Now, as I was saying, both Dave and Skip are correct. Well structured,
carefully orchestrated ab-initio training could develop crew and team
interactive activity which would result in successful flight operations. Good
team-work is the norm. NASA learned this years ago with astronaunt training.
On the other hand, the carbon based units within an aircraft cannot, and do
not, perform the same task with the same results on a reliable basis. If
pilots would perform final approaches at the proper glideslope and airspeed,
and land on the proper touchdown zone at the proper airspeed EVERY time, we
would not need to waste time training "go arounds". If aircraft were so
reliable, and runways were truly protected airspace, "aborts" would be a part
of aviation history. Could you imagine your grandchild saying to you "I can't
believe you used to do "missed approaches" when you flew."
The reality is that even the best of aviators have "bad" days. How many
accidents studies include the fact that someone on the aircraft KNEW things
were going wrong, and yet neither said nor did ANYTHING? Humans are subject
to many stressors, some of which are of no fault of their own. The pilot on
my test case was doing a fine job during the flight; but when all of a sudden
he realized he had become too lax in the approach and now had a bad final
approach, he became task saturated and the teamwork skills shut down.
Unfortunately, when one teammember shuts down, the rest of the team MUST
continue to function, and at a more interactive level. In the test case I
wrote about, the rest of the team remained at their normal (trained) level of
participation, did what they had been trained to do, and the mission got
worse. If the PIC had not eventually recovered on his own, (albeit due to
the mild prompts from the engineer and navigator) the mission would have been
a total disaster.
Some might say that if the crew had been trained to recognize the
degraded peformance of the pilot sooner, then the problem would have been
solved before the task became so overwhelming. I agree.
How do we train "technical" skills, such as "engine starts" and
"ake-offs"? They have a title, a set of performance standards, and an
expected behavior. Is CRM a technical skill? Can we teach crewmembers to
recognize degraded behavior, identify it, and react to it? That process will
develop a "toolkit" and hopefully, when the aviator is faced with that
situation again, he/she will act, according to the training.