What Could Down an Albatross?
A CRM approach to
accident prevention and risk management
Being my favorite
bird although I’ve never seen one in person, is a subject of admiration for its
un-matched qualities and skills as individuals and as members of their
communities. For this beautiful seabirds
the art of flying which we cherish and enjoy so much comes in the beginning
from an urge to try out their wings and not from inherited knowledge
considering that in the beginning they really look clueless to their true
calling. Never the less If you see an
adult individual fly, it is apparent that during an Albatross’s life there
hasn’t been and will never be one that makes a mistake in the sky, true masters
of their craft admiring one up there will make you think:
“If
only”
Crew Resource Management is a well-studied
subject and every year we are buffed up and refreshed on the skills required to
manage a flight. It has come a long way from
its needed beginnings in the airline industry and permeated to almost every
corner of aviation and other theatres, you would be amazed of the enormous
interest this subject has developed in the ERs. Now CRM is not the cat’s pajamas anymore and
everyone can give you at least one example of good CRM in relation to this or
that.
Now remember, it didn’t begin where it is today
with an inclusive environment, Cockpit Resource Management which was its name
back in the day was Cockpit Crew oriented, an urgent and immediate measure to preclude aviators from making human factors mistakes once and again. Now a days I’ve been in class with mechanics, flight attendants, dispatchers, schedulers, and even managers. I’m
pretty sure we haven’t seen the end of its evolution and for sure we will keep
on banking on the knowledge and effort of dedicated men and women who design
for us new ways, techniques and even styles to manage the human factor in the
aviation industry.
Pick your poison!
I will not hammer on any of the topics we are
compelled to review every year since you already aced the tests and are allowed
to continue with your normal life after that.
Even though the subject has evolved by being more inclusive it is a one
size fits all kind of approach. While dealing
with the human factor it is interesting to see that we have in our curriculum every
bit of information that could be useful to us, and by doing that after 20 plus
years it gets dissolved in a conundrum of definitions, flux diagrams, cycle
diagrams and what not.
The subject has evolved to pin point us not aviators but human beings with our flaws and strengths with goals and tasks in a
particular environment. But, the
difference for us is: We are now trained individuals who have been immersed in
CRM for the last two decades; we are no longer rookies here. We have changed
and evolved too, all this effort has saturated our lives and we share that
knowledge freely with people around us.
Even new comers get immersed in the subject immediately from the schoolhouse preparing them from the start.
And regardless of all those efforts we are
missing a step that would further an already safe industry into a safer one.
Many years ago a technique called Six Sigma was
developed to lower the amount of manufacturing defects, it allowed only few
imperfections per batch produced, after a while and being able to measure and
prevent blemishes in a process this method began to be used in the service
industry with not so good results. The
service industry mainly composed of people and tools were given tasks that as
the technique required were broken down in a sequence of events. And here we go; nail hammering divided in
eight steps equals perfect hammering as long as the subject didn’t forget hammer at
home. Yes everything has evolved
enormously and we are further down the road but we are that irreplaceable part
of the equation which sometimes excursions back to its old ways.
As knowledgeable aviators we get the same
information every year about the subject, regardless of the expertise we
possess. To be safer and to make a whole
industry safer the time has come to push yourself forward. Now when you talk about human factors it can
no longer be academic, it’s YOU. Your errors, your mistakes, your
idiosyncrasies, the ones which will trip you, are the ones which have to be
taken care off.
This human factor blemishes are the ones which
make around 80% of accident statistics. Even
though the industry is safer the percentage speaks for itself, which is the leg
of your table that needs to be wedged is what matters. To answer this question you need two
things. The first is simple, since most pilots have something in common: They
are ruthless when evaluating their own performance for themselves. I can’t say I know too many people that will
bang their heads for their mistakes as pilots do. Being able to pinpoint the pebbles in your
path will enable you to avoid them. The
second is the techniques we talked about in the lines above. I can bet you, there is a way to take on this
personal endeavor.
This is a very private matter that will not
only make you a better aviator but could also help you become a better YOU.
Since each of us knows which are the behaviors that make us trip, let’s
line them up and write them down. In a
matter of importance put the ones that could impair the flow of information by
stopping the communication cycle from your standpoint (you cause it). Then put
the ones that will do the same but from the rest of the people around you
(someone else triggers it). And lastly put in any behavior you have exercised that in your
experience has caused an incident or accident in the past. Remember that you can stop the communication cycle not only
in the cockpit, if you did cause it to stop in a gas station, put it down. What
behavior or attitude did anyone have to stop the communication cycle with you,
put it down. Rush, complacency,
press-on-itis, get-there-itis and any other “itis” you have noticed in you,
write it down.
To be true to ourselves there are situations that
will push our buttons. For example our
brothers and sisters know exactly which button to push to get the pleasant
loving teddy bear into the teeth showing standing grizzly.
Now that you’ve come up with a list you are a
step ahead from any aviator that only receives the usual CRM course. Why? Because you now have acknowledged important behavioral blemishes and have been trained to use specific tools that can help you deal
with them. This list is truly important in the sense that we continue to have
accidents due to human factors and as simple as it is, has within it the links
to an accident in a very personal way.
Now similar to an adult Albatross you are no longer clueless, with this information you will be better as an
individual and also as part of your environment and sure we will never stop mistakes from happening, but avoiding or managing the ones we now have
acknowledged will make a big difference. Master of your craft and better prepared
to cope with your factors I’m positive the people around you will think:
“If Only”
Luca Pineda
Luca Pineda
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