Takeoff 53 I totally agree with you and if something happens to the captain, the F/O is expected to do everything and save the day. The mentality here will not change anytime soon. Sim training and checkrides are a joke. Very low standards.

Eliminating Crew-Caused Accident
 

As the author of "Eliminating Crew-Caused Accidents" I'm pleased to know it is still being read years after my retirement! I am thinking of updating and reissuing it as the industry does not seem to have changed much in the last 10 years or so. It's depressing that on re-reading it I realise it is mostly only the accident references that need updating, and in some areas the situation may be getting worse.

This is somewhat off-topic (although the subject of "First Officers sectors" gets a whole appendix to itself in the paper) , but it still seems crazy that we have the situation where the industry spends scarce resources on CRM training to encourage pilots to delegate the flying tasks when managing high workload and non-normal situations, and widely recognises the benefits of delegated flying procedures ("monitored approach") when really poor weather is predicted, but then ignores the fact that these go hand in hand: we should be doing this ALL THE TIME. Then we won't see the situations where pilots are "caught out" in adverse situations developing bit by bit (the most common cuasae or "crew error" accidents) or weather that's worse than expected, by inadequate company SOPs - and then blamed for mis-judgements or other mistakes. There is a cost-free alternative which produces overall far more reliable crew performance, leading to fewer money-losing (and in the worst case life-destroying) errors.
Steve Last

- operating as Pilot Flying in Low Vis conditions (take-off/approach/landing)?
No, the skipper will be PF.


- calling for and executing a Rejected Take-off?
Call for, yes, executing, only in the event of incapacitation.


- landing/take-off in adverse weather conditions, eg. x-wind/contaminated
runways/wind shear/etc?
Limited crosswind for first 6months.


- challenging/demanding approaches like circling approaches/Cat C airfields?
Yes


- taxiing the aircraft?
Yes


- signing the Tech log?
No

Matey. My airlines got some of those South American Pilots. Captains in fact. Some even had real type-ratings. Some didn't. Most of them can just barely talk on a radio. But, they do a grand job of running off runways into the muck and weeds!!!

Slast,
read the booklet, great peace of research performed indeed. Very useful and should find a broad recognition along with the implementation, IMHO. Methinks some of the Asian carriers did implement this concept for adverse weather as well as for LVO. Does perfectly make sense to me. As you said requires a reboot of the folks in charge. Thanks. :ok:

- operating as Pilot Flying in Low Vis conditions (take-off/approach/landing)?
We don't have clearance for Low Vis ops yet and are restricted to CAT I Ops only. So no restriction for the FO.

- calling for and executing a Rejected Take-off?
BOTH can callout but reject decision is with the Capt. The only obvious exception being P1 Incapacitation ;)

landing/take-off in adverse weather conditions, eg. x-wind/contaminated
runways/wind shear/etc?
No Assisted Take-off & Landing in Adverse weather. In other words, Capt is PF.

challenging/demanding approaches like circling approaches/Cat C airfields?
No restriction on circling approaches but Critical airfields [as per company policy] are Capt only.

taxiing the aircraft?
Depends on the acft. Half have tillers and half dont. If the tiller is installed, no restriction.

signing the Tech log?
Capt only, but is usually completed by FO.

9.G - you said <should find a broad recognition along with the implementation>

One interesting aspect is that I had good connections in the industry when I wrote it. The board of IFALPA endorsed it and supported me in making presentations all over the place (I had held 2 IFALPA board member positions and was a rep for 30 years).

For example I was asked by Boeing's top guy (VP in charge of all commercial aircraft airline relations and certification) to do a presentation to their senior engineers and test pilots. It was very well received to the extent that they asked me to stay and repeat it the next day for another group. General reaction was that something along these lines urgently needed to be done, apart from anything else Boeing's reputation gets damaged when there's an accident involving one of their aircraft. (I was actually at a tech meeting and having breakfast with Boeing's chief human factors engineer when the news came in of the KAL Guam accident and I remember his face turning grey).

Anyway, the only ones who did not react well were some of the test pilots who also do initial training for customer airlines (i.e. they train the airline's instructors and managers) who were of the view that
(1) we should train every pilot to be able to do everything necessary to fly the airplane
(2) we only provide procedures telling you "how to make it work"
(3) it's not our responsibility to recommend to customer airlines how to go about their business on a day to day basis.

(1) and (2) lead to the basic manufacturer's ops manual being laid out with columns labelled with a mixture of Captain OR Pilot Flying on the left and First Officer OR PNF on the right. Most airlines then just reproduce this and will often say "It is the manufacturer's RECOMMENDED procedure that normally the Captain should be the PF for the whole flight". Obviously the manufacturers aren't going to tell them that they shouldn't do that, despite their view at (3)!

Similarly elsewhere - ICAO and others who have studied the subject agree but no-one has authority to direct a general change.

With the mob I fly for Captains and First Oficers are required fly to the same standards in the simulator, i.e. the environmental limits of the aeroplane, the only difference being that the Captains are always PF for the lo-vis stuff and RTOs.

There are however limits for First Officers for line operations which are more restrictive and which I believe are due to liability and insurance considerations.

In a case of a Captain suffering incapacitation then the First Officer is fully capable of operating the aeroplane to it's limits.

Been there done that when a Captain I was flying with suffered a kidney stone attack en-route and I had to complete the approach and landing in conditions which were right on charted minima but well below normal First Officer approach minima.

Regards,
BH.