Maggie's Farm

I don't normally comment [1] but...

As an airline manager and Training Captain with almost 15 years on a regional (50 seat) turbofan-powered airliner at the same company, let me make the following observations:

- The PIC was a very experienced pilot; the SIC had great military experience, but not a lot of airline experience. My speculation is that there was a culture clash going on that had nothing to do with them being Pakistani.

- Lecturing is not mentoring. All Captains should be mentors. No sane airline wants professional co-pilots; they want future captains-in-training. That's why CRM training (and other "safety" training) is so heavily emphasized at all airlines.

- Open communication is essential to safe flight operations. No one person has all the information necessary for the safe execution of any flight. Not crashing is not the same as safe, professional flying.

- Mode errors are common on all flights. Something like 85-90% of all flights have some type of crew error. That's (again) why CRM training is so important. Pilots need to develop the skills necessary to detect threats and errors, and trap them before the put the aircraft in a precarious situation (Undesired Aircraft State in CRM-speak).

- Even though errors are so common on the flight deck, most flight land safely. Why? Because most errors are trapped by one or both pilots, or by an outside resource like ATC.

- Standard procedures help trap errors. When flight crews deviate from "SOP"s, they deliberately (whether knowingly or not) decrease the level of design safety (redundancy, predictability, ...) built into the overall ATC system.

- Airspace is a system. There are a zillion moving parts and if you play your part correctly, then you help make the system work correctly. If you don't do that, you increase the overall risk in the system.

- Autopilots help pilots manage the flight more effectively... in general. But again errors can occur managing the autopilot. Pilots must be able to manage the level of automation required at any particular phase of flight.

- Increased automation has NOT decreased workload on pilots; it has simply redistributed it. It's a common misconception that you put the autopilot on and off you go. That is only true in the sense that IF the autopilot (flight plan, etc) was programmed correctly, there is an extremely high likelihood that it will do what you want. But it still must be monitored for correct operation.

- What has increased automation actually done to the airspace system? Increased the efficiency (density) of operations. To repeat: pilot workload has not decreased; it has been repurposed and rescheduled. Most of the workload is "bunched" into relatively short periods that occur at both predictable (planned) and unpredictable (unplanned, i.e. abnormal) times.

- When things go sideways, you need someone to speak up, and then to ACT. When barriers to communication are setup (as on this flight), deviations from SOP are observed and not challenged (as on this flight), errors are being made and even when they are challenged are not remediated, then what kind of outcome would you expect?

If you have read this far I'm surprised. Even professional pilots need some convincing that the amazing level of safety and success of the airspace system ultimately depends on their constant vigilance.

[1] Comments can be entertaining but are almost never productive, because the event or situation being commented on is well outside the control of anyone commenting. It's all "Monday morning quarterbacking" for the most part. But here I am commenting...

And everyone has bad days.