promote good airmanship. We need to embrace the characteristics of the human component, not complain about them, and we need to design with them in mind to foster the pilot behavior (habits, performance, awareness) we need.
Alerts may address crew awareness of a non-normal condition, but they do nothing to promote pilot awareness of the aircraft state under normal routine conditions. And the latter is the main problem.
One of the "features" of the human component of our airborne system is that it adapts to its environment - meaning its skills, awareness, attention, behaviors are affected by its experiences. The modern automated flight deck has done wonders to performance, enabled operations, and so on, but it has also, unintentionally, changed routine pilot behavior. One of those behaviors, I believe, is the instrument scan - its quality of perception and its frequency. Given the evidence of extended airspeed degradation (over a period of minutes) demonstrated in the data of some accidents over the last several years.
I think we need some deliberate flight deck display design to both compensate for and correct this trend in pilot behavior. A cacaphony of new alerts, hand slaps, and training emphases, alone, are inadequate and unsustainable. Our flight deck displays systems must not only support instrument flight they must promote good airmanship. We need to embrace the characteristics of the human component, not complain about them, and we need to design with them in mind to foster the pilot behavior (habits, performance, awareness) we need.
Alerts may address crew awareness of a non-normal condition, but they do nothing to promote pilot awareness of the aircraft state under normal routine conditions. And the latter is the main problem.
Eastern Airlines Flight 401, the Asiana crash at SFO, the recent AirAsia crash in Indonesia, etc. In each of these accidents none of the multiple crew members detected that something was wrong until it was too late.
We need to go beyond political correctness and accident investigators need be blunt about this serious problem because history is bound to repeat itself eventually. Mark my words.
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but their ethnic culture was so dominate that both shut up about what they clearly saw the way things were going (badly) rather than cause loss of face of the PF.
But the NTSB accident report does not support such conclusion. In fact earlier in the approach (around 1000' AGL) the Observer pilot noticed the high sink rate and he spoke up. Six seconds later, when the high sink rate remained, he spoke up again.
So clearly he wasn't concerned about "loss of face" of the PF. He did not shut up.
But none of the pilots noticed that the airspeed gradually deteriorated from 137 kts MCP target speed down to 120 kts. And this loss of airspeed was only detected because at 200' the automated callout made the PM check the airspeed.
And because the pilots assumed that A/T will take care of the airspeed, none of them noticed when the airspeed continued to decay to 109 kts. Like before, PM only checked the airspeed again when the 100' automated callout was made. Go around was initiated 1/2 second later but it was too late.
Again Asiana demonstrates that while pilots may notice "obvious" events such as high sink rate, they have difficulty perceiving more gradual deterioration in state (i.e., the speed decay). They were already 17 kts below target speed before the PM noticed it, and only because an automated callout prompted him to look.
Just as when driving a car, where it's a good idea to check the rearview mirrors every 20 seconds or so, PM and PF should glance at their PFD regularly.
With the tape displays and everything on the one screen, one can assimilate whether the situation is normal in about a second. It is very easy to check if the speed, atttitude and altitude are where they should be with just one glance.
I suspect the problem stems from pilots no longer working their way 'up' to big jets as we used to, via small and then large turbo props, but going from flight school straight into the RHS of a modern airliner that seldom goes wrong.
Such pilots perhaps do not develop the vital need to monitor because the modern jets' automatics rarely go wrong, whereas those of us who flew aircraft with crude and unreliable 'automatics' (or no automatics) quickly developed a good regular scan to check that all was well, or to do something about it if it wasn't.
This ties in with automation dependancy.
With the tape displays and everything on the one screen, one can assimilate whether the situation is normal in about a second. It is very easy to check if the speed, atttitude and altitude are where they should be with just one glance.
I suspect the problem stems from pilots no longer working their way 'up' to big jets as we used to, via small and then large turbo props, but going from flight school straight into the RHS of a modern airliner that seldom goes wrong.
Such pilots perhaps do not develop the vital need to monitor because the modern jets' automatics rarely go wrong, whereas those of us who flew aircraft with crude and unreliable 'automatics' (or no automatics) quickly developed a good regular scan to check that all was well, or to do something about it if it wasn't.
This ties in with automation dependancy.
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PM and PF should glance at their PFD regularly.
Correct; but as was touched on in another topic, this glance is often only to see of the FD is centred, which with A/P in CMD it will be. Let's remove the FD when A/P is in CMD. This will force a better scan
Such pilots perhaps do not develop the vital need to monitor because the modern jets' automatics rarely go wrong, whereas those of us who flew aircraft with crude and unreliable 'automatics' (or no automatics) quickly developed a good regular scan to check that all was well, or to do something about it if it wasn't.
This ties in with automation dependancy.
Let's make a/c and flight-decks where things go wrong more often and the back-up system has to be selected manually if the re-set function doesn't work. Ha! Back to the future. Yippee said the ex-FE.
Correct; but as was touched on in another topic, this glance is often only to see of the FD is centred, which with A/P in CMD it will be. Let's remove the FD when A/P is in CMD. This will force a better scan
Such pilots perhaps do not develop the vital need to monitor because the modern jets' automatics rarely go wrong, whereas those of us who flew aircraft with crude and unreliable 'automatics' (or no automatics) quickly developed a good regular scan to check that all was well, or to do something about it if it wasn't.
This ties in with automation dependancy.
Let's make a/c and flight-decks where things go wrong more often and the back-up system has to be selected manually if the re-set function doesn't work. Ha! Back to the future. Yippee said the ex-FE.
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Correct; but as was touched on in another topic, this glance is often only to see of the FD is centred, which with A/P in CMD it will be. Let's remove the FD when A/P is in CMD. This will force a better scan
Of course, on the 727, we never engaged the FD unless we were actually flying an instrument approach...the rest of the time it was just pitch and power. Therein, perhaps, lies the problem...
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I don't know if they still do, but I believe United Airlines used to do just that. My understanding was that when you selected autoland on the 767/757 fleet, the flight director would disappear.
When I was flying these in UK the CAA stipulated this setting. I then moved to a european airline, different CAA, and the FD remained. So it was not a type issue.
I am leaning strongly towards the idea that to improve monitoring of 'what the a/c is really doing' the FD's should be absent when A/P is in command.
However, and sad to hear, there are airlines who forbid switching off the FD when either manual or automatic flight. That comment might be more relevant on the 'too much auto-dependancy' topic when considering manual flight, but does has some relevance during automatic flight.
When I was flying these in UK the CAA stipulated this setting. I then moved to a european airline, different CAA, and the FD remained. So it was not a type issue.
I am leaning strongly towards the idea that to improve monitoring of 'what the a/c is really doing' the FD's should be absent when A/P is in command.
However, and sad to hear, there are airlines who forbid switching off the FD when either manual or automatic flight. That comment might be more relevant on the 'too much auto-dependancy' topic when considering manual flight, but does has some relevance during automatic flight.
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Perhaps a system prompted scan would work?
Have the aircraft call out a check, and once confirmed the crew press a reset button. Continue this until the scan is done.
Repeat every 15 / 30 minutes.
Once every three scans, the aircraft deliberately sets one of the checklist items to an incorrect value, and ensures the crew do not 'pass' that check.
Or better still, bring back the FE who's primary role is to stop the pilots killing everyone!
Have the aircraft call out a check, and once confirmed the crew press a reset button. Continue this until the scan is done.
Repeat every 15 / 30 minutes.
Once every three scans, the aircraft deliberately sets one of the checklist items to an incorrect value, and ensures the crew do not 'pass' that check.
Or better still, bring back the FE who's primary role is to stop the pilots killing everyone!
The first commercial passenger aircraft I flew was a turbo prop that had no A/P and no F/D.
In fact I remember during the ground school for my next type, our instructor talking about the 'flight director'. We thought 'why is he going on about the guy in head office?'! What he was saying didn't make sense, but nobody said anything so muggins here eventually puts his hand up "errm.....sorry, what's a flight director?"
And as RAT 5 says, this could be the crux of the problem. On that first type I developed a true scan: and even today when I glance at the PFD I look at the speed tape, the pitch, the bank, the altimeter tape and the V/S tape. I don't really look at the F/D much if the A/P is in - there is no point, because even if the square is centered in the cross, the A/P and F/D might have both gone wrong and it would still look right.
I like the idea of flying with EITHER A/P or F/D but not both. On Airbus, switching both F/Ds off forces the A/THR into speed mode, so I don't know if this would be practical for all phases of flight though?
In fact I remember during the ground school for my next type, our instructor talking about the 'flight director'. We thought 'why is he going on about the guy in head office?'! What he was saying didn't make sense, but nobody said anything so muggins here eventually puts his hand up "errm.....sorry, what's a flight director?"
And as RAT 5 says, this could be the crux of the problem. On that first type I developed a true scan: and even today when I glance at the PFD I look at the speed tape, the pitch, the bank, the altimeter tape and the V/S tape. I don't really look at the F/D much if the A/P is in - there is no point, because even if the square is centered in the cross, the A/P and F/D might have both gone wrong and it would still look right.
I like the idea of flying with EITHER A/P or F/D but not both. On Airbus, switching both F/Ds off forces the A/THR into speed mode, so I don't know if this would be practical for all phases of flight though?
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the scan rate is what we forget, not how to fly.
That is why I want to take this oportunity to advocate for the FPED (Flight Path Envelope Director)
It is like using the FD, with all its modes, but the FD bars are "armed", so when you deviate from the target speed, v/S, track, etc... by a given amount, the FD bars come and you are prompted to follow them.
Using this would keep us as safe as flying with FD and we would have good flying skills
Any engineer out there, put my name on the patent along with yours, please
That is why I want to take this oportunity to advocate for the FPED (Flight Path Envelope Director)
It is like using the FD, with all its modes, but the FD bars are "armed", so when you deviate from the target speed, v/S, track, etc... by a given amount, the FD bars come and you are prompted to follow them.
Using this would keep us as safe as flying with FD and we would have good flying skills
Any engineer out there, put my name on the patent along with yours, please
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"It is like using the FD, with all its modes, but the FD bars are "armed", so when you deviate from the target speed, v/S, track, etc... by a given amount, the FD bars come and you are prompted to follow them."
Not sure how this is different from directions given now?
If I recall AF447 correctly, the "Stall" warning sounded for minutes and the pilot kept pulling back on the stick.
It is perhaps a case of changing the way the aircraft communicates with crew such that they can still fathom out what's going on, or at least unfreeze enough of their brain to follow guidance.
What would be a better attention getter?
Not sure how this is different from directions given now?
If I recall AF447 correctly, the "Stall" warning sounded for minutes and the pilot kept pulling back on the stick.
It is perhaps a case of changing the way the aircraft communicates with crew such that they can still fathom out what's going on, or at least unfreeze enough of their brain to follow guidance.
What would be a better attention getter?
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Well, the difference is that you don't see the bars as long as you are maintaining your flight path. When you deviate beyond a prescribed threshold, the bars will pop up immediately, then the FD is ON as usual, and you follow it.
But if you keep the flight path on your on, the FD bars remain hidden, and you enjoy the flight more, keep your skills honed and stay sharp.
But if you keep the flight path on your on, the FD bars remain hidden, and you enjoy the flight more, keep your skills honed and stay sharp.
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I have an Idea. Why don't they just leave us alone! We are under constantly scrutiny in this job. Medicals, sim checks, line checks, Flt monitoring. not to mention the countless refresher courses we have to do. Just leave us the F alone.
Is there any other profession out there that is so highly scrutinised? IMO there is no safety benefit in creating some course or whatever that is designed to improve/test or monitoring skills.
If the industry is serious about having more alert pilots why not do something about FTL rules. give us more rest and we will perform better. I promise.
If you can prove in the sim and in flight that you are capable of doing the job correctly as PF then it stands to reason that as PM you should also know when something is not right. If you miss something then it's a lapse not due to inability but probably due to tiredness/fatigue.
Is there any other profession out there that is so highly scrutinised? IMO there is no safety benefit in creating some course or whatever that is designed to improve/test or monitoring skills.
If the industry is serious about having more alert pilots why not do something about FTL rules. give us more rest and we will perform better. I promise.
If you can prove in the sim and in flight that you are capable of doing the job correctly as PF then it stands to reason that as PM you should also know when something is not right. If you miss something then it's a lapse not due to inability but probably due to tiredness/fatigue.
What would be a better attention getter?
And so simple to engineer, it could probably be retro fitted to all Airbuses, (assuming successful flight trials and certification, obviously).
I thought about a patent but decided to give this out free in the interests of increased safety and to make it more likely to be put into practice - we don't ever want another AF447.