Complacency in the cockpit

[teacher]

George Jonas: Complacency in the cockpit
Posted: May 20, 2009, 9:30 AM by NP Editor
George Jonas

Aviation writer and airline pilot Ernest K. Gann described flying as hours of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror. At least, I think it was Gann, but whoever said it knew what he was talking about. One of the things that makes flying dangerous is that it’s boring.

Urban driving calls for a decision almost every second. Flying may not require any for hours.

A National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) hearing into the crash of a commuter airplane near Buffalo, N.Y., received extensive media coverage last week. Convened in record time after a tragic mishap in February, the inquiry has focused on the human factors. The probable cause emerging is pilot error. Continental Connections Flight 3407 may have crashed because its crew allowed the Bombardier’s airspeed to decline until it could no longer sustain flight.

If so, it’s not an aviation first. Other pilots have been there, done that. The question is why?

Fixed-wing planes need airflow over their wings to generate lift. If they slow to the point where the lift of the wings no longer equals the weight of the plane, they enter a condition known as an aerodynamic stall. A stalled plane instantly changes from a bird into a brick. It can literally fall out of the sky. Recovery is possible, but requires prompt corrective action and sufficient altitude, which may not be available to pilots who enter inadvertent stalls on approach or departure.

The altitude available to Captain Marvin Renslow and First Officer Rebecca Shaw turned out to be insufficient for recovery. The flight crew was making an approach to Buffalo-Niagara International Airport on the night of Feb. 12. According to the flight data recorder, Capt. Renslow allowed the Dash 8-Q400 to slow sufficiently for a warning device, called a stick shaker, to start rattling the control column in his hand. Instead of pushing the column forward, Capt. Renslow reacted by hauling back on it. His erroneous control input completed the stall. The Canadian-made twin-engine turboprop stopped flying, dropped a wing, spun one turn, then crashed into a house about eight kilometres from the airfield, killing 49 people aboard and one on the ground.

Forgetting lunch is one thing; forgetting to breathe is quite another. Neglecting airspeed is like forgetting to breathe. Nature takes no chances and makes breathing autonomous. No one has to “remember” to breathe; we just do it. Aviation technology is moving in the same direction. Aural alerts like stall warning buzzers or stick shakers are supplemented by actuators that sense low airspeed (or flying surfaces meeting the air at too high an angle) and take over from the pilot, pushing the plane’s nose down. They only supplement, not supplant, human control, for automated systems overriding pilots could create problems of their own. In the case of Flight 3407, though, letting the machine win a tug-of-war might have saved lives.

When flight began, we trained pilots to look after machines; nowadays we train machines to look after pilots. Perfect paragons, of course, combine the best of man and machine, adding the flexibility of human beings to the predictability of computers. Some god-like pilots come close to this ideal. Others wander and meander, like the rest of us mortals.

Some may, indeed, neglect to monitor their airspeed, the very thread on which their lives hang. Reasons vary, distraction being one. A pilot may become preoccupied with in-flight glitches, routing requests or scheduling problems. Chatty crews in the cockpit may disrupt each other’s instrument scans or interfere with the multi-tasking that flying an aircraft entails. That’s why airlines have introduced the “sterile cockpit” concept, prohibiting non-flight related conversations below 10,000 feet or during critical phases of flight.

Flight 3407’s cockpit was anything but sterile. The skipper and his first officer were as chatty as friendly neighbours across a backyard fence. Which brings us back to boredom.

Routines, once mastered, breed complacency. Flying isn’t the only routine that does, but then airplanes aren’t the only things that crash. Marriage, child-rearing, running a business, are all full-time jobs. They need constant monitoring and adjusting, which may be why marriages, children and businesses crash with tedious regularity.

I remember a General Motors executive who seemed puzzled when I asked him if he had a hard job. (This was years ago, needless to say.) “Hard?” he asked. “Only if you find driving down a straight stretch of highway hard.”
Sure. Straight stretches are easy. Except, as highway engineers tell us, they’re accident magnets. They lull drivers to sleep. It’s the attention twisty bits demand that keeps drivers sharp.

Complacency is the killer — complacency on roads, in boardrooms, in marriage beds, in the sky. “Hours of uninterrupted boredom, punctuated by moments of sheer terror.” Hubris is a darkened cockpit where, just minutes from your destination, in the middle of a pleasant chat with your pretty first officer, the control column between your legs unaccountably begins to rattle, and you barely have time to say “Jesus” before the ground lights describe an arc to rush at your face from the sky.

National Post
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blog ... ckpit.aspx

[teacher]

This article I read today just adds to the comment about planes doing so much more for us. Makes me wonder who's flying. Little flashing lights are great but if the damn thing is gonna disconnect (whether it be the autothrottles or something else automated) it should beep at you to let you know that Otto the pilot ain't fly'n no more!

Thomsonfly 737 stalled on approach says UK accident report
By David Learmount

The airspeed of a Thomsonfly Boeing 737-300 on approach to Bournemouth airport, UK, dropped to 82kt (151km/h), the aircraft stalled, and the maximum pitch-up during the crew's go-around manoeuvre was 44°, according to an Air Accidents Investigation Branch report. The crew recovered control of the aircraft successfully and landed safely from a second approach.

No crew or passengers were hurt in the 23 September 2007 incident. The AAIB says the main cause was that the crew allowed the airspeed to decay to 20kt below the approach reference speed of 135kt because they did not notice the autothrottle had disconnected for an unknown reason after it had reduced the engine power to idle thrust for the early descent.

The captain eventually noticed the low speed and took control, announcing a go-around just before the stall warning stick-shaker operated. The lowest altitude reached during the recovery manoeuvre was just above 1,500ft (460m).

The result of applying maximum power was that the engines exceeded their full power setting, causing a nose-up pitch moment that exceeded the elevator authority, although the captain had applied full nose-down pitch on the control column. The low approach speed had caused the autopilot to motor the horizontal stabiliser to a high nose-up trim setting, and the AAIB notes that aircraft's quick reference handbook does not alert crews to the fact that trim may need to be applied to aid recovery from the stall or extreme attitudes.

One of the AAIB's recommendations is that crew should be made aware of this need.

A contributory cause of the incident, according to the AAIB, is that the autothrottle disconnect light, which is not associated with an audible alert on 737 classic models such as this one, failed to attract the crew's attention, and the agency recommends that Boeing, the US Federal Aviation Administration and the European Aviation Safety Agency should study whether the alert is sufficiently effective.

http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/20 ... ident.html

[jeta1]

Worth a read.

[loopa]

You may be onto something here Jet A.

I'm still questioning to this day why the captain of that Buffalo incident decided that increasing the angle of attack of the wings would fix the stick shaker.

[Rockie]

Was he setting up the grounds for a possible après-flight debrief of the third kind? It cannot be ruled out, considering they made no money - together they could scrounge enough to split a hotel room, makes sense, no? Taboo topic my ass, the guy was flirting. Am I implying anything? Not really, just plain facts.

You are doing more here than implying something. You are flat out accusing the Captain of flirting with the FO in the hopes of getting in her pants, and you have not one single fact to back up that claim.

As a result of this post I took the time to review the entire transcript of the CVR. In it is one inexperienced Captain and one very inexperienced FO discussing icing conditions and experiences, logbook questions, and one or two war stories. The rest of the tape is mostly business, and the entire thing is exactly the kind of dialogue you will find in any cockpit with two male pilots.

[jeta1]

Internet blog, not real.

[teacher]

I guess it shows how blind I am to these things. I didn't even react or consider that line in the article. I was more interested in the fact the boredom is probably the hardest thing to overcome in aviation (no surprise to any carreer pilot).

[Rockie]

I said it must be considered.

No you didn't, this is what you said:

Taboo topic my ass, the guy was flirting.

I suggest you actually read the transcript. In it you will find just as much evidence that the Captain was a pedophile who preys on little boys as there is on him flirting with the FO. That is to say...zero. You do no one a service, least of all a man who cannot defend himself, by suggesting something like this. It is a complete red herring that is in no way supported by the transcript, and the investigators will discount it because no evidence exists and it didn't cause the accident, not because they don't want to get into it.

They work for the NTSB, not the National Inquirer.

[jeta1]

OK Rockie, no problem.

[Rockie]

Perhaps the mods can delete the last 7 posts (including this one).

In this I am behind you 100%.

As for that article, it is apparent the people who wrote it did not read the transcript and were repeating a "rumour" from someone else. Trash.

[ajet32]

I would side with Rockie on this one> There is "NO" repeat "NO" evidence to suggest that anything but two inexperience pilots were in an airplane doing what most do talk about flying and their concerns. The ICE. Not everyone gets the joy of flying in the scheize many of us do in Canada.

If you can't fly in an airplane cockpit with an attractive member of the opposite sex maybe you ought to rethink things.

[Widow]

Perhaps the mods can delete the last 7 posts (including this one).

In this I am behind you 100%.

As for that article, it is apparent the people who wrote it did not read the transcript and were repeating a "rumour" from someone else. Trash.

I'm not sure that reading the transcript would be a valid way to make a determination about flirting - which is more about nuance and body language than the actual words spoken.

Flirting is certainly a way to kill boredom, and should be examined by the authorities as a possible contributing factor. Not doing so would be ignoring nature. Sexual tension has been identified as contributory in the past. Is it really so different between a captain and F/O compared to a pilot and F/A?

[SeptRepair]

What kind of body language can a person do buckled into a seat. Im guessing if he mouthed words and poked his one finger through a made cirle in his other hand.

[YHZChick]

Having read that transcript in FULL when it was initially released, there is no indication that there was any flirting going on whatsoever.
I know several folks in commercial aviation. The vast majority fall into the 'slam-click' category, worried about nothing more than getting some food and a good night's rest. To even suggest that the Captain had something else on his mind is nothing but conjecture on your part, particularly since the CVR doesn't reflect that whatsoever. What is your point? Do you not like women on the flightdeck? Do you think they are "too much of a distraction"? How about the hockey game? Is discussing that too much of a distraction? Maybe we shouldn't allow 2 hockey fans to fly together. Sounds absurd yes, but no more absurd than the suggestion that a) there was flirtation going on in this cockpit and b) that it contributed to this accident.
Perhaps we shouldn't allow married men to fly, because you know, they may have had a big blow-up with the wife, and their mind isn't focused...

[YHZChick]

Widow, :

Flirting is certainly a way to kill boredom, and should be examined by the authorities as a possible contributing factor. Not doing so would be ignoring nature. Sexual tension has been identified as contributory in the past.

Please point me in the direction of where flirting has been identified as a contributing factor in an aviation accident.

This plane friggin' crashed because you had a Captain who shouldn't have been a captain, flying in conditions that he and his F/O were not overly experienced with, and who responded to an imminent stall by putting the nose up.

[teacher]

I re read the article once again and I think most of you are over reacting. I highly doubt the author was trying to point in the direction of flirting or sexosm as a reason for the accident. How many times did he mention that bordom and complacency seemed to be the real issues here. Lack of experience IMHO lead to a bad situation getting worse. He just as well may have said the captain was chatting with his nice first officer, if anything he was paying her a compliment. I think a few folks gotta get off the PC train.

I just hope that anyone who reads this gets out of the articles what I did. When you're bored and think everything is easy breezey stop yourself and look around no matter how many times you've been where you are.

Fly safe

[armchair]

.

[atpl53]

Alright...I read this thread, turned off my computer and walked away. Maybe I should have left it off...but I didn't.

Perhaps the mods can delete the last 7 posts (including this one).

In this I am behind you 100%.

As for that article, it is apparent the people who wrote it did not read the transcript and were repeating a "rumour" from someone else. Trash.

I'm not sure that reading the transcript would be a valid way to make a determination about flirting - which is more about nuance and body language than the actual words spoken.

Flirting is certainly a way to kill boredom, and should be examined by the authorities as a possible contributing factor. Not doing so would be ignoring nature. Sexual tension has been identified as contributory in the past. Is it really so different between a captain and F/O compared to a pilot and F/A?

Widow...I am disappointed that you would chime in and support this absolutely ludicrous accusation. If I was to get on AvCanada and suggest that causal to the crash of your husbands plane was the fact that he was trying to get into the pants of one of his female passengers, you would scream FOUL. And I would suggest further, that there would be many on this site who would step and offer to beat the cr@*p out of me. You have done an enormous disservice to the memory of Captain Marvin Renslow. I can only hope that his wife never gets to read these comments.

As for jeta1....hope I have the privilege of never flying with you. Guys like you who think with their dick, read The National Enquirer and live conspiracy theories are more of a danger in the cockpit than any female, Captain or First Officer.

[Rockie]

Everybody offering up an opinion on whether or not the Captain was flirting should first read the entire CVR transcript. If they can interpret anything said on it as flirtation then they have a suspicious, overwrought, sexually frustrated imagination and I am Brad Pitt. These people are dead folks. Let's try not to worsen the situation with salacious bullshit.

[atpl53]

Thanks Rockie. You saved my fingers typing the same thoughts.

[Widow]

Widow...I am disappointed that you would chime in and support this absolutely ludicrous accusation. If I was to get on AvCanada and suggest that causal to the crash of your husbands plane was the fact that he was trying to get into the pants of one of his female passengers, you would scream FOUL.

I meant no disrespect to any of the crew members, nor was I supporting the accusation. I have not heard the recording. I was merely making the point that the discussion was relevant to the topic, and therefore fair game.

The conversation in the cockpit was certainly not “sterile”, as it should have been. I would hope the authorities would examine whether “flirting”, sexual tension, etc., was germane to the investigation, in any accident – including the one in which I lost my husband (who, by the way, was a pax and not the pilot). I believe all factors should be examined in all accidents, if remotely relevant, without consideration of political correctness.

Please point me in the direction of where flirting has been identified as a contributing factor in an aviation accident.

I believe American Eagle Flt 4184 back in 1994 would be one example.

[Invertago]

Not to drag this off topic but correct me if I'm wrong, the procedure for a recovery from a tail plane icing stall is pull the nose up, as the Capt did. Could he (in his limited experience, which is still more then mine) have thought it was a tail plane icing situation and acted accordingly which only ended up killing them in a normal stall?

As for the conversation having read / listened to a bit of it, it sounds more like an older captain trying to sound a little more 'cool and knowledgeable' in front of his copilot? Who here hasn't said or done something in an aircraft (good or bad) partially to impress a jr person beside them? Their conversation sounded a lot like any thing you might hear between a Sr and Jr colleague at work.

Tail plane icing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1c4-aDB4k8

[canpilot]

I got really excited when I read the first two posts on this thread...I thought, WOW! This could turn into a very interesting topic. Then my excitement abruptly died after I read the back and forth arguments about flirting and if the pilot and co-joe were flirting.

Mods, can we maybe move the flirting discussion into another thread and or start another thread about the issues associated with complacency, sterile cockpits, and distractions or something?? And how we as pilots can combat these problems.. maybe we can have a few good stories about complacency as well..

this thread has the potential to be VERY good training / improving safety material.


I feel for those who were lost in the Continental crash..lets hope we can learn from it and prevent another one.

[petpad]

nothing like a controversial thread to get me to login. This is starting to sound like the French in the air thread... Now that the ugly allegation, or ludicrous accusation, has been made, we can all sit back and wait. No need to insult anyone, who gives a crap about what we think of each other anyway. The NTSB did have some hearings on this back in May, and in time the NTSB report will come out (not for quite a while though...). It will likely address, among many issues, cockpit discipline, sterile cockpit procedures, icing, etc. As this was said somewhere earlier, it will probably not address what was mentioned here but we'll see. By the time the report will be out , none of us will be on avcanada anymore (hopefully?).

[ajet32]

I am really disappointed at the direction of this thread. For two big reasons,
1 the Captain Martin Renslow is dead people as is the First Officer Rebecca Shaw. As professionals do you have no respect.
2 Have any of you people actually flown in an airliner cockpit with a member of the opposite sex. I have flown with several very attractive females, both Captains and F/O's. For sh+ts sake when your on the job your on the job. I am especially disappointed at the attitude of a moderator who to my knowledge does not Captain an airliner but was until now I thought a very serious advocate for safety. The attitude of trashing DEAD colleagues is I had hoped below the level we would stoop too on this forum.