avbug said:
I've met far too many stuffed shirts who really believed that the first action after donning one's mask in a cabin pressure loss situation is to set the microphone switch to mask...to establish communications. Talk. Too many who after even years of training and recurrency, forget that the first task is to fly the airplane.
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If we rapidly lose the cabin where it's most critical... somewhere between our normal cruise altitudes of FL400 - FL470....the autopilot is already flying the aircraft (I'm far, far too lazy to be hand-flying it up there), so it's taken care of for the moment. Most checklists refer specifically to "Crew Communications - Establish" after donning O2 because the other guy can't hear you through his headset or speaker if the MASK switch isn't flipped. It has nothing to do with talking to ATC at that point (it's way down the list), it has to do with the crew verifying that coordination can occur during the subsequent procedures. What does flipping that switch take....1/2 second?
With only 4 to 8 seconds of useful conciousness, there's a good chance one of us is likely to be passed-out with a mask not donned (probably me). And if there's enough bad luck that the A/P trips-off at altitude for whatever reason related to losing the cabin just then, the initial reaction of the PF will probably be to grab for the controls...to fly the airplane.., forgetting his mask for a few seconds. That'll be all it takes to ensure the other masked guy will soon be operating single pilot.
So establishing crew comm right away is highly important, because if one of the crew is incapacitated, his silence or incoherence where it shouldn't occur (during the attempt to establish comm) immediately indicates to the remaining pilot that all the critical tasks to be accomplished during a rapid decompression and ensuing emergency descent are his alone, including flying the airplane. The the sooner the former PNF realizes he's now suddenly become the PF, the better. This communication directly ensures that someone is indeed responsible for controlling the airplane.
It's also why I've become an advocate of training autopilot-flown emergency descents from very-high altitudes using a bugged speed to a pre-selected lower altitude. You fly like you train, and if training re-inforces a survival instinct of immediately kicking-off the A/P so you can "fly it", then in a pressure situation you'll most likely do it even if you're losing conciousness.
The same principle applies to why the first thing a military CFR guy does before pulling someone from a cockpit is pin the seat..the pilot might just regain enough coherency to remember the last thing he was probably thinking, which was "Eject"...not good with another guy leaning over him. Likewise, not good if all a pilot has done is disconnect the autopilot, pointed the nose down, and thereafter took a nap. This can swiftly turn into a dirt nap if nobody's flying and minding the store.
As a bonus, if you happen to be flying with someone who believes communicating with ATC or other crew members is "stuffed shirt stuff", setting up the A/P/modes in front of his face is a completely silent, non-verbal way of communicating your intentions to him. If you're lucky, this may even spur him to advise ATC that you'll be unexpectedly zooming down through 30,000' or more of his busy airspace.
Now, that guy might think advising ATC is unnecessary sissy stuff, believing in his own powers of observation to see all the other aircraft at night, through clouds, and even in VMC conditions with closure rates approaching 1000kts. But that's the nice thing about being the Captain...if we're both awake, he'll be making those calls.
