Skywest Fence Sitters

EatSleepFly said:
I have a novel idea... Instead of trying to find a way to get away with continually screwing up, why not try to FIX the problem?
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Hey ESF no one is trying to "get away with continually screwing up."

If mistakes are being made it needs to be fixed regardless of the guilty party.

We all know it's a job with nearly zero tolerance for error but unlimited opportunities to screw things up. I'm sure you've had or at least overheard situations where ATC lets something slide: missing a turn on a taxiway, reading back something incorrectly, etc.

ATC makes mistakes just as pilots do. There are more pilots than controllers so even if the number of errors per person are equal, the pilots will have more total mistakes. I don't think there's a need to be adversarial about it, "ATC is watching YOU"; but rather a need for everyone to work together to make things safer.

If one mistake where no loss of separation occurred potentially means putting the brakes on an entire career (or worse), would that not be considered excessive?
 
EatSleepFly said:
Well, that may be, but I find it hard to believe the answer is to slap a program in place to excuse deviations that are creating enough of a safety issue to prompt this reaction from ATC.

Of course everyone makes mistakes, and I'm sure the program is great to have. But what kind of message is this thread sending? Sounds to me like, "hey, there's been a rising number of deviations, but if you vote for a union, they will be excused so you can keep your job AND your certificates!" I would think it should be, "hey, there's been a rising number of deviations and this is a problem, so let's do something about it."
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This isn't about masking the problem. it's about protecting the guy who never has an issue, and the one time gets certificate action because joe shmoe pilot who is sloppy at everything he does gets others in trouble.
 
ESF,

It isn't about protecting those who make mistakes, per se. It is more about permitting a crew who does make an error a safe avenue to come forward and be forthright about what happened. Fact is, we are all human beings, and human beings make mistakes. As it stands, the system we operate in is inherently safe. Maintenance is good, training is good, we have all kinds of information available at our fingertips on the cockpit displays, and the air traffic control system is improving. Yes, sometimes the system fails. However, more often than not--70-80% of the time--it is the human who fails. Like I said, we are not perfect.

So how can we learn from our mistakes and the mistakes of others? By implementing programs such as ASAP and FOQA, where we can learn what really happened in the crews own words. We can all agree that we are more likely to come forward and be open about our mistakes if we are not in fear of losing our job for it. ASAP is not a program to keep bad pilots in the cockpit. ASAP is a program to keep good pilots in the cockpit when they make natural human errors.

If you look at most accidents today, they are happening to normal pilots on a normal day. The Comair accident happened to two good guys who were operating as normal on a just any old morning, but nearly everyone on board died because of a human mistake. If they had cleared the trees, and survived, what could we have learned from them? Wouldn't it be better to hear what led up to their mistake so we do not do it ourselves, rather than the crew "hope" nobody saw what happened?

Just to be clear, ASAP does not protect pilots who intentionally break regulations or standard operating procedures. If you intentionally do something stupid, and hope to get away with it thanks to ASAP, you are mistaken. You can get in trouble, but even so the punishment is less for all parties involved. You also only have 24 hours (or 48 international) to submit your ASAP report. This eliminates those who hope to use it for protection later after trying to get away with a mistake.

ASAP stands for Aviation Safety Action Program. The key word there is safety.
 
The ASAP program is about much more then protecting a pilot that messed up. It is about making the problem know so that other people don't do the same thing. Something like 65% of our ASAPs are sole reports, meaning that if the pilot hadn't filed anything, nobody would have ever know something happened. From this ASAP database trends are found and then pilot group wide training is given to prevent further issues. To me this sounds a lot like fixing the problem rather then protecting a pilot.

And ESF, if you were to go into an interview tomorrow and were asked "have you ever broken an FAR?" what would you say?
 
Thanks all, especially E and Matt, for the clarification. Makes sense; the tone of the thread just had me scratching my head at first.

BobDDuck said:
And ESF, if you were to go into an interview tomorrow and were asked "have you ever broken an FAR?" what would you say?
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I would say that anyone who claims to have never done so isn't telling the truth, or at best ignorant of whatever one(s) they broke. It happens, believe you me I know. I wasn't debating the need for such a program, I was just questioning why more emphasis was being put on getting it in the first place than taking steps to lower the number of deviations.
 
I've been told that Skywest will someday in the future be properly staffed, in the meantime I get to somehow work the next 9 out of 11 days! Thanks PBS, I got my first and second preference, and LOTS of it!
 
Havaing PBS without a PBS pilot-committee with overriding authority is about like passing out on a bed at a crew scheduling party.
 
EatSleepFly said:
I have a novel idea... Instead of trying to find a way to get away with continually screwing up, why not try to FIX the problem?
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I can't speak for the other airlines, but the ASAP program here, that is the main goal. The protection given the pilots is sort of an incentive to "own up" to any mistakes you've made instead of trying to sweep them under the rug. Kind of a "we can't fix the problem if we don't know it's occurring" type deal. There have been a number of procedure and manual changes just since the program came on-line last year. For a while, we were having a string of "T/O Config" aborts for multiple reasons. Based on the data collected from the ASAP program, procedures and checklist were changed, and the number of T/O Config aborts has dropped to almost nil.

One of the big things with our program is the data is de-identified almost immediately. The only people that know who submitted the report are the line pilots acting as ALPA gatekeepers, and they aren't talking, as it should be. If a pilot knew that reporting something he had done might help a fellow pilot avoid making the same mistake, BUT he might get reprimanded/suspended/fired for reporting it, the odds are slim that the event would be reported. Then another pilot makes the same mistakes, etc, etc. This way we can increase the safety without fear of management reprisals or building a case against people they deem "trouble makers."

Now, if you submit a LOT of ASAP forms in a short amount of time, I'm pretty sure you get red flagged.
 
EatSleepFly said:
"hey, there's been a rising number of deviations and this is a problem, so let's do something about it."
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That's the idea behind ASAP - but wouldn't it be icing on the cake if you got to keep your certificates and your job as well when you reported something?

The "let's do something about it" portion of the SkyWest memo is a "zero tolerance policy". Sounds a bit harsh to me. That's what I like about ALPA and ASAP - when you mess up, if you write it up you have no worries about your job.

FWIW, of the ~350 ASAP reports filed here within the past 16 months, 5% were investigated by the FAA. Most of those were either t/o aborts or inflight emergencies.
 
Oh, in the interest of getting rid of some of those T/O Config warnings...

If you're coming off a reduced rest overnight, remember to slam the flight spoilers ALL the way up after doing the first flight of the day checks on the CRJ. It'll still say "T/O Config OK" on the messages if it's still in the first notch. Throw the thrust lever forward and "ding ding ding Config Spoilers!" Uh....I like, heard that from someone.
 
Never seen that one - most are due to the rudder/aileron trim being in the green but not *exactly* centered up.
 
kellwolf said:
Oh, in the interest of getting rid of some of those T/O Config warnings...

If you're coming off a reduced rest overnight, remember to slam the flight spoilers ALL the way up after doing the first flight of the day checks on the CRJ. It'll still say "T/O Config OK" on the messages if it's still in the first notch. Throw the thrust lever forward and "ding ding ding Config Spoilers!" Uh....I like, heard that from someone.
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You pull the spoilers on the first flight checks? We never touch the things unless we are in flight.

Granted, I stood their laughing about how guys had to open panels and then got the memo 2 days later that we had to as well.:)
 
That memo looks really fishy to me.

For one, all of the CPC ATCS I know, are not out to bust pilots.

Their supervisors are though. . .so with that being the case, it just shows more FAA glad handing to airline manegement to bust down everyday pilot.
 
BobDDuck said:
You pull the spoilers on the first flight checks? We never touch the things unless we are in flight.

Granted, I stood their laughing about how guys had to open panels and then got the memo 2 days later that we had to as well.:)
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Yep. We check the ground spoliers and the flight spoilers first flight on the taxi check. As far as the panels.....I had to first flight three different airplanes in one day. I hate those panels. :)
 
N422NM said:
Skywest has an ASAP program in place, and it works the same way, as per FAA AC 120-66
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But the ASAP at SKW only protects you from the FAA, not the company. You're essentially self-disclosing (with names and info TO the company, the company then strips that info to send to the FAA) combine that with an "at will work status" and it doesn't take a much to figure that one out.
 
Whereas the ASAP program at my carrier goes to ALPA for de-identification and then to the company and FAA.
 
Doug Taylor said:
Whereas the ASAP program at my carrier goes to ALPA for de-identification and then to the company and FAA.
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Wish we had that. Supposedly only ONE guy from our company sees our name on the ASAP. The ERC isn't supposed to see who we are.
 
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