Originally Posted by
index
Yes, I remember, you described the article as "psychobabble." I don't know when you got hired but CRM has, in my opinion, made for a much better cockpit environment than we had in the 1980s. Back then there was little standardization and many Captains just did their own thing. CRM training was a little hokey in the beginning (the 90s) but it has come a long way since then. I thought the writer did a very good job of describing the history of the culture, its problems, and where we are now. You called it "cringeworthy" and "psychobabble." To each his own.
Then, your "discussion" went on to outrageously boast that such a similar accident could never happen at DAL because "we hire experienced pilots." That comment reeks of arrogance to me. The AF447 pilots obviously made mistakes. Critical mistakes that cost them their lives. It's fine to Monday morning quarterback them, it's important to do so for us to learn from their mistakes and hopefully not repeat them. But it's wrong, in my opinion, to claim that our pilots are immune from misreading instruments, misjudging, making bad decisions, etc... The fact is we're not. We're human.
Index,
CRM has improved safety. It is my opinion the biggest improvement has been active pilot monitoring.
Point of fact, Delta pilots had the exact same failure on more than one occasion and dealt with it. MD88 pilots seem to have that kind of failure every couple of weeks or so.
My criticism of the article was that the author, credible as he may be, went far beyond what those in the air safety community would consider a scientific consideration of objective findings. The article was written to entertain. That sort of subjective voyeurism isn't really helpful.
It is maintained the reason Air France and Delta's similar systems failures had much different outcomes came down to training and experience. (thanks to our stagnation, we are tremendously experienced
)
Was there a CRM failure and a systems failure? Yes, those too. Like many accidents there is a long list of things of contributing factors and had not those links in the chain come together we wouldn't be having this discussion.