There are numerous "close calls" of a deadly nature that occur
everyday...and they are not brought forward voluntarily...just used by the
affected crew for future "I won't do that again" training. We need to get
these out into the open for education of all concerned. Exposing all these
has several effects:
It lets all the aircrews know what is going on with the others...if
something happens to one crew...did it happen to others? Right now you will
never know. This has proved to be important in the current era of high tech
cockpits because the pilots tend to think they made the mistake...and in
reality it was not just them but many who have run into the same problem
which indicates an equipment deficiency.
It provides management with a "how are things going?" type of input.
This way they can provide help to areas where things are showing bad trends.
This is not to be punishment but constructive assistance.
It is just so much nicer to benefit from someone else's unfortunate
incident than it is to go through the same experience yourself !!
Along these lines, the "listener" should also review cockpit tapes to see
what he can pick up on. Some airlines do this today. When something of
interest is noted, the crew is called in on an anonymous basis to discuss
the incident and data is gathered and published to all crews where
appropriate. Punishment is out of the question on a program like this.
There are Unions which do not think this is a good idea and so all programs
like this have to be with consent of all the pilots for the good of the
community.
Just some thoughts. By the way, these incident analyses make good reading.
Reid Fairburn
Creative Kingdom, Inc.
cr_king_at_cr_king.seanet.com
206-946-9455/4815