The culture of the managment determines the safety level

[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.