Article on "cockpit politics"

[Marty_d]

Interesting article looking at some of the human factors in fatal airline accidents.

 

How 'cockpit politics' can lead to plane crashes

 

 

[Birdseye]

Read that yesterday and couldn't really see anything new in it. Most of it reflects what has been said about CRM etc. over the last ten or more years. Surprised that she doesn't mention Korean Airlines who had a long history of poor CRM and hierarchical issues.

 

 

[Guest Guest]

It's interesting that these studies rarely address the more recent reasons why there is often a breakdown in the cockpit of HF & CRM, anger, anger with the Airline management especially with LCC's it's a very real threat especially with '89ers still active now thoroughly mixed in with low experience newcomers! We are lucky here in Oz that the WX is mostly benign and ATC spoon feed the traffic flow leaving us in the low bracket of accidents/incidents.

 

 

[Marty_d]

Read that yesterday and couldn't really see anything new in it. Most of it reflects what has been said about CRM etc. over the last ten or more years. Surprised that she doesn't mention Korean Airlines who had a long history of poor CRM and hierarchical issues.

She did."An overly authoritarian captain can severely exacerbate this tendency and even paralyse the first officers to the point that they become mere bystanders. This occurred during the crash of Korean Air cargo flight 8509. The captain, a domineering former military pilot, made a catastrophic error. The first officer noticed but did nothing for fear of reprisal. The aircraft hit the ground less than 60 seconds after take off, killing everyone on board. "

 

 

[Birdseye]

Must have nodded off before I got to that, but just confirms that there is nothing new in that article.

 

 

[poteroo]

Authoritarianism isn't just an airline thing - plenty of it within the instructor ranks too. There, it may not lead to major catastrophes, but it can block the learning process, resulting in students leaving the industry in disappointment. Unsure whether it is more likely in ex military QFIs, or if it's an 'hours' or 'years' reason, or simply a personality trait?

 

happy days,