Aerospace Notebook: Machismo cockpit culture puts safety in jeopardy By James Wallace Seattle P-I reporter In March 1977, two fully loaded 747 passenger planes collided on a foggy = runway on the island of Tenerife, killing everyone on the KLM plane and = many on the Pan Am jet. It remains the deadliest crash in aviation = history. But 30 years later, the most important safety lesson learned from the = deaths of those 583 people has apparently still not taken deep root in = some parts of Asia, where air travel is growing faster than anyplace = else. When the pilot in command of a commercial jetliner is not in control of = the situation and safety is compromised, the co-pilot has a duty to = speak up and take over. It didn't happen in the cockpit of the KLM 747 at Tenerife, and it = didn't happen in March of this year when a Garuda Indonesia 737-400 = crashed at an airport in southern Java. The National Transportation Safety Committee in Indonesia recently made = public a detailed report of the 737 accident. The incompetence of the = pilot in command of the Boeing jet is stunning. But even as the pilot = ignored nearly two dozen audible cockpit alarms that the plane was = landing much too fast, and at too steep an angle, the co-pilot just sat = there in the right seat and went along with his captain as the speeding = 737 approached the runway. The subsequent crash killed 20 of the 133 = passengers on the plane, some of them media, as well as one flight = attendant.=20 Both pilots survived. It remains to be seen whether they will be = prosecuted. "There has been a long, long list of accidents that could have been = prevented if the pilot was not seen as God and the co-pilot had spoken = up," said aviation author John Nance of Tacoma, a former 737 pilot for = Alaska Airlines and now aviation safety consultant for ABC News. That cockpit culture has changed in the United States and in Europe, but = not everywhere, and especially not in some parts of Asia, Nance said. = However, he noted that Chinese airlines have embraced the change in = cockpit culture. "Doctors are trained the same way. The natural propensity is we are = supposed to be Captain Kirk," Nance said of the fictional commander of = the starship Enterprise. "But humans are fallible. If you have someone = who is operating as if they are infallible, then you are going to have = crashes." The Garuda Indonesia 737 landed at 221 knots, or 87 knots too fast, = overran the runway, broke apart and exploded in flames. The accident report said the pilot, during the airport approach, ignored = a number of cockpit alarms that were going off, warning about the = plane's excessive "sink rate" and about "low terrain."=20 As the jet neared the ground at 1,517 feet per minute, the onboard = ground proximity warning system twice sounded an audible "whoop, whoop, = pull up, pull up." A few seconds later, the co-pilot told the captain to "go around," = meaning abort the landing. The captain only said to the co-pilot, = "Landing checklist completed, right?" and continued with the landing. When the jet hit the runway, the co-pilot again told the captain to "go = around." He did not, and the plane crashed. Both pilots were uninjured. The accident investigation report faulted the pilot for being "fixated = on a particular thing rather than flying the plane correctly." It also = said the co-pilot did not take control of the jet as company policy = required. "I'm not surprised," Nance said of what happened in the 737 cockpit. = "The same problems still exist in some other places -- anywhere you have = this macho attitude -- usually male -- that the pilot is God." In the Tenerife disaster, the pilot in command of the KLM 747 was the = airline's most senior captain and head of safety. He started the takeoff = roll in the fog without proper clearance from the control tower. The KLM = plane smashed into the Pam Am 747 that was still taxiing on the same = runway. The KLM co-pilot was aware that the tower had not cleared the = plane to take off, but he did not stop his captain from doing so. With that accident, the issue of how cockpit crew members interact with = each other became "non-ignorable," Nance said. "We could no longer dance = around the issue." But it would take the December 1978 crash in Portland of a United = Airlines jetliner with 181 passengers on board to set in motion a = program to change that cockpit culture. The other two crew members in = the cockpit of the United jet were so intimidated by the pilot in = command they did not communicate their concerns about low fuel. As a = result of that accident, United initiated the industry's first Crew = Resource Management program, which is now used to train airline pilots = around the world. "It was extremely simple, but the execution involved a massive cultural = change," Nance said. Today, U.S. airlines make it clear to captains that they will be fired = if they don't listen to the co-pilot. And co-pilots know they will be = fired for not speaking up and taking charge in certain unsafe = conditions. But the Crew Resource Management program has obviously not changed the = cockpit culture everywhere. Nance noted that for almost five years, from the time of the crash of = American Airlines Flight 587 in the Queens neighborhood of New York in = 2001, there was not one passenger death on a commercial jetliner in the = United States. That shows just how well the program has worked, he said. "There is no other explanation. It's not mechanical. It is because of = that change in culture in the cockpit, and where we see that culture has = not changed, we are still having the same kinds of accidents." In April, less than a month after the Garuda accident, the airline = issued a notice to its pilots reinforcing its mandatory policy that the = co-pilot take over and execute a "go-around" during an unsafe landing = approach. Garuda stated there would be no disciplinary action taken = against the co-pilot in such cases. Aerospace Notebook is a Wednesday feature by P-I aerospace reporter = James Wallace. He can be reached at 206-448-8040 or = jameswallace@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx Read his Aerospace blog = atblog.seattlepi.com/aerospace. <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> If you wish to unsubscribe from the AIRLINE List, please send an E-mail to: "listserv@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx". 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