Cherokee_Cruiser
Bronteroc
That was about Colgan. The USA majors (excluding cargo) haven't had a fatal crash since Nov 2001 AA #587. That's almost 15 years now.
Normalization of deviance
- Thread starter Beefy McGee
- Start date
That was about Colgan. The USA majors (excluding cargo) haven't had a fatal crash since Nov 2001 AA #587. That's almost 15 years now.
Hacker15e
Who am I? Where are my pants?
That's a strawman, and is additionally in no way whatsoever evidence that there's not potential for normalization of deviance at 121 airlines, but continue to bang the drum if it makes you feel good.
Cherokee_Cruiser
Bronteroc
Which goes back to the above:
"No one is immune, but at least the airlines try and constantly do something about deviance from normal operations."
It happens, even at 121 airlines, but not to the degree this operation of a corporate jet at KBED. The NTSB found from the flight data that of the last [whatever many] hours, 90% of the time the crew never ran a flight control check.
Autothrust Blue
“If you jump on my shift, that’s just rude, man.”
The absence of an accident does not imply that the industry is at the level of safety it should be.
It means that we're damned lucky. (see e.g. the United "HEY SIT UP AND DO YOUR JOB" memo from last(?) year.)
learhawkerbe400
Well-Known Member
Autothrust Blue
“If you jump on my shift, that’s just rude, man.”
It's a question of the level of support/support systems that those other sectors have.
Hacker15e
Who am I? Where are my pants?
I agree, but that's not what I get out of the statement, "at least the airlines try and constantly do something..." that I was replying to.
121 airlines may be better at it than, say, Pt 91 corporate, but that doesn't mean they're not actively attempting to achieve the same objective.
Lucky8888
Well-Known Member
A friend of mine wrote this blog post on the subject. It's an interesting read.
http://code7700.com/deviance.html
http://code7700.com/deviance.html
Cruise
Well-Known Member
The fact no majors have had a fatality since the one you cited has very little to do with skill, training or some superior level of checking/ standardization. Instead, it was massive amounts of luck, repeatedly! Without doing any kind of interwebz search I can think of at least half a dozen accidents/ incidents that could've ended much worse had lady luck gone the other way.
Continental, Delta, Southwest, US Airways all had at least one, some 2 or more since the AA accident.
Let's not get too high and mighty lest you wind up the topic of conversation in the "See, we told ya so" yet-to-be-created thread.
Cherokee_Cruiser
Bronteroc
No one said the majors are immune from accidents. But the general experience level, the fact it's not an entry-level job, the type of flying, those factors at the majors does help them. Just using Sully's points. The fatal accident record from 2000-present for reigonals versus majors speaks for itself. As for the "told ya so" thread, as much as I hate to say it but statistically speaking we're kind of overdue. I just hope it won't happen - and same for the regionals too.
Cherokee_Cruiser
Bronteroc
I'm sure they do. We all have the same goal - to fly as safely as possible from A to B.
But it becomes a question of support network, who has your back, your resources available, ability to do of job free of move-up consequence (eg, merit based worries versus seniority based), FOQA program, LOSA, etc. Those kinds of things dictate how the operation can handle threats and errors. FOQA is a huge one. It has pre-set criteria / standards, and compares it to identify trends of crews doing perhaps something incorrectly or not standard, and then makes recommendations to try and fix it.
Hacker15e
Who am I? Where are my pants?
Just because a system exists doesn't mean it is a surefire way to get back on track. Checklists are a system. SOPs are a system. FAA line checks are a system. We have layer upon layer of preventative systems that all ready exist, and still this takes place.
Let's apply the NASA example to FOQA; If the people determining the trigger-points decide that the trigger points can be changed (like NASA's engineers incrementally accepting higher and higher levels of risk as the norm), then is that system really preventing the normalization? No, it isn't.
By definition, "normalization" implies a gradual change over time. The deviance *is* the norm, because organizationally things have changed at such a subtle rate that it doesn't set off alerts in folks' minds until they can step back and look at it outside the fishbowl.
I assure you, there's nothing about the 121 part of the profession (including established systems) that make it immune to this.
I think you're erroneously taking my assertion that "it could happen to anyone" and thinking that it is instead saying "it will happen no everyone," and those are substantially different things.
Cherokee_Cruiser
Bronteroc
I see your point, fair enough and agreed. Without identifying any particular company lets say I heard there was a 'normalization of deviance' presentation last year in regards to go arounds - or if you will the lack thereof. Because it always works out, we land successfully every time. The most extreme example (from what I heard) they made a video from the data of a crew at 1,000 AGL doing 220 knots, flaps 1, and if you're a Bus guy you know what that picture is. The crew continued to configure below 1,000 and landed with a nice greaser. Still, highly unstable approach and should have gone around. Also from what I heard since that presentation at this perhaps fictitious airline, the go around rate has gotten better, and the unstable rate of approaches have decreased. And following up on that, numbers of necessary go arounds slowly going down with a down trend of unstable approaches (apparently better than "industry average"). Whatever that number is.