How long until “cognitive overload” causes a major Australian air disaster?
20 Dec 2011 Duncan Ferguson, Elite Minds
When travelling by air we are relying on the safety systems inbuilt into the planes and the skills of the pilots flying them. In particular their cockpit resource management (CRM) skills and situation awareness (SU), or in basic layman’s terms – how well they follow procedures, work as a team and react appropriately to events as they unfold. These days large airliners have inbuilt safety systems with up to triple redundancy measures, but still things can go wrong and that’s when it’s the skill of the pilots and how they work together that can be the difference between life and death.
This is not being melodramatic; Tony Schwerdt of Elite Pilot Performance drew my attention to the Air France aviation disaster of June 1st 2009 (228 lives lost). Once recovered, the black box recordings chillingly revealed that one of the pilots was constantly pulling back on the controls when the plane was stalled (completely the wrong thing to do) in the mistaken belief that the jets safety systems would prevent a stall occurring – all the time failing to realise that the aircraft’s anti-stall system had disengaged. Tony Schwerdt said, “Cognitive training combined with better emergency training would have avoided this scenario”.
Recent “near misses” in Australian aviation highlight the need for pilots to receive greater support by receiving additional “hands-on” experience through simulated emergency situations and cognitive training to help them when they are under pressure. In 2009 an Emirates A345 crashed through the fence after takeoff and dropped down a slope towards a suburb before finally gaining enough lift to avoid crashing. Australia’s air safety investigator says a simple typo, involving a pilot entering a ’2′ when he meant to press a ’3′ on a keypad was the most likely trigger for the incident. As it was the day was saved by the Captain (who’d been supervising the first officer who was making the takeoff) slamming the throttles to maximum thrust just in the nick of time.
More recently, (as reported in The Age on the 13th December 2011) due to incorrect flap settings, a Jetstar Airbus A320 slipped to within 51 metres of the ground during a botched landing attempt at Melbourne Airport. Jetstar told investigators that the first officer may have experienced “cognitive overload”. The captain also reported a “high workload (in supervising the first officer), reducing his cognitive capacity and situational awareness of the aircrafts configuration”.
Learning from these incidents and incorporating these scenarios into simulated emergency training, and with cognitive training as well can develop improved CRM and SU skills. This is why we are working with Elite Pilot Performance. Promoting passenger safety and supporting pilots by giving them more “hands-on” experience in simulated emergency situations, as well as training to boost their mental capabilities.
Related articles:
Are airline pilots forgetting how to fly?
Enhancing cognitive fitness to improve pilot performance
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