Beyond the CRM

MAID-That First line of CRM Defense

A crew is operating a passenger flight. The captain begins by being ridiculously condescending toward the First Officer and remains that way for entire duration of this flight for apparently no reason other than, ‘I don’t like him at all’, straining cockpit environment by the minute, certaining a chain of events set to make morning news across the country in just under an hour.

The flight is nearing its end and the captain’s unruly behavior by now has mentally immobilized the hapless FO. The leader commits to unapproved procedures and neglect that lead them into a visible hill which they had been warned about multiple times. Seconds later, the aircraft makes contact. Everybody is killed instantly because the captain was focused on ramming the first officer’s dignity into the ground which he ultimately did, along with 200 other unsuspecting men women and children.

?There is the case of another FO at the same airline just few years later. He reports the similar behavioral highhandedness of a captain to the Aviation Authority of the country after nobody takes him seriously at the company. That FO was grounded, later losing his job. Both Captains were carrying valid CRM training certificates approved by the authority.

CRM, or Crew Resource Management training came into being when safety specialists were tasked to pull in consultants who would bring in managerial performance techniques to multicrew paradigm. This enables a trained crew to handle emergency situations safely. And then there are these cases where everything that has begun just fine gets aggravated by the runaway mental state of one of the crew members. Some of these crews have even taken their cockpit grudges to outside of the airplane that ultimately led to tragedies. The question is, why. Is it because the training has gone too mechanical that it can’t inundate a whimsical behavior pattern, including failure to prevent someone from being vengeful when they are challenged?

The keystone of CRM training is introspection. Overall, the goal is to modify individual behavior to an optimum blend of concern. Mechanically, application of SOPs enables two people who have never flown together to conduct the job safely and efficiently whereas CRM training resolves personality issues between two pilots if any, at least for the duration of the flight, also to pull all crew hands-on deck to manage technical/weather emergencies. CRM training sessions show-windows wholesome leadership conduct to deter detrimental personality flair. But typically, an initial 2-day certificate course that models this or that human factor failure, most CRM courses, passed up as downtime by participants, are now a small nuance tucked in a bigger aim like when type-rating or training recurrency. The course information is delivered in a lecture format that doesn’t stimulate greater enthusiasm. Make worse, the team work interaction, cornerstone of a cockpit environment, is absent from CRM training course.

Outside box it two-fold.

First, evolving cockpit ambiance warrants a CRM training that can organize attitude, introspection and communication skills aspect into one single course delivered in a communicative, participative classroom environment that represents or simulates cockpit mechanics for the certification to make a more lasting impression. Newer crews are a social media generation more skilled in textual communication and might lack skills at human interaction. This can be overcome with CRM training overhaul.

Second, what if a cockpit behavioral data were to be monitored just like FDM parameters for picking earlier trouble signs before they show up as events. Can a mechanical process successfully monitor and fine-tune HF parameters?

Yes. It can. Enter the MAID, for Monitoring, Analysis, Intervention & Development, an extra layer of CRM safety, the first line of defense against HF (Human Factor) failure. Considering MAID, without going into its psycho-mechanical hubbub, by design the system, although managed by human beings, is rigged to work mechanically. So, if the case of the condescending Captain is taken up as an example, with MAID running alongside the FDM, he would have been groomed out of his tendencies the first time he set the cockpit ablaze with his fireworks, many flights before the D-day. And to be doubly safe, the duo would have been paired to fly separately. If we take up the second example, MAID would have precluded any action on part of the FO to report the captain’s highhandedness. Without the FO ever knowing, the Captain-FO conflict would have been managed under resolution procedure. MAID, already a post-accident process, albeit in part, aids determination factors that lead to an air accident event or an emergency. Why not do it before like the FDM and save something.

The wholesome MAID process starts with psyche overhaul at the airline to inculcate this system into organizational mindset as a no-bias culture of accepting monitored information that is analysed, intervened if required and solutions developed/meted out to prevent a situation from becoming an event. Together with more meaningful CRM training that lays emphasis on communication aspect for monitoring both automation and crew, MAID forms the first line of defense to reinforce CRM training with which the company can practically eliminate failure flags.

I know a pilot who was once flying a light twin and was doing Company's Director, with him another pilot fresh out of a flight school. There was an issue with one of the engine mags. He was aware of it and assumed they were safe to fly to an FBO 40 mins away where it would be looked at. So, they are lined up, the mag check comes up with an abnormal drop, everything else is green. It’s a single Pilot plane so the Captain makes the go decision and moves the throttle forward but as the engines spool, the freshie slams on the brakes with a loud ‘NO’. He immediately moved the power back and asked her about it. She pointed at the mag drop and said she wasn’t comfortable. The Pilot Flying politely said OK & taxied back to the parking where they discussed the issue and called the company tech at the base who briefed them on how it was ok to fly. The Pilot made sure the newbie remained part of the discussion and when she too was in the green arc like the rest of the aircraft, they taxied to the runway and took off, arriving at FBO 40 mins later where the mag was replaced. This entire time a data monitoring & CVR camera on the aircraft was running to make certain everything was recorded.

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NONE OF THE TWO HAD ANY CRM/MCC TRAINING TO THEIR RECORD. Not every one comes with that type of attitude, hence requiring MAID overlay on their CRM training.

#crew #resource #training #CRM #aviation #pilots #errors #management #threat #mistakes #airlines #data #FDM #monitoring #analysis #intervention #development #MAID #training #communication #Skills #flight

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