The culture of the managment determines the safety level

[gunfyter]

Yip,

Back in the 80's... we had this little saying at 3rd MAW we had to say at the conclusion of every flight brief...

"Safety is paramount... no mission in peace time is so important it must be flown at the expense of safe and sound operating procedures. Doing it right is what counts."
​

That's how the culture of management promotes safety. We still had accidents but no one was pressured to go.

Do you think being on call for 10 to 20 hours on a 30 minute callout ... (not knowing if you will be flying early am, late evening or late at night) and then flying freight for 12 hours part 135 ... and then fly 6 hrs back to home plate part 91 at night to low ceilings and a Detroit snow storm is a sound operating procedure? Just so the plane could be back in case there is another trip for the next crew?

Some managements do.

 

[brokeflyer]

yip, dont bother. Your remarks lost all your credibility.

 

[CapnVegetto]

Safety is something that management has proven time and time again that they don't care about when profits are at risk. Colgan management has proven that with the schedules, work rules, and salaries they approve. Profits > Safety.

 

[pilotyip]

Likewise I am sure

yip, dont bother. Your remarks lost all your credibility.

I thought you were going to ignore me?

 

[pilotyip]

Record speaks for itself

Yip,

Back in the 80's... we had this little saying at 3rd MAW we had to say at the conclusion of every flight brief...

"Safety is paramount... no mission in peace time is so important it must be flown at the expense of safe and sound operating procedures. Doing it right is what counts."
​

That's how the culture of management promotes safety. We still had accidents but no one was pressured to go.

Do you think being on call for 10 to 20 hours on a 30 minute callout ... (not knowing if you will be flying early am, late evening or late at night) and then flying freight for 12 hours part 135 ... and then fly 6 hrs back to home plate part 91 at night to low ceilings and a Detroit snow storm is a sound operating procedure? Just so the plane could be back in case there is another trip for the next crew?

Some managements do.

The Falcon operated under some tuff schedules that are true. That is now we stayed in business with the highest wages and best benefits, days off in the on-demand business. I know being the best of the bottom dwellers in not something to brag about. I wanted the DA-20 crews to have the best training and support available order to operate safely. In fact most of my former pilots who work with you have reported your training is sub-USA Jet standards. If a crewmember was too fatigued to take a trip, they were excused from the trip. No questions asked. If conditions at the destination were marginal and the pilot did not want to go to that airport, we looked at alternate solutions. Our problem was the pilots wanted to push the envelope; a missionitis would start to creep in. That was a bigger problem than management pushing. They were a great bunch of pilots. The DA-20 safety record speaks for itself, no accidents, (expect the bird strike one, that was deemed an act of god and unavoidable, crew walked away from it, well ran would bebetter) incidents or violations in the 12 years I was involved in the program. Doing it right is what counts and that is the way I wanted those crews to operate. That is safety BTW "Safety is paramount... no mission in peace time is so important it must be flown at the expense of safe and sound operating procedures" My CO had different ideas about flying around Vietnam, the only allowable mission abort criteria is an uncontrollable wing fire, if you put it out continue the mission" He was serious, put a couple PPC's in hack for aborts after an engine failure, said our airplanes flew very well on three engines.

 

[brokeflyer]

I thought you were going to ignore me?

regardless of your ignorant posts I feel that is right that we all should try to steer you in the right direction. You have a lot to learn and we are willing to help.

You need to understand that that dipatch, sales, management and the owner all have their own ideas about safety. But the bottom line is safety stops at the PIC. Right or wrong that is the way it is. I wish i could indulgde you more but the safety issues rests there.

 

[pilotyip]

Now we are getting somewhere

regardless of your ignorant posts I feel that is right that we all should try to steer you in the right direction. You have a lot to learn and we are willing to help.

You need to understand that that dipatch, sales, management and the owner all have their own ideas about safety. But the bottom line is safety stops at the PIC. Right or wrong that is the way it is. I wish i could indulgde you more but the safety issues rests there.

The last para sounds like a civil discourse from which to start a discussion on safety. You are right the PIC is where the rubber meets the road in safety. The culture of the company will determine how much of the safety decision falls upon the PIC. The FAA has a crew rest rule to make you legal to fly a revenue trip, the company has policies to ensure that these FAA regs are followed. Management should ensure that thses policies are followed in the interest of safety. But the PIC is the only one who can determine if he is prpperly rested for that flight.

 

[o2bflyn]

Since we are trying to discuss safety, something very dear to my heart, what is your definition of safety and how is it achieved?

Safety has no specific definition in my eyes. There are so many factors that come into completing a safe and legal flight, you can boil it down to a definition. I leave that kind of BS to lawyers.

Its my ass sitting with my passengers in that tube at FL410+. I put value in the opinions of my dispatchers and mechanics, but when it comes down to it, its my decision if that plane leaves the ground. Its my responsiblity if something gets borken, its my responsiblity if someone dies. So, if I have the slightest doubt as to the well-being of my plane, my crew, or my flight....its NO GO!

 

[pilotyip]

almost civil

Safety has no specific definition in my eyes. There are so many factors that come into completing a safe and legal flight, you can boil it down to a definition. I leave that kind of BS to lawyers.

Its my ass sitting with my passengers in that tube at FL410+. I put value in the opinions of my dispatchers and mechanics, but when it comes down to it, its my decision if that plane leaves the ground. Its my responsiblity if something gets borken, its my responsiblity if someone dies. So, if I have the slightest doubt as to the well-being of my plane, my crew, or my flight....its NO GO!

Under what conditions would you elect not to fly when everything is in complience with the regs? Not questioning your decision process, just wondering what condition would cause canceelation not covered by the reg.

 

[Fozzy]

Under what conditions would you elect not to fly when everything is in complience with the regs?

En-route weather. I have "elected" numerous times.

Want more?

 

[brokeflyer]

You can legally ride a motorcycle without a helmet, but it is far from safe.

 

[ozpilot]

I think pilotyip has a valid question that no one has answered so far.

We can all agree that the final decision regarding safety rests with the PIC. We can also agree that the safest option would be if we refused every flight.

Clearly this is not practical, so we all accept some level of risk every time we take off. The real question is what level of risk are you prepared to take?

What is your criteria for a go/no go decision?

 

[Semore Butts]

"Yip" is right about one thing

Even if you've done everything you can, accidents can still happen.

(Recent Airbus lost)

Had they turned around, or went the other way, or whatever? It would have been "Another day at the office".

Time will tell....Or in this case maybe not?

 

[pilotyip]

Bingo

I think pilotyip has a valid question that no one has answered so far.

We can all agree that the final decision regarding safety rests with the PIC. We can also agree that the safest option would be if we refused every flight.

Clearly this is not practical, so we all accept some level of risk every time we take off. The real question is what level of risk are you prepared to take?

What is your criteria for a go/no go decision?

Exactly I think we might be starting a meaningful discussion. I think your statement fits inside the ICAO safety goal of reducing the probability of an accident to the lowest possible probability. Let us continue the discussion without the FI hostility, name calling, and childish behavior

 

[o2bflyn]

Under what conditions would you elect not to fly when everything is in complience with the regs? Not questioning your decision process, just wondering what condition would cause cancellation not covered by the reg.

A lot of it would situation driven. Hard to give a specific example. I saw someone mentioned weather, they would probably be the number one reason.

An expample of Mechanical would be long ago when I was with FLOPS. Preflighted an airplane that had a small "burn" looking mark coming from the back edge of the electric part of leading edge. Maintenance said they saw nothing wrong with it, Base ops said they released it from the write up and I was good to go. By regulation I could depart. I elected not to until someone pulled that leading edge off and found out what caused the mark.....they found a pretty big short that burned most of the leading edge cap. Stuff like that.

 

[ozpilot]

In my experience the easiest decisions regarding safety are the ones that are black and white.

Black - bad weather, issues with the airplane, crews fatigued

White - VFR weather, planes perfect, crews well rested and ready to go

The difficult decision comes when the circumstances fit between these two, the so called Grey area.

Grey - marginal weather, issue with the airplane but its legal to fly, crew is tired but not 'fatigued' (Thats a whole other discussion).

I do have one or two hard criteria in the grey area. For example I'll shoot an ILS to minimums. If I have to go missed I'll even shoot a second. But theres no way I'll do it the third time unless I'm convinced the weather is now above minimums.

But for the most part decision making in the grey area is subjective, based on the information available, past experience and finally 'gut feel'.

Bear in mind it is unlikely that you'll die in either the White (low risk) or Black (your on the ground) areas. Its the Grey area that can kill you every time. I'm very interested in the thought process that pilots go through in making the go/nogo decision when they are in this area. I think thats what pilotyip is getting at.

FWIW here are some of mine.

I try and get as much information as I can to help support my decision. I'll call dispatch, weather, maintenance and/or the chief pilot as necessary. If any of those individuals express doubt we don't go.

Most importantly I discuss the issue with my partner and get their input. If he or she is uncomfortable we dont go. Its not a 4 stripe decision, its a 7 stripe decision.

Now heres the hard part. Everone says your good to go but you still have a nagging doubt. What next?

I assume that whatever concern I have is going to get worse and I look at what options I have to deal with it when it does. In my view options are key to safety. If you have options you can avoid the accident. If you find yourself in a situation where there are few if any options you are unsafe.

If I have options that mitigate the risk I'll accept it, if not we dont go.

Heres two examples that I had to deal with recently.

The first involved weather. The weather at the destination was marginal. I talked it over with dispatch and came up with a suitable alternative and added extra fuel. We departed. That gave us the option and a plan if the weather deteriorated.

The second involved the aircraft. During the preflight I noticed that the vertical stabilizer show rub marks from the horizontal stab. As we were at a maintenance base I had them take a look at it. They said it was within tolerance and good to go. Observing it from the ground there was no binding during the flight control test. I discussed it with the FO.

He commented "Sure it looks good on the ground, but whats it going to do when we're at 43,000 ft doing .90 half way across the country?".

Excellent point! If it were to jam what options would we have? None. With the full support of the company we refused the aircraft.

This is a great discussion that goes to the core of the responsibility we all bear as professional pilots. I'm very interested to see what other pilots viewpoints are.

 

[pilotyip]

Good example

A lot of it would situation driven. Hard to give a specific example. I saw someone mentioned weather, they would probably be the number one reason.

An expample of Mechanical would be long ago when I was with FLOPS. Preflighted an airplane that had a small "burn" looking mark coming from the back edge of the electric part of leading edge. Maintenance said they saw nothing wrong with it, Base ops said they released it from the write up and I was good to go. By regulation I could depart. I elected not to until someone pulled that leading edge off and found out what caused the mark.....they found a pretty big short that burned most of the leading edge cap. Stuff like that.

If fact the airplane should not have been released, it was not airworthy. But it was overlooked by a dept that should have taken action to ground the airplane. The PIC and the crew are important links in the safety cycle. By regualtion that airplane was not ready to fly, but other peole had missed it.

 

[realityman]

Management should ensure that thses policies are followed in the interest of safety. But the PIC is the only one who can determine if he is prpperly rested for that flight.

But it's not really so cut-and-dry. So the regs (under 135) say that under the 24-hour lookback method, if you've had 10 consecutive hours of rest, you're good to go. Management has policies and procedures in place that ensure compliance with the regs. And if the pilot is still fatigued (for whatever reason) after his rest, he can just say he's still tired and that's the end of it. Pretty simple. At Netjets, that's EXACTLY how we operate. Gotta give credit to management for the support.

BUT, it hardly ever seems to work like that most other places. Last place I worked, we followed the regs. And management made sure we had everything the regs mandated. Good policy, right? Except if you told them you were still tired and unsafe to fly after your regulatory mandated rest, you'd be yelled at and told "Hey, you got the required rest! Now get your ass out to that plane and fly the trip! Do you know how many resumes we have on file who would love to be flying for us?"

See the difference? Sure, in both cases it still comes down to the pilot deciding what is safest. But if you don't believe the tone set by management in my second example will factor into my decision as a PIC, you're only fooling yourself.

We have numerous pilots at NJA who came from the regionals. The horror stories they all tell about being pressured from management because, hey, "we've done everything required by the regs, and we don't care if you claim to still be tired or that the plane is unsafe.".

So I have to agree with the title of this thread. It's management who sets the tone and culture of safety in the company.

 

[o2bflyn]

If fact the airplane should not have been released, it was not airworthy. But it was overlooked by a dept that should have taken action to ground the airplane. The PIC and the crew are important links in the safety cycle. By regualtion that airplane was not ready to fly, but other peole had missed it.

Agreed. kind of my point. You can't always trust other people (mechanics, dispatchers, mgmt, etc...) to tell you if it is safe and legal to depart.

I think we are on the same page here. I originally thought your arguement was if everyone else was telling to its legal to depart, you should just depart. I certainly do not agree with that, and I am starting to think you don't either.

 

[pilotyip]

Agreed

Agreed. kind of my point. You can't always trust other people (mechanics, dispatchers, mgmt, etc...) to tell you if it is safe and legal to depart.

I think we are on the same page here. I originally thought your arguement was if everyone else was telling to its legal to depart, you should just depart. I certainly do not agree with that, and I am starting to think you don't either.

There are many people involved in the safe relaese of an airplane, including the PIC. Management support of a system that increases safety awareness is one of hte vital keys to a safe airline.