CHINA. Fear and Punishment.
 

I am a foreign Captain working in China.

I would like to start a serious debate about what I believe is a big elephant(panda?) in the room when it comes to aviation safety today: China. As the biggest driver of growth in our industry for the foreseeable future I think it a good idea we all forearm ourselves with their attitude towards the modern safety culture.
I do this in the hope that some pilots in the international safety community can raise it at the highest level so we don't see a sizeable chunk of our industry operate in a shadow system built around fear, paying lip service to international standards.

This parallel (or counter?)culture has been present for years and it has far reaching consequences as I'll explain.
The list of 'errors' that attract punishment are categorised by two lists: 'general' and 'serious'. This list is published by the CAAC.

General errors are worth an RMB fine, unpaid suspension, investigation, retraining and for foreigners loss of bonus equivalent to 1200usd/6000usd/12000usd+ (1st/2nd/3rd event)
There are almost a hundred reasons listed (MANY trivial) but here are some examples:
-Forgetting to collect a Jeppesen manual or any other documents.
-Not doing 30mins of online preparation on the day off before flight.
-Taxiing at over 10kts in a turn.
-ROD over 1200fpm below 1000ft regardless of weather.
-Go Arounds due to unstable approach or crew error.
-Arguing with ATC

Serious errors are punished using variously demotion, loss of TRI/TRE status and pay, unpaid suspension, retraining, larger RMB fine, and for foreigners 12000usd bonus loss immediately.

Again here is a very brief list:
-Heavy landing
-Altitude bust
-RTO due to any error
-Any amber/red/ECAM warning caused by crew
-Landing overweight

Some of the seemingly insignificant items that attract major fines from the CAAC and operators both that are playing havoc on the line daily and will have long term repercussions:
-Heavy landings -1.8G Company/General error and 2.0G CAAC/Serious error- forget the manufacturer definitions. The QAR is used as the official measure and it applies to both crew members regardless of PF. I'll come back to this.
-Lightning Strikes. Level of punishment depends on if there is damage.
-Go Arounds (due to unstable approaches). Level of punishment depends on event.
-ATC controller fear (and fear of ATC controllers)

Pilots find themselves receiving clearances in metres and QFE from ATC with poor English; then must convert it to feet and QNH altitude and set it correctly. At jeopardy for an incorrect altitude is an RMB fine equivalent to a few hundred dollars, 12000 USD safety bonus, end of contract bonuses and around a month's pay for the suspension and retraining. Overall around 30-50k is on the line each and every flight even for relatively inconsequential events(like a 2G landing).

This culture of punishment and fear is not only applied to pilots. It applies across the board. ATC, Cabin Crew, Engineers, Meteorologists, Police, Medical Doctors, Managers; everyone.
This is why in China On whim ATC will close airports, doctors fail your medical, police do nothing and managers are nowhere to be seen.

Consequences

Overall as one could expect the entire punishment culture has overruled any possibility of cultivating a reporting culture. Any time a safety report is made somebody, somewhere will be severely punished for it, whether it be the reporting pilot or the reported body. Also pilot reports will regularly disappear. I would love to see the ICAO feedback on SMS and Just Culture in China!

Heavy Landings fine:
-Pilots are doing nothing remotely close to the correct landing technique. They land long, never decrab, ignore centreline and speed, caring only about the touchdown QAR report. Vacating the runway all pilots stare at groundspeed to exit at exactly 9kts everyone else be damned.
-Co pilots are being refused landings by almost all captains. Training captains being paid to teach landing are pocketing the training pay, but not allowing the FO to handle. Every landing is full jeopardy. Dual input is an accepted technique and regularly practised as no fine applies. Instructors are taught how to avoid inputs appearing on QAR. Time to command is as little as 3 years.

Lightning strikes
-Pilots are deviating 100 miles around innocent rain clouds.
-knock on effect is serious ground delays as the already heavily restricted airspace needs wider separation.
Birdstrikes have no associated fine, yet nevertheless go unreported (to ATC, CAAC, maintenance and the company)

Go Arounds
-this one is obvious. Go Arounds are not performed when they should be, with sometimes catastrophic consequences.

ATC being fined, impact on procedures and airport design.
-ATC have huge separation at all stages of flight, including for example 10+ miles on final, 40nm em route, regardless of level and 3000ft separation at least regardless of RVSM or airspace. Taxi and pushback procedures regimented, inflexible, and almost no conditional clearances.
-Slightly misty? Airport closed. TS nearby? Airport closed. No discretion.
-With blame for mistakes predetermined to be on the pilot, airport design is atrocious. Painted taxi lines with lights at night not aligned with them, that if followed would result in aircraft damage and runway hold points ill defined and poorly lit etc..

I deem Chinese aviation to be entirely dysfunctional in the extreme. The entire responsibility for errors and events are being placed in the individual employees lap. This places professionalism far below basic individual ass-covering in people's priorities.

A million strict, punishable, and yet directly contradictory rules set by various managers covering their own asses exist at every level. Each level adds a margin also. Most rules are then ignored as it is impossible to comply with them all. Only those linked to punishments are followed. Practically this means aircraft limitations and SOPs disregarded. Only QAR limits followed.
This QAR monitoring is only getting worse. The CAAC is getting direct and centralised access from next year, with western data suppliers delighted to sell them QAR data accessible on managers smartphones etc...

The ultimate effect of this culture of blame and recrimination on the individual is of course criminal responsibility. This will apply I'm certain not only to those working in China, but also those operating into here. With economic crimes attracting the death penalty I fear for anyone having any accident resulting in a fatality.

It would also be neglecting not to mention that many airlines have fuel bonuses for pilots. This is a direct payment to pilots for saving fuel. As you can imagine this has some very interesting results as pilots act unprofessionally chasing this payment whilst avoiding fines.
In this pursuit you can see pilots ignoring Atc speed control, shutting down engines during at touchdown, running APUs during climb, using MCT extensively, reducing fuel below flight plan, etc etc.

China has complete disregard and disinterest in international standards of safety. Right now the Chinese aviation leadership don't even bother going to any safety seminars, and when they do they send the secretary or it's for a shopping jolly..

TIC

I would like to keep this a serious discussion with the help of the mods, and I am posting this in rumours and news to get a higher viewership, but as we all know this is PPRUNE..

I for one don't like flying with an anvil over my head, and don't want this trend to spread any further into my future non-China jobs.
How can we get the wider international safety community to step in and get more vocal?

TL;DR China is overseeing an elaborate and very sophisticated punishment based 'safety' culture.

Except that, this is neither. We have a forum called Terms & Endearment that deals with terms and conditions.....so voilà!

Im quite enjoying my chinese airline,thank you very much.

Having done some work with the Chinese, I find those allegations quite believable.

This needs to be taken to the very highest levels in ICAO and given maximum exposure by whatever means. Safety auditing companies who work for mining companies, TV current affairs programs, consumer websites etc should be lobbied. Of course how you do that without losing your job (or going to jail in China!) is the problem......

For the benefit of non-aviation, non-technical people, some explanatory material would be necessary, because the uninitiated would probably think taxying at 9 knots a fair thing and would not understand the dangers of attempting to make every landing a greaser regardless of runway conditions. Or the effect a punitive culture has on safety reporting. Or the hazards of concealing errors rather than simply correcting them as they occur and getting on with life.

I have been to several airports in China and did not get a QFE altimeter setting. Can you tell me where you have gotten this.

Thanks

Nanning - QFE and meters

In China its a lottery - you can be damned from day one
as an expat or you'll enjoy a dream ride. I have known
blokes who've never been fined or punished for minor
busts or any other trivial matter because they are "liked"
and this goes for KAL too.

Nope never worked for any Chinese carrier. And never will
either - I wouldn't last 10mins trying to put up with all that
crap.

Air China fuel bonus is based on the amount of extra fuel you have in the tanks on arrival beyond the flight plan estimate.

SO

They simply load an extra 1500KG on departure, over burn about 500KG on a 10 hour sector carrying the extra fuel, then land at destination with 1000KG over plan and hey presto, you get a fuel bonus.

Its scary that they have a fuel saving bonus that ACTUALLY burns MORE fuel and they dont get it!!!!

The Jeppesen chart does say QNH available on request. Hopefully they give you proper altitudes if QNH is requested.

You are right, but they still clear you to an altitude in meters on QFE. Nothing serious, just more room for error. Add to that the language, some very inexperienced FO's, and sometimes bad weather and you will have to concentrate just a little harder. Thats why you get paid the big dollars !!!!

Nanning is indeed using QFE(QNH on request).
First if you fly to China you should be familiar with meters just like you would flying in Russia.You get conversion charts dont you?
If you fly an aircraft such as the 737 ,you arent allowed to fly in QFE unless your FMC is equipped.
So they give you a qfe,you set the 'altitude' just as you would in qnh since you reference baro is in QFE.
No brainer.
Now you need to be familiar with QFE(supp procedure),meters conversion charts if you fly to such airport...its called preparation and thats you are paid for,wouldnt you say?
It s no brainer really..

De Facto,
You are missing the point that is being made here.
He is not asking for QFE flight tips but highlighting a culture difference to pilots that may be deciding to choose a career in China.
The blame and penalty culture that dwells in Chinese life, where, being able to blame someone else means your little empire is secure.
I found his post very interesting and relevant, others may find a slightly different experience but with more information available comes a wiser decision on what is an important step in your life.

They will learn - after they crash and burn. Nothing new. :}

None of this surprises me in the least, considering the mentality we are dealing with here.

Why the obsession of not having older pilots who are type rated and experienced on type to fill some of the positions? Their experience would be helpful, therefore contributing to safety and economically also with reduced training costs.

Would the reasoning be, they wrongly think the older people will keel over in the seat? Maybe they are so scared of this because the F/o's maybe incapable of landing the thing should this happen. The F/o maybe incapable of getting the aircraft on the ground in one piece because they have never had any practice. Are they allowed to do landings?

Oh I like that fuel bonus that was mentioned above! :D

Older western pilot might give younger Chinese F/O bad ideas .

I have worked many years and never been blamed or punished,(including go arounds)quite the opposit...,

You are right i missed the point,I wouldnt have thought that a Captain should me WARNED about ohhh the dangers of meters,rare qfe ops and borderline english...

An excellent original post , which completely nails what's happening Aviation Safety wise right now in China.

I wonder what the SkyTeam and Star Alliance safety audit teams make of their Chinese colleagues? No doubt they've had the wool pulled over their eyes!

IATA / ICAO etc and those making $millions from Chinese Airlines need to do their job and protect the traveling public.

Or will it be the insurance companies who will act first?

Very interesting original post from EverythingWeMake, in some ways quite a scary eye opener to me, thanks for the insight. It defiantly does not sound to be a model to emulate.

Must be full of third world country pilots in here,funnily enough those who complain the most are normally those who last the longest:rolleyes:
On a more serious note,China is not for everyone,a bit of a thick skin to endure the culture difference but I can tell you that safety wise my airline(a chinese one) has no expense when it comes to safety.
They dont always get to the final result in the most efficient or same way than other states Airlines may but they eventually get there.
They very quickly weed off cowboy mentalities though and there are a few that came through the initial screening,but they normally dont last long:D

Well if they have that much money to throw around, as regards to training e.g., then they can afford to pay you a higher salary. Or is initial training the same financial outlay as recurrent training??

The recruiting adverts may look attractive at first glance but crews are still paid less, in real terms, than crews were say 30 years ago.

I really hope that was a lost in translationmoment:rolleyes:

Indeed:8:E

They have certainly raised the bar as "affordable safety" is concerned!! :}

I wish i were 30 years younger:E

Anyone going there needs to have their eyes wide open. I realise that many foreign pilots there have no choice for one personal reason or another, but if you do have a choice, choose somewhere else unless you want a very short contract. This is a Country with rampant racism towards non-Chinese and the day they can dispose of you then you will be history. If you think you are going there as anything other than an annoying but necessary foreign servant, you will soon be very disappointed. Do not say you were not warned.

Everythingwemake
thank you for the excellent post. Yes, china is becoming more and more risky for the foreign pilot. Id like to reinforce your points below with my own observations..

Punishment Culture:
I have heard of numerous punishments lately:
$3000 for late gear up selection at BCA (Capital airlines)
$3000 for selecting flap above 20000ft (BCA)
$12,000 loss of safety bonus at Spring Airlines for FO performing 2g landing
$3000 for activating 'SPEED SPEED' warning
Grounding of expat capt for over 3months with loss of pay for lost coms incident of around 10mins duration (BCA)

The list goes on and on, BCA seem to be just as bad as Spring airlines for dishing out punishments. This type of management style seems alien to foreigners but its embedded in chinese corporate culture. All chinese companies issue fines and punishments to their employees. The chinese are only motivated by the stick, not the carrot. This will never change.

Now airlines are bringing in Fines for things that were previously let go. Eg. Being late, Not doing online flight prep by cut off time. Excuses are not tolerated in China.

Chinese airlines are not interested in mitigating circumstances for any errors by the foreign pilot. They often schedule duty with complete beginner FO's with marginal english. When a mistake is made then by the 'crew', its always the captains fault in spite of the extra workload and zero backup.

Only the really brave allow chinese FO to land the aircraft…..enough said.

ATC:
Chinese ATC act more like police than anything and are without doubt the most badly trained, rude, aggressive and unprofessional ATC I have encountered in 20yrs flying.
If you dare to refuse an instruction they will go after you personally, either by reporting you to your airline or to CAAC. They will bark orders and expect instant compliance, and the instructions have to be heard to be believed; descend to a level below me, while I'm still in the climb : descend 1000ft at 3000FPM : always expedite,expedite,expedite!!!
Forget about ATC assistance in times of bad weather, forget about pulling the tapes if there is an altitude bust or similar and you are sure of your position. You are foreigner, YOU will be blamed, YOU can be got rid of easily to save a chinese ATC's guys ass. Count on it…

CAAC:
They are now increasingly micromanaging all airlines operations. They are carrying out spot checks on aircraft at numerous airfields all over china. I have experienced several of these inspections and they are not pleasant. They are definitely there to catch something and make you pay. Make sure your ass is covered in the tech-log with any defects, make sure you carry what you are supposed to carry e.g..second pair of glasses. You will be fined if anything out of place. Be aware that they will often sit back and watch out of sight, then spring on to your aircraft suddenly if they think they see something. You are hereby warned….

Medical issues:
We all know the ridiculous standards for the annual medical so I won't repeat that but be aware of the new tests we must go through to continue working here. Now they introduce MRI scan (very unpleasant ) heart echocardiogram, and carotid artery echocardiogram. If there is the SLIGHTEST thing wrong with you they WILL find it here in china. Do not consider coming here if you have ever had any medical issue however slight. Those of us here know only too well that despite what your contract says this job is a 6 month contract based on the high likelihood of being grounded due to some medical issue. I have seen many cases of groundings with loss of pay and expenses incurred, only to have the issue cleared up later by real doctors in a real hospital as being misdiagnosed by CAAC "doctors".
Also, from speaking to colleagues in China, I note some airlines now introduce MANDATORY breathalyzing for alcohol before every duty, irrespective of reporting time. If you fail this test you will be banned for life from flying in China as recently happened to a HAINAN airlines captain. Im sure arguments about the calibration ,maintenance and testing of such machines will fall on deaf ears.
Also, some airlines introduce blood pressure monitoring before each flight. Expect to be grounded if you pop this one too.

Conclusion:
Flying (and living) in China means taking on an extremely high level of risk. There is a feeling here that somebody is always out to get the foreigner….the company, ATC, medical or CAAC. I think eventually EVERYBODY working here will at some stage fall foul of some rule or regulation, be diagnosed with something terrible or just get tired of the huge amount of bull**** that can be encountered in everyday life.
Is the money currently being offered enough to compensate for this risk?
NO! absolutely not…..
Those of you looking at a job in China, I honestly say to you, the money looks good, but you will pay for every extra penny in compromises you will have to make in both your personal and professional life. If you can keep your nose clean here, you might spend a few years, save some money and get out with your sanity intact. However the odds of that are decreasing every year as they increase the rules, pitfalls and traps.
Good luck to all!

Well, looking at these :mad: ups, I'd say that they've gotten off mildly! You can say what you want about a "punitive" culture, and quite honesty I'm no big fan of flying in micromanaged China either, but honestly what did you expect? Speed warnings, selecting flaps above 20000 feet, 2G landings, forgetting to select the gear up? Altitude busts because people are having problems looking at a conversion table? Seriously, what are these people doing in the cockpit?

These are all pretty serious incidents if you ask me, and I'm pretty sure that you'd be invited for some serious tea & biscuits (if not fired on the spot!) in any European, Asian or US airline.

As for the stoic way of the Chinese...well...I guess a lot of people simply get blinded by the promise of a big pay check, instead of doing some due diligence and checking things out before going over. You see the same thing over and over in our industry, people flocking to China or the Middle East, only to find out that a big sexy airplane in combination with a big pay check is not the golden recipe for a long term satisfying career in aviation.

The entire premise behind my post is to highlight China's complete disregard for Just Culture, SMS (reporting culture) and accepted safety management.

There will always be people like LLuCCiFeR that believe in the "stick" despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. The safety community moved on from that model decades ago through evidence based reform.

China is taking modern safety auditing tools designed for training and putting them to use in a highly advanced punitive regime.

A phrase that made me laugh out loud during ground-school here was "we have a no blame culture, but that does not mean no responsibility; you will be punished".

This is not the point of my post. I knew they had a dysfunctional safety culture. What I want to highlight is the extent to which this goes and the long term effect it is having. Even Just Culture allows for punitive measures at the severe end of the scale for intentional deviation from SOP's, reckless behavior, etc.

China is a very sizable and rapidly growing part of the international aviation community. Unless we want to see them drift off into a shadow culture of fear and punishment, efforts should be made by industry partners to address this now.

Any ICAO/IATA/Oneworld/Skyteam/Star Alliance safety auditors out there? Maybe invite the CAAC to take the floor at your next meeting?

China is such a huge existing and potential market for air travel that these warnings will fall on deaf (regulatory) ears.

Those pilots making a lot of money out in China, who are indifferent to the inherent risk and latent danger of a safety culture that seeks compliance through punishment and fear, will not listen either.

How late was the gear? few seconds, forgotten completely?

Why would ANYONE select flaps above 20000? That is a serious mishandling of the aircraft, but you seem to think its justified - please explain.....

2g landing, was it a windy blustery day or was it mishandling?

SPEED SPEED SPEED - that takes some doing!

I am not defending the Chinese culture, far from it. However, you have put some throw away lines here in an attempt to add to the debate. They need some detail to be rewarded with a degree of credibility.

Exactly,many younger ones too..:E,for the rest there is always PPRune to :{

I have had a "speed speed speed" call. We where 6 or 7 knots above VLS on a turn towards the localizer. Autothrust and autopilot on, speed managed, level flight. Ie.- a completely standard setup. Really you do not how the system works if you think that:
A. It cannot happen to you
B. It is a BIG deal
C. It should be financially punished

Well, If you are on a heavy A321 Enhanced at Max Landing Weight with the latest FMGC software and have to disconnect the A/THR to be able to decelerate below VFEnext; then with the speed brakes, above profile,.... once at Flap 1 trying to go below VFEnext for Flap 2 you end up fast into VLS and then the SPEED SPEED SPEED caution comes way faster then on the old A321´s.
I never had this problem on a 320 or 319 but if you fly heavy 321´s you will sure understand what I mean. (7500 hours on Airbus FBW)

The other items are a bit more serious. But non punitive flight data monitoring works. I seriously doubt the other method:=

Fact is, all those European pilots quiting for a Job in China (I know 3) all wake up when it is too late.

SPEED SPEED SPEED - that takes some doing
 

on 737 NG with flaps 5 and engine anti ice on the amber band goes all the way into the bug speed for F5. and the slightest turn will result in speed speed.

This is an extremely serious issue and I am pleasantly surprised that it has been raised in such a sober manner.

While I am not in China and do not profess to know how the safety system in that country works; but I am closely involved in the safety management system and the flight data quality assurance program in my organization; located in Asia.

I am providing this back ground so everybody understands the system wide perspective I am writing from.

First and the most critical is to understand that the output of the QAR analysis is not infallible. That it is a tool meant to not just detect what happened; but why is occurred and how recurrence can be prevented.

Secondly, For those commenting that any events can only occur to incompetent pilots display an utter and complete lack of appreciation of human factors, environmental issues and aircraft system design.

For example, to address a comment above with regard to the flap altitude Exceedence: the reason it is fixed at 20,000 ft is not structral but related to the minmimum mach meter reading. I know this will be taken with a pinch of salt but this info is straight from the manufacturer.

Secondly, QAR monitoring programs do not take into account any altimeter error or the soft altitude hold mode. I.e. if the ac is at FL 200 the QAR FLAP altitude Exceedence will be triggered even at 20,0050 ft. Another issue is change in QNH SETTINGS which can be upto 15 to 18 hpa. Resulting in the altimeter readings changing by upto 500 ft. I.e. changing from QNE to say 1020 hpa QNH will result in an altitude change of between 170 to 200 ft.

Imposing punitive action on the pilot for a 'speed speed' or for Vfe altitude is evidence to me that no rigor is being applied to understand the underlying causes or risk factors that result in such events. Which means the root cause is not identified and it will happen again & again & again ........

The handling skills conundrum
 

Continuing on from my last post; the most dangerous issue arising out of this lack of rigour in the QAR analysis is that since the root cause is not identified it leads to half baked corrective actions which tend to have an extremely detrimental effect on the safety culture and the risk level of the airline.
As a result line crew resorts to butt covering behavior such as not giving flying to FO's or ap off at minimums etc.
As a result fo development is stunted and when they go into the 6 monthly check ride, they cannot even fly a half decent raw data ILS.
These fo then straggle along till they become captains, that are exceptionally safe in the eyes of the company because they have no exceedences.
Then they straggle along to be exceptionally safe check pilots that manage to crash (in one case stall and another Land short of the runway) a perfectly good aeroplane, in benign weather.

Spunk Air
 

Little else to add, but to underline the importance of your importance, as an individual or professional:
Gent in Sprint Air dismissed close (6 mths) to the 36 month bonus. The big bonus left in coffers.
Reason: Nearly broke the rules as per QAR.

No other known issues in performance nor personality with this individual. Such is his persona, he did not even tried to argue, he leaves with his head held high in front of his colleagues but shamed (reasons to be posted) from the airline side.

Yes, quit your job, bring your families chaps! It will all work out...

Take it for what it may be.

It must be fair, a company that has so much on the line needs to show off to those calling the shots.
Spring Air is fully committed to their China IPO, this will make a hefty bonus to those that keep the machine running as is.
Spring has run on this for the last 4-5 years.
From what I understand, ALL of the upper, and a good % of middle management has a share in this company, catch is, those shares are passed from one to another as they gain/loose their post depending on performance or willingness to follow orders.

Still, Spring Airlines has had quite a history when it comes to following and implementing rules.
IE: local capts shutting engines at touchdown >130kts (word is over +40 times) to cater for Spring Airs fuel saving policy. Mind you, that same Capt is, still today, a Capt at Spring! and nearly just as bad, none of the F/O's were un-intimidated to report such incident, none were reprimanded for their inefficiency to report such actions, yet they are today encouraged to report on foreign Capts whenever they feel like it and behind their back.
Other local boys have had set off the cargo fire extinguisher during a de-icing procedure, and the office has had the balls to send an email to airbus asking them to change the configuration and wording of the over head panel as it confuses crews. Yes, de-icing and cargo fires are obviously similar at Spring.
No wonder Airbus is cranking out production!

Yet, expats get triple emergencies on their recurrent line checks.
It must all be about QAR's.
Big stick, small carrot.