It isn't the automation, it is the Pilot Monitoring, CRM and Culture

inigo88 said:
What I was really trying to ask is are there better ways in which to brief the threat of landing at the wrong airport well before you start looking out the window for it in the terminal area? For example, I think almost all the airports in Europe have some sort of charted visual flight procedure regardless of their size, like this one for Innsbruck (I always thought these were overkill FWIW).

Would something like that, or even just a sectional/TAC excerpt of the destination airport area, improve situational awareness? So that when heads do go outside and the PF is flying reference to the airspeed indicator only, they have a better idea of what to expect (like seeing the wrong airport before they see the right one)? Or are the existing company-specific 10-7 pages enough to warn pilots what to watch out for?
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For airports that a company regularly operates in to, Tribal Knowledge is probably the best defense against this. I'd always brief an FO, going in to places like BWI that it was going to be the SECOND runway we saw that we were landing on and such. Hopefully that use that when they brief in the future. Same deal for which airport we'd be planning to land at. I think Columbia, SC is a good example of that. The downtown airport beacon (especially at night) can very easily be confused with Metro (or wherever they are calling it now). Coming in from Charlotte the runways weren't aligned in a way that would be confusing, but if you were arriving from the east, it would certainly be a briefing item of importance.

That said, if you are operating in to an airport neither pilot has ever been before, having something like a sectional may be helpful to get a sense of the geographic area. A 10-9 page shows nothing more than the runway diagram and doesn't give any insight into nearby hazards like mountains and towers, or any geographic locational help like where the airport is in relation to metro areas, rivers, lakes and (what's important to this discussion) other airports. Even an approach plate (if you are backing up your visual with a charted instrument procedure won't show much more than high terrain. Every once in a while you will get a secondary airport charted and note not to confuse it with where you are going (MGM comes to mind here) but that isn't common.

The best thing of course is to do a very thorough brief and then fly the approach (visual or instrument) that you've briefed. Also, while I certainly won't say I could never do something like that (land at the wrong airport), with a moving map display, it should be VERY difficult mistake to make. Most systems zoom in to 5 miles which should certainly provide enough fidelity to show that you are 500 feet off the ground and nowhere near the airport you are supposed to be going to. That said, I've seen a lot of guys never scroll in their map displays from cruise so they are landing at an 80 mile range, where it is impossible to see anything in the terminal area.
 
jtrain609 said:
I'm saying the PF should continue to be the PF during an abort. I don't really care who calls for the abort, but I think having the FO performing the takeoff, with the captain performing the abort is a recipe for disaster.
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At AF, PF is PF all the way, unless he's clearly endangering the flight. Also to reply to the poster asking about using sectionals or flying VFR, it's quite simple : no VFR ops permitted for us. Flying a 250-tons aircraft requires bit of planning, as they don't slow down like a single engine prop plane, and are considerably more powerful. Not sure about wandering at VFR altitudes with a bunch of C152 Heavies flying around....
 
Pépé le Pilot said:
At AF, PF is PF all the way, unless he's clearly endangering the flight. Also to reply to the poster asking about using sectionals or flying VFR, it's quite simple : no VFR ops permitted for us. Flying a 250-tons aircraft requires bit of planning, as they don't slow down like a single engine prop plane, and are considerably more powerful. Not sure about wandering at VFR altitudes with a bunch of C152 Heavies flying around....
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LOL no one seems to want to read my posts all the way through. I never asked if anyone could fly a 250 ton airliner VFR. I asked if consulting a European Style Visual Approach Chart (or sectional) during the approach brief would help alleviate the threat of landing at the wrong airport by reminding crews when similar nearby airports exist.
 
jtrain609 said:
Not true if the FO is the one that keeps their hand on the thrust levers.
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Name an airline that does that.

In any event, disagree all you want. I just find it strange that we harp on how a transfer of controls at low altitudes and high speeds is a great way to kill yourself, but we train to do exactly that with high speed aborts.
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I don't find it strange at all the more you break down the threats of a high speed abort. Having one person make the decision is probably the safest course of action.
 
Seggy said:
Name an airline that does that.



I don't find it strange at all the more you break down the threats of a high speed abort. Having one person make the decision is probably the safest course of action.
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I don't think their talking about the decision as they are who physically performs the abort. It would make sense for the Captain to call it and if it's the FO's leg he simply keeps the A/C straight and slows it until the CA takes over on the tiller, just like landing. If you can train an FO to do every thing else, I'm pretty sure he'd be able to perform and abort.

@inigo88, I wrote about the use of a sectional in our Lear 45 in the thread about the SW wrong airport landing. We've found it to be pretty invaluable on our iPads. We use it second only to terminal and approach charts. Every visual we have it out, especially when we're going to an airport for the first time. It came in real handy last week in Thomasville, Ga. We got there about 10pm and that place is a black hole. It helped with locating any antennae etc. that were out there lurking. We stayed high (MVA'ish) until we had the PAPI. We also use the MFD to draw a line from the airport on what ever course we put in for an extended center line. There weren't any approaches to the runway we had to use do to wind. I'll take a straight in visual to a PAPI than a 180deg circle at night any time. I do think we have an advantage in the 91 world, in that we go to unfamiliar airports all the time. We don't have the expectation of finding the airport easy. So we always have to back it up with some thing, and confirm we're in the right place with the right runway. In other words, we tend not to do turns through a hub all day to the same 2-3 airports.

The biggest problem I see with CRM and FOM guidance is they are created for the weakest link, the company/training dept./lawyers try to think of every thing and give you the answers. As humans no one wants to admit they are indeed the weakest link. Others also don't want to confront some one to tell them they're the issue. Its not the FOM, the AFM or the company's fault. They are the problem, they are being "that guy". It could be their flying, it could be their lack of following the rules, heck they might just smell. Instead of others telling them they're being "that guy", a list of people no one will fly with is created and the "problem children" are bid around. Sooner or later two problem children get paired together. Most of the time, nothing happens. Some times things do and the first two holes in the cheese are all ready lined up.


•Semi-drunk ramble over• :)
 
Seggy said:
I don't find it strange at all the more you break down the threats of a high speed abort. Having one person make the decision is probably the safest course of action.
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The FO is a person, hopefully. In all seriousness I know what you mean since we have talked about this. The real issue I think airlines have with making the captain do the abort is the stress on the aircraft and the potential for things to go sideways quickly. I'm sure we all brief something similar before we even leave the gate. I used to say anything below 80kts we will stop, between 80 and V1 we better have stuff on fire or loss of control if we are going to stop. The rest is self explanatory as V1 is universal. I think if you brief or at least have a training sequence that makes crews understand the importance of high speed aborts it becomes less of a safety issue.
 
This is a really interesting discussion. It's a little surprising that even the "big" airlines are having this problem. With the generation of lax RJ pilots moving on up, I'm honestly not sure if it's going to get any better.

Derg said:
Any crewmember says "go around" at my airline, you go around.
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It's supposed to be that way at XJT. There are a few captains who don't understand CRM/TEM/GoodPilotSkillz and won't go around when called for.
 
Derg said:
Which blows me away.

If you don't and you as much as blow a tire, you're absolutely hosed because you've willfully damaged company property.
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That's what I was trying to say. It's not a CRM problem. It's a to many people thinking they're not "that guy", when in fact they're king of the tools. Why do we put up with mediocrity in the cockpit. If some one gets put on some one else's no fly list, pro-stands at a minimum should be notified. There shouldn't be pilots with a list of people that won't fly with them as long as the seniority list in the base/seat. If some one calls for a go around, power spooling should be the next thing heard, not "nah, I gots this. See we only landed 5,000ft down a 10k runway, what are you worried about?" It's Cra-Cra!!
 
I guess we have the "luxury" of FOQA reporting in the airplane. The moment that you're outside the stabilized approach criteria, the company already knows. So they're going to query why you didn't go around and if it becomes known that you didn't when commanded, you are absolutely hosed.

Heck, we had a problem on the plane a couple days ago with a system and when we called via SATCOM to maintenance, they already knew and were working on a resolution for us.

I did get a voicemail years ago from someone that was concerned why a particular captain was on a lot of 'no fly lists' and if I would share any information with them. I'm not an evaluator so I naturally refused.

The days of being a cowboy are coming to a close in commercial aviation.
 
Derg said:
I guess we have the "luxury" of FOQA reporting in the airplane. The moment that you're outside the stabilized approach criteria, the company already knows. So they're going to query why you didn't go around and if it becomes known that you didn't when commanded, you are absolutely hosed.

I did get a voicemail years ago from someone that was concerned why a particular captain was on a lot of 'no fly lists' and if I would share any information with them. I'm not an evaluator so I naturally refused.
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So did XJT when I was there. Maybe the FOQA was deemed to "cost prohibitive" now?

I got to XJT having been in the AF for four years and a county jail CO for the previous eight. I got the sense it was a lot of peoples "first grown up job". People didn't seem to comprehend the seriousness of their actions or lack of. Some times it was like "chill broseph we're flying shiny jeeeets!!" Not all the time, but it happened enough to feel like I was being treated like I just graduated pre-k from the "higher ups".
 
MercFE said:
The picture you show is correct... This is very similar to the setup we have in the E-6B since updating to our 737 flight deck.

However, what I think @Polar742 was alluding to was the way the LANDING runway is depicted.

When you zoom in on the map a little more, the runway that you have selected in the FMS as the "approach" runway will be displayed with two parallel white lines in the runway heading direction.

I know that in our community, even if someone is shooting an ILS or other approach in the VOR or APP display mode, which removes the map display from their Nav Display, we normally keep the PM display on the MAP mode. The backup of the moving map with approach points, airfield layout, and TCAS information, is a great way to avoid winding up at the wrong place or hitting someone else out there.
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This except both pilots keep the display in MAP unless you are using standby nav, in which case you're having a bad day.

You'd also display an equivalent to a HSI in a non-database airport.

However, where the Beachball Int'l jet and the WN jet were headed were both in the database.

So let's discuss the display scenario. It would look extremely similar to @dasleben
MercFE said:
The picture you show is correct... This is very similar to the setup we have in the E-6B since updating to our 737 flight deck.

However, what I think @Polar742 was alluding to was the way the LANDING runway is depicted.

When you zoom in on the map a little more, the runway that you have selected in the FMS as the "approach" runway will be displayed with two parallel white lines in the runway heading direction.

I know that in our community, even if someone is shooting an ILS or other approach in the VOR or APP display mode, which removes the map display from their Nav Display, we normally keep the PM display on the MAP mode. The backup of the moving map with approach points, airfield layout, and TCAS information, is a great way to avoid winding up at the wrong place or hitting someone else out there.
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@inigo88 I'd like to expound on this post, and this philosophy since I have time to put something down.

Your post brings up a number of discussion points related to the general theme of @Seggy 's original post.

One is cockpit management of a professionally flown 2 pilot airplane. As you know prior to having integrated glass airplanes, pilots were always searching and combining bits of information, not always intuitive, about the state of the airplane in space as well as monitoring conditions of various systems. In the advent of integrated glass avionics packages, not only does most of the mental exercise of building this real time picture out of pieces (almost like making a mosaic) get removed as all of the individual bits are combined in an easy to read format. The ND provides point in space awareness at a glance, also data about where you're about to go. The PFD provides instantaneous information about speed, altitude, trends of both, awareness of high speed and low speed boundaries and, the state of the automation.

However, the big thing I see is people not addressing good management techniques and creating a situation where there is too much information on the displays for a quick analysis of the aircraft state. Either they tend to view the systems as a "crutch" and leave out information the system needs to generate an accurate depiction, or as the photo @dasleben posted, they put so much information, it's reverse of the steam airplane - one has so much information depicted that you actually have to desconstruct the clutter to decipher what is truly important information. In the first case, incomplete and incorrect information inputted tends to create distrust in the accuracy of the automation leading to it being ignored. In the second case, pilots either spend so much time deconstructing the clutter they get behind where they need to be, or they ignore it because they don't have time to decipher a quick change. Think about how much effort it would take to verify a runway swap would have been looking at @dasleben 's cluttered display. Which is just as challenging, ironically, as partial panel in a steam plane.

The key is teaching to present the right information at the right time and using your display controls to manage the overall depictions to a quick glance. Just like in various phases of flight in steam airplanes where you adjust your scan to get the most relevant information at the proper time, so should you manage your display to in order to maintain a quick scan for relevant information for that phase of flight.

So how does this apply to your question?

It is the beauty of Boeing's basic ND. As long as you are flying into an airport in the database, and have programmed in the runway and approach, you will have EXACTLY one runway depicted. The runway you're landing on. To scale. With an approximately 14 mile dashed extended centerline off both thresholds. So in this case, it's extremely difficult to mistake the runway for another, as none are displayed. Unlike as been suggested, in airline operations, both pilots fly the approaches with their MAP display.

The only time you wouldn't fly the MAP display is a non-database airport or a dual FMC failure.

Gotta run to get on a flight. Hope I presented a complete picture.

Cheers

PS sorry about the format goofiness. Posting from a mobile device
 
ERfly said:
This may not have anything to do with anything, but I knew of the Pinnacle captain (doesn't deserve a capital "C") when he was a flight instructor. I heard from many people that it wasn't a matter of if, but when and how many he took with him.
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Captain isn't ever capitalized unless it's the first word in a sentence, or you are calling someone by their name as a title.

"I am a captain."

vs

"Have you seen Captain Smith?"

Sorry for the thread drift. Couldn't resist...
 
Earlier in the thread you guys mentioned filling out a report for go-arounds. Isn't that fairly common? It was done at both my last airline and my current one as a required report. It's not for punitive purposes, and the data is tracked by the safety dept.

I'm just curious what other airlines do.
 
Polar742 said:
Unlike as been suggested, in airline operations, both pilots fly the approaches with their MAP display.

The only time you wouldn't fly the MAP display is a non-database airport or a dual FMC failure.
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While, I admit, I completely understand the additional situational awareness afforded by both pilots flying with the MAP displayed... Don't you think this is a small part of the problem with the "lack" of pilot proficiency?

Flying the jet when it's perfectly healthy, with all of the information and systems provided, should be a benign affair. But, if you were to lose both FMS or lose electrical power and were down to your emergency power VOR/ILS, wouldn't familiarization with the VOR or APP mode be helpful?

I'm not saying that there is anything mystical about the two settings. However, there is a difference between shooting a raw data ILS and a moving map with flight director available. Both low threat when managed properly, but different scans and skill sets.

Just trying to figure out all the mindset differences between you crazy airliners and us crazy military guys... :p
 
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