how to turn a potential disaster into a success

[britfrog 180]

whilst gloom and doom surround the recent air accidents people should understand how professional most air crews are, this gives some indication:

 

What Air Crash Investigations Didn't Tell You About QF32 (Airbus A380)

 

[mutley 4,498]

We all aspire to have the qualities of Captain de Crespigny.

Nice link Nigel in this time of bad aviation news 

[allardjd 1,853]

Great article, despite an obvious erroneous statement about the thermal properties of jet fuel.

I get the impression that the Captain specifically stated at some time during the pre-flight, that even though it was a check ride, if any emergency developed, he would continue as pilot-in-command. Explicitly designating that chain of command beforehand might very well have eliminated some confusion and delay when things went south.

The principles of good leadership and CRM are vital in aircraft emergencies - the three best examples I can think of are this one, the Hudson River Airbus and the Sioux City DC-10. In all three, the crew performed impeccably as a team and in two of the three, everyone survived even though that seemed an unlikely outcome.

There are some other examples where the opposite situation occurred and disaster ensued. AF 447, the Tenerife disaster and some of the Korean faux pas flights come to mind and some of the Oriental cultural mores regarding respect for authority work against this kind of effective management of emergencies. It's great if the Captain is really an aviation god and has all the answers but really makes him a one man band and the wheels fall off any kind of effective CRM and teamwork in that environment.

John

[brett 2,315]

I'm impressed, that guy is good.