Hit vs. Press

[typhoonpilot]

That's because ultimately it is up to individual aviators to use judgment and make decisions, and they are only influenced to a limited extent by the culture within which they operate.
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I beg to differ. There are very clear historical precedents in the airline and in the military where the organizational/training culture led to a string of incidents and accidents, not just isolated ones. That means it was institutionalized. Delta Airlines in the mid to late 80s, Korean Airlines in the 80s and 90s, USAirways in the late 80s/early 90s. You can go outside of the aviation industry and find many many other examples where the company culture led to bad decisions and/or unsafe practices occuring on a routine basis.

It is a serious case of "a butterfly flapping his wings" to derive that the "hit vs press" discussion has any direct link whatsoever with an incident which showcased many actions of poor airmanship on many levels

No it's not, the purpose in my posts is to educate the OP and others that the cavalier attitude towards small things can lead down the wrong path. Will it always do so?, of course not. But shouldn't we be erring on the side of caution when influencing others?


Typhoonpilot

 

[derg]

So press the lights, the lights the lights...

It just doesn't have the same effect!

 

[Dugie8]

I beg to differ. There are very clear historical precedents in the airline and in the military where the organizational/training culture led to a string of incidents and accidents, not just isolated ones. That means it was institutionalized. Delta Airlines in the mid to late 80s, Korean Airlines in the 80s and 90s, USAirways in the late 80s/early 90s. You can go outside of the aviation industry and find many many other examples where the company culture led to bad decisions and/or unsafe practices occuring on a routine basis.




No it's not, the purpose in my posts is to educate the OP and others that the cavalier attitude towards small things can lead down the wrong path. Will it always do so?, of course not. But shouldn't we be erring on the side of caution when influencing others?


Typhoonpilot

Well said

This isn't about the legitimacy of hit vs press because someone is writing a manual for an operator this is NOT using the terminology an operator has in their manual(s). Do it the way the company wants. If you believe you have a better way to accomplish the goal take it up the chain and try to get the manual changed. Don't buck the system on line or in training because you "don't see the difference".

 

[SlumTodd_Millionaire]

As with most things in training, it doesn't matter how you feel about it, if it's the standard to meet, meet the standard or fail.

But to rally the next generation of pilots on things that don't or do matter to YOU, when it's all about what does and does not matter to a specific airline is bad.

Do I care? Nope.

Do you care? Nope.

But what does the evaluator care about? Is that important? Hell freaking yes.

Meet the performance expectations of the person writing your check and you will have a long and prosperous career.

Don't let the internet earn you a check ride failure.

Doug, I don't think anyone here is advocating ignoring training department requirements. If the department insists on something ridiculous like saying "press" instead of "hit," then unfortunately, you have to do it, as ridiculous as it is. No one is saying otherwise. The debate is whether such standards should even be in place in the first place. It's not a question of whether that airline does have that standard, but whether they should. I would argue that an airline's training department focusing on something like that does nothing but create a negative training environment while doing nothing to improve training or safety. That's the debate. Not whether you should ignore airline standards.

 

[SlumTodd_Millionaire]

I said "among other things", so your reading comprehension is a little off. Why did I bring that specific accident up? Well, it goes towards attitude and professionalism, that's why. Of all people, you should be the champion of that. You are an ALPA rep afterall ( or at least were ). If ALPA expects pilots to be treated and paid as professionals then at the very least pilots should act and work like professionals.

There is nothing at all unprofessional about saying "hit" instead of "press." Your argument is based on a false premise. Not using checklists is unprofessional. Not informing ATC when you've had a dual engine failure is unprofessional. Switching seats is unprofessional. Not keeping track of your airspeed at altitude is unprofessional. Allowing an aircraft to deep stall is unprofessional. I could go on. All of these things contributed to that crash. Nonstandard verbiage had absolutely nothing to do with it.

What was the training culture at Pinnacle? Did the instructors just sit back and let trainees say hit and mash? I'm guessing they were not as strict as they should have been and they let those two guys down by being so.

No, none of the instructors would care if you said "hit" or "mash" instead of "press." None of the instructors would care about such nonsense at any of the three carriers for whom I've worked, including my current one. Why? Because it's a ridiculous thing to care about. As far as the training department culture at Pinnacle, it was more strict than most airlines. Failure rates were higher than many airlines. The instructors and examiners were not pushovers. You had to follow the profiles to the letter, you had to know the memory items and limitations word-for-word, you had to know the systems inside and out, etc. It was not a lax environment. Now, there were problems with the training department at Pinnacle, as the NTSB exposed, but they weren't the kind of problems that you bring up. Rather, they were problems such as not training pilots sufficiently in high altitude aerodynamics, and not training pilots to use the climb performance charts and the FMS performance date as a backup. That contributed to the accident. Verbiage? Not at all.

I'm sure you've read the CVR transcript. Those guys were an embarrassment to the profession. So yes, verbiage was part of the cause.

None of the things that you list from the report cite verbiage. Nothing in the transcript (which I know inside and out, since I was a rep when this was all going down) indicates any issues with verbiage. Your argument is nonsensical. You can't find a case that resulted in a crash due to someone saying "mash" instead of "press," or something even remotely similar, so you're desperately reaching to make this case fit your preconceived opinion.

 

[derg]

Well, it's between the POI and the people writing the check.

Here's the angle I take. Personally, press/hit/whatever, the actual verbiage, to me, is often (not absolutely) kind of mindless minutia. But I'm expected to use the required lexicon or at least the "traditional" words.

I'm just happy we didn't adopt calling "FL CH" "felch" like our northern brothers used. Augh!

HOWEVER, for every grey-haired partially burned out 121 line pilot posting about the verbiage, is a n00bi3 that would benefit from separating how "Doug Taylor" or "ATN_Pilot" feels about the issue from what his present or future carrier requires he perform during training.

The bottom line is, is that it doesn't matter how we peons feel about press/mash/smash/jam/whatever, but the standard does. I really hate wearing a hat and think it's antiquated, but I'm going to wear the proper uniform as required by the people that pay my check.

The message I want to get out is feel how you feel about what it is, but do what it takes to survive training, line checks and....well, flying the line. If it's THAT important to any of us, we're more than free to (a) become line check airmen and press for change or (b) put our money where our mouth is and apply to a carrier more in line with what we feel we should call a switch/button/level/handle/press/mash/smash/select/de-select/latch/de-latch.

 

[typhoonpilot]

There is nothing at all unprofessional about saying "hit" instead of "press." Your argument is based on a false premise. Not using checklists is unprofessional. Not informing ATC when you've had a dual engine failure is unprofessional. Switching seats is unprofessional. Not keeping track of your airspeed at altitude is unprofessional. Allowing an aircraft to deep stall is unprofessional. I could go on. All of these things contributed to that crash. Nonstandard verbiage had absolutely nothing to do with it.

No, none of the instructors would care if you said "hit" or "mash" instead of "press." None of the instructors would care about such nonsense at any of the three carriers for whom I've worked, including my current one. Why? Because it's a ridiculous thing to care about. As far as the training department culture at Pinnacle, it was more strict than most airlines. Failure rates were higher than many airlines. The instructors and examiners were not pushovers. You had to follow the profiles to the letter, you had to know the memory items and limitations word-for-word, you had to know the systems inside and out, etc. It was not a lax environment. Now, there were problems with the training department at Pinnacle, as the NTSB exposed, but they weren't the kind of problems that you bring up. Rather, they were problems such as not training pilots sufficiently in high altitude aerodynamics, and not training pilots to use the climb performance charts and the FMS performance date as a backup. That contributed to the accident. Verbiage? Not at all.

None of the things that you list from the report cite verbiage. Nothing in the transcript (which I know inside and out, since I was a rep when this was all going down) indicates any issues with verbiage. Your argument is nonsensical. You can't find a case that resulted in a crash due to someone saying "mash" instead of "press," or something even remotely similar, so you're desperately reaching to make this case fit your preconceived opinion.

You are not seeing the correlation.

One of the first steps in unprofessional behavior occurs if a pilot says "hit" when they should say "press". If the training department allows the pilot to get away with it then that's the second step because now they've broken procedure and there were no adverse consequences. It can keep going from there.

The way those pilots are talking and behaving on the CVR is embarrasing to any pilot who listens to it. Verbiage is just the beginning as I've outlined. There was no self discipline in that cockpit and it is clearly evident by the way they are talking ( verbiage ). Get it?


Typhoonpilot

 

[SlumTodd_Millionaire]

Yeah, I "get it," alright: you're one of those pilots who makes this job far harder than it needs to be.

 

[DPApilot]

I guess I'm a bad pilot if I say "press first level" instead of "depress". I had better call Southwest back and see if I can get my job as a ramp sup back....

 

[derg]

I guess I'm a bad pilot if I say "press first level" instead of "depress". I had better call Southwest back and see if I can get my job as a ramp sup back....

So press the lights, uh oh oh, the lights the lights the lights.... so press the lights...

 

[Ian_J]

Out of curiosity, what sort of buttons are being hit or pressed? I've never thought to say hit or press a button - probably because it's a mouthful.

"Nav on" vs. "press the Nav button." that sort of thing. I'm sure there are a lot of buttons in jet though so I was just wondering.

 

[TFaudree_ERAU]

Out of curiosity, what sort of buttons are being hit or pressed?

I say "hit the ignitors".

In the Lear, they're a switch on the lower panel in the up/down orientation. In the Challenger, they're a switch light (push-button) on the overhead panel.

 

[Autothrust Blue]

Out of curiosity, what sort of buttons are being hit or pressed? I've never thought to say hit or press a button - probably because it's a mouthful.

"Nav on" vs. "press the Nav button." that sort of thing. I'm sure there are a lot of buttons in jet though so I was just wondering.

You know, I'm not sure. We 'select' FGC modes. We 'press' all other pushbutton switches. It's far above my pay grade.

 

[dasleben]

You know, I'm not sure. We 'select' FGC modes. We 'press' all other pushbutton switches. It's far above my pay grade.

I honestly can't remember if we "press" or "push" in our memory items. I'd have to look it up. Either way, I know that I'll press/push/hit/mash the correct button (switch?) if I ever need to.

Also, do we disengage the autothrottles, or disconnect them? What about the autopilot? Oh heck, I don't know; just hit the buttons on the yoke and the throttles and it turns it all off. If I want it all back on, I just select (ah, there we go) an autothrottle mode and poke the CMD button that's in the middle. Make sure what's on the FMA is what you expect from your button mashing (the important part of all this).

But yes, my callouts and procedures are all company/manufacturer spec. No need to reinvent the wheel. Because of that outlook, I've never had issues on PCs and recurrent training events. My forgetfulness is limited to not remembering if we press or push an alternate action switch or a momentary action switch (that's a thing, right?), which honestly, has no bearing on anything. I think in polling most safe, competent line pilots, you'd get the same confused look over that level of trivia.

 

[TUCKnTRUCK]

I'd beg to differ. Use of incorrect verbiage goes to a mindset. A mindset that includes lack of self discipline which can lead to unprofessional behavior and/or outright disregard for procedures and policies. Yes, that may be taking it to the extreme, but as I originally posted, the Pinnacle crash is a classic example of lack of self discipline and where it can lead.

You have a choice as a professional pilot. You can either be disciplined and do what your company wants or you can choose not to. It's up to you to decide whether it's important to your career.

I guarantee you there are airlines in this world that will hammer incorrect verbiage out of a pilot very quick or they will fail training. Japanese and Korean airlines being prime examples.


TP

3407 sadly is another case where incorrect call outs/verbiage contributed. Once in the recovery, the trained call outs were never used, and the correct recovery procedure was not performed. A very simple ," stalling, check power, flaps 10" would have brought the FO onto the same page. People that are unsure about the correct action normally perform it correctly with the right trigger.

Instead power was never checked, and flaps came up without a command, before the recovery was initiated.

Now, most everything has a "callout". It's not gear, or pop the gear etc. we say ," gear down reduced (or normal) np". This command triggers a flow, and both items refer to a selection. In fact we don't say push, select, or hit at all. Every item like that is a commanded position. Select level 2 icing, props 850, etc. On our side we always state the condition we want selected... Not the actual switch. Because of this, its important to use correct verbiage, or you introduce an element of uncertainty that we have been working our buts off to eliminate.

That being said, I'm not a nazi about it, but, I use correct call outs, and try to push people to do the same. It often only takes a few legs , and they're doing it. If not, a quick," we say it this way, because ...." give an example, and they usually agree.

Recently we renamed all the checklists to agree with switch position labels. It's not " ref speed switch on" it's ref speed switch increase. Etc. this was done to eliminate position uncertainty that some were having. (?). When the wording is correct, the lists just work better. Honestly though, the parts that proper verbiage applied to, is such a small percentage of what gets said, is it really that hard to do it the way your airline wants?